MAID MARIAN

by Thomas Love Peacock

MAID MARIAN

CHAPTER I

 Now come ye for peace here, or come ye for war? --SCOTT. 

"The abbot, in his alb arrayed, " stood at the altar in the abbey-chapelof Rubygill, with all his plump, sleek, rosy friars, in goodly linesdisposed, to solemnise the nuptials of the beautiful Matilda Fitzwater, daughter of the Baron of Arlingford, with the noble Robert Fitz-Ooth, Earl of Locksley and Huntingdon. The abbey of Rubygill stood in apicturesque valley, at a little distance from the western boundary ofSherwood Forest, in a spot which seemed adapted by nature to bethe retreat of monastic mortification, being on the banks of a finetrout-stream, and in the midst of woodland coverts, abounding withexcellent game. The bride, with her father and attendant maidens, entered the chapel; but the earl had not arrived. The baron was amazed, and the bridemaidens were disconcerted. Matilda feared that some evilhad befallen her lover, but felt no diminution of her confidence in hishonour and love. Through the open gates of the chapel she looked downthe narrow road that wound along the side of the hill; and her ear wasthe first that heard the distant trampling of horses, and her eye wasthe first that caught the glitter of snowy plumes, and the light ofpolished spears. "It is strange, " thought the baron, "that the earlshould come in this martial array to his wedding;" but he had not longto meditate on the phenomenon, for the foaming steeds swept up to thegate like a whirlwind, and the earl, breathless with speed, and followedby a few of his yeomen, advanced to his smiling bride. It was thenno time to ask questions, for the organ was in full peal, and thechoristers were in full voice. 

The abbot began to intone the ceremony in a style of modulationimpressively exalted, his voice issuing most canonically from the roofof his mouth, through the medium of a very musical nose newly tuned forthe occasion. But he had not proceeded far enough to exhibit all thevariety and compass of this melodious instrument, when a noise was heardat the gate, and a party of armed men entered the chapel. The song ofthe choristers died away in a shake of demisemiquavers, contrary to allthe rules of psalmody. The organ-blower, who was working his musicalair-pump with one hand, and with two fingers and a thumb of the otherinsinuating a peeping-place through the curtain of the organ-gallery, was struck motionless by the double operation of curiosity and fear;while the organist, intent only on his performance, and spreading allhis fingers to strike a swell of magnificent chords, felt his harmonicspirit ready to desert his body on being answered by the ghastly rattleof empty keys, and in the consequent agitato furioso of the internalmovements of his feelings, was preparing to restore harmony by the seguesubito of an appoggiatura con foco with the corner of a book of anthemson the head of his neglectful assistant, when his hand and his attentiontogether were arrested by the scene below. The voice of the abbotsubsided into silence through a descending scale of long-drawn melody, like the sound of the ebbing sea to the explorers of a cave. In a fewmoments all was silence, interrupted only by the iron tread of the armedintruders, as it rang on the marble floor and echoed from the vaultedaisles. 

The leader strode up to the altar; and placing himself opposite to theabbot, and between the earl and Matilda, in such a manner that the fourtogether seemed to stand on the four points of a diamond, exclaimed, "Inthe name of King Henry, I forbid the ceremony, and attach Robert Earl ofHuntingdon as a traitor!" and at the same time he held his drawn swordbetween the lovers, as if to emblem that royal authority which laid itstemporal ban upon their contract. The earl drew his own sword instantly, and struck down the interposing weapon; then clasped his left arm roundMatilda, who sprang into his embrace, and held his sword before her withhis right hand. His yeomen ranged themselves at his side, and stood withtheir swords drawn, still and prepared, like men determined to die inhis defence. The soldiers, confident in superiority of numbers, paused. The abbot took advantage of the pause to introduce a word ofexhortation. "My children, " said he, "if you are going to cut eachother's throats, I entreat you, in the name of peace and charity, to doit out of the chapel. "

"Sweet Matilda, " said the earl, "did you give your love to the Earlof Huntingdon, whose lands touch the Ouse and the Trent, or to RobertFitz-Ooth, the son of his mother?"

"Neither to the earl nor his earldom, " answered Matilda firmly, "but toRobert Fitz-Ooth and his love. "

"That I well knew, " said the earl; "and though the ceremony beincomplete, we are not the less married in the eye of my only saint, ourLady, who will yet bring us together. Lord Fitzwater, to your care, forthe present, I commit your daughter. --Nay, sweet Matilda, part we mustfor a while; but we will soon meet under brighter skies, and be this theseal of our faith. "

He kissed Matilda's lips, and consigned her to the baron, who gloweredabout him with an expression of countenance that showed he was mortallywroth with somebody; but whatever he thought or felt he kept to himself. The earl, with a sign to his followers, made a sudden charge on thesoldiers, with the intention of cutting his way through. The soldierswere prepared for such an occurrence, and a desperate skirmishsucceeded. Some of the women screamed, but none of them fainted; forfainting was not so much the fashion in those days, when the ladiesbreakfasted on brawn and ale at sunrise, as in our more refined age ofgreen tea and muffins at noon. Matilda seemed disposed to fly again toher lover, but the baron forced her from the chapel. The earl's bowmenat the door sent in among the assailants a volley of arrows, one ofwhich whizzed past the ear of the abbot, who, in mortal fear of beingsuddenly translated from a ghostly friar into a friarly ghost, beganto roll out of the chapel as fast as his bulk and his holy robes wouldpermit, roaring "Sacrilege!" with all his monks at his heels, who were, like himself, more intent to go at once than to stand upon the order oftheir going. The abbot, thus pressed from behind, and stumbling overhis own drapery before, fell suddenly prostrate in the door-way thatconnected the chapel with the abbey, and was instantaneously buriedunder a pyramid of ghostly carcasses, that fell over him and each other, and lay a rolling chaos of animated rotundities, sprawling and bawlingin unseemly disarray, and sending forth the names of all the saintsin and out of heaven, amidst the clashing of swords, the ringing ofbucklers, the clattering of helmets, the twanging of bow-strings, thewhizzing of arrows, the screams of women, the shouts of the warriors, and the vociferations of the peasantry, who had been assembled to theintended nuptials, and who, seeing a fair set-to, contrived to pick aquarrel among themselves on the occasion, and proceeded, with staff andcudgel, to crack each other's skulls for the good of the king and theearl. One tall friar alone was untouched by the panic of his brethren, and stood steadfastly watching the combat with his arms a-kembo, thecolossal emblem of an unarmed neutrality. 

At length, through the midst of the internal confusion, the earl, by thehelp of his good sword, the staunch valour of his men, and the blessingof the Virgin, fought his way to the chapel-gate--his bowmen closed himin--he vaulted into his saddle, clapped spurs to his horse, rallied hismen on the first eminence, and exchanged his sword for a bow and arrow, with which he did old execution among the pursuers, who at last thoughtit most expedient to desist from offensive warfare, and to retreat intothe abbey, where, in the king's name, they broached a pipe of the bestwine, and attached all the venison in the larder, having first carefullyunpacked the tuft of friars, and set the fallen abbot on his legs. 

The friars, it may be well supposed, and such of the king's men asescaped unhurt from the affray, found their spirits a cup too low, and kept the flask moving from noon till night. The peaceful brethren, unused to the tumult of war, had undergone, from fear and discomposure, an exhaustion of animal spirits that required extraordinary refection. During the repast, they interrogated Sir Ralph Montfaucon, the leader ofthe soldiers, respecting the nature of the earl's offence. 

"A complication of offences, " replied Sir Ralph, "superinduced on theoriginal basis of forest-treason. He began with hunting the king's deer, in despite of all remonstrance; followed it up by contempt of the king'smandates, and by armed resistance to his power, in defiance of allauthority; and combined with it the resolute withholding of payment ofcertain moneys to the abbot of Doncaster, in denial of all law; and hasthus made himself the declared enemy of church and state, and all forbeing too fond of venison. " And the knight helped himself to half apasty. 

"A heinous offender, " said a little round oily friar, appropriating theportion of pasty which Sir Ralph had left. 

"The earl is a worthy peer, " said the tall friar whom we have alreadymentioned in the chapel scene, "and the best marksman in England. "

"Why this is flat treason, brother Michael, " said the little roundfriar, "to call an attainted traitor a worthy peer. "

"I pledge you, " said brother Michael. The little friar smiled and filledhis cup. "He will draw the long bow, " pursued brother Michael, "with anybold yeoman among them all. "

"Don't talk of the long bow, " said the abbot, who had the sound of thearrow still whizzing in his ear: "what have we pillars of the faith todo with the long bow?"

"Be that as it may, " said Sir Ralph, "he is an outlaw from this moment. "

"So much the worse for the law then, " said brother Michael. "The lawwill have a heavier miss of him than he will have of the law. He willstrike as much venison as ever, and more of other game. I know what Isay: but basta: Let us drink. "

"What other game?" said the little friar. "I hope he won't poach amongour partridges. "

"Poach! not he, " said brother Michael: "if he wants your partridges, he will strike them under your nose (here's to you), and drag yourtrout-stream for you on a Thursday evening. "

"Monstrous! and starve us on fast-day, " said the little friar. 

"But that is not the game I mean, " said brother Michael. 

"Surely, son Michael, " said the abbot, "you do not mean to insinuatethat the noble earl will turn freebooter?"

"A man must live, " said brother Michael, "earl or no. If the law takeshis rents and beeves without his consent, he must take beeves and rentswhere he can get them without the consent of the law. This is the lextalionis. "

"Truly, " said Sir Ralph, "I am sorry for the damsel: she seems fond ofthis wild runagate. "

"A mad girl, a mad girl, " said the little friar. 

"How a mad girl?" said brother Michael. "Has she not beauty, grace, wit, sense, discretion, dexterity, learning, and valour?"

"Learning!" exclaimed the little friar; "what has a woman to do withlearning? And valour! who ever heard a woman commended for valour?Meekness and mildness, and softness, and gentleness, and tenderness, andhumility, and obedience to her husband, and faith in her confessor, and domesticity, or, as learned doctors call it, the faculty ofstayathomeitiveness, and embroidery, and music, and pickling, andpreserving, and the whole complex and multiplex detail of the noblescience of dinner, as well in preparation for the table, as inarrangement over it, and in distribution around it to knights, andsquires, and ghostly friars, --these are female virtues: but valour--whywho ever heard----?"

"She is the all in all, " said brother Michael, "gentle as a ring-dove, yet high-soaring as a falcon: humble below her deserving, yet deservingbeyond the estimate of panegyric: an exact economist in all superfluity, yet a most bountiful dispenser in all liberality: the chief regulator ofher household, the fairest pillar of her hall, and the sweetest blossomof her bower: having, in all opposite proposings, sense to understand, judgment to weigh, discretion to choose, firmness to undertake, diligence to conduct, perseverance to accomplish, and resolution tomaintain. For obedience to her husband, that is not to be tried tillshe has one: for faith in her confessor, she has as much as the lawprescribes: for embroidery an Arachne: for music a Siren: and forpickling and preserving, did not one of her jars of sugared apricotsgive you your last surfeit at Arlingford Castle?"

"Call you that preserving?" said the little friar; "I call itdestroying. Call you it pickling? Truly it pickled me. My life was savedby miracle. "

"By canary, " said brother Michael. "Canary is the only life preserver, the true aurum potabile, the universal panacea for all diseases, thirst, and short life. Your life was saved by canary. "

"Indeed, reverend father, " said Sir Ralph, "if the young lady be halfwhat you describe, she must be a paragon: but your commending her forvalour does somewhat amaze me. "

"She can fence, " said the little friar, "and draw the long bow, and playat singlestick and quarter-staff. "

"Yet mark you, " said brother Michael, "not like a virago or a hoyden, or one that would crack a serving-man's head for spilling gravy on herruff, but with such womanly grace and temperate self-command as ifthose manly exercises belonged to her only, and were become for her sakefeminine. "

"You incite me, " said Sir Ralph, "to view her more nearly. That madcapearl found me other employment than to remark her in the chapel. "

"The earl is a worthy peer, " said brother Michael; "he is worth anyfourteen earls on this side Trent, and any seven on the other. " (Thereader will please to remember that Rubygill Abbey was north of Trent. )

"His mettle will be tried, " said Sir Ralph. "There is many a courtierwill swear to King Henry to bring him in dead or alive. "

"They must look to the brambles then, " said brother Michael. 

 "The bramble, the bramble, the bonny forest bramble, Doth make a jest Of silken vest, That will through greenwood scramble: The bramble, the bramble, the bonny forest bramble. "

"Plague on your lungs, son Michael, " said the abbot; "this is your oldcoil: always roaring in your cups. "

"I know what I say, " said brother Michael; "there is often more sense inan old song than in a new homily. 

 The courtly pad doth amble, When his gay lord would ramble: But both may catch An awkward scratch, If they ride among the bramble: The bramble, the bramble, the bonny forest bramble. "

"Tall friar, " said Sir Ralph, "either you shoot the shafts of yourmerriment at random, or you know more of the earl's designs than beseemsyour frock. "

"Let my frock, " said brother Michael, "answer for its own sins. It isworn past covering mine. It is too weak for a shield, too transparentfor a screen, too thin for a shelter, too light for gravity, and toothreadbare for a jest. The wearer would be naught indeed who shouldmisbeseem such a wedding garment. 

 But wherefore does the sheep wear wool? That he in season sheared may be, And the shepherd be warm though his flock be cool: So I'll have a new cloak about me. "

CHAPTER II

 Vray moyne si oncques en feut depuis que le monde moynant moyna de moynerie. --RABELAIS. 

The Earl of Huntingdon, living in the vicinity of a royal forest, andpassionately attached to the chase from his infancy, had long made asfree with the king's deer as Lord Percy proposed to do with those ofLord Douglas in the memorable hunting of Cheviot. It is sufficientlywell known how severe were the forest-laws in those days, and withwhat jealousy the kings of England maintained this branch of theirprerogative; but menaces and remonstrances were thrown away on the earl, who declared that he would not thank Saint Peter for admission intoParadise, if he were obliged to leave his bow and hounds at the gate. King Henry (the Second) swore by Saint Botolph to make him rue hissport, and, having caused him to be duly and formally accused, summonedhim to London to answer the charge. The earl, deeming himself saferamong his own vassals than among king Henry's courtiers, took no noticeof the mandate. King Henry sent a force to bring him, vi et armis, tocourt. The earl made a resolute resistance, and put the king's force toflight under a shower of arrows: an act which the courtiers declared tobe treason. At the same time, the abbot of Doncaster sued up the paymentof certain moneys, which the earl, whose revenue ran a losing race withhis hospitality, had borrowed at sundry times of the said abbot: for theabbots and the bishops were the chief usurers of those days, and, as theend sanctifies the means, were not in the least scrupulous of employingwhat would have been extortion in the profane, to accomplish the piouspurpose of bringing a blessing on the land by rescuing it from thefrail hold of carnal and temporal into the firmer grasp of ghostlyand spiritual possessors. But the earl, confident in the number andattachment of his retainers, stoutly refused either to repay the money, which he could not, or to yield the forfeiture, which he would not: arefusal which in those days was an act of outlawry in a gentleman, asit is now of bankruptcy in a base mechanic; the gentleman having in ourwiser times a more liberal privilege of gentility, which enables him tokeep his land and laugh at his creditor. Thus the mutual resentments andinterests of the king and the abbot concurred to subject the earl to thepenalties of outlawry, by which the abbot would gain his due upon thelands of Locksley, and the rest would be confiscate to the king. Stillthe king did not think it advisable to assail the earl in his ownstrong-hold, but caused a diligent watch to be kept over his motions, till at length his rumoured marriage with the heiress of Arlingfordseemed to point out an easy method of laying violent hands on theoffender. Sir Ralph Montfaucon, a young man of good lineage and of anaspiring temper, who readily seized the first opportunity that offeredof recommending himself to King Henry's favour by manifesting his zealin his service, undertook the charge: and how he succeeded we have seen. 

Sir Ralph's curiosity was strongly excited by the friar's descriptionof the young lady of Arlingford; and he prepared in the morning to visitthe castle, under the very plausible pretext of giving the baron anexplanation of his intervention at the nuptials. Brother Michael and thelittle fat friar proposed to be his guides. The proposal was courteouslyaccepted, and they set out together, leaving Sir Ralph's followers atthe abbey. The knight was mounted on a spirited charger; brother Michaelon a large heavy-trotting horse; and the little fat friar on a plumpsoft-paced galloway, so correspondent with himself in size, rotundity, and sleekness, that if they had been amalgamated into a centaur, therewould have been nothing to alter in their proportions. 

"Do you know, " said the little friar, as they wound along the banks ofthe stream, "the reason why lake-trout is better than river-trout, andshyer withal?"

"I was not aware of the fact, " said Sir Ralph. 

