Ivanhoe: A Romance
“Not so, by the holy rood!” replied the King; “it was done in the frank
confidence which one brave man may repose in another, without a shadow
of danger.”
“Thou sayest well, Sir King—for King I own thou art, and wilt be,
despite of my feeble opposition.—I dare not take the only mode to
prevent it, though thou hast placed the strong temptation within my
reach!”
“And now to my boon,” said the King, “which I ask not with one jot the
less confidence, that thou hast refused to acknowledge my lawful
sovereignty. I require of thee, as a man of thy word, on pain of being
held faithless, man-sworn, and ‘nidering’, 581 to forgive and receive
to thy paternal affection the good knight, Wilfred of Ivanhoe. In this
reconciliation thou wilt own I have an interest—the happiness of my
friend, and the quelling of dissension among my faithful people.”
“And this is Wilfred!” said Cedric, pointing to his son.
“My father!—my father!” said Ivanhoe, prostrating himself at Cedric’s
feet, “grant me thy forgiveness!”
“Thou hast it, my son,” said Cedric, raising him up. “The son of
Hereward knows how to keep his word, even when it has been passed to a
Norman. But let me see thee use the dress and costume of thy English
ancestry—no short cloaks, no gay bonnets, no fantastic plumage in my
decent household. He that would be the son of Cedric, must show himself
of English ancestry.—Thou art about to speak,” he added, sternly, “and
I guess the topic. The Lady Rowena must complete two years’ mourning,
as for a betrothed husband—all our Saxon ancestors would disown us were
we to treat of a new union for her ere the grave of him she should have
wedded—him, so much the most worthy of her hand by birth and
ancestry—is yet closed. The ghost of Athelstane himself would burst his
bloody cerements and stand before us to forbid such dishonour to his
memory.”
It seemed as if Cedric’s words had raised a spectre; for, scarce had he
uttered them ere the door flew open, and Athelstane, arrayed in the
garments of the grave, stood before them, pale, haggard, and like
something arisen from the dead! 59
The effect of this apparition on the persons present was utterly
appalling. Cedric started back as far as the wall of the apartment
would permit, and, leaning against it as one unable to support himself,
gazed on the figure of his friend with eyes that seemed fixed, and a
mouth which he appeared incapable of shutting. Ivanhoe crossed himself,
repeating prayers in Saxon, Latin, or Norman-French, as they occurred
to his memory, while Richard alternately said, “Benedicite”, and swore,
“Mort de ma vie!”
In the meantime, a horrible noise was heard below stairs, some crying,
“Secure the treacherous monks!”—others, “Down with them into the
dungeon!”—others, “Pitch them from the highest battlements!”
“In the name of God!” said Cedric, addressing what seemed the spectre
of his departed friend, “if thou art mortal, speak!—if a departed
spirit, say for what cause thou dost revisit us, or if I can do aught
that can set thy spirit at repose.—Living or dead, noble Athelstane,
speak to Cedric!”
“I will,” said the spectre, very composedly, “when I have collected
breath, and when you give me time—Alive, saidst thou?—I am as much
alive as he can be who has fed on bread and water for three days, which
seem three ages—Yes, bread and water, Father Cedric! By Heaven, and all
saints in it, better food hath not passed my weasand for three livelong
days, and by God’s providence it is that I am now here to tell it.”
“Why, noble Athelstane,” said the Black Knight, “I myself saw you
struck down by the fierce Templar towards the end of the storm at
Torquilstone, and as I thought, and Wamba reported, your skull was
cloven through the teeth.”
“You thought amiss, Sir Knight,” said Athelstane, “and Wamba lied. My
teeth are in good order, and that my supper shall presently find—No
thanks to the Templar though, whose sword turned in his hand, so that
the blade struck me flatlings, being averted by the handle of the good
mace with which I warded the blow; had my steel-cap been on, I had not
valued it a rush, and had dealt him such a counter-buff as would have
spoilt his retreat. But as it was, down I went, stunned, indeed, but
unwounded. Others, of both sides, were beaten down and slaughtered
above me, so that I never recovered my senses until I found myself in a
coffin—(an open one, by good luck)—placed before the altar of the
church of Saint Edmund’s. I sneezed repeatedly—groaned—awakened and
would have arisen, when the Sacristan and Abbot, full of terror, came
running at the noise, surprised, doubtless, and no way pleased to find
the man alive, whose heirs they had proposed themselves to be. I asked
for wine—they gave me some, but it must have been highly medicated, for
I slept yet more deeply than before, and wakened not for many hours. I
found my arms swathed down—my feet tied so fast that mine ankles ache
at the very remembrance—the place was utterly dark—the oubliette, as I
suppose, of their accursed convent, and from the close, stifled, damp
smell, I conceive it is also used for a place of sepulture. I had
strange thoughts of what had befallen me, when the door of my dungeon
creaked, and two villain monks entered. They would have persuaded me I
was in purgatory, but I knew too well the pursy short-breathed voice of
the Father Abbot.—Saint Jeremy! how different from that tone with which
he used to ask me for another slice of the haunch!—the dog has feasted
with me from Christmas to Twelfth-night.”
“Have patience, noble Athelstane,” said the King, “take breath—tell
your story at leisure—beshrew me but such a tale is as well worth
listening to as a romance.”
