Ivanhoe: A Romance
with whom danger was a familiar thought, as with one whose trade was
war and adventure.
The Jester wore his usual fantastic habit, but late accidents had led
him to adopt a good cutting falchion, instead of his wooden sword, with
a targe to match it; of both which weapons he had, notwithstanding his
profession, shown himself a skilful master during the storming of
Torquilstone. Indeed, the infirmity of Wamba’s brain consisted chiefly
in a kind of impatient irritability, which suffered him not long to
remain quiet in any posture, or adhere to any certain train of ideas,
although he was for a few minutes alert enough in performing any
immediate task, or in apprehending any immediate topic. On horseback,
therefore, he was perpetually swinging himself backwards and forwards,
now on the horse’s ears, then anon on the very rump of the animal,—now
hanging both his legs on one side, and now sitting with his face to the
tail, moping, mowing, and making a thousand apish gestures, until his
palfrey took his freaks so much to heart, as fairly to lay him at his
length on the green grass—an incident which greatly amused the Knight,
but compelled his companion to ride more steadily thereafter.
At the point of their journey at which we take them up, this joyous
pair were engaged in singing a virelai, as it was called, in which the
clown bore a mellow burden, to the better instructed Knight of the
Fetterlock. And thus run the ditty:—
Anna-Marie, love, up is the sun,
Anna-Marie, love, morn is begun,
Mists are dispersing, love, birds singing free,
Up in the morning, love, Anna-Marie.
Anna-Marie, love, up in the morn,
The hunter is winding blithe sounds on his horn,
The echo rings merry from rock and from tree,
’Tis time to arouse thee, love, Anna-Marie.
Wamba.
O Tybalt, love, Tybalt, awake me not yet,
Around my soft pillow while softer dreams flit,
For what are the joys that in waking we prove,
Compared with these visions, O, Tybalt, my love?
Let the birds to the rise of the mist carol shrill,
Let the hunter blow out his loud horn on the hill,
Softer sounds, softer pleasures, in slumber I prove,—
But think not I dreamt of thee, Tybalt, my love.
“A dainty song,” said Wamba, when they had finished their carol, “and I
swear by my bauble, a pretty moral!—I used to sing it with Gurth, once
my playfellow, and now, by the grace of God and his master, no less
than a freemen; and we once came by the cudgel for being so entranced
by the melody, that we lay in bed two hours after sunrise, singing the
ditty betwixt sleeping and waking—my bones ache at thinking of the tune
ever since. Nevertheless, I have played the part of Anna-Marie, to
please you, fair sir.”
The Jester next struck into another carol, a sort of comic ditty, to
which the Knight, catching up the tune, replied in the like manner.
Knight and Wamba.
There came three merry men from south, west, and north,
Ever more sing the roundelay;
To win the Widow of Wycombe forth,
And where was the widow might say them nay?
The first was a knight, and from Tynedale he came,
Ever more sing the roundelay;
And his fathers, God save us, were men of great fame,
And where was the widow might say him nay?
Of his father the laird, of his uncle the squire,
He boasted in rhyme and in roundelay;
She bade him go bask by his sea-coal fire,
For she was the widow would say him nay.
Wamba.
The next that came forth, swore by blood and by nails,
Merrily sing the roundelay;
Hur’s a gentleman, God wot, and hur’s lineage was of Wales,
And where was the widow might say him nay?
Sir David ap Morgan ap Griffith ap Hugh
Ap Tudor ap Rhice, quoth his roundelay
She said that one widow for so many was too few,
And she bade the Welshman wend his way.
But then next came a yeoman, a yeoman of Kent,
Jollily singing his roundelay;
He spoke to the widow of living and rent,
And where was the widow could say him nay?
Both.
So the knight and the squire were both left in the mire,
There for to sing their roundelay;
For a yeoman of Kent, with his yearly rent,
There never was a widow could say him nay.
“I would, Wamba,” said the knight, “that our host of the Trysting-tree,
or the jolly Friar, his chaplain, heard this thy ditty in praise of our
bluff yeoman.”
“So would not I,” said Wamba—“but for the horn that hangs at your
baldric.”
“Ay,” said the Knight,—“this is a pledge of Locksley’s goodwill, though
I am not like to need it. Three mots on this bugle will, I am assured,
bring round, at our need, a jolly band of yonder honest yeomen.”
“I would say, Heaven forefend,” said the Jester, “were it not that that
fair gift is a pledge they would let us pass peaceably.”
“Why, what meanest thou?” said the Knight; “thinkest thou that but for
this pledge of fellowship they would assault us?”
“Nay, for me I say nothing,” said Wamba; “for green trees have ears as
well as stone walls. But canst thou construe me this, Sir Knight—When
is thy wine-pitcher and thy purse better empty than full?”
“Why, never, I think,” replied the Knight.
“Thou never deservest to have a full one in thy hand, for so simple an
answer! Thou hadst best empty thy pitcher ere thou pass it to a Saxon,
and leave thy money at home ere thou walk in the greenwood.”
“You hold our friends for robbers, then?” said the Knight of the
Fetterlock.
“You hear me not say so, fair sir,” said Wamba; “it may relieve a man’s
steed to take of his mail when he hath a long journey to make; and,
certes, it may do good to the rider’s soul to ease him of that which is
the root of evil; therefore will I give no hard names to those who do
such services. Only I would wish my mail at home, and my purse in my
chamber, when I meet with these good fellows, because it might save
them some trouble.”
