Ivanhoe: A Romance
falling tower followed another—I gave up thought of life; and deeming
it a dishonour to one of my profession to pass out of this world in
company with a Jew, I heaved up my halberd to beat his brains out; but
I took pity on his grey hairs, and judged it better to lay down the
partisan, and take up my spiritual weapon for his conversion. And
truly, by the blessing of Saint Dunstan, the seed has been sown in good
soil; only that, with speaking to him of mysteries through the whole
night, and being in a manner fasting, (for the few droughts of sack
which I sharpened my wits with were not worth marking,) my head is
well-nigh dizzied, I trow.—But I was clean exhausted.—Gilbert and
Wibbald know in what state they found me—quite and clean exhausted.”
“We can bear witness,” said Gilbert; “for when we had cleared away the
ruin, and by Saint Dunstan’s help lighted upon the dungeon stair, we
found the runlet of sack half empty, the Jew half dead, and the Friar
more than half—exhausted, as he calls it.”
“Ye be knaves! ye lie!” retorted the offended Friar; “it was you and
your gormandizing companions that drank up the sack, and called it your
morning draught—I am a pagan, an I kept it not for the Captain’s own
throat. But what recks it? The Jew is converted, and understands all I
have told him, very nearly, if not altogether, as well as myself.”
“Jew,” said the Captain, “is this true? hast thou renounced thine
unbelief?”
“May I so find mercy in your eyes,” said the Jew, “as I know not one
word which the reverend prelate spake to me all this fearful night.
Alas! I was so distraught with agony, and fear, and grief, that had our
holy father Abraham come to preach to me, he had found but a deaf
listener.”
“Thou liest, Jew, and thou knowest thou dost.” said the Friar; “I will
remind thee of but one word of our conference—thou didst promise to
give all thy substance to our holy Order.”
“So help me the Promise, fair sirs,” said Isaac, even more alarmed than
before, “as no such sounds ever crossed my lips! Alas! I am an aged
beggar’d man—I fear me a childless—have ruth on me, and let me go!”
“Nay,” said the Friar, “if thou dost retract vows made in favour of
holy Church, thou must do penance.”
Accordingly, he raised his halberd, and would have laid the staff of it
lustily on the Jew’s shoulders, had not the Black Knight stopped the
blow, and thereby transferred the Holy Clerk’s resentment to himself.
“By Saint Thomas of Kent,” said he, “an I buckle to my gear, I will
teach thee, sir lazy lover, to mell with thine own matters, maugre
thine iron case there!”
“Nay, be not wroth with me,” said the Knight; “thou knowest I am thy
sworn friend and comrade.”
“I know no such thing,” answered the Friar; “and defy thee for a
meddling coxcomb!”
“Nay, but,” said the Knight, who seemed to take a pleasure in provoking
his quondam host, “hast thou forgotten how, that for my sake (for I say
nothing of the temptation of the flagon and the pasty) thou didst break
thy vow of fast and vigil?”
“Truly, friend,” said the Friar, clenching his huge fist, “I will
bestow a buffet on thee.”
“I accept of no such presents,” said the Knight; “I am content to take
thy cuff 421 as a loan, but I will repay thee with usury as deep as
ever thy prisoner there exacted in his traffic.”
“I will prove that presently,” said the Friar.
“Hola!” cried the Captain, “what art thou after, mad Friar? brawling
beneath our Trysting-tree?”
“No brawling,” said the Knight, “it is but a friendly interchange of
courtesy.—Friar, strike an thou darest—I will stand thy blow, if thou
wilt stand mine.”
“Thou hast the advantage with that iron pot on thy head,” said the
churchman; “but have at thee—Down thou goest, an thou wert Goliath of
Gath in his brazen helmet.”
The Friar bared his brawny arm up to the elbow, and putting his full
strength to the blow, gave the Knight a buffet that might have felled
an ox. But his adversary stood firm as a rock. A loud shout was uttered
by all the yeomen around; for the Clerk’s cuff was proverbial amongst
them, and there were few who, in jest or earnest, had not had the
occasion to know its vigour.
“Now, Priest,” said, the Knight, pulling off his gauntlet, “if I had
vantage on my head, I will have none on my hand—stand fast as a true
man.”
“‘Genam meam dedi vapulatori’—I have given my cheek to the smiter,”
said the Priest; “an thou canst stir me from the spot, fellow, I will
freely bestow on thee the Jew’s ransom.”
So spoke the burly Priest, assuming, on his part, high defiance. But
who may resist his fate? The buffet of the Knight was given with such
strength and good-will, that the Friar rolled head over heels upon the
plain, to the great amazement of all the spectators. But he arose
neither angry nor crestfallen.
“Brother,” said he to the Knight, “thou shouldst have used thy strength
with more discretion. I had mumbled but a lame mass an thou hadst
broken my jaw, for the piper plays ill that wants the nether chops.
Nevertheless, there is my hand, in friendly witness, that I will
exchange no more cuffs with thee, having been a loser by the barter.
End now all unkindness. Let us put the Jew to ransom, since the leopard
will not change his spots, and a Jew he will continue to be.”
“The Priest,” said Clement, “is not half so confident of the Jew’s
conversion, since he received that buffet on the ear.”
“Go to, knave, what pratest thou of conversions?—what, is there no
respect?—all masters and no men?—I tell thee, fellow, I was somewhat
totty when I received the good knight’s blow, or I had kept my ground
under it. But an thou gibest more of it, thou shalt learn I can give as
well as take.”
“Peace all!” said the Captain. “And thou, Jew, think of thy ransom;
thou needest not to be told that thy race are held to be accursed in
all Christian communities, and trust me that we cannot endure thy
presence among us. Think, therefore, of an offer, while I examine a
prisoner of another cast.”