"A most heterodox remark, " said brother Michael: "know you not, thatin all nice matters you should take the implication for absolute, and, without looking into the FACT WHETHER, seek only the reason why? But thefact is so, on the word of a friar; which what layman will venture togainsay who prefers a down bed to a gridiron?"

"The fact being so, " said the knight, "I am still at a loss for thereason; nor would I undertake to opine in a matter of that magnitude:since, in all that appertains to the good things either of this worldor the next, my reverend spiritual guides are kind enough to take thetrouble of thinking off my hands. "

"Spoken, " said brother Michael, "with a sound Catholic conscience. Mylittle brother here is most profound in the matter of trout. He hasmarked, learned, and inwardly digested the subject, twice a week atleast for five-and-thirty years. I yield to him in this. My strongpoints are venison and canary. "

"The good qualities of a trout, " said the little friar, "are firmnessand redness: the redness, indeed, being the visible sign of all othervirtues. "

"Whence, " said brother Michael, "we choose our abbot by his nose:

 The rose on the nose doth all virtues disclose: For the outward grace shows That the inward overflows, When it glows in the rose of a red, red nose. "

"Now, " said the little friar, "as is the firmness so is the redness, andas is the redness so is the shyness. "

"Marry why?" said brother Michael. "The solution is notphysical-natural, but physical-historical, or natural-superinductive. And thereby hangs a tale, which may be either said or sung:

 The damsel stood to watch the fight By the banks of Kingslea Mere, And they brought to her feet her own true knight Sore-wounded on a bier. 

 She knelt by him his wounds to bind, She washed them with many a tear: And shouts rose fast upon the wind, Which told that the foe was near. 

 "Oh! let not, " he said, "while yet I live, The cruel foe me take: But with thy sweet lips a last kiss give, And cast me in the lake. "

 Around his neck she wound her arms, And she kissed his lips so pale: And evermore the war's alarms Came louder up the vale. 

 She drew him to the lake's steep side, Where the red heath fringed the shore; She plunged with him beneath the tide, And they were seen no more. 

 Their true blood mingled in Kingslea Mere, That to mingle on earth was fain: And the trout that swims in that crystal clear Is tinged with the crimson stain. 

"Thus you see how good comes of evil, and how a holy friar may farebetter on fast-day for the violent death of two lovers two hundredyears ago. The inference is most consecutive, that wherever you catcha red-fleshed trout, love lies bleeding under the water: an occultquality, which can only act in the stationary waters of a lake, beingneutralised by the rapid transition of those of a stream. "

"And why is the trout shyer for that?" asked Sir Ralph. 

"Do you not see?" said brother Michael. "The virtues of both loversdiffuse themselves through the lake. The infusion of masculine valourmakes the fish active and sanguineous: the infusion of maiden modestymakes him coy and hard to win: and you shall find through life, the fishwhich is most easily hooked is not the best worth dishing. But yonderare the towers of Arlingford. "

The little friar stopped. He seemed suddenly struck with an awfulthought, which caused a momentary pallescence in his rosy complexion;and after a brief hesitation, he turned his galloway, and told hiscompanions he should give them good day. 

"Why, what is in the wind now, brother Peter?" said Friar Michael. 

"The lady Matilda, " said the little friar, "can draw the long-bow. Shemust bear no goodwill to Sir Ralph; and if she should espy him from hertower, she may testify her recognition with a cloth-yard shaft. She isnot so infallible a markswoman, but that she might shoot at a crow andkill a pigeon. She might peradventure miss the knight, and hit me, whonever did her any harm. "

"Tut, tut, man, " said brother Michael, "there is no such fear. "

"Mass, " said the little friar, "but there is such a fear, and verystrong too. You who have it not may keep your way, and I who have itshall take mine. I am not just now in the vein for being picked off at along shot. " And saying these words, he spurred up his four-footed betterhalf, and galloped off as nimbly as if he had had an arrow singingbehind him. 

"Is this lady Matilda, then, so very terrible a damsel?" said Sir Ralphto brother Michael. 

"By no means, " said the friar. "She has certainly a high spirit; but itis the wing of the eagle, without his beak or his claw. She is as gentleas magnanimous; but it is the gentleness of the summer wind, which, however lightly it wave the tuft of the pine, carries with it theintimation of a power, that, if roused to its extremity, could make itbend to the dust. "

"From the warmth of your panegyric, ghostly father, " said the knight, "Ishould almost suspect you were in love with the damsel. "

"So I am, " said the friar, "and I care not who knows it; but all in theway of honesty, master soldier. I am, as it were, her spiritual lover;and were she a damsel errant, I would be her ghostly esquire, her friarmilitant. I would buckle me in armour of proof, and the devil mightthresh me black with an iron flail, before I would knock under inher cause. Though they be not yet one canonically, thanks to yoursoldiership, the earl is her liege lord, and she is his liege lady. Iam her father confessor and ghostly director: I have taken on me to showher the way to the next world; and how can I do that if I lose sight ofher in this? seeing that this is but the road to the other, and has somany circumvolutions and ramifications of byeways and beaten paths (allmore thickly set than the true one with finger-posts and milestones, not one of which tells truth), that a traveller has need of some one whoknows the way, or the odds go hard against him that he will ever see theface of Saint Peter. "

"But there must surely be some reason, " said Sir Ralph, "for fatherPeter's apprehension. "

"None, " said brother Michael, "but the apprehension itself; fear beingits own father, and most prolific in self-propagation. The lady did, itis true, once signalize her displeasure against our little brother, for reprimanding her in that she would go hunting a-mornings insteadof attending matins. She cut short the thread of his eloquence bysportively drawing her bow-string and loosing an arrow over his head;he waddled off with singular speed, and was in much awe of her for manymonths. I thought he had forgotten it: but let that pass. In truth, she would have had little of her lover's company, if she had liked thechaunt of the choristers better than the cry of the hounds: yet Iknow not; for they were companions from the cradle, and reciprocallyfashioned each other to the love of the fern and the foxglove. Hadeither been less sylvan, the other might have been more saintly; butthey will now never hear matins but those of the lark, nor reverencevaulted aisle but that of the greenwood canopy. They are twin plants ofthe forest, and are identified with its growth. 

 For the slender beech and the sapling oak, That grow by the shadowy rill, You may cut down both at a single stroke, You may cut down which you will. 

 But this you must know, that as long as they grow Whatever change may be, You never can teach either oak or beech To be aught but a greenwood tree. "

CHAPTER III

 Inflamed wrath in glowing breast. --BUTLER. 

The knight and the friar arriving at Arlingford Castle, and leavingtheir horses in the care of lady Matilda's groom, with whom the friarwas in great favour, were ushered into a stately apartment, where theyfound the baron alone, flourishing an enormous carving-knife over abrother baron--of beef--with as much vehemence of action as if hewere cutting down an enemy. The baron was a gentleman of a fierce andcholeric temperament: he was lineally descended from the redoubtableFierabras of Normandy, who came over to England with the Conqueror, andwho, in the battle of Hastings, killed with his own hand four-and-twentySaxon cavaliers all on a row. The very excess of the baron's internalrage on the preceding day had smothered its external manifestation: hewas so equally angry with both parties, that he knew not on which tovent his wrath. He was enraged with the earl for having brought himselfinto such a dilemma without his privily; and he was no less enraged withthe king's men for their very unseasonable intrusion. He could willinglyhave fallen upon both parties, but, he must necessarily have begun withone; and he felt that on whichever side he should strike the first blow, his retainers would immediately join battle. He had therefore contentedhimself with forcing away his daughter from the scene of action. Inthe course of the evening he had received intelligence that the earl'scastle was in possession of a party of the king's men, who had beendetached by Sir Ralph Montfaucon to seize on it during the earl'sabsence. The baron inferred from this that the earl's case wasdesperate; and those who have had the opportunity of seeing a richfriend fall suddenly into poverty, may easily judge by their ownfeelings how quickly and completely the whole moral being of the earlwas changed in the baron's estimation. The baron immediately proceededto require in his daughter's mind the same summary revolution that hadtaken place in his own, and considered himself exceedingly ill-used byher non-compliance. The lady had retired to her chamber, and thebaron had passed a supperless and sleepless night, stalking about hisapartments till an advanced hour of the morning, when hunger compelledhim to summon into his presence the spoils of the buttery, which, beingthe intended array of an uneaten wedding feast, were more than usuallyabundant, and on which, when the knight and the friar entered, he wasfalling with desperate valour. He looked up at them fiercely, with hismouth full of beef and his eyes full of flame, and rising, as ceremonyrequired, made an awful bow to the knight, inclining himself forwardover the table and presenting his carving-knife en militaire, in amanner that seemed to leave it doubtful whether he meant to show respectto his visitor, or to defend his provision: but the doubt was sooncleared up by his politely motioning the knight to be seated; on whichthe friar advanced to the table, saying, "For what we are going toreceive, " and commenced operations without further prelude by fillingand drinking a goblet of wine. The baron at the same time offered oneto Sir Ralph, with the look of a man in whom habitual hospitality andcourtesy were struggling with the ebullitions of natural anger. Theypledged each other in silence, and the baron, having completed a copiousdraught, continued working his lips and his throat, as if trying toswallow his wrath as he had done his wine. Sir Ralph, not knowing wellwhat to make of these ambiguous signs, looked for instructions to thefriar, who by significant looks and gestures seemed to advise him tofollow his example and partake of the good cheer before him, withoutspeaking till the baron should be more intelligible in his demeanour. The knight and the friar, accordingly, proceeded to refect themselvesafter their ride; the baron looking first at the one and then at theother, scrutinising alternately the serious looks of the knight andthe merry face of the friar, till at length, having calmed himselfsufficiently to speak, he said, "Courteous knight and ghostly father, I presume you have some other business with me than to eat my beef anddrink my canary; and if so, I patiently await your leisure to enter onthe topic. "

"Lord Fitzwater, " said Sir Ralph, "in obedience to my royal master, KingHenry, I have been the unwilling instrument of frustrating the intendednuptials of your fair daughter; yet will you, I trust, owe me nodispleasure for my agency herein, seeing that the noble maiden mightotherwise by this time have been the bride of an outlaw. "

"I am very much obliged to you, sir, " said the baron; "very exceedinglyobliged. Your solicitude for my daughter is truly paternal, and for ayoung man and a stranger very singular and exemplary: and it is verykind withal to come to the relief of my insufficiency and inexperience, and concern yourself so much in that which concerns you not. "

"You misconceive the knight, noble baron, " said the friar. "He urgesnot his reason in the shape of a preconceived intent, but in that ofa subsequent extenuation. True, he has done the lady Matilda greatwrong----"

"How, great wrong?" said the baron. "What do you mean by great wrong?Would you have had her married to a wild fly-by-night, that accidentmade an earl and nature a deer-stealer? that has not wit enough to eatvenison without picking a quarrel with monarchy? that flings away hisown lands into the clutches of rascally friars, for the sake of huntingin other men's grounds, and feasting vagabonds that wear Lincolngreen, and would have flung away mine into the bargain if he had had mydaughter? What do you mean by great wrong?"

"True, " said the friar, "great right, I meant. "

"Right!" exclaimed the baron: "what right has any man to do my daughterright but myself? What right has any man to drive my daughter'sbridegroom out of the chapel in the middle of the marriage ceremony, andturn all our merry faces into green wounds and bloody coxcombs, and thencome and tell me he has done us great right?"

"True, " said the friar: "he has done neither right nor wrong. "

"But he has, " said the baron, "he has done both, and I will maintain itwith my glove. "

"It shall not need, " said Sir Ralph; "I will concede any thing inhonour. "

"And I, " said the baron, "will concede nothing in honour: I will concedenothing in honour to any man. "

"Neither will I, Lord Fitzwater, " said Sir Ralph, "in that sense:but hear me. I was commissioned by the king to apprehend the Earl ofHuntingdon. I brought with me a party of soldiers, picked and tried men, knowing that he would not lightly yield. I sent my lieutenant with adetachment to surprise the earl's castle in his absence, and laid mymeasures for intercepting him on the way to his intended nuptials; buthe seems to have had intimation of this part of my plan, for he broughtwith him a large armed retinue, and took a circuitous route, which madehim, I believe, somewhat later than his appointed hour. When the lapseof time showed me that he had taken another track, I pursued him to thechapel; and I would have awaited the close of the ceremony, if I hadthought that either yourself or your daughter would have felt desirousthat she should have been the bride of an outlaw. "

"Who said, sir, " cried the baron, "that we were desirous of any suchthing? But truly, sir, if I had a mind to the devil for a son-in-law, Iwould fain see the man that should venture to interfere. "

"That would I, " said the friar; "for I have undertaken to make herrenounce the devil. "

"She shall not renounce the devil, " said the baron, "unless I please. You are very ready with your undertakings. Will you undertake to makeher renounce the earl, who, I believe, is the devil incarnate? Will youundertake that?"

"Will I undertake, " said the friar, "to make Trent run westward, or tomake flame burn downward, or to make a tree grow with its head in theearth and its root in the air?"

"So then, " said the baron, "a girl's mind is as hard to change as natureand the elements, and it is easier to make her renounce the devil than alover. Are you a match for the devil, and no match for a man?"

"My warfare, " said the friar, "is not of this world. I am militant notagainst man, but the devil, who goes about seeking what he may devour. "

"Oh! does he so?" said the baron: "then I take it that makes you lookfor him so often in my buttery. Will you cast out the devil whose nameis Legion, when you cannot cast out the imp whose name is Love?"

"Marriages, " said the friar, "are made in heaven. Love is God's work, and therewith I meddle not. "

"God's work, indeed!" said the baron, "when the ceremony was cut shortin the church. Could men have put them asunder, if God had joined themtogether? And the earl is now no earl, but plain Robert Fitz-Ooth:therefore, I'll none of him. "

"He may atone, " said the friar, "and the king may mollify. The earl is aworthy peer, and the king is a courteous king. "

"He cannot atone, " said Sir Ralph. "He has killed the king's men; and ifthe baron should aid and abet, he will lose his castle and land. "

"Will I?" said the baron; "not while I have a drop of blood in my veins. He that comes to take them shall first serve me as the friar serves myflasks of canary: he shall drain me dry as hay. Am I not disparaged? AmI not outraged? Is not my daughter vilified, and made a mockery? A girlhalf-married? There was my butler brought home with a broken head. My butler, friar: there is that may move your sympathy. Friar, theearl-no-earl shall come no more to my daughter. "

"Very good, " said the friar. 

"It is not very good, " said the baron, "for I cannot get her to say so. "

"I fear, " said Sir Ralph, "the young lady must be much distressed anddiscomposed. "

"Not a whit, sir, " said the baron. "She is, as usual, in a mostprovoking imperturbability, and contradicts me so smilingly that itwould enrage you to see her. "

"I had hoped, " said Sir Ralph, "that I might have seen her, to make myexcuse in person for the hard necessity of my duty. "

He had scarcely spoken, when the door opened, and the lady made herappearance. 

CHAPTER IV

 Are you mad, or what are you, that you squeak out your catches without mitigation or remorse of voice? --Twelfth Night. 

Matilda, not dreaming of visitors, tripped into the apartment in a dressof forest green, with a small quiver by her side, and a bow and arrowin her hand. Her hair, black and glossy as the raven's wing, curledlike wandering clusters of dark ripe grapes under the edge of her roundbonnet; and a plume of black feathers fell back negligently above it, with an almost horizontal inclination, that seemed the habitual effectof rapid motion against the wind. Her black eyes sparkled like sunbeamson a river: a clear, deep, liquid radiance, the reflection of etherealfire, --tempered, not subdued, in the medium of its living and gentlemirror. Her lips were half opened to speak as she entered the apartment;and with a smile of recognition to the friar, and a courtesy to thestranger knight, she approached the baron and said, "You are late atyour breakfast, father. "

"I am not at breakfast, " said the baron. "I have been at supper: my lastnight's supper; for I had none. "

"I am sorry, " said Matilda, "you should have gone to bed supperless. "

"I did not go to bed supperless, " said the baron: "I did not go to bedat all: and what are you doing with that green dress and that bow andarrow?"

"I am going a-hunting, " said Matilda. 

"A-hunting!" said the baron. "What, I warrant you, to meet with theearl, and slip your neck into the same noose?"

"No, " said Matilda: "I am not going out of our own woods to-day. "

"How do I know that?" said the baron. "What surety have I of that?"

"Here is the friar, " said Matilda. "He will be surety. "

"Not he, " said the baron: "he will undertake nothing but where the devilis a party concerned. "

"Yes, I will, " said the friar: "I will undertake any thing for the ladyMatilda. "

"No matter for that, " said the baron: "she shall not go hunting to day. "

"Why, father, " said Matilda, "if you coop me up here in this odiouscastle, I shall pine and die like a lonely swan on a pool. 