“WE are bound to pray for them, my friend, notwithstanding the fair
character thou dost afford them.”
“Pray for them with all my heart,” said Wamba; “but in the town, not in
the greenwood, like the Abbot of Saint Bees, whom they caused to say
mass with an old hollow oak-tree for his stall.”
“Say as thou list, Wamba,” replied the Knight, “these yeomen did thy
master Cedric yeomanly service at Torquilstone.”
“Ay, truly,” answered Wamba; “but that was in the fashion of their
trade with Heaven.”
“Their trade, Wamba! how mean you by that?” replied his companion.
“Marry, thus,” said the Jester. “They make up a balanced account with
Heaven, as our old cellarer used to call his ciphering, as fair as
Isaac the Jew keeps with his debtors, and, like him, give out a very
little, and take large credit for doing so; reckoning, doubtless, on
their own behalf the seven-fold usury which the blessed text hath
promised to charitable loans.”
“Give me an example of your meaning, Wamba,—I know nothing of ciphers
or rates of usage,” answered the Knight.
“Why,” said Wamba, “an your valour be so dull, you will please to learn
that those honest fellows balance a good deed with one not quite so
laudable; as a crown given to a begging friar with an hundred byzants
taken from a fat abbot, or a wench kissed in the greenwood with the
relief of a poor widow.”
“Which of these was the good deed, which was the felony?” interrupted
the Knight.
“A good gibe! a good gibe!” said Wamba; “keeping witty company
sharpeneth the apprehension. You said nothing so well, Sir Knight, I
will be sworn, when you held drunken vespers with the bluff Hermit.—But
to go on. The merry-men of the forest set off the building of a cottage
with the burning of a castle,—the thatching of a choir against the
robbing of a church,—the setting free a poor prisoner against the
murder of a proud sheriff; or, to come nearer to our point, the
deliverance of a Saxon franklin against the burning alive of a Norman
baron. Gentle thieves they are, in short, and courteous robbers; but it
is ever the luckiest to meet with them when they are at the worst.”
“How so, Wamba?” said the Knight.
“Why, then they have some compunction, and are for making up matters
with Heaven. But when they have struck an even balance, Heaven help
them with whom they next open the account! The travellers who first met
them after their good service at Torquilstone would have a woeful
flaying.—And yet,” said Wamba, coming close up to the Knight’s side,
“there be companions who are far more dangerous for travellers to meet
than yonder outlaws.”
“And who may they be, for you have neither bears nor wolves, I trow?”
said the Knight.
“Marry, sir, but we have Malvoisin’s men-at-arms,” said Wamba; “and let
me tell you, that, in time of civil war, a halfscore of these is worth
a band of wolves at any time. They are now expecting their harvest, and
are reinforced with the soldiers that escaped from Torquilstone. So
that, should we meet with a band of them, we are like to pay for our
feats of arms.—Now, I pray you, Sir Knight, what would you do if we met
two of them?”
“Pin the villains to the earth with my lance, Wamba, if they offered us
any impediment.”
“But what if there were four of them?”
“They should drink of the same cup,” answered the Knight.
“What if six,” continued Wamba, “and we as we now are, barely two—would
you not remember Locksley’s horn?”
“What! sound for aid,” exclaimed the Knight, “against a score of such
‘rascaille’ as these, whom one good knight could drive before him, as
the wind drives the withered leaves?”
“Nay, then,” said Wamba, “I will pray you for a close sight of that
same horn that hath so powerful a breath.”
The Knight undid the clasp of the baldric, and indulged his
fellow-traveller, who immediately hung the bugle round his own neck.
“Tra-lira-la,” said he, whistling the notes; “nay, I know my gamut as
well as another.”
“How mean you, knave?” said the Knight; “restore me the bugle.”
“Content you, Sir Knight, it is in safe keeping. When Valour and Folly
travel, Folly should bear the horn, because she can blow the best.”
“Nay but, rogue,” said the Black Knight, “this exceedeth thy
license—Beware ye tamper not with my patience.”
“Urge me not with violence, Sir Knight,” said the Jester, keeping at a
distance from the impatient champion, “or Folly will show a clean pair
of heels, and leave Valour to find out his way through the wood as best
he may.”
“Nay, thou hast hit me there,” said the Knight; “and, sooth to say, I
have little time to jangle with thee. Keep the horn an thou wilt, but
let us proceed on our journey.”
“You will not harm me, then?” said Wamba.
“I tell thee no, thou knave!”
“Ay, but pledge me your knightly word for it,” continued Wamba, as he
approached with great caution.
“My knightly word I pledge; only come on with thy foolish self.”
“Nay, then, Valour and Folly are once more boon companions,” said the
Jester, coming up frankly to the Knight’s side; “but, in truth, I love
not such buffets as that you bestowed on the burly Friar, when his
holiness rolled on the green like a king of the nine-pins. And now that
Folly wears the horn, let Valour rouse himself, and shake his mane;
for, if I mistake not, there are company in yonder brake that are on
the look-out for us.”
“What makes thee judge so?” said the Knight.
“Because I have twice or thrice noticed the glance of a motion from
amongst the green leaves. Had they been honest men, they had kept the
path. But yonder thicket is a choice chapel for the Clerks of Saint
Nicholas.”
“By my faith,” said the Knight, closing his visor, “I think thou be’st
in the right on’t.”
And in good time did he close it, for three arrows, flew at the same
instant from the suspected spot against his head and breast, one of
which would have penetrated to the brain, had it not been turned aside