“Were many of Front-de-Bœuf’s men taken?” demanded the Black Knight.
“None of note enough to be put to ransom,” answered the Captain; “a set
of hilding fellows there were, whom we dismissed to find them a new
master—enough had been done for revenge and profit; the bunch of them
were not worth a cardecu. The prisoner I speak of is better booty—a
jolly monk riding to visit his leman, an I may judge by his horse-gear
and wearing apparel.—Here cometh the worthy prelate, as pert as a
pyet.” And, between two yeomen, was brought before the silvan throne of
the outlaw Chief, our old friend, Prior Aymer of Jorvaulx.
CHAPTER XXXIII
—-Flower of warriors,
How is’t with Titus Lartius?
MARCIUS.—As with a man busied about decrees,
Condemning some to death and some to exile,
Ransoming him or pitying, threatening the other.
CORIOLANUS
The captive Abbot’s features and manners exhibited a whimsical mixture
of offended pride, and deranged foppery and bodily terror.
“Why, how now, my masters?” said he, with a voice in which all three
emotions were blended. “What order is this among ye? Be ye Turks or
Christians, that handle a churchman?—Know ye what it is, ‘manus
imponere in servos Domini’? Ye have plundered my mails—torn my cope of
curious cut lace, which might have served a cardinal!—Another in my
place would have been at his ‘excommunicabo vos’; but I am placible,
and if ye order forth my palfreys, release my brethren, and restore my
mails, tell down with all speed an hundred crowns to be expended in
masses at the high altar of Jorvaulx Abbey, and make your vow to eat no
venison until next Pentecost, it may be you shall hear little more of
this mad frolic.”
“Holy Father,” said the chief Outlaw, “it grieves me to think that you
have met with such usage from any of my followers, as calls for your
fatherly reprehension.”
“Usage!” echoed the priest, encouraged by the mild tone of the silvan
leader; “it were usage fit for no hound of good race—much less for a
Christian—far less for a priest—and least of all for the Prior of the
holy community of Jorvaulx. Here is a profane and drunken minstrel,
called Allan-a-Dale—‘nebulo quidam’—who has menaced me with corporal
punishment—nay, with death itself, an I pay not down four hundred
crowns of ransom, to the boot of all the treasure he hath already
robbed me of—gold chains and gymmal rings to an unknown value; besides
what is broken and spoiled among their rude hands, such as my
pouncer-box and silver crisping-tongs.”
“It is impossible that Allan-a-Dale can have thus treated a man of your
reverend bearing,” replied the Captain.
“It is true as the gospel of Saint Nicodemus,” said the Prior; “he
swore, with many a cruel north-country oath, that he would hang me up
on the highest tree in the greenwood.”
“Did he so in very deed? Nay, then, reverend father, I think you had
better comply with his demands—for Allan-a-Dale is the very man to
abide by his word when he has so pledged it.” 43
“You do but jest with me,” said the astounded Prior, with a forced
laugh; “and I love a good jest with all my heart. But, ha! ha! ha! when
the mirth has lasted the livelong night, it is time to be grave in the
morning.”
“And I am as grave as a father confessor,” replied the Outlaw; “you
must pay a round ransom, Sir Prior, or your convent is likely to be
called to a new election; for your place will know you no more.”
“Are ye Christians,” said the Prior, “and hold this language to a
churchman?”
“Christians! ay, marry are we, and have divinity among us to boot,”
answered the Outlaw. “Let our buxom chaplain stand forth, and expound
to this reverend father the texts which concern this matter.”
The Friar, half-drunk, half-sober, had huddled a friar’s frock over his
green cassock, and now summoning together whatever scraps of learning
he had acquired by rote in former days, “Holy father,” said he, “‘Deus
faciat salvam benignitatem vestram’—You are welcome to the greenwood.”
“What profane mummery is this?” said the Prior. “Friend, if thou be’st
indeed of the church, it were a better deed to show me how I may escape
from these men’s hands, than to stand ducking and grinning here like a
morris-dancer.”
“Truly, reverend father,” said the Friar, “I know but one mode in which
thou mayst escape. This is Saint Andrew’s day with us, we are taking
our tithes.”
“But not of the church, then, I trust, my good brother?” said the
Prior.
“Of church and lay,” said the Friar; “and therefore, Sir Prior ‘facite
vobis amicos de Mammone iniquitatis’—make yourselves friends of the
Mammon of unrighteousness, for no other friendship is like to serve
your turn.”
“I love a jolly woodsman at heart,” said the Prior, softening his tone;
“come, ye must not deal too hard with me—I can well of woodcraft, and
can wind a horn clear and lustily, and hollo till every oak rings
again—Come, ye must not deal too hard with me.”
“Give him a horn,” said the Outlaw; “we will prove the skill he boasts
of.”
The Prior Aymer winded a blast accordingly. The Captain shook his head.
“Sir Prior,” he said, “thou blowest a merry note, but it may not ransom
thee—we cannot afford, as the legend on a good knight’s shield hath it,
to set thee free for a blast. Moreover, I have found thee—thou art one
of those, who, with new French graces and Tra-li-ras, disturb the
ancient English bugle notes.—Prior, that last flourish on the recheat
hath added fifty crowns to thy ransom, for corrupting the true old
manly blasts of venerie.”
“Well, friend,” said the Abbot, peevishly, “thou art ill to please with
thy woodcraft. I pray thee be more conformable in this matter of my
ransom. At a word—since I must needs, for once, hold a candle to the
devil—what ransom am I to pay for walking on Watling-street, without