“Ay but, by the rood of Bromeholm, there was no romance in the matter!”
said Athelstane.—“A barley loaf and a pitcher of water—that THEY gave
me, the niggardly traitors, whom my father, and I myself, had enriched,
when their best resources were the flitches of bacon and measures of
corn, out of which they wheedled poor serfs and bondsmen, in exchange
for their prayers—the nest of foul ungrateful vipers—barley bread and
ditch water to such a patron as I had been! I will smoke them out of
their nest, though I be excommunicated!”
“But, in the name of Our Lady, noble Athelstane,” said Cedric, grasping
the hand of his friend, “how didst thou escape this imminent danger—did
their hearts relent?”
“Did their hearts relent!” echoed Athelstane.—“Do rocks melt with the
sun? I should have been there still, had not some stir in the Convent,
which I find was their procession hitherward to eat my funeral feast,
when they well knew how and where I had been buried alive, summoned the
swarm out of their hive. I heard them droning out their death-psalms,
little judging they were sung in respect for my soul by those who were
thus famishing my body. They went, however, and I waited long for
food—no wonder—the gouty Sacristan was even too busy with his own
provender to mind mine. At length down he came, with an unstable step
and a strong flavour of wine and spices about his person. Good cheer
had opened his heart, for he left me a nook of pasty and a flask of
wine, instead of my former fare. I ate, drank, and was invigorated;
when, to add to my good luck, the Sacristan, too totty to discharge his
duty of turnkey fitly, locked the door beside the staple, so that it
fell ajar. The light, the food, the wine, set my invention to work. The
staple to which my chains were fixed, was more rusted than I or the
villain Abbot had supposed. Even iron could not remain without
consuming in the damps of that infernal dungeon.”
“Take breath, noble Athelstane,” said Richard, “and partake of some
refreshment, ere you proceed with a tale so dreadful.”
“Partake!” quoth Athelstane; “I have been partaking five times
to-day—and yet a morsel of that savoury ham were not altogether foreign
to the matter; and I pray you, fair sir, to do me reason in a cup of
wine.”
The guests, though still agape with astonishment, pledged their
resuscitated landlord, who thus proceeded in his story:—He had indeed
now many more auditors than those to whom it was commenced, for Edith,
having given certain necessary orders for arranging matters within the
Castle, had followed the dead-alive up to the stranger’s apartment
attended by as many of the guests, male and female, as could squeeze
into the small room, while others, crowding the staircase, caught up an
erroneous edition of the story, and transmitted it still more
inaccurately to those beneath, who again sent it forth to the vulgar
without, in a fashion totally irreconcilable to the real fact.
Athelstane, however, went on as follows, with the history of his
escape:—
“Finding myself freed from the staple, I dragged myself up stairs as
well as a man loaded with shackles, and emaciated with fasting, might;
and after much groping about, I was at length directed, by the sound of
a jolly roundelay, to the apartment where the worthy Sacristan, an it
so please ye, was holding a devil’s mass with a huge beetle-browed,
broad-shouldered brother of the grey-frock and cowl, who looked much
more like a thief than a clergyman. I burst in upon them, and the
fashion of my grave-clothes, as well as the clanking of my chains, made
me more resemble an inhabitant of the other world than of this. Both
stood aghast; but when I knocked down the Sacristan with my fist, the
other fellow, his pot-companion, fetched a blow at me with a huge
quarter-staff.”
“This must be our Friar Tuck, for a count’s ransom,” said Richard,
looking at Ivanhoe.
“He may be the devil, an he will,” said Athelstane. “Fortunately he
missed the aim; and on my approaching to grapple with him, took to his
heels and ran for it. I failed not to set my own heels at liberty by
means of the fetter-key, which hung amongst others at the sexton’s
belt; and I had thoughts of beating out the knave’s brains with the
bunch of keys, but gratitude for the nook of pasty and the flask of
wine which the rascal had imparted to my captivity, came over my heart;
so, with a brace of hearty kicks, I left him on the floor, pouched some
baked meat, and a leathern bottle of wine, with which the two venerable
brethren had been regaling, went to the stable, and found in a private
stall mine own best palfrey, which, doubtless, had been set apart for
the holy Father Abbot’s particular use. Hither I came with all the
speed the beast could compass—man and mother’s son flying before me
wherever I came, taking me for a spectre, the more especially as, to
prevent my being recognised, I drew the corpse-hood over my face. I had
not gained admittance into my own castle, had I not been supposed to be
the attendant of a juggler who is making the people in the castle-yard
very merry, considering they are assembled to celebrate their lord’s
funeral—I say the sewer thought I was dressed to bear a part in the
tregetour’s mummery, and so I got admission, and did but disclose
myself to my mother, and eat a hasty morsel, ere I came in quest of
you, my noble friend.”
“And you have found me,” said Cedric, “ready to resume our brave
projects of honour and liberty. I tell thee, never will dawn a morrow
so auspicious as the next, for the deliverance of the noble Saxon
race.”
“Talk not to me of delivering any one,” said Athelstane; “it is well I
am delivered myself. I am more intent on punishing that villain Abbot.
He shall hang on the top of this Castle of Coningsburgh, in his cope
and stole; and if the stairs be too strait to admit his fat carcass, I
will have him craned up from without.”
“But, my son,” said Edith, “consider his sacred office.”
“Consider my three days’ fast,” replied Athelstane; “I will have their
blood every one of them. Front-de-Bœuf was burnt alive for a less