"No, " said the baron, "the lonely swan does not die on the pool. Ifthere be a river at hand, she flies to the river, and finds her a mate;and so shall not you. "

"But, " said Matilda, "you may send with me any, or as many, of yourgrooms as you will. "

"My grooms, " said the baron, "are all false knaves. There is not arascal among them but loves you better than me. Villains that I feed andclothe. "

"Surely, " said Matilda, "it is not villany to love me: if it be, Ishould be sorry my father were an honest man. " The baron relaxed hismuscles into a smile. "Or my lover either, " added Matilda. The baronlooked grim again. 

"For your lover, " said the baron, "you may give God thanks of him. He isas arrant a knave as ever poached. "

"What, for hunting the king's deer?" said Matilda. "Have I not heard yourail at the forest laws by the hour?"

"Did you ever hear me, " said the baron, "rail myself out of house andland? If I had done that, then were I a knave. "

"My lover, " said Matilda, "is a brave man, and a true man, and agenerous man, and a young man, and a handsome man; aye, and an honestman too. "

"How can he be an honest man, " said the baron, "when he has neitherhouse nor land, which are the better part of a man?"

"They are but the husk of a man, " said Matilda, "the worthless coat ofthe chesnut: the man himself is the kernel. "

"The man is the grape stone, " said the baron, "and the pulp of themelon. The house and land are the true substantial fruit, and all thatgive him savour and value. "

"He will never want house or land, " said Matilda, "while the meetingboughs weave a green roof in the wood, and the free range of the hartmarks out the bounds of the forest. "

"Vert and venison! vert and venison!" exclaimed the baron. "Treasonand flat rebellion. Confound your smiling face! what makes you look sogood-humoured? What! you think I can't look at you, and be in a passion?You think so, do you? We shall see. Have you no fear in talking thus, when here is the king's liegeman come to take us all into custody, andconfiscate our goods and chattels?"

"Nay, Lord Fitzwater, " said Sir Ralph, "you wrong me in your report. Myvisit is one of courtesy and excuse, not of menace and authority. "

"There it is, " said the baron: "every one takes a pleasure incontradicting me. Here is this courteous knight, who has not openedhis mouth three times since he has been in my house except to take inprovision, cuts me short in my story with a flat denial. "

"Oh! I cry you mercy, sir knight, " said Matilda; "I did not mark youbefore. I am your debtor for no slight favour, and so is my liege lord. "

"Her liege lord!" exclaimed the baron, taking large strides across thechamber. 

"Pardon me, gentle lady, " said Sir Ralph. "Had I known you beforeyesterday, I would have cut off my right hand ere it should have beenraised to do you displeasure. 

"Oh sir, " said Matilda, "a good man may be forced on an ill office: butI can distinguish the man from his duty. " She presented to him herhand, which he kissed respectfully, and simultaneously with the contactthirty-two invisible arrows plunged at once into his heart, one fromevery point of the compass of his pericardia. 

"Well, father, " added Matilda, "I must go to the woods. "

"Must you?" said the baron; "I say you must not. "

"But I am going, " said Matilda

"But I will have up the drawbridge, " said the baron. 

"But I will swim the moat, " said Matilda. 

"But I will secure the gates, " said the baron. 

"But I will leap from the battlement, " said Matilda. 

"But I will lock you in an upper chamber, " said the baron. 

"But I will shred the tapestry, " said Matilda, "and let myself down. "

"But I will lock you in a turret, " said the baron, "where you shall onlysee light through a loophole. "

"But through that loophole, " said Matilda, "will I take my flight, likea young eagle from its eerie; and, father, while I go out freely, I willreturn willingly: but if once I slip out through a loop-hole----" Shepaused a moment, and then added, singing, --

 The love that follows fain Will never its faith betray: But the faith that is held in a chain Will never be found again, If a single link give way. 

The melody acted irresistibly on the harmonious propensities of thefriar, who accordingly sang in his turn, --

 For hark! hark! hark! The dog doth bark, That watches the wild deer's lair. The hunter awakes at the peep of the dawn, But the lair it is empty, the deer it is gone, And the hunter knows not where. 

Matilda and the friar then sang together, --

 Then follow, oh follow! the hounds do cry: The red sun flames in the eastern sky: The stag bounds over the hollow. He that lingers in spirit, or loiters in hall, Shall see us no more till the evening fall, And no voice but the echo shall answer his call: Then follow, oh follow, follow: Follow, oh follow, follow!

During the process of this harmony, the baron's eyes wandered from hisdaughter to the friar, and from the friar to his daughter again, withan alternate expression of anger differently modified: when he lookedon the friar, it was anger without qualification; when he looked onhis daughter it was still anger, but tempered by an expression ofinvoluntary admiration and pleasure. These rapid fluctuations of thebaron's physiognomy--the habitual, reckless, resolute merriment in thejovial face of the friar, --and the cheerful, elastic spirits that playedon the lips and sparkled in the eyes of Matilda, --would have presented avery amusing combination to Sir Ralph, if one of the three images inthe group had not absorbed his total attention with feelings of intensedelight very nearly allied to pain. The baron's wrath was somewhatcounteracted by the reflection that his daughter's good spiritsseemed to show that they would naturally rise triumphant over alldisappointments; and he had had sufficient experience of her humour toknow that she might sometimes be led, but never could be driven. Then, too, he was always delighted to hear her sing, though he was not at allpleased in this instance with the subject of her song. Still he wouldhave endured the subject for the sake of the melody of the treble, buthis mind was not sufficiently attuned to unison to relish the harmonyof the bass. The friar's accompaniment put him out of all patience, and--"So, " he exclaimed, "this is the way, you teach my daughter torenounce the devil, is it? A hunting friar, truly! Who ever heardbefore of a hunting friar? A profane, roaring, bawling, bumper-bibbing, neck-breaking, catch-singing friar?"

"Under favour, bold baron, " said the friar; but the friar was warmwith canary, and in his singing vein; and he could not go on in plainunmusical prose. He therefore sang in a new tune, --

 Though I be now a grey, grey friar, Yet I was once a hale young knight: The cry of my dogs was the only choir In which my spirit did take delight. Little I recked of matin bell, But drowned its toll with my clanging horn: And the only beads I loved to tell Were the beads of dew on the spangled thorn. 

The baron was going to storm, but the friar paused, and Matilda sang inrepetition, --

 Little I reck of matin bell, But drown its toll with my clanging horn: And the only beads I love to tell Are the beads of dew on the spangled thorn. 

And then she and the friar sang the four lines together, and rang thechanges upon them alternately. 

 Little I reck of matin bell, sang the friar. 

"A precious friar, " said the baron. 

But drown its toll with my clanging horn, sang Matilda. 

"More shame for you, " said the baron. 

 And the only beads I love to tell Are the beads of dew on the spangled thorn, sang Matilda and the friar together. 

"Penitent and confessor, " said the baron: "a hopeful pair truly. "

The friar went on, --

 An archer keen I was withal, As ever did lean on greenwood tree; And could make the fleetest roebuck fall, A good three hundred yards from me. Though changeful time, with hand severe, Has made me now these joys forego, Yet my heart bounds whene'er I hear Yoicks! hark away! and tally ho!

Matilda chimed in as before. 

"Are you mad?" said the baron. "Are you insane? Are you possessed? Whatdo you mean? What in the devil's name do you both mean?"

 Yoicks! hark away! and tally ho!

roared the friar. 

The baron's pent-up wrath had accumulated like the waters above the damof an overshot mill. The pond-head of his passion being now filledto the utmost limit of its capacity, and beginning to overflow in thequivering of his lips and the flashing of his eyes, he pulled up allthe flash-boards at once, and gave loose to the full torrent of hisindignation, by seizing, like furious Ajax, not a messy stone more thantwo modern men could raise, but a vast dish of beef more than fiftyancient yeomen could eat, and whirled it like a coit, in terrorem, overthe head of the friar, to the extremity of the apartment, Where it on oaken floor did settle, With mighty din of ponderous metal. 

"Nay father, " said Matilda, taking the baron's hand, "do not harm thefriar: he means not to offend you. My gaiety never before displeasedyou. Least of all should it do so now, when I have need of all myspirits to outweigh the severity of my fortune. "

As she spoke the last words, tears started into her eyes, which, as ifashamed of the involuntary betraying of her feelings, she turned away toconceal. The baron was subdued at once. He kissed his daughter, held outhis hand to the friar, and said, "Sing on, in God's name, and crack awaythe flasks till your voice swims in canary. " Then turning to Sir Ralph, he said, "You see how it is, sir knight. Matilda is my daughter; but shehas me in leading-strings, that is the truth of it. "

CHAPTER V

 'T is true, no lover has that power To enforce a desperate amour As he that has two strings to his bow And burns for love and money too. --BUTLER. 

The friar had often had experience of the baron's testy humour; butit had always before confined itself to words, in which the habit oftestiness often mingled more expression of displeasure than the internalfeeling prompted. He knew the baron to be hot and choleric, but at thesame time hospitable and generous; passionately fond of his daughter, often thwarting her in seeming, but always yielding to her in fact. Theearly attachment between Matilda and the Earl of Huntingdon had giventhe baron no serious reason to interfere with her habits andpursuits, which were so congenial to those of her lover; and not beingover-burdened with orthodoxy, that is to say, not being seasoned withmore of the salt of the spirit than was necessary to preserve him fromexcommunication, confiscation, and philotheoparoptesism, [1] he was notsorry to encourage his daughter's choice of her confessor in brotherMichael, who had more jollity and less hypocrisy than any of hisfraternity, and was very little anxious to disguise his love of the goodthings of this world under the semblance of a sanctified exterior. Thefriar and Matilda had often sung duets together, and had been accustomedto the baron's chiming in with a stormy capriccio, which was usuallycharmed into silence by some sudden turn in the witching melodies ofMatilda. They had therefore naturally calculated, as far as their wildspirits calculated at all, on the same effects from the same causes. Butthe circumstances of the preceding day had made an essential alterationin the case. The baron knew well, from the intelligence he had received, that the earl's offence was past remission: which would have been ofless moment but for the awful fact of his castle being in the possessionof the king's forces, and in those days possession was considerably morethan eleven points of the law. The baron was therefore convincedthat the earl's outlawry was infallible, and that Matilda must eitherrenounce her lover, or become with him an outlaw and a fugitive. Inproportion, therefore, to the baron's knowledge of the strength andduration of her attachment, was his fear of the difficulty of its everbeing overcome: her love of the forest and the chase, which he had neverbefore discouraged, now presented itself to him as matter of seriousalarm; and if her cheerfulness gave him hope on the one hand byindicating a spirit superior to all disappointments, it was suspiciousto him on the other, as arising from some latent certainty of being soonunited to the earl. All these circumstances concurred to rendertheir songs of the vanished deer and greenwood archery and Yoicks andHarkaway, extremely mal-a-propos, and to make his anger boil and bubblein the cauldron of his spirit, till its more than ordinary excitementburst forth with sudden impulse into active manifestation. 

 But as it sometimes happens, from the might Of rage in minds that can no farther go, As high as they have mounted in despite In their remission do they sink as low, To our bold baron did it happen so. [2]

For his discobolic exploit proved the climax of his rage, and wassucceeded by an immediate sense that he had passed the bounds oflegitimate passion; and he sunk immediately from the very pinnacle ofopposition to the level of implicit acquiescence. The friar's spiritswere not to be marred by such a little incident. He was half-inclined, at first, to return the baron's compliment; but his love of Matildachecked him; and when the baron held out his hand, the friar seized itcordially, and they drowned all recollection of the affair by pledgingeach other in a cup of canary. 

The friar, having stayed long enough to see every thing replaced on afriendly footing, rose, and moved to take his leave. Matilda told himhe must come again on the morrow, for she had a very long confessionto make to him. This the friar promised to do, and departed with theknight. 

Sir Ralph, on reaching the abbey, drew his followers together, andled them to Locksley Castle, which he found in the possession of hislieutenant; whom he again left there with a sufficient force to hold itin safe keeping in the king's name, and proceeded to London to reportthe results of his enterprise. 

Now Henry our royal king was very wroth at the earl's evasion, and sworeby Saint Thomas-a-Becket (whom he had himself translated into a saint byhaving him knocked on the head), that he would give the castle and landsof Locksley to the man who should bring in the earl. Hereupon ensueda process of thought in the mind of the knight. The eyes of the fairhuntress of Arlingford had left a wound in his heart which only she whogave could heal. He had seen that the baron was no longer very partialto the outlawed earl, but that he still retained his old affection forthe lands and castle of Locksley. Now the lands and castle were veryfair things in themselves, and would be pretty appurtenances to anadventurous knight; but they would be doubly valuable as certainpassports to the father's favour, which was one step towards that of thedaughter, or at least towards obtaining possession of her either quietlyor perforce; for the knight was not so nice in his love as to considerthe lady's free grace a sine qua non: and to think of being, by anymeans whatever, the lord of Locksley and Arlingford, and the husbandof the bewitching Matilda, was to cut in the shades of futurity a vistavery tempting to a soldier of fortune. He set out in high spirits witha chosen band of followers, and beat up all the country far and widearound both the Ouse and the Trent; but fortune did not seem disposedto second his diligence, for no vestige whatever could he trace of theearl. His followers, who were only paid with the wages of hope, began tomurmur and fall off; for, as those unenlightened days were ignorant ofthe happy invention of paper machinery, by which one promise to pay issatisfactorily paid with another promise to pay, and that again withanother in infinite series, they would not, as their wiser posterity hasdone, take those tenders for true pay which were not sterling; so that, one fine morning, the knight found himself sitting on a pleasant bank ofthe Trent, with only a solitary squire, who still clung to the shadowof preferment, because he did not see at the moment any better chance ofthe substance. 

The knight did not despair because of the desertion of his followers: hewas well aware that he could easily raise recruits if he could once findtrace of his game; he, therefore, rode about indefatigably over hilland dale, to the great sharpening of his own appetite and that of hissquire, living gallantly from inn to inn when his purse was full, andquartering himself in the king's name on the nearest ghostly brotherhoodwhen it happened to be empty. An autumn and a winter had passed away, when the course of his perlustations brought him one evening into abeautiful sylvan valley, where he found a number of young women weavinggarlands of flowers, and singing over their pleasant occupation. Heapproached them, and courteously inquired the way to the nearest town. 

"There is no town within several miles, " was the answer. 

"A village, then, if it be but large enough to furnish an inn?"

"There is Gamwell just by, but there is no inn nearer than the nearesttown. "

"An abbey, then?"

"There is no abbey nearer than the nearest inn. "

"A house then, or a cottage, where I may obtain hospitality for thenight?"

"Hospitality!" said one of the young women; "you have not far toseek for that. Do you not know that you are in the neighbourhood ofGamwell-Hall?"

"So far from it, " said the knight, "that I never heard the name ofGamwell-Hall before. "

"Never heard of Gamwell-Hall?" exclaimed all the young women together, who could as soon have dreamed of his never having heard of the sky. 

"Indeed, no, " said Sir Ralph; "but I shall be very happy to get rid ofmy ignorance. "

"And so shall I, " said his squire; "for it seems that in this caseknowledge will for once be a cure for hunger, wherewith I am grievouslyafflicted. "

"And why are you so busy, my pretty damsels, weaving these garlands?"said the knight. 

"Why, do you not know, sir, " said one of the young women, "thatto-morrow is Gamwell feast?"

The knight was again obliged, with all humility, to confess hisignorance. 

"Oh! sir, " said his informant, "then you will have something to see, that I can tell you; for we shall choose a Queen of the May, and weshall crown her with flowers, and place her in a chariot of flowers, and draw it with lines of flowers, and we shall hang all the trees withflowers, and we shall strew all the ground with flowers, and we shalldance with flowers, and in flowers, and on flowers, and we shall be allflowers. "

"That you will, " said the knight; "and the sweetest and brightest ofall the flowers of the May, my pretty damsels. " On which all the prettydamsels smiled at him and each other. 

"And there will be all sorts of May-games, and there will be prizes forarchery, and there will be the knight's ale, and the foresters' venison, and there will be Kit Scrapesqueak with his fiddle, and little TomWhistlerap with his fife and tabor, and Sam Trumtwang with his harp, and Peter Muggledrone with his bagpipe, and how I shall dance withWill Whitethorn!" added the girl, clapping her hands as she spoke, andbounding from the ground with the pleasure of the anticipation. 

A tall athletic young man approached, to whom the rustic maidenscourtesied with great respect; and one of them informed Sir Ralph thatit was young Master William Gamwell. The young gentleman invited andconducted the knight to the hall, where he introduced him to the oldknight his father, and to the old lady his mother, and to the young ladyhis sister, and to a number of bold yeomen, who were laying siege tobeef, brawn, and plum pie around a ponderous table, and taking copiousdraughts of old October. A motto was inscribed over the interior door, --

EAT, DRINK, AND BE MERRY:

an injunction which Sir Ralph and his squire showed remarkable alacrityin obeying. Old Sir Guy of Gamwell gave Sir Ralph a very cordialwelcome, and entertained him during supper with several of his beststories, enforced with an occasional slap on the back, and pointed witha peg in the ribs; a species of vivacious eloquence in which the oldgentleman excelled, and which is supposed by many of that pleasantvariety of the human spectes, known by the name of choice fellows andcomical dogs, to be the genuine tangible shape of the cream of a goodjoke. 

CHAPTER VI

 What! shall we have incision? shall we embrew? --Henry IV. 

Old Sir Guy of Gamwell, and young William Gamwell, and fair AliceGamwell, and Sir Ralph Montfaucon and his squire, rode together thenext morning to the scene of the feast. They arrived on a village green, surrounded with cottages peeping from among the trees by which thegreen was completely encircled. The whole circle was hung round with onecontinuous garland of flowers, depending in irregular festoons from thebranches. In the centre of the green was a May-pole hidden in boughsand garlands; and a multitude of round-faced bumpkins and cherry-checkedlasses were dancing around it, to the quadruple melody of Scrapesqueak, Whistlerap, Trumtwang, and Muggledrone: harmony we must not call it;for, though they had agreed to a partnership in point of tune, each, like a true painstaking man, seemed determined to have his time tohimself: Muggledrone played allegretto, Trumtwang allegro, Whistlerappresto, and Scrapesqueak prestissimo. There was a kind of mathematicalproportion in their discrepancy: while Muggledrone played the tune fourtimes, Trumtwang played it five, Whistlerap six, and Scrapesqueak eight;for the latter completely distanced all his competitors, and indeedworked his elbow so nimbly that its outline was scarcely distinguishablethrough the mistiness of its rapid vibration. 

While the knight was delighting his eyes and ears with these pleasantsights and sounds, all eyes were turned in one direction; and Sir Ralph, looking round, saw a fair lady in green and gold come riding through thetrees, accompanied by a portly friar in grey, and several fair damselsand gallant grooms. On their nearer approach, he recognised the ladyMatilda and her ghostly adviser, brother Michael. A party of forestersarrived from another direction, and then ensued cordial interchanges ofgreeting, and collisions of hands and lips, among the Gamwells and thenew-comers, --"How does my fair coz, Mawd?" and "How does my sweet coz, Mawd?" and "How does my wild coz, Mawd?" And "Eh! jolly friar, yourhand, old boy:" and "Here, honest friar:" and "To me, merry friar:" and"By your favour, mistress Alice:" and "Hey! cousin Robin:" and "Hey!cousin Will:" and "Od's life! merry Sir Guy, you grow younger everyyear, "--as the old knight shook them all in turn with one hand, andslapped them on the back with the other, in token of his affection. Anumber of young men and women advanced, some drawing, and others dancinground, a floral car; and having placed a crown of flowers on Matilda'shead, they saluted her Queen of the May, and drew her to the placeappointed for the rural sports. 

A hogshead of ale was abroach under an oak, and a fire was blazing inan open space before the trees to roast the fat deer which the forestersbrought. The sports commenced; and, after an agreeable series ofbowling, coiling, pitching, hurling, racing, leaping, grinning, wrestling or friendly dislocation of joints, and cudgel-playing oramicable cracking of skulls, the trial of archery ensued. The conquerorwas to be rewarded with a golden arrow from the hand of the Queen of theMay, who was to be his partner in the dance till the close of the feast. This stimulated the knight's emulation: young Gamwell supplied him witha bow and arrow, and he took his station among the foresters, but hadthe mortification to be out-shot by them all, and to see one of themlodge the point of his arrow in the golden ring of the centre, andreceive the prize from the hand of the beautiful Matilda, who smiled onhim with particular grace. The jealous knight scrutinised the successfulchampion with great attention, and surely thought he had seen that facebefore. In the mean time the forester led the lady to the station. Theluckless Sir Ralph drank deep draughts of love from the matchless graceof her attitudes, as, taking the bow in her left hand, and adjusting thearrow with her right, advancing her left foot, and gently curving herbeautiful figure with a slight motion of her head that waved her blackfeathers and her ringleted hair, she drew the arrow to its head, andloosed it from her open fingers. The arrow struck within the ring ofgold, so close to that of the victorious forester that the points werein contact, and the feathers were intermingled. Great acclamationssucceeded, and the forester led Matilda to the dance. Sir Ralph gazedon her fascinating motions till the torments of baffled love and jealousrage became unendurable; and approaching young Gamwell, he asked himif he knew the name of that forester who was leading the dance with theQueen of the May?

"Robin, I believe, " said young Gamwell carelessly; "I think they callhim Robin. "

"Is that all you know of him?" said Sir Ralph. 

"What more should I know of him?" said young Gamwell. 

"Then I can tell you, " said Sir Ralph, "he is the outlawed Earl ofHuntingdon, on whose head is set so large a price. "

"Ay, is he?" said young Gamwell, in the same careless manner. 

"He were a prize worth the taking, " said Sir Ralph. 

"No doubt, " said young Gamwell. 

"How think you?" said Sir Ralph: "are the foresters his adherents?"

"I cannot say, " said young Gamwell. 

"Is your peasantry loyal and well-disposed?" said Sir Ralph. 

"Passing loyal, " said young Gamwell. 

"If I should call on them in the king's name, " said Sir Ralph, "thinkyou they would aid and assist?"

"Most likely they would, " said young Gamwell, "one side or the other. "

"Ay, but which side?" said the knight. 

"That remains to be tried, " said young Gamwell. 

"I have King Henry's commission, " said the knight, "to apprehend thisearl that was. How would you advise me to act, being, as you see, without attendant force?"

"I would advise you, " said young Gamwell, "to take yourself off withoutdelay, unless you would relish the taste of a volley of arrows, a showerof stones, and a hailstorm of cudgel-blows, which would not be turnedaside by a God save King Henry. "

Sir Ralph's squire no sooner heard this, and saw by the looks of thespeaker that he was not likely to prove a false prophet, than he clappedspurs to his horse and galloped off with might and main. This gave theknight a good excuse to pursue him, which he did with great celerity, calling, "Stop, you rascal. " When the squire fancied himself safe outof the reach of pursuit, he checked his speed, and allowed the knightto come up with him. They rode on several miles in silence, tillthey discovered the towers and spires of Nottingham, where the knightintroduced himself to the sheriff, and demanded an armed force to assistin the apprehension of the outlawed Earl of Huntingdon. The sheriff, whowas willing to have his share of the prize, determined to accompany theknight in person, and regaled him and his man with good store of thebest; after which, they, with a stout retinue of fifty men, took the wayto Gamwell feast. 

"God's my life, " said the sheriff, as they rode along, "I had as liefyou would tell me of a service of plate. I much doubt if this outlawedearl, this forester Robin, be not the man they call Robin Hood, whohas quartered himself in Sherwood Forest, and whom in endeavouringto apprehend I have fallen divers times into disasters. He hasgotten together a band of disinherited prodigals, outlawed debtors, excommunicated heretics, elder sons that have spent all they had, andyounger sons that never had any thing to spend; and with these he killsthe king's deer, and plunders wealthy travellers of five-sixths of theirmoney; but if they be abbots or bishops, them he despoils utterly. "

The sheriff then proceeded to relate to his companion the adventure ofthe abbot of Doubleflask (which some grave historians have related ofthe abbot of Saint Mary's, and others of the bishop of Hereford): howthe abbot, returning to his abbey in company with his high selerer, who carried in his portmanteau the rents of the abbey-lands, and with anumerous train of attendants, came upon four seeming peasants, whowere roasting the king's venison by the king's highway: how, in justindignation at this flagrant infringement of the forest laws, he askedthem what they meant, and they answered that they meant to dine: how heordered them to be seized and bound, and led captive to Nottingham, that they might know wild-flesh to have been destined by Providencefor licensed and privileged appetites, and not for the base hunger ofunqualified knaves: how they prayed for mercy, and how the abbot sworeby Saint Charity that he would show them none: how one of them thereupondrew a bugle horn from under his smock-frock and blew three blasts, onwhich the abbot and his train were instantly surrounded by sixty bowmenin green: how they tied him to a tree, and made him say mass for theirsins: how they unbound him, and sate him down with them to dinner, andgave him venison and wild-fowl and wine, and made him pay for his fareall the money in his high selerer's portmanteau, and enforced him tosleep all night under a tree in his cloak, and to leave the cloak behindhim in the morning: how the abbot, light in pocket and heavy in heart, raised the country upon Robin Hood, for so he had heard the chiefforester called by his men, and hunted him into an old woman's cottage:how Robin changed dresses with the old woman, and how the abbot rode ingreat triumph to Nottingham, having in custody an old woman in a greendoublet and breeches: how the old woman discovered herself: how themerrymen of Nottingham laughed at the abbot: how the abbot railed at theold woman, and how the old woman out-railed the abbot, telling him thatRobin had given her food and fire through the winter, which no abbotwould ever do, but would rather take it from her for what he called thegood of the church, by which he meant his own laziness and gluttony; andthat she knew a true man from a false thief, and a free forester from agreedy abbot. 

"Thus you see, " added the sheriff, "how this villain perverts thedeluded people by making them believe that those who tithe and toll uponthem for their spiritual and temporal benefit are not their best friendsand fatherly guardians; for he holds that in giving to boors and oldwomen what he takes from priests and peers, he does but restore to theformer what the latter had taken from them; and this the impudent varletcalls distributive justice. Judge now if any loyal subject can be safein such neighbourhood. "

While the sheriff was thus enlightening his companion concerning theoffenders, and whetting his own indignation against them, the sun wasfast sinking to the west. They rode on till they came in view of abridge, which they saw a party approaching from the opposite side, andthe knight presently discovered that the party consisted of the ladyMatilda and friar Michael, young Gamwell, cousin Robin, and abouthalf-a-dozen foresters. The knight pointed out the earl to the sheriff, who exclaimed, "Here, then, we have him an easy prey;" and they rode onmanfully towards the bridge, on which the other party made halt. 

"Who be these, " said the friar, "that come riding so fast this way? Now, as God shall judge me, it is that false knight Sir Ralph Montfaucon, andthe sheriff of Nottingham, with a posse of men. We must make good ourpost, and let them dislodge us if they may. "

The two parties were now near enough to parley; and the sheriff and theknight, advancing in the front of the cavalcade, called on the lady, the friar, young Gamwell, and the foresters, to deliver up thatfalse-traitor, Robert, formerly Earl of Huntingdon. Robert himself madeanswer by letting fly an arrow that struck the ground between the forefeet of the sheriff's horse. The horse reared up from the whizzing, andlodged the sheriff in the dust; and, at the same time, the fair Matildafavoured the knight with an arrow in his right arm, that compelled himto withdraw from the affray. His men lifted the sheriff carefully up, and replaced him on his horse, whom he immediately with great rage andzeal urged on to the assault with his fifty men at his heels, some ofwhom were intercepted in their advance by the arrows of the forestersand Matilda; while the friar, with an eight-foot staff, dislodged thesheriff a second time, and laid on him with all the vigour of the churchmilitant on earth, in spite of his ejaculations of "Hey, friarMichael! What means this, honest friar? Hold, ghostly friar! Hold, holyfriar!"--till Matilda interposed, and delivered the battered sheriffto the care of the foresters. The friar continued flourishing hisstaff among the sheriff's men, knocking down one, breaking the ribs ofanother, dislocating the shoulder of a third, flattening the nose ofa fourth, cracking the skull of a fifth, and pitching a sixth into theriver, till the few, who were lucky enough to escape with whole bones, clapped spurs to their horses and fled for their lives, under a farewellvolley of arrows. 

Sir Ralph's squire, meanwhile, was glad of the excuse of attendinghis master's wound to absent himself from the battle; and put the poorknight to a great deal of unnecessary pain by making as long a businessas possible of extracting the arrow, which he had not accomplished whenMatilda, approaching, extracted it with great facility, and bound upthe wound with her scarf, saying, "I reclaim my arrow, sir knight, whichstruck where I aimed it, to admonish you to desist from your enterprise. I could as easily have lodged it in your heart. "

"It did not need, " said the knight, with rueful gallantry; "you havelodged one there already. "

"If you mean to say that you love me, " said Matilda, "it is more than Iever shall you: but if you will show your love by no further interferingwith mine, you will at least merit my gratitude. "

The knight made a wry face under the double pain of heart andbody caused at the same moment by the material or martial, and themetaphorical or erotic arrow, of which the latter was thus barbed by adeclaration more candid than flattering; but he did not choose to putin any such claim to the lady's gratitude as would bar all hopes of herlove: he therefore remained silent; and the lady and her escort, leavinghim and the sheriff to the care of the squire, rode on till they came insight of Arlingford Castle, when they parted in several directions. Thefriar rode off alone; and after the foresters had lost sight of him theyheard his voice through the twilight, singing, --

 A staff, a staff, of a young oak graff, That is both stoure and stiff, Is all a good friar can needs desire To shrive a proud sheriffe. And thou, fine fellowe, who hast tasted so Of the forester's greenwood game, Wilt be in no haste thy time to waste In seeking more taste of the same: Or this can I read thee, and riddle thee well, Thou hadst better by far be the devil in hell, Than the sheriff of Nottinghame. 

CHAPTER VII

 Now, master sheriff, what's your will with me? --Henry IV. 

Matilda had carried her point with the baron of ranging at libertywhithersoever she would, under her positive promise to return home; shewas a sort of prisoner on parole: she had obtained this indulgence bymeans of an obsolete habit of always telling the truth and keeping herword, which our enlightened age has discarded with other barbarisms, but which had the effect of giving her father so much confidence in her, that he could not help considering her word a better security than locksand bars. 

The baron had been one of the last to hear of the rumours of the newoutlaws of Sherwood, as Matilda had taken all possible precautions tokeep those rumours from his knowledge, fearing that they might causethe interruption of her greenwood liberty; and it was only during herabsence at Gamwell feast, that the butler, being thrown off his guard byliquor, forgot her injunctions, and regaled the baron with a long storyof the right merry adventure of Robin Hood and the abbot of Doubleflask. 

The baron was one morning, as usual, cutting his way valorously througha rampart of cold provision, when his ears were suddenly assailed by atremendous alarum, and sallying forth, and looking from his castle wall, he perceived a large party of armed men on the other side of themoat, who were calling on the warder in the king's name to lower thedrawbridge and raise the portcullis, which had both been secured byMatilda's order. The baron walked along the battlement till he cameopposite to these unexpected visitors, who, as soon as they saw him, called out, "Lower the drawbridge, in the king's name. "

"For what, in the devil's name?" said the baron. 

"The sheriff of Nottingham, " said one, "lies in bed grievously bruised, and many of his men are wounded, and several of them slain; and SirRalph Montfaucon, knight, is sore wounded in the arm; and we are chargedto apprehend William Gamwell the younger, of Gamwell Hall, and fatherMichael of Rubygill Abbey, and Matilda Fitzwater of Arlingford Castle, as agents and accomplices in the said breach of the king's peace. "

"Breach of the king's fiddlestick!" answered the baron. "What do youmean by coming here with your cock and bull, stories of my daughtergrievously bruising the sheriff of Nottingham? You are a set of vagabondrascals in disguise; and I hear, by the bye, there is a gang of thievesthat has just set up business in Sherwood Forest: a pretty presence, indeed, to get into my castle with force and arms, and make a famine inmy buttery, and a drought in my cellar, and a void in my strong box, anda vacuum in my silver scullery. "

"Lord Fitzwater, " cried one, "take heed how you resist lawful authority:we will prove ourselves----"

"You will prove yourselves arrant knaves, I doubt not, " answered thebaron; "but, villains, you shall be more grievously bruised by me thanever was the sheriff by my daughter (a pretty tale truly!), if you donot forthwith avoid my territory. "

By this time the baron's men had flocked to the battlements, withlong-bows and cross-bows, slings and stones, and Matilda with her bowand quiver at their head. The assailants, finding the castle so welldefended, deemed it expedient to withdraw till they could return ingreater force, and rode off to Rubygill Abbey, where they made knowntheir errand to the father abbot, who, having satisfied himself of theirlegitimacy, and conned over the allegations, said that doubtless brotherMichael had heinously offended; but it was not for the civil law totake cognizance of the misdoings of a holy friar; that he would summona chapter of monks, and pass on the offender a sentence proportionate tohis offence. The ministers of civil justice said that would not do. The abbot said it would do and should; and bade them not provoke themeekness of his catholic charity to lay them under the curse of Rome. This threat had its effect, and the party rode off to Gamwell-Hall, where they found the Gamwells and their men just sitting down to dinner, which they saved them the trouble of eating by consuming it in theking's name themselves, having first seized and bound young Gamwell;all which they accomplished by dint of superior numbers, in despite ofa most vigorous stand made by the Gamwellites in defence of their youngmaster and their provisions. 

The baron, meanwhile, after the ministers of justice had departed, interrogated Matilda concerning the alleged fact of the grievousbruising of the sheriff of Nottingham. Matilda told him the wholehistory of Gamwell feast, and of their battle on the bridge, which hadits origin in a design of the sheriff of Nottingham to take one of theforesters into custody. 

"Ay! ay!" said the baron, "and I guess who that forester was; but trulythis friar is a desperate fellow. I did not think there could have beenso much valour under a grey frock. And so you wounded the knight in thearm. You are a wild girl, Mawd, --a chip of the old block, Mawd. A wildgirl, and a wild friar, and three or four foresters, wild lads all, tokeep a bridge against a tame knight, and a tame sheriff, and fifty tamevarlets; by this light, the like was never heard! But do you know, Mawd, you must not go about so any more, sweet Mawd: you must stay at home, you must ensconce; for there is your tame sheriff on the one hand, thatwill take you perforce; and there is your wild forester on the otherhand, that will take you without any force at all, Mawd: your wildforester, Robin, cousin Robin, Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest, that beatsand binds bishops, spreads nets for archbishops, and hunts a fat abbotas if he were a buck: excellent game, no doubt, but you must hunt nomore in such company. I see it now: truly I might have guessed beforethat the bold outlaw Robin, the most courteous Robin, the new thief ofSherwood Forest, was your lover, the earl that has been: I might haveguessed it before, and what led you so much to the woods; but you huntno more in such company. No more May games and Gamwell feasts. My landsand castle would be the forfeit of a few more such pranks; and I thinkthey are as well in my hands as the king's, quite as well. "

"You know, father, " said Matilda, "the condition of keeping me at home:I get out if I can, and not on parole. "

"Ay! ay!" said the baron, "if you can; very true: watch and ward, Mawd, watch and ward is my word: if you can, is yours. The mark is set, and sostart fair. "

The baron would have gone on in this way for an hour; but the friar madehis appearance with a long oak staff in his hand, singing, --

 Drink and sing, and eat and laugh, And so go forth to battle: For the top of a skull and the end of a staff Do make a ghostly rattle. 

"Ho! ho! friar!" said the baron--"singing friar, laughing friar, roaring friar, fighting friar, hacking friar, thwacking friar; cracking, cracking, cracking friar; joke-cracking, bottle-cracking, skull-crackingfriar!"

"And ho! ho!" said the friar, --"bold baron, old baron, sturdy baron, wordy baron, long baron, strong baron, mighty baron, flighty baron, mazed baron, crazed baron, hacked baron, thwacked baron; cracked, cracked, cracked baron; bone-cracked, sconce-cracked, brain-crackedbaron!"

"What do you mean, " said the baron, "bully friar, by calling me hackedand thwacked?"

"Were you not in the wars?" said the friar, "where he who escapesuntracked does more credit to his heels than his arms. I pay tribute toyour valour in calling you hacked and thwacked. "

"I never was thwacked in my life, " said the baron; "I stood my groundmanfully, and covered my body with my sword. If I had had the luckto meet with a fighting friar indeed, I might have been thwacked, andsoundly too; but I hold myself a match for any two laymen; it takes ninefighting laymen to make a fighting friar. "

"Whence come you now, holy father?" asked Matilda. 

"From Rubygill Abbey, " said the friar, "whither I never return:

 For I must seek some hermit cell, Where I alone my beads may tell, And on the wight who that way fares Levy a toll for my ghostly pray'rs, Levy a toll, levy a toll, Levy a toll for my ghostly pray'rs. "

"What is the matter then, father?" said Matilda. 

"This is the matter, " said the friar: "my holy brethren have held achapter on me, and sentenced me to seven years' privation of wine. Itherefore deemed it fitting to take my departure, which they would fainhave prohibited. I was enforced to clear the way with my staff. I havegrievously beaten my dearly beloved brethren: I grieve thereat; but theyenforced me thereto. I have beaten them much; I mowed them down to theright and to the left, and left them like an ill-reaped field of wheat, ear and straw pointing all ways, scattered in singleness and jumbled inmasses; and so bade them farewell, saying, Peace be with you. But Imust not tarry, lest danger be in my rear: therefore, farewell, sweetMatilda; and farewell, noble baron; and farewell, sweet Matilda again, the alpha and omega of father Michael, the first and the last. "

"Farewell, father, " said the baron, a little softened; "and God send yoube never assailed by more than fifty men at a time. "

"Amen, " said the friar, "to that good wish. "

"And we shall meet again, father, I trust, " said Matilda. 

"When the storm is blown over, " said the baron. 

"Doubt it not, " said the friar, "though flooded Trent were between us, and fifty devils guarded the bridge. "

He kissed Matilda's forehead, and walked away without a song. 

CHAPTER VIII

 Let gallows gape for dog: let man go free. --Henry V. 

A page had been brought up in Gamwell-Hall, who, while he was little, had been called Little John, and continued to be so called after he hadgrown to be a foot taller than any other man in the house. He was fullseven feet high. His latitude was worthy of his longitude, and hisstrength was worthy of both; and though an honest man by profession, hehad practiced archery on the king's deer for the benefit of his master'shousehold, and for the improvement of his own eye and hand, till hisaim had become infallible within the range of two miles. He had foughtmanfully in defence of his young master, took his captivity exceedinglyto heart, and fell into bitter grief and boundless rage when he heardthat he had been tried in Nottingham and sentenced to die. AliceGamwell, at Little John's request, wrote three letters of one tenour;and Little John, having attached them to three blunt arrows, saddled thefleetest steed in old Sir Guy of Gamwell's stables, mounted, and rodefirst to Arlingford Castle, where he shot one of the three arrows overthe battlements; then to Rubygill Abbey, where he shot the second intothe abbey-garden; then back past Gamwell-Hall to the borders of SherwoodForest, where he shot the third into the wood. Now the first of thesearrows lighted in the nape of the neck of Lord Fitzwater, and lodgeditself firmly between his skin and his collar; the second rebounded withthe hollow vibration of a drumstick from the shaven sconce of the abbotof Rubygill; and the third pitched perpendicularly into the centre of avenison pasty in which Robin Hood was making incision. 

Matilda ran up to her father in the court of Arlingford Castle, seizedthe arrow, drew off the letter, and concealed it in her bosom before thebaron had time to look round, which he did with many expressions of rageagainst the impudent villain who had shot a blunt arrow into the nape ofhis neck. 

"But you know, father, " said Matilda, "a sharp arrow in the same placewould have killed you; therefore the sending a blunt one was veryconsiderate. "

"Considerate, with a vengeance!" said the baron. "Where was theconsideration of sending it at all? This is some of your forester'spranks. He has missed you in the forest, since I have kept watch andward over you, and by way of a love-token and a remembrance to you takesa random shot at me. "

The abbot of Rubygill picked up the missile-missive or messengerarrow, which had rebounded from his shaven crown, with a very unghostlymalediction on the sender, which he suddenly checked with a pious andconsolatory reflection on the goodness of Providence in having blessedhim with such a thickness of skull, to which he was now indebted fortemporal preservation, as he had before been for spiritual promotion. Heopened the letter, which was addressed to father Michael; and found itto contain an intimation that William Gamwell was to be hanged on Mondayat Nottingham. 

"And I wish, " said the abbot, "father Michael were to be hanged withhim: an ungrateful monster, after I had rescued him from the fangs ofcivil justice, to reward my lenity by not leaving a bone unbruised amongthe holy brotherhood of Rubygill. "

Robin Hood extracted from his venison pasty a similar intimation of theevil destiny of his cousin, whom he determined, if possible, to rescuefrom the jaws of Cerberus. 

The sheriff of Nottingham, though still sore with his bruises, was sointent on revenge, that he raised himself from his bed to attendthe execution of William Gamwell. He rode to the august structure ofretributive Themis, as the French call a gallows, in all the pride andpomp of shrievalty, and with a splendid retinue of well-equipped knavesand varlets, as our ancestors called honest serving-men. 

Young Gamwell was brought forth with his arms pinioned behind him; hissister Alice and his father, Sir Guy, attending him in disconsolatemood. He had rejected the confessor provided by the sheriff, and hadinsisted on the privilege of choosing his own, whom Little John hadpromised to bring. Little John, however, had not made his appearancewhen the fatal procession began its march; but when they reached theplace of execution, Little John appeared, accompanied by a ghostlyfriar. 

"Sheriff, " said young Gamwell, "let me not die with my hands pinioned:give me a sword, and set any odds of your men against me, and let medie the death of a man, like the descendant of a noble house, which hasnever yet been stained with ignominy. "

"No, no, " said the sheriff; "I have had enough of setting odds againstyou. I have sworn you shall be hanged, and hanged you shall be. "

"Then God have mercy on me, " said young Gamwell; "and now, holy friar, shrive my sinful soul. "

The friar approached. 

"Let me see this friar, " said the sheriff: "if he be the friar of thebridge, I had as lief have the devil in Nottingham; but he shall find metoo much for him here. "

"The friar of the bridge, " said Little John, "as you very well know, sheriff, was father Michael of Rubygill Abbey, and you may easily seethat this is not the man. "

"I see it, " said the sheriff; "and God be thanked for his absence. "

Young Gamwell stood at the foot of the ladder. The friar approached him, opened his book, groaned, turned up the whites of his eyes, tossed uphis arms in the air, and said "Dominus vobiscum. " He then crossed bothhis hands on his breast under the folds of his holy robes, and stood afew moments as if in inward prayer. A deep silence among the attendantcrowd accompanied this action of the friar; interrupted only by thehollow tone of the death-bell, at long and dreary intervals. Suddenlythe friar threw off his holy robes, and appeared a forester clothed ingreen, with a sword in his right hand and a horn in his left. With thesword he cut the bonds of William Gamwell, who instantly snatched asword from one of the sheriff's men; and with the horn he blew a loudblast, which was answered at once by four bugles from the quartersof the four winds, and from each quarter came five-and-twenty bowmenrunning all on a row. 

"Treason! treason!" cried the sheriff. Old Sir Guy sprang to his son'sside, and so did Little John; and the four setting back to back, keptthe sheriff and his men at bay till the bowmen came within shot and letfly their arrows among the sheriff's men, who, after a brief resistance, fled in all directions. The forester, who had personated the friar, sentan arrow after the flying sheriff, calling with a strong voice, "To thesheriff's left arm, as a keepsake from Robin Hood. " The arrow reachedits destiny; the sheriff redoubled his speed, and, with the one arrow inhis arm, did not stop to breathe till he was out of reach of another. 

The foresters did not waste time in Nottingham, but were soon at adistance from its walls. Sir Guy returned with Alice to Gamwell-Hall;but thinking he should not be safe there, from the share he had had inhis son's rescue, they only remained long enough to supply themselveswith clothes and money, and departed, under the escort of Little John, to another seat of the Gamwells in Yorkshire. Young Gamwell, taking itfor granted that his offence was past remission, determined on joiningRobin Hood, and accompanied him to the forest, where it was deemedexpedient that he should change his name; and he was rechristenedwithout a priest, and with wine instead of water, by the immortal nameof Scarlet. 

CHAPTER IX

 Who set my man i' the stocks?---- I set him there, Sir but his own disorders Deserved much less advancement. --Lear. 

The baron was inflexible in his resolution not to let Matilda leave thecastle. The letter, which announced to her the approaching fate ofyoung Gamwell, filled her with grief, and increased the irksomeness of aprivation which already preyed sufficiently on her spirits, and began toundermine her health. She had no longer the consolation of the societyof her old friend father Michael: the little fat friar of Rubygill wassubstituted as the castle confessor, not without some misgivings in hisghostly bosom; but he was more allured by the sweet savour of the goodthings of this world at Arlingford Castle, than deterred by his aweof the lady Matilda, which nevertheless was so excessive, from hisrecollection of the twang of the bow-string, that he never ventured tofind her in the wrong, much less to enjoin any thing in the shape ofpenance, as was the occasional practice of holy confessors, with orwithout cause, for the sake of pious discipline, and what was in thosedays called social order, namely, the preservation of the privilegesof the few who happened to have any, at the expense of the swinishmultitude who happened to have none, except that of working and beingshot at for the benefit of their betters, which is obviously not themeaning of social order in our more enlightened times: let us thereforebe grateful to Providence, and sing Te Deum laudamus in chorus with theHoly Alliance. 

The little friar, however, though he found the lady spotless, found thebutler a great sinner: at least so it was conjectured, from the lengthof time he always took to confess him in the buttery. 

Matilda became every day more pale and dejected: her spirit, which couldhave contended against any strenuous affliction, pined in the monotonousinaction to which she was condemned. While she could freely range theforest with her lover in the morning, she had been content to returnto her father's castle in the evening, thus preserving underanged thebalance of her duties, habits, and affections; not without a hope thatthe repeal of her lover's outlawry might be eventually obtained, bya judicious distribution of some of his forest spoils among theholy fathers and saints that-were-to-be, --pious proficients in theecclesiastic art equestrian, who rode the conscience of King Henry withdouble-curb bridles, and kept it well in hand when it showed mettleand seemed inclined to rear and plunge. But the affair at Gamwell feastthrew many additional difficulties in the way of the accomplishment ofthis hope; and very shortly afterwards King Henry the Second went tomake up in the next world his quarrel with Thomas-a-Becket; and RichardCoeur de Lion made all England resound with preparations for thecrusade, to the great delight of many zealous adventurers, who eagerlyflocked under his banner in the hope of enriching themselves withSaracen spoil, which they called fighting the battles of God. Richard, who was not remarkably scrupulous in his financial operations, wasnot likely to overlook the lands and castle of Locksley, which heappropriated immediately to his own purposes, and sold to the highestbidder. Now, as the repeal of the outlawry would involve the restitutionof the estates to the rightful owner, it was obvious that it could neverbe expected from that most legitimate and most Christian king, Richard the First of England, the arch-crusader and anti-jacobin byexcellence, --the very type, flower, cream, pink, symbol, and mirror ofall the Holy Alliances that have ever existed on earth, exceptingthat he seasoned his superstition and love of conquest with a certaincondiment of romantic generosity and chivalrous self-devotion, withwhich his imitators in all other points have found it convenient todispense. To give freely to one man what he had taken forcibly fromanother, was generosity of which he was very capable; but to restorewhat he had taken to the man from whom he had taken it, was somethingthat wore too much of the cool physiognomy of justice to be easilyreconcileable to his kingly feelings. He had, besides, not only sentall King Henry's saints about their business, or rather about theirno-business--their faineantise--but he had laid them under rigorouscontribution for the purposes of his holy war; and having made themrefund to the piety of the successor what they had extracted from thepiety of the precursor, he compelled them, in addition, to givehim their blessing for nothing. Matilda, therefore, from all thesecircumstances, felt little hope that her lover would be any thing but anoutlaw for life. 

The departure of King Richard from England was succeeded by theepiscopal regency of the bishops of Ely and Durham. Longchamp, bishopof Ely, proceeded to show his sense of Christian fellowship by arrestinghis brother bishop, and despoiling him of his share in the government;and to set forth his humility and loving-kindness in a retinue of noblesand knights who consumed in one night's entertainment some five years'revenue of their entertainer, and in a guard of fifteen hundred foreignsoldiers, whom he considered indispensable to the exercise of a vigourbeyond the law in maintaining wholesome discipline over the refractoryEnglish. The ignorant impatience of the swinish multitude with thesefruits of good living, brought forth by one of the meek who hadinherited the earth, displayed itself in a general ferment, of whichPrince John took advantage to make the experiment of getting possessionof his brother's crown in his absence. He began by calling at Readinga council of barons, whose aspect induced the holy bishop to disguisehimself (some say as an old woman, which, in the twelfth century, perhaps might have been a disguise for a bishop), and make hisescape beyond sea. Prince John followed up his advantage by obtainingpossession of several strong posts, and among others of the castle ofNottingham. 

While John was conducting his operations at Nottingham, he rode at timespast the castle of Arlingford. He stopped on one occasion to claim LordFitzwater's hospitality, and made most princely havoc among his venisonand brawn. Now it is a matter of record among divers great historiansand learned clerks, that he was then and there grievously smitten by thecharms of the lovely Matilda, and that a few days after he despatchedhis travelling minstrel, or laureate, Harpiton, [3] (whom he retained atmoderate wages, to keep a journal of his proceedings, and prove them alljust and legitimate), to the castle of Arlingford, to make proposals tothe lady. This Harpiton was a very useful person. He was always ready, not only to maintain the cause of his master with his pen, and to singhis eulogies to his harp, but to undertake at a moment's notice anykind of courtly employment, called dirty work by the profane, which theblessings of civil government, namely, his master's pleasure, and theinterests of social order, namely, his own emolument, might require. Inshort, Il eut l'emploi qui certes n'est pas mince, Et qu'a la cour, ou tout se peint en beau, On appelloit etre l'ami du prince; Mais qu'a la ville, et surtout en province, Les gens grossiers ont nomme maquereau. 

Prince John was of opinion that the love of a prince actual and kingexpectant, was in itself a sufficient honour to the daughter of a simplebaron, and that the right divine or royalty would make it sufficientlyholy without the rite divine of the church. He was, therefore, graciously pleased to fall into an exceeding passion, when hisconfidential messenger returned from his embassy in piteous plight, having been, by the baron's order, first tossed in a blanket and set inthe stocks to cool, and afterwards ducked in the moat and set again inthe stocks to dry. John swore to revenge horribly this flagrant outrageon royal prerogative, and to obtain possession of the lady by forceof arms; and accordingly collected a body of troops, and marched uponArlingford castle. A letter, conveyed as before on the point of a bluntarrow, announced his approach to Matilda: and lord Fitzwater had justtime to assemble his retainers, collect a hasty supply of provision, raise the draw-bridge, and drop the portcullis, when the castle wassurrounded by the enemy. The little fat friar, who during the confusionwas asleep in the buttery, found himself, on awaking, inclosed in thebesieged castle, and dolefully bewailed his evil chance. 

CHAPTER X

 A noble girl, i' faith. Heart! I think I fight with a familiar, or the ghost of a fencer. Call you this an amorous visage? Here's blood that would have served me these seven years, in broken heads and cut fingers, and now it runs out all together. --MIDDLETON. Roaring Girl. 

Prince John sat down impatiently before Arlingford castle in the hopeof starving out the besieged; but finding the duration of their suppliesextend itself in an equal ratio with the prolongation of his hope, he made vigorous preparations for carrying the place by storm. Heconstructed an immense machine on wheels, which, being advanced to theedge of the moat, would lower a temporary bridge, of which one end wouldrest on the bank, and the other on the battlements, and which, beingwell furnished with stepping boards, would enable his men to ascend theinclined plane with speed and facility. Matilda received intimation ofthis design by the usual friendly channel of a blunt arrow, which musteither have been sent from some secret friend in the prince's camp, or from some vigorous archer beyond it: the latter will not appearimprobable, when we consider that Robin Hood and Little John could shoottwo English miles and an inch point-blank, Come scrive Turpino, che non erra. 

The machine was completed, and the ensuing morning fixed for theassault. Six men, relieved at intervals, kept watch over it duringthe night. Prince John retired to sleep, congratulating himself inthe expectation that another day would place the fair culprit at hisprincely mercy. His anticipations mingled with the visions of hisslumber, and he dreamed of wounds and drums, and sacking and firingthe castle, and bearing off in his arms the beautiful prize through themidst of fire and smoke. In the height of this imaginary turmoil, heawoke, and conceived for a few moments that certain sounds which rang inhis ears, were the continuation of those of his dream, in that sortof half-consciousness between sleeping and waking, when reality andphantasy meet and mingle in dim and confused resemblance. He was, however, very soon fully awake to the fact of his guards calling on himto arm, which he did in haste, and beheld the machine in flames, anda furious conflict raging around it. He hurried to the spot, and foundthat his camp had been suddenly assailed from one side by a party offoresters, and that the baron's people had made a sortie on the other, and that they had killed the guards, and set fire to the machine, beforethe rest of the camp could come to the assistance of their fellows. 

The night was in itself intensely dark, and the fire-light shed aroundit a vivid and unnatural radiance. On one side, the crimson lightquivered by its own agitation on the waveless moat, and on the bastionsand buttresses of the castle, and their shadows lay in massy blacknesson the illuminated walls: on the other, it shone upon the woods, streaming far within among the open trunks, or resting on the closerfoliage. The circumference of darkness bounded the scene on all sides:and in the centre raged the war; shields, helmets, and bucklers gleamingand glittering as they rang and clashed against each other; plumesconfusedly tossing in the crimson light, and the messy light and shadethat fell on the faces of the combatants, giving additional energy totheir ferocious expression. 

John, drawing nearer to the scene of action, observed two young warriorsfighting side by side, one of whom wore the habit of a forester, theother that of a retainer of Arlingford. He looked intently on them both:their position towards the fire favoured the scrutiny; and the hawk'seye of love very speedily discovered that the latter was the fairMatilda. The forester he did not know: but he had sufficient tact todiscern that his success would be very much facilitated by separatingher from this companion, above all others. He therefore formed a partyof men into a wedge, only taking especial care not to be the point ofit himself, and drove it between them with so much precision, that theywere in a moment far asunder. 

"Lady Matilda, " said John, "yield yourself my prisoner. "

"If you would wear me, prince, " said Matilda, "you must win me:" andwithout giving him time to deliberate on the courtesy of fighting withthe lady of his love, she raised her sword in the air, and lowered it onhis head with an impetus that would have gone nigh to fathom even thatextraordinary depth of brain which always by divine grace furnishes theinterior of a head-royal, if he had not very dexterously parried theblow. Prince John wished to disarm and take captive, not in any way towound or injure, least of all to kill, his fair opponent. Matilda wasonly intent to get rid of her antagonist at any rate: the edge of herweapon painted his complexion with streaks of very unloverlike crimson, and she would probably have marred John's hand for ever signing MagnaCharta, but that he was backed by the advantage of numbers, and that hersword broke short on the boss of his buckler. John was following up hisadvantage to make a captive of the lady, when he was suddenly felled tothe earth by an unseen antagonist. Some of his men picked him carefullyup, and conveyed him to his tent, stunned and stupified. 

When he recovered, he found Harpiton diligently assisting in hisrecovery, more in the fear of losing his place than in that of losinghis master: the prince's first inquiry was for the prisoner he hadbeen on the point of taking at the moment when his habeas corpus wasso unseasonably suspended. He was told that his people had been on thepoint of securing the said prisoner, when the devil suddenly appearedamong them in the likeness of a tall friar, having his grey frockcinctured with a sword-belt, and his crown, which whether it were shavenor no they could not see, surmounted with a helmet, and flourishing aneight-foot staff, with which he laid about him to the right and to theleft, knocking down the prince and his men as if they had been somany nine-pins: in fine, he had rescued the prisoner, and made a clearpassage through friend and foe, and in conjunction with a chosenparty of archers, had covered the retreat of the baron's men and theforesters, who had all gone off in a body towards Sherwood forest. 

Harpiton suggested that it would be desirable to sack the castle, andvolunteered to lead the van on the occasion, as the defenders werewithdrawn, and the exploit seemed to promise much profit and littledanger: John considered that the castle would in itself be a greatacquisition to him, as a stronghold in furtherance of his design on hisbrother's throne; and was determining to take possession with the firstlight of morning, when he had the mortification to see the castle burstinto flames in several places at once. A piteous cry was heard fromwithin, and while the prince was proclaiming a reward to any one whowould enter into the burning pile, and elucidate the mystery of thedoleful voice, forth waddled the little fat friar in an agony of fear, out of the fire into the frying-pan; for he was instantly taken intocustody and carried before Prince John, wringing his hands and tearinghis hair. 

"Are you the friar, " said Prince John, in a terrible voice, "thatlaid me prostrate in battle, mowed down my men like grass, rescued mycaptive, and covered the retreat of my enemies? And, not content withthis, have you now set fire to the castle in which I intended to take upmy royal quarters?"

The little friar quaked like a jelly: he fell on his knees, andattempted to speak; but in his eagerness to vindicate himself from thisaccumulation of alarming charges, he knew not where to begin; his ideasrolled round upon each other like the radii of a wheel; the words hedesired to utter, instead of issuing, as it were, in a right line fromhis lips, seemed to conglobate themselves into a sphere turning on itsown axis in his throat: after several ineffectual efforts, his utterancetotally failed him, and he remained gasping, with his mouth open, hislips quivering, his hands clasped together, and the whites of his eyesturned up towards the prince with an expression most ruefully imploring. 

"Are you that friar?" repeated the prince. 

Several of the by-standers declared that he was not that friar. Thelittle friar, encouraged by this patronage, found his voice, and pleadedfor mercy. The prince questioned him closely concerning the burning ofthe castle. The little friar declared, that he had been in too greatfear during the siege to know much of what was going forward, exceptthat he had been conscious during the last few days of a lamentabledeficiency of provisions, and had been present that very morning at thebroaching of the last butt of sack. Harpiton groaned in sympathy. Thelittle friar added, that he knew nothing of what had passed since tillhe heard the flames roaring at his elbow. 

"Take him away, Harpiton, " said the prince, "fill him with sack, andturn him out. "

"Never mind the sack, " said the little friar, "turn me out at once. "

"A sad chance, " said Harpiton, "to be turned out without sack. "

But what Harpiton thought a sad chance the little friar thought a merryone, and went bounding like a fat buck towards the abbey of Rubygill. 

An arrow, with a letter attached to it, was shot into the camp, andcarried to the prince. The contents were these:--

"Prince John, --I do not consider myself to have resisted lawfulauthority in defending my castle against you, seeing that you are atpresent in a state of active rebellion against your liege sovereignRichard: and if my provisions had not failed me, I would have maintainedit till doomsday. As it is, I have so well disposed my combustibles thatit shall not serve you as a strong hold in your rebellion. If you huntin the chases of Nottinghamshire, you may catch other game than mydaughter. Both she and I are content to be houseless for a time, inthe reflection that we have deserved your enmity, and the friendship ofCoeur-de-Lion. 

"FITZWATER. "

CHAPTER XI

 --Tuck, the merry friar, who many a sermon made In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws, and their trade. --DRAYTON. 

The baron, with some of his retainers and all the foresters, halted atdaybreak in Sherwood forest. The foresters quickly erected tents, andprepared an abundant breakfast of venison and ale. 

"Now, Lord Fitzwater, " said the chief forester, "recognise yourson-in-law that was to have been, in the outlaw Robin Hood. "

"Ay, ay, " said the baron, "I have recognised you long ago. "

"And recognise your young friend Gamwell, " said the second, "in theoutlaw Scarlet. "

"And Little John, the page, " said the third, "in Little John theoutlaw. "

"And Father Michael, of Rubygill Abbey, " said the friar, "in Friar Tuck, of Sherwood forest. Truly, I have a chapel here hard by, in the shape ofa hollow tree, where I put up my prayers for travellers, and Little Johnholds the plate at the door, for good praying deserves good paying. "

"I am in fine company, " said the baron. 

"In the very best of company, " said the friar, "in the high court ofNature, and in the midst of her own nobility. Is it not so? This goodlygrove is our palace: the oak and the beech are its colonnade and itscanopy: the sun and the moon and the stars are its everlasting lamps:the grass, and the daisy, and the primrose, and the violet, are itsmany-coloured floor of green, white, yellow, and blue; the may-flower, and the woodbine, and the eglantine, and the ivy, are its decorations, its curtains, and its tapestry: the lark, and the thrush, and thelinnet, and the nightingale, are its unhired minstrels and musicians. Robin Hood is king of the forest both by dignity of birth and by virtueof his standing army: to say nothing of the free choice of his people, which he has indeed, but I pass it by as an illegitimate basis of power. He holds his dominion over the forest, and its horned multitude ofcitizen-deer, and its swinish multitude or peasantry of wild boars, byright of conquest and force of arms. He levies contributions among themby the free consent of his archers, their virtual representatives. Ifthey should find a voice to complain that we are 'tyrants and usurpersto kill and cook them up in their assigned and native dwelling-place, 'we should most convincingly admonish them, with point of arrow, thatthey have nothing to do with our laws but to obey them. Is it notwritten that the fat ribs of the herd shall be fed upon by the mighty inthe land? And have not they withal my blessing? my orthodox, canonical, and archiepiscopal blessing? Do I not give thanks for them when theyare well roasted and smoking under my nose? What title had William ofNormandy to England, that Robin of Locksley has not to merry Sherwood?William fought for his claim. So does Robin. With whom, both? With anythat would or will dispute it. William raised contributions. So doesRobin. From whom, both? From all that they could or can make pay them. Why did any pay them to William? Why do any pay them to Robin? For thesame reason to both: because they could not or cannot help it. Theydiffer indeed, in this, that William took from the poor and gave to therich, and Robin takes from the rich and gives to the poor: and thereinis Robin illegitimate; though in all else he is true prince. Scarlet andJohn, are they not peers of the forest? lords temporal of Sherwood? Andam not I lord spiritual? Am I not archbishop? Am I not pope? Do I notconsecrate their banner and absolve their sins? Are not they state, andam not I church? Are not they state monarchical, and am not I churchmilitant? Do I not excommunicate our enemies from venison and brawn, and by 'r Lady, when need calls, beat them down under my feet? The statelevies tax, and the church levies tithe. Even so do we. Mass, wetake all at once. What then? It is tax by redemption and tithe bycommutation. Your William and Richard can cut and come again, but ourRobin deals with slippery subjects that come not twice to his exchequer. What need we then to constitute a court, except a fool and a laureate?For the fool, his only use is to make false knaves merry by art, and weare true men and are merry by nature. For the laureate, his only officeis to find virtues in those who have none, and to drink sack for hispains. We have quite virtue enough to need him not, and can drink oursack for ourselves. " "Well preached, friar, " said Robin Hood: "yet thereis one thing wanting to constitute a court, and that is a queen. Andnow, lovely Matilda, look round upon these sylvan shades where we haveso often roused the stag from his ferny covert. The rising sun smilesupon us through the stems of that beechen knoll. Shall I take your hand, Matilda, in the presence of this my court? Shall I crown you with ourwild-wood coronal, and hail you queen of the forest? Will you be thequeen Matilda of your own true king Robin?"

Matilda smiled assent. 

"Not Matilda, " said the friar: "the rules of our holy alliance requirenew birth. We have excepted in favour of Little John, because he isgreat John, and his name is a misnomer. I sprinkle, not thy foreheadwith water, but thy lips with wine, and baptize thee MARIAN. "

"Here is a pretty conspiracy, " exclaimed the baron. "Why, you villanousfriar, think you to nickname and marry my daughter before my face withimpunity?"

"Even so, bold baron, " said the friar; "we are strongest here. Say you, might overcomes right? I say no. There is no right but might: and tosay that might overcomes right is to say that right overcomes itself: anabsurdity most palpable. Your right was the stronger in Arlingford, andours is the stronger in Sherwood. Your right was right as long as youcould maintain it; so is ours. So is King Richard's, with all deferencebe it spoken; and so is King Saladin's; and their two mights are nowcommitted in bloody fray, and that which overcomes will be right, justas long as it lasts, and as far as it reaches. And now if any of youknow any just impediment----"

"Fire and fury, " said the baron. 

"Fire and fury, " said the friar, "are modes of that might whichconstitutes right, and are just impediments to any thing against whichthey can be brought to bear. They are our good allies upon occasion, andwould declare for us now if you should put them to the test. "

"Father, " said Matilda, "you know the terms of our compact: from themoment you restrained my liberty, you renounced your claim to all butcompulsory obedience. The friar argues well. Right ends with might. Thick walls, dreary galleries, and tapestried chambers, were indifferentto me while I could leave them at pleasure, but have ever been hatefulto me since they held me by force. May I never again have roof butthe blue sky, nor canopy but the green leaves, nor barrier but theforest-bounds; with the foresters to my train, Little John to my page, Friar Tuck to my ghostly adviser, and Robin Hood to my liege lord. I amno longer lady Matilda Fitzwater, of Arlingford Castle, but plain MaidMarian, of Sherwood Forest. "

"Long live Maid Marian!" re-echoed the foresters. 

"Oh false girl!" said the baron, "do you renounce your name andparentage?"

"Not my parentage, " said Marian, "but my name indeed: do not all maidsrenounce it at the altar?"

"The altar!" said the baron: "grant me patience! what do you mean by thealtar?"

"Pile green turf, " said the friar, "wreathe it with flowers, and crownit with fruit, and we will show the noble baron what we mean by thealtar. "

The foresters did as the friar directed. 

"Now, Little John, " said the friar, "on with the cloak of the abbot ofDoubleflask. I appoint thee my clerk: thou art here duly elected in fullmote. "

"I wish you were all in full moat together, " said the baron, "and smoothwall on both sides. "

"Punnest thou?" said the friar. "A heinous anti-christian offence. Why anti-christian? Because anti-catholic? Why anti-catholic? Becauseanti-roman. Why anti-roman? Because Carthaginian. Is not pun fromPunic? punica fides: the very quint-essential quiddity of bad faith:double-visaged: double-tongued. He that will make a pun will---- I sayno more. Fie on it. Stand forth, clerk. Who is the bride's father?"

"There is no bride's father, " said the baron. "I am the father ofMatilda Fitzwater. "

"There is none such, " said the friar. "This is the fair Maid Marian. Will you make a virtue of necessity, or will you give laws to theflowing tide? Will you give her, or shall Robin take her? Will you beher true natural father, or shall I commute paternity? Stand forth, Scarlet. "

"Stand back, sirrah Scarlet, " said the baron. "My daughter shall have nofather but me. Needs must when the devil drives. "

"No matter who drives, " said the friar, "so that, like a well-disposedsubject, you yield cheerful obedience to those who can enforce it. "

"Mawd, sweet Mawd, " said the baron, "will you then forsake your poorold father in his distress, with his castle in ashes, and his enemy inpower?"

"Not so, father, " said Marian; "I will always be your true daughter: Iwill always love, and serve, and watch, and defend you: but neither willI forsake my plighted love, and my own liege lord, who was your choicebefore he was mine, for you made him my associate in infancy; and thathe continued to be mine when he ceased to be yours, does not in any wayshow remissness in my duties or falling off in my affections. And thoughI here plight my troth at the altar to Robin, in the presence of thisholy priest and pious clerk, yet. .. . Father, when Richard returns fromPalestine, he will restore you to your barony, and perhaps, for yoursake, your daughter's husband to the earldom of Huntingdon: should thatnever be, should it be the will of fate that we must live and die in thegreenwood, I will live and die MAID MARIAN. " [4]

"A pretty resolution, " said the baron, "if Robin will let you keep it. "

"I have sworn it, " said Robin. "Should I expose her tenderness to theperils of maternity, when life and death may hang on shifting at amoment's notice from Sherwood to Barnsdale, and from Barnsdale to thesea-shore? And why should I banquet when my merry men starve? Chastityis our forest law, and even the friar has kept it since he has beenhere. "

"Truly so, " said the friar: "for temptation dwells with ease and luxury:but the hunter is Hippolytus, and the huntress is Dian. And now, dearlybeloved----"

The friar went through the ceremony with great unction, and Little Johnwas most clerical in the intonation of his responses. After which, thefriar sang, and Little John fiddled, and the foresters danced, Robinwith Marian, and Scarlet with the baron; and the venison smoked, andthe ale frothed, and the wine sparkled, and the sun went down on theirunwearied festivity: which they wound up with the following song, thefriar leading and the foresters joining chorus:

 Oh! bold Robin Hood is a forester good, As ever drew bow in the merry greenwood: At his bugle's shrill singing the echoes are ringing, The wild deer are springing for many a rood: Its summons we follow, through brake, over hollow, The thrice-blown shrill summons of bold Robin Hood. 

 And what eye hath e'er seen such a sweet Maiden Queen, As Marian, the pride of the forester's green? A sweet garden-flower, she blooms in the bower, Where alone to this hour the wild rose has been: We hail her in duty the queen of all beauty: We will live, we will die, by our sweet Maiden queen. 

 And here's a grey friar, good as heart can desire, To absolve all our sins as the case may require: Who with courage so stout, lays his oak-plant about, And puts to the rout all the foes of his choir: For we are his choristers, we merry foresters, Chorussing thus with our militant friar

 And Scarlet cloth bring his good yew-bough and string, Prime minister is he of Robin our king: No mark is too narrow for little John's arrow, That hits a cock sparrow a mile on the wing; Robin and Marion, Scarlet, and Little John, Long with their glory old Sherwood shall ring. 

 Each a good liver, for well-feathered quiver Doth furnish brawn, venison, and fowl of the river: But the best game we dish up, it is a fat bishop: When his angels we fish up, he proves a free giver: For a prelate so lowly has angels more holy, And should this world's false angels to sinners deliver. 

 Robin and Marion, Scarlet and Little John, Drink to them one by one, drink as ye sing: Robin and Marion, Scarlet and Little John, Echo to echo through Sherwood shall fling: Robin and Marion, Scarlet and Little John, Long with their glory old Sherwood shall ring. 

CHAPTER XII

 A single volume paramount: a code: A master spirit: a determined road. --WORDSWORTH. 

The next morning Robin Hood convened his foresters, and desired LittleJohn, for the baron's edification, to read over the laws of their forestsociety. Little John read aloud with a stentorophonic voice. 

"At a high court of foresters, held under the greenwood tree, an hourafter sun-rise, Robin Hood President, William Scarlet Vice-President, Little John Secretary: the following articles, moved by Friar Tuck inhis capacity of Peer Spiritual, and seconded by Much the Miller, wereunanimously agreed to. 

"The principles of our society are six: Legitimacy, Equity, Hospitality, Chivalry, Chastity, and Courtesy. 

"The articles of Legitimacy are four:

"I. Our government is legitimate, and our society is founded on the onegolden rule of right, consecrated by the universal consent of mankind, and by the practice of all ages, individuals, and nations: namely, Tokeep what we have, and to catch what we can. 

"II. Our government being legitimate, all our proceedings shall belegitimate: wherefore we declare war against the whole world, and everyforester is by this legitimate declaration legitimately invested with aroving commission, to make lawful prize of every thing that comes in hisway. 

"III. All forest laws but our own we declare to be null and void. 

"IV. All such of the old laws of England as do not in any way interferewith, or militate against, the views of this honourable assembly, wewill loyally adhere to and maintain. The rest we declare null and voidas far as relates to ourselves, in all cases wherein a vigour beyond thelaw may be conducive to our own interest and preservation. "

"The articles of Equity are three:

"I. The balance of power among the people being very much deranged, byone having too much and another nothing, we hereby resolve ourselvesinto a congress or court of equity, to restore as far as in us lies thesaid natural balance of power, by taking from all who have too muchas much of the said too much as we can lay our hands on; and givingto those who have nothing such a portion thereof as it may seem to usexpedient to part with. 

"II. In all cases a quorum of foresters shall constitute a court ofequity, and as many as may be strong enough to manage the matter in handshall constitute a quorum. 

"III. All usurers, monks, courtiers, and other drones of the greathive of society, who shall be found laden with any portion of the honeywhereof they have wrongfully despoiled the industrious bee, shall berightfully despoiled thereof in turn; and all bishops and abbots shallbe bound and beaten, [5] especially the abbot of Doncaster; as shallalso all sheriffs, especially the sheriff of Nottingham. 

"The articles of Hospitality are two:

"I. Postmen, carriers and market-folk, peasants and mechanics, farmersand millers, shall pass through our forest dominions without let ormolestation. 

"II. All other travellers through the forest shall be graciously invitedto partake of Robin's hospitality; and if they come not willingly theyshall be compelled; and the rich man shall pay well for his fare; andthe poor man shall feast scot free, and peradventure receive bounty inproportion to his desert and necessity. 

"The article of Chivalry is one:

"I. Every forester shall, to the extent of his power, aid and protectmaids, widows, and orphans, and all weak and distressed personswhomsoever: and no woman shall be impeded or molested in any way; norshall any company receive harm which any woman is in. 

"The article of Chastity is one:

"I. Every forester, being Diana's forester and minion of the moon, shallcommend himself to the grace of the Virgin, and shall have the gift ofcontinency on pain of expulsion: that the article of chivalry may besecure from infringement, and maids, wives, and widows pass without fearthrough the forest. 

"The article of Courtesy is one:

"I. No one shall miscall a forester. He who calls Robin Robert ofHuntingdon, or salutes him by any other title or designation whatsoeverexcept plain Robin Hood; or who calls Marian Matilda Fitzwater, orsalutes her by any other title or designation whatsoever except plainMaid Marian; and so of all others; shall for every such offence forfeita mark, to be paid to the friar. 

"And these articles we swear to keep as we are good men and true. Carried by acclamation. God save King Richard. 

"LITTLE JOHN, Secretary. "

"Excellent laws, " said the baron: "excellent, by the holy rood. Williamof Normandy, with my great great grandfather Fierabras at his elbow, could not have made better. And now, sweet Mawd----"

"A fine, a fine, " cried the friar, "a fine, by the article of courtesy. "

"Od's life, " said the baron, "shall I not call my own daughter Mawd?Methinks there should be a special exception in my favour. "

"It must not be, " said Robin Hood: "our constitution admits noprivilege. "

"But I will commute, " said the friar; "for twenty marks a year duly paidinto my ghostly pocket you shall call your daughter Mawd two hundredtimes a day. "

"Gramercy, " said the baron, "and I agree, honest friar, when I can gettwenty marks to pay: for till Prince John be beaten from Nottingham, myrents are like to prove but scanty. "

"I will trust, " said the friar, "and thus let us ratify the stipulation;so shall our laws and your infringement run together in an amicableparallel. "

"But, " said Little John, "this is a bad precedent, master friar. It isturning discipline into profit, penalty into perquisite, public justiceinto private revenue. It is rank corruption, master friar. "

"Why are laws made?" said the friar. "For the profit of somebody. Ofwhom? Of him who makes them first, and of others as it may happen. Wasnot I legislator in the last article, and shall I not thrive by my ownlaw?"

"Well then, sweet Mawd, " said the baron, "I must leave you, Mawd: yourlife is very well for the young and the hearty, but it squares not withmy age or my humour. I must house, Mawd. I must find refuge: but where?That is the question. "

"Where Sir Guy of Gamwell has found it, " said Robin Hood, "near theborders of Barnsdale. There you may dwell in safety with him and fairAlice, till King Richard return, and Little John shall give you safeconduct. You will have need to travel with caution, in disguise andwithout attendants, for Prince John commands all this vicinity, and willdoubtless lay the country for you and Marian. Now it is first expedientto dismiss your retainers. If there be any among them who like our life, they may stay with us in the greenwood; the rest may return to theirhomes. "

Some of the baron's men resolved to remain with Robin and Marian, andwere furnished accordingly with suits of green, of which Robin alwayskept good store. 

Marian now declared that as there was danger in the way to Barnsdale, she would accompany Little John and the baron, as she should not behappy unless she herself saw her father placed in security. Robin wasvery unwilling to consent to this, and assured her that there was moredanger for her than the baron: but Marian was absolute. 

"If so, then, " said Robin, "I shall be your guide instead of LittleJohn, and I shall leave him and Scarlet joint-regents of Sherwood duringmy absence, and the voice of Friar Tuck shall be decisive between themif they differ in nice questions of state policy. " Marian objected tothis, that there was more danger for Robin than either herself or thebaron: but Robin was absolute in his turn. 

"Talk not of my voice, " said the friar; "for if Marian be a damselerrant, I will be her ghostly esquire. "

Robin insisted that this should not be, for number would only exposethem to greater risk of detection. The friar, after some debate, reluctantly acquiesced. 

While they were discussing these matters, they heard the distant soundof horses' feet. 

"Go, " said Robin to Little John, "and invite yonder horseman to dinner. "

Little John bounded away, and soon came before a young man, who wasriding in a melancholy manner, with the bridle hanging loose on thehorse's neck, and his eyes drooping towards the ground. 

"Whither go you?" said Little John. 

"Whithersoever my horse pleases, " said the young man. 

"And that shall be, " said Little John, "whither I please to lead him. Iam commissioned to invite you to dine with my master. "

"Who is your master?" said the young man. 

"Robin Hood, " said Little John. 

"The bold outlaw?" said the stranger. "Neither he nor you should havemade me turn an inch aside yesterday; but to-day I care not. "

"Then it is better for you, " said Little John, "that you came to-daythan yesterday, if you love dining in a whole skin: for my master is thepink of courtesy: but if his guests prove stubborn, he bastes them andhis venison together, while the friar says mass before meat. "

The young man made no answer, and scarcely seemed to hear what LittleJohn was saying, who therefore took the horse's bridle and led him towhere Robin and his foresters were setting forth their dinner. Robinseated the young man next to Marian. Recovering a little from hisstupor, he looked with much amazement at her, and the baron, andRobin, and the friar; listened to their conversation, and seemed muchastonished to find himself in such holy and courtly company. Robinhelped him largely to rumble-pie and cygnet and pheasant, and the otherdainties of his table; and the friar pledged him in ale and wine, andexhorted him to make good cheer. But the young man drank little, ateless, spake nothing, and every now and then sighed heavily. 

When the repast was ended, "Now, " said Robin, "you are at liberty topursue your journey: but first be pleased to pay for your dinner. "

"That would I gladly do, Robin, " said the young man, "but all I haveabout me are five shillings and a ring. To the five shillings you shallbe welcome, but for the ring I will fight while there is a drop of bloodin my veins. "

"Gallantly spoken, " said Robin Hood. "A love-token, without doubt: butyou must submit to our forest laws. Little John must search; and if hefind no more than you say, not a penny will I touch; but if you havespoken false, the whole is forfeit to our fraternity. "

"And with reason, " said the friar; "for thereby is the truth maintainedThe abbot of Doubleflask swore there was no money in his valise, andLittle John forthwith emptied it of four hundred pounds. Thus was theabbot's perjury but of one minute's duration; for though his speechwas false in the utterance, yet was it no sooner uttered than it becametrue, and we should have been participes criminis to have suffered theholy abbot to depart in falsehood: whereas he came to us a false priest, and we sent him away a true man. Marry, we turned his cloak to furtheraccount, and thereby hangs a tale that may be either said or sung; forin truth I am minstrel here as well as chaplain; I pray for good successto our just and necessary warfare, and sing thanks-giving odes when ourforesters bring in booty:

 Bold Robin has robed him in ghostly attire, And forth he is gone like a holy friar, Singing, hey down, ho down, down, derry down: And of two grey friars he soon was aware, Regaling themselves with dainty fare, All on the fallen leaves so brown. 

 "Good morrow, good brothers, " said bold Robin Hood, "And what make you in the good greenwood, Singing hey down, ho down, down, derry down! Now give me, I pray you, wine and food; For none can I find in the good greenwood, All on the fallen leaves so brown. "

 "Good brother, " they said, "we would give you full fain, But we have no more than enough for twain, Singing, hey down, ho down, down, derry down. " "Then give me some money, " said bold Robin Hood, "For none can I find in the good greenwood, All on the fallen leaves so brown. "

 "No money have we, good brother, " said they: "Then, " said he, "we three for money will pray: Singing, hey down, ho down, down, derry down: And whatever shall come at the end of our prayer, We three holy friars will piously share, All on the fallen leaves so brown. "

 "We will not pray with thee, good brother, God wot: For truly, good brother, thou pleasest us not, Singing hey down, ho down, down, derry down:" Then up they both started from Robin to run, But down on their knees Robin pulled them each one, All on the fallen leaves so brown. 

 The grey friars prayed with a doleful face, But bold Robin prayed with a right merry grace, Singing, hey down, ho down, down, derry down: And when they had prayed, their portmanteau he took, And from it a hundred good angels he shook, All on the fallen leaves so brown. 

 "The saints, " said bold Robin, "have hearkened our prayer, And here's a good angel apiece for your share: If more you would have, you must win ere you wear: Singing hey down, ho down, down, derry down:" Then he blew his good horn with a musical cheer, And fifty green bowmen came trooping full near, And away the grey friars they bounded like deer, All on the fallen leaves so brown. 

CHAPTER XIII

 What can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie, What can a young lassie do wi'an auld man? --BURNS. 

"Here is but five shillings and a ring, " said Little John, "and theyoung man has spoken true. "

"Then, " said Robin to the stranger, "if want of money be the causeof your melancholy, speak. Little John is my treasurer, and he shalldisburse to you. "

"It is, and it is not, " said the stranger; "it is, because, had I notwanted money I had never lost my love; it is not, because, now that Ihave lost her, money would come too late to regain her. "

"In what way have you lost her?" said Robin: "let us clearly know thatshe is past regaining, before we give up our wishes to restore her toyou. "

"She is to be married this day, " said the stranger, "and perhaps ismarried by this, to a rich old knight; and yesterday I knew it not. "

"What is your name?" said Robin. 

"Allen, " said the stranger. 

"And where is the marriage to take place, Allen?" said Robin. 

"At Edwinstow church, " said Allen, "by the bishop of Nottingham. "

"I know that bishop, " said Robin; "he dined with me a month since, andpaid three hundred pounds for his dinner. He has a good ear and lovesmusic. The friar sang to him to some tune. Give me my harper's cloak, and I will play a part at this wedding. 

"These are dangerous times, Robin, " said Marian, "for playing pranks outof the forest. "

"Fear not, " said Robin; "Edwinstow lies not Nottingham-ward, and I willtake my precautions. "

Robin put on his harper's cloak, while Little John painted his eyebrowsand cheeks, tipped his nose with red, and tied him on a comely beard. Marian confessed, that had she not been present at the metamorphosis, she should not have known her own true Robin. Robin took his harp andwent to the wedding. 

Robin found the bishop and his train in the church porch, impatientlyexpecting the arrival of the bride and bridegroom. The clerk wasobserving to the bishop that the knight was somewhat gouty, and thatthe necessity of walking the last quarter of a mile from the road to thechurchyard probably detained the lively bridegroom rather longer thanhad been calculated upon. 

"Oh! by my fey, " said the music-loving bishop, "here comes a harper inthe nick of time, and now I care not how long they tarry. Ho! honestfriend, are you come to play at the wedding?"

"I am come to play anywhere, " answered Robin, "where I can get a cup ofsack; for which I will sing the praise of the donor in lofty verse, andemblazon him with any virtue which he may wish to have the credit ofpossessing, without the trouble of practising. 

"A most courtly harper, " said the bishop; "I will fill thee with sack; Iwill make thee a walking butt of sack, if thou wilt delight my ears withthy melodies. "

"That will I, " said Robin; "in what branch of my art shall I exert myfaculty? I am passing well in all, from the anthem to the glee, and fromthe dirge to the coranto. "

"It would be idle, " said the bishop, "to give thee sack for playing meanthems, seeing that I myself do receive sack for hearing them sung. Therefore, as the occasion is festive, thou shalt play me a coranto. "

Robin struck up and played away merrily, the bishop all the while ingreat delight, noddling his head, and beating time with his foot, tillthe bride and bridegroom appeared. The bridegroom was richly apparelled, and came slowly and painfully forward, hobbling and leering, and pursingup his mouth into a smile of resolute defiance to the gout, and oftender complacency towards his lady love, who, shining like gold at theold knight's expense, followed slowly between her father and mother, her cheeks pale, her head drooping, her steps faltering, and her eyesreddened with tears. 

Robin stopped his minstrelsy, and said to the bishop, "This seems to mean unfit match. "

"What do you say, rascal?" said the old knight, hobbling up to him. 

"I say, " said Robin, "this seems to me an unfit match. What, in thedevil's name, can you want with a young wife, who have one foot inflannels and the other in the grave?"

"What is that to thee, sirrah varlet?" said the old knight; "stand awayfrom the porch, or I will fracture thy sconce with my cane. "

"I will not stand away from the porch, " said Robin, "unless the bridebid me, and tell me that you are her own true love. "

"Speak, " said the bride's father, in a severe tone, and with a look ofsignificant menace. The girl looked alternately at her father and Robin. She attempted to speak, but her voice failed in the effort, and sheburst into tears. 

"Here is lawful cause and just impediment, " said Robin, "and I forbidthe banns. "

"Who are you, villain?" said the old knight, stamping his sound footwith rage. 

"I am the Roman law, " said Robin, "which says that there shall not bemore than ten years between a man and his wife; and here are five timesten: and so says the law of nature. "

"Honest harper, " said the bishop, "you are somewhat over-officious here, and less courtly than I deemed you. If you love sack, forbear; for thiscourse will never bring you a drop. As to your Roman law, and your lawof nature, what right have they to say any thing which the law of HolyWrit says not?"

"The law of Holy Writ does say it, " said Robin; "I expound it so to say;and I will produce sixty commentators to establish my exposition. "

And so saying, he produced a horn from beneath his cloak, and blew threeblasts, and threescore bowmen in green came leaping from the bushes andtrees; and young Allen was the first among them to give Robin his sword, while Friar Tuck and Little John marched up to the altar. Robin strippedthe bishop and clerk of their robes, and put them on the friar andLittle John; and Allen advanced to take the hand of the bride. Hercheeks grew red and her eyes grew bright, as she locked her hand in herlover's, and tripped lightly with him into the church. 

"This marriage will not stand, " said the bishop, "for they have not beenthrice asked in church. "

"We will ask them seven times, " said Little John, "lest three should notsuffice. "

"And in the meantime, " said Robin, "the knight and the bishop shalldance to my harping. "

So Robin sat in the church porch and played away merrily, while hisforesters formed a ring, in the centre of which the knight and bishopdanced with exemplary alacrity; and if they relaxed their exertions, Scarlet gently touched them up with the point of an arrow. 

The knight grimaced ruefully, and begged Robin to think of his gout. 

"So I do, " said Robin; "this is the true antipodagron: you shall dancethe gout away, and be thankful to me while you live. I told you, " headded to the bishop, "I would play at this wedding; but you did not tellme that you would dance at it. The next couple you marry, think of theRoman law. "

The bishop was too much out of breath to reply; and now the young coupleissued from church, and the bride having made a farewell obeisance toher parents, they departed together with the foresters, the parentsstorming, the attendants laughing, the bishop puffing and blowing, andthe knight rubbing his gouty foot, and uttering doleful lamentations forthe gold and jewels with which he had so unwittingly adorned and coweredthe bride. 

CHAPTER XIV

 As ye came from the holy land Of blessed Walsinghame, Oh met ye not with my true love, As by the way ye came?

 --Old Ballad. 

In pursuance of the arrangement recorded in the twelfth chapter, thebaron, Robin, and Marian disguised themselves as pilgrims returned fromPalestine, and travelling from the sea-coast of Hampshire to their homein Northumberland. By dint of staff and cockle-shell, sandal and scrip, they proceeded in safety the greater part of the way (for Robin had manysly inns and resting-places between Barnsdale and Sherwood), and werealready on the borders of Yorkshire, when, one evening, they passedwithin view of a castle, where they saw a lady standing on a turret, and surveying the whole extent of the valley through which they werepassing. A servant came running from the castle, and delivered to thema message from his lady, who was sick with expectation of news from herlord in the Holy Land, and entreated them to come to her, that she mightquestion them concerning him. This was an awkward occurrence: but therewas no presence for refusal, and they followed the servant into thecastle. The baron, who had been in Palestine in his youth, undertook tobe spokesman on the occasion, and to relate his own adventures tothe lady as having happened to the lord in question. This preparationenabled him to be so minute and circumstantial in his detail, and socoherent in his replies to her questions, that the lady fell implicitlyinto the delusion, and was delighted to find that her lord was alive andin health, and in high favour with the king, and performing prodigiesof valour in the name of his lady, whose miniature he always wore in hisbosom. The baron guessed at this circumstance from the customs of thatage, and happened to be in the right. 

"This miniature, " added the baron, "I have had the felicity to see, andshould have known you by it among a million. " The baron was a littleembarrassed by some questions of the lady concerning her lord's personalappearance; but Robin came to his aid, observing a picture suspendedopposite to him on the wall, which he made a bold conjecture to be thatof the lord in question; and making a calculation of the influences oftime and war, which he weighed with a comparison of the lady's age, he gave a description of her lord sufficiently like the picture in itsgroundwork to be a true resemblance, and sufficiently differing fromit in circumstances to be more an original than a copy. The lady wascompletely deceived, and entreated them to partake her hospitality forthe night; but this they deemed it prudent to decline, and with manyhumble thanks for her kindness, and representations of the necessity ofnot delaying their homeward course, they proceeded on their way. 

As they passed over the drawbridge, they met Sir Ralph Montfaucon andhis squire, who were wandering in quest of Marian, and were enteringto claim that hospitality which the pilgrims had declined. Theircountenances struck Sir Ralph with a kind of imperfect recognition, which would never have been matured, but that the eyes of Marian, asshe passed him, encountered his, and the images of those stars of beautycontinued involuntarily twinkling in his sensorium to the exclusion ofall other ideas, till memory, love, and hope concurred with imaginationto furnish a probable reason for their haunting him so pertinaciously. Those eyes, he thought, were certainly the eyes of Matilda Fitzwater;and if the eyes were hers, it was extremely probable, if not logicallyconsecutive, that the rest of the body they belonged to was hers also. Now, if it were really Matilda Fitzwater, who were her two companions?The baron? Aye, and the elder pilgrim was something like him. And theearl of Huntingdon? Very probably. The earl and the baron might be goodfriends again, now that they were both in disgrace together. While hewas revolving these cogitations, he was introduced to the lady, andafter claiming and receiving the promise of hospitality, he inquiredwhat she knew of the pilgrims who had just departed? The lady told himthey were newly returned from Palestine, having been long in the HolyLand. The knight expressed some scepticism on this point. The ladyreplied, that they had given her so minute a detail of her lord'sproceedings, and so accurate a description of his person, that she couldnot be deceived in them. This staggered the knight's confidence inhis own penetration; and if it had not been a heresy in knighthood tosuppose for a moment that there could be in rerum natura such anotherpair of eyes as those of his mistress, he would have acquiescedimplicitly in the lady's judgment. But while the lady and the knightwere conversing, the warder blew his bugle-horn, and presently entereda confidential messenger from Palestine, who gave her to understandthat her lord was well; but entered into a detail of his adventuresmost completely at variance with the baron's narrative, to which notthe correspondence of a single incident gave the remotest colouring ofsimilarity. It now became manifest that the pilgrims were not truemen; and Sir Ralph Montfaucon sate down to supper with his head fullof cogitations, which we shall leave him to chew and digest with hispheasant and canary. 

Meanwhile our three pilgrims proceeded on their way. The evening set inblack and lowering, when Robin turned aside from the main track, to seekan asylum for the night, along a narrow way that led between rocky andwoody hills. A peasant observed the pilgrims as they entered that narrowpass, and called after them: "Whither go you, my masters? there arerogues in that direction. "

"Can you show us a direction, " said Robin, "in which there are none? Ifso we will take it in preference. " The peasant grinned, and walked awaywhistling. 

The pass widened as they advanced, and the woods grew thicker and darkeraround them. Their path wound along the slope of a woody declivity, which rose high above them in a thick rampart of foliage, and descendedalmost precipitously to the bed of a small river, which they hearddashing in its rocky channel, and saw its white foam gleaming atintervals in the last faint glimmerings of twilight. In a short time allwas dark, and the rising voice of the wind foretold a coming storm. Theyturned a point of the valley, and saw a light below them in the depthof the hollow, shining through a cottage-casement and dancing in itsreflection on the restless stream. Robin blew his horn, which wasanswered from below. The cottage door opened: a boy came forth with atorch, ascended the steep, showed tokens of great delight at meetingwith Robin, and lighted them down a flight of steps rudely cut in therock, and over a series of rugged stepping-stones, that crossedthe channel of the river. They entered the cottage, which exhibitedneatness, comfort, and plenty, being amply enriched with pots, pans, and pipkins, and adorned with flitches of bacon and sundry similarornaments, that gave goodly promise in the firelight that gleamed uponthe rafters. A woman, who seemed just old enough to be the boy's mother, had thrown down her spinning wheel in her joy at the sound of Robin'shorn, and was bustling with singular alacrity to set forth her festalware and prepare an abundant supper. Her features, though not beautiful, were agreeable and expressive, and were now lighted up with suchmanifest joy at the sight of Robin, that Marian could not help feeling amomentary touch of jealousy, and a half-formed suspicion that Robin hadbroken his forest law, and had occasionally gone out of bounds, as othergreat men have done upon occasion, in order to reconcile the breachof the spirit, with the preservation of the letter, of their ownlegislation. However, this suspicion, if it could be said to exist in amind so generous as Marian's, was very soon dissipated by the entranceof the woman's husband, who testified as much joy as his wife had doneat the sight of Robin; and in a short time the whole of the party wereamicably seated round a smoking supper of river-fish and wild wood fowl, on which the baron fell with as much alacrity as if he had been a truepilgrim from Palestine. 

The husband produced some recondite flasks of wine, which were laid byin a binn consecrated to Robin, whose occasional visits to them in hiswanderings were the festal days of these warm-hearted cottagers, whosemanners showed that they had not been born to this low estate. Theirstory had no mystery, and Marian easily collected it from the tenour oftheir conversation. The young man had been, like Robin, the victim of anusurious abbot, and had been outlawed for debt, and his nut-brown maidhad accompanied him to the depths of Sherwood, where they lived anunholy and illegitimate life, killing the king's deer, and never hearingmass. In this state, Robin, then earl of Huntingdon, discovered themin one of his huntings, and gave them aid and protection. When Robinhimself became an outlaw, the necessary qualification or gift ofcontinency was too hard a law for our lovers to subscribe to; andas they were thus disqualified for foresters, Robin had found them aretreat in this romantic and secluded spot. He had done similar serviceto other lovers similarly circumstanced, and had disposed them invarious wild scenes which he and his men had discovered in theirflittings from place to place, supplying them with all necessaries andcomforts from the reluctant disgorgings of fat abbots and usurers. Thebenefit was in some measure mutual; for these cottages served him asresting-places in his removals, and enabled him to travel untraced andunmolested; and in the delight with which he was always received hefound himself even more welcome than he would have been at an inn;and this is saying very much for gratitude and affection together. The smiles which surrounded him were of his own creation, and heparticipated in the happiness he had bestowed. 

The casements began to rattle in the wind, and the rain to beat uponthe windows. The wind swelled to a hurricane, and the rain dashed likea flood against the glass. The boy retired to his little bed, the wifetrimmed the lamp, the husband heaped logs upon the fire: Robin broachedanother flask; and Marian filled the baron's cup, and sweetened Robin'sby touching its edge with her lips. 

"Well, " said the baron, "give me a roof over my head, be it never sohumble. Your greenwood canopy is pretty and pleasant in sunshine; but ifI were doomed to live under it, I should wish it were water-tight. "

"But, " said Robin, "we have tents and caves for foul weather, good storeof wine and venison, and fuel in abundance. "

"Ay, but, " said the baron, "I like to pull off my boots of a night, which you foresters seldom do, and to ensconce myself thereafter ina comfortable bed. Your beech-root is over-hard for a couch, and yourmossy stump is somewhat rough for a bolster. "

"Had you not dry leaves, " said Robin, "with a bishop's surplice overthem? What would you have softer? And had you not an abbot's travellingcloak for a coverlet? What would you have warmer?"

"Very true, " said the baron, "but that was an indulgence to a guest, andI dreamed all night of the sheriff of Nottingham. I like to feel myselfsafe, " he added, stretching out his legs to the fire, and throwinghimself back in his chair with the air of a man determined to becomfortable. "I like to feel myself safe, " said the baron. 

At that moment the woman caught her husband's arm, and all the partyfollowing the direction of her eyes, looked simultaneously to thewindow, where they had just time to catch a glimpse of an apparition ofan armed head, with its plumage tossing in the storm, on which the lightshone from within, and which disappeared immediately. 

CHAPTER XV

 O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary. When did I see thee so put down?--Twelfth Night. 

Several knocks, as from the knuckles of an iron glove, were given to thedoor of the cottage, and a voice was heard entreating shelter from thestorm for a traveller who had lost his way. Robin arose and went to thedoor. 

"What are you?" said Robin. 

"A soldier, " replied the voice: "an unfortunate adherent of Longchamp, flying the vengeance of Prince John. "

"Are you alone?" said Robin. 

"Yes, " said the voice: "it is a dreadful night. Hospitable cottagers, pray give me admittance. I would not have asked it but for the storm. Iwould have kept my watch in the woods. "

"That I believe, " said Robin. "You did not reckon on the storm when youturned into this pass. Do you know there are rogues this way?"

"I do, " said the voice. 

"So do I, " said Robin. 

A pause ensued, during which Robin listening attentively caught a faintsound of whispering. 

"You are not alone, " said Robin. "Who are your companions?"

"None but the wind and the water, " said the voice, "and I would I hadthem not. "

"The wind and the water have many voices, " said Robin, "but I neverbefore heard them say, What shall we do?"

Another pause ensued: after which, "Look ye, master cottager, " said the voice, in an altered tone, "if youdo not let us in willingly, we will break down the door. "

"Ho! ho!" roared the baron, "you are become plural are you, rascals? Howmany are there of you, thieves? What, I warrant, you thought to rob andmurder a poor harmless cottager and his wife, and did not dream of agarrison? You looked for no weapon of opposition but spit, poker, andbasting ladle, wielded by unskilful hands: but, rascals, here is shortsword and long cudgel in hands well tried in war, wherewith you shall bedrilled into cullenders and beaten into mummy. "

No reply was made, but furious strokes from without resounded upon thedoor. Robin, Marian, and the baron threw by their pilgrim's attire, andstood in arms on the defensive. They were provided with swords, and thecottager gave them bucklers and helmets, for all Robin's haunts werefurnished with secret armouries. But they kept their swords sheathed, and the baron wielded a ponderous spear, which he pointed towards thedoor ready to run through the first that should enter, and Robin andMarian each held a bow with the arrow drawn to its head and pointed inthe same direction. The cottager flourished a strong cudgel (a weaponin the use of which he prided himself on being particularly expert), andthe wife seized the spit from the fireplace, and held it as she saw thebaron hold his spear. The storm of wind and rain continued to beat onthe roof and the casement, and the storm of blows to resound upon thedoor, which at length gave way with a violent crash, and a cluster ofarmed men appeared without, seemingly not less than twelve. Behindthem rolled the stream now changed from a gentle and shallow river to amighty and impetuous torrent, roaring in waves of yellow foam, partiallyreddened by the light that streamed through the open door, and turningup its convulsed surface in flashes of shifting radiance from restlessmasses of half-visible shadow. The stepping-stones, by which theintruders must have crossed, were buried under the waters. On theopposite bank the light fell on the stems and boughs of the rock-rootedoak and ash tossing and swaying in the blast, and sweeping the flashingspray with their leaves. 

The instant the door broke, Robin and