Ivanhoe: A Romance
“It is true,” replied Wamba, “that I, being but an ass, am,
nevertheless, honoured to hear the bells as well as your reverence’s
mule; notwithstanding, I did conceive that the charity of Mother Church
and her servants might be said, with other charity, to begin at home.”
“A truce to thine insolence, fellow,” said the armed rider, breaking in
on his prattle with a high and stern voice, “and tell us, if thou
canst, the road to—How call’d you your Franklin, Prior Aymer?”
“Cedric,” answered the Prior; “Cedric the Saxon.—Tell me, good fellow,
are we near his dwelling, and can you show us the road?”
“The road will be uneasy to find,” answered Gurth, who broke silence
for the first time, “and the family of Cedric retire early to rest.”
“Tush, tell not me, fellow,” said the military rider; “’tis easy for
them to arise and supply the wants of travellers such as we are, who
will not stoop to beg the hospitality which we have a right to
command.”
“I know not,” said Gurth, sullenly, “if I should show the way to my
master’s house, to those who demand as a right, the shelter which most
are fain to ask as a favour.”
“Do you dispute with me, slave!” said the soldier; and, setting spurs
to his horse, he caused him make a demivolte across the path, raising
at the same time the riding rod which he held in his hand, with a
purpose of chastising what he considered as the insolence of the
peasant.
Gurth darted at him a savage and revengeful scowl, and with a fierce,
yet hesitating motion, laid his hand on the haft of his knife; but the
interference of Prior Aymer, who pushed his mule betwixt his companion
and the swineherd, prevented the meditated violence.
“Nay, by St Mary, brother Brian, you must not think you are now in
Palestine, predominating over heathen Turks and infidel Saracens; we
islanders love not blows, save those of holy Church, who chasteneth
whom she loveth.—Tell me, good fellow,” said he to Wamba, and seconded
his speech by a small piece of silver coin, “the way to Cedric the
Saxon’s; you cannot be ignorant of it, and it is your duty to direct
the wanderer even when his character is less sanctified than ours.”
“In truth, venerable father,” answered the Jester, “the Saracen head of
your right reverend companion has frightened out of mine the way home—I
am not sure I shall get there to-night myself.”
“Tush,” said the Abbot, “thou canst tell us if thou wilt. This reverend
brother has been all his life engaged in fighting among the Saracens
for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre; he is of the order of Knights
Templars, whom you may have heard of; he is half a monk, half a
soldier.”
“If he is but half a monk,” said the Jester, “he should not be wholly
unreasonable with those whom he meets upon the road, even if they
should be in no hurry to answer questions that no way concern them.”
“I forgive thy wit,” replied the Abbot, “on condition thou wilt show me
the way to Cedric’s mansion.”
“Well, then,” answered Wamba, “your reverences must hold on this path
till you come to a sunken cross, of which scarce a cubit’s length
remains above ground; then take the path to the left, for there are
four which meet at Sunken Cross, and I trust your reverences will
obtain shelter before the storm comes on.”
The Abbot thanked his sage adviser; and the cavalcade, setting spurs to
their horses, rode on as men do who wish to reach their inn before the
bursting of a night-storm. As their horses’ hoofs died away, Gurth said
to his companion, “If they follow thy wise direction, the reverend
fathers will hardly reach Rotherwood this night.”
“No,” said the Jester, grinning, “but they may reach Sheffield if they
have good luck, and that is as fit a place for them. I am not so bad a
woodsman as to show the dog where the deer lies, if I have no mind he
should chase him.”
“Thou art right,” said Gurth; “it were ill that Aymer saw the Lady
Rowena; and it were worse, it may be, for Cedric to quarrel, as is most
likely he would, with this military monk. But, like good servants let
us hear and see, and say nothing.”
We return to the riders, who had soon left the bondsmen far behind
them, and who maintained the following conversation in the
Norman-French language, usually employed by the superior classes, with
the exception of the few who were still inclined to boast their Saxon
descent.
“What mean these fellows by their capricious insolence?” said the
Templar to the Benedictine, “and why did you prevent me from chastising
it?”
“Marry, brother Brian,” replied the Prior, “touching the one of them,
it were hard for me to render a reason for a fool speaking according to
his folly; and the other churl is of that savage, fierce, intractable
race, some of whom, as I have often told you, are still to be found
among the descendants of the conquered Saxons, and whose supreme
pleasure it is to testify, by all means in their power, their aversion
to their conquerors.”
“I would soon have beat him into courtesy,” observed Brian; “I am
accustomed to deal with such spirits: Our Turkish captives are as
fierce and intractable as Odin himself could have been; yet two months
in my household, under the management of my master of the slaves, has
made them humble, submissive, serviceable, and observant of your will.
Marry, sir, you must be aware of the poison and the dagger; for they
use either with free will when you give them the slightest
opportunity.”
“Ay, but,” answered Prior Aymer, “every land has its own manners and
fashions; and, besides that beating this fellow could procure us no
information respecting the road to Cedric’s house, it would have been
sure to have established a quarrel betwixt you and him had we found our
way thither. Remember what I told you: this wealthy franklin is proud,
fierce, jealous, and irritable, a withstander of the nobility, and even
of his neighbors, Reginald Front-de-Bœuf and Philip Malvoisin, who are
no babies to strive with. He stands up sternly for the privileges of
his race, and is so proud of his uninterrupted descend from Hereward, a
renowned champion of the Heptarchy, that he is universally called
Cedric the Saxon; and makes a boast of his belonging to a people from
whom many others endeaver to hide their descent, lest they should
encounter a share of the ‘vae victis,’ or severities imposed upon the
vanquished.”
“Prior Aymer,” said the Templar, “you are a man of gallantry, learned
in the study of beauty, and as expert as a troubadour in all matters
concerning the ‘arrets’ of love; but I shall expect much beauty in this
celebrated Rowena to counterbalance the self-denial and forbearance
which I must exert if I am to court the favor of such a seditious churl
as you have described her father Cedric.”
“Cedric is not her father,” replied the Prior, “and is but of remote
relation: she is descended from higher blood than even he pretends to,
and is but distantly connected with him by birth. Her guardian,
however, he is, self-constituted as I believe; but his ward is as dear
to him as if she were his own child. Of her beauty you shall soon be
judge; and if the purity of her complexion, and the majestic, yet soft
expression of a mild blue eye, do not chase from your memory the
black-tressed girls of Palestine, ay, or the houris of old Mahound’s
paradise, I am an infidel, and no true son of the church.”
“Should your boasted beauty,” said the Templar, “be weighed in the
balance and found wanting, you know our wager?”
“My gold collar,” answered the Prior, “against ten butts of Chian
wine;—they are mine as securely as if they were already in the convent
vaults, under the key of old Dennis the cellarer.”
“And I am myself to be judge,” said the Templar, “and am only to be
convicted on my own admission, that I have seen no maiden so beautiful
since Pentecost was a twelvemonth. Ran it not so?—Prior, your collar is
in danger; I will wear it over my gorget in the lists of
Ashby-de-la-Zouche.”
“Win it fairly,” said the Prior, “and wear it as ye will; I will trust
your giving true response, on your word as a knight and as a churchman.
Yet, brother, take my advice, and file your tongue to a little more
courtesy than your habits of predominating over infidel captives and
Eastern bondsmen have accustomed you. Cedric the Saxon, if
offended,—and he is noway slack in taking offence,—is a man who,
without respect to your knighthood, my high office, or the sanctity of
either, would clear his house of us, and send us to lodge with the
larks, though the hour were midnight. And be careful how you look on
Rowena, whom he cherishes with the most jealous care; an he take the
least alarm in that quarter we are but lost men. It is said he banished
his only son from his family for lifting his eyes in the way of
affection towards this beauty, who may be worshipped, it seems, at a
distance, but is not to be approached with other thoughts than such as
we bring to the shrine of the Blessed Virgin.”
“Well, you have said enough,” answered the Templar; “I will for a night
put on the needful restraint, and deport me as meekly as a maiden; but
as for the fear of his expelling us by violence, myself and squires,
with Hamet and Abdalla, will warrant you against that disgrace. Doubt
not that we shall be strong enough to make good our quarters.”
“We must not let it come so far,” answered the Prior; “but here is the
clown’s sunken cross, and the night is so dark that we can hardly see
which of the roads we are to follow. He bid us turn, I think to the
left.”
“To the right,” said Brian, “to the best of my remembrance.”
“To the left, certainly, the left; I remember his pointing with his
wooden sword.”
“Ay, but he held his sword in his left hand, and so pointed across his
body with it,” said the Templar.
Each maintained his opinion with sufficient obstinacy, as is usual in
all such cases; the attendants were appealed to, but they had not been
near enough to hear Wamba’s directions. At length Brian remarked, what
had at first escaped him in the twilight; “Here is some one either
asleep, or lying dead at the foot of this cross—Hugo, stir him with the
butt-end of thy lance.”
This was no sooner done than the figure arose, exclaiming in good
French, “Whosoever thou art, it is discourteous in you to disturb my
thoughts.”
“We did but wish to ask you,” said the Prior, “the road to Rotherwood,
the abode of Cedric the Saxon.”
“I myself am bound thither,” replied the stranger; “and if I had a
horse, I would be your guide, for the way is somewhat intricate, though
perfectly well known to me.”
“Thou shalt have both thanks and reward, my friend,” said the Prior,
“if thou wilt bring us to Cedric’s in safety.”
And he caused one of his attendants to mount his own led horse, and
give that upon which he had hitherto ridden to the stranger, who was to
serve for a guide.
Their conductor pursued an opposite road from that which Wamba had
recommended, for the purpose of misleading them. The path soon led
deeper into the woodland, and crossed more than one brook, the approach
to which was rendered perilous by the marshes through which it flowed;
but the stranger seemed to know, as if by instinct, the soundest ground
and the safest points of passage; and by dint of caution and attention,
brought the party safely into a wilder avenue than any they had yet
seen; and, pointing to a large low irregular building at the upper
extremity, he said to the Prior, “Yonder is Rotherwood, the dwelling of
Cedric the Saxon.”
This was a joyful intimation to Aymer, whose nerves were none of the
strongest, and who had suffered such agitation and alarm in the course
of passing through the dangerous bogs, that he had not yet had the
curiosity to ask his guide a single question. Finding himself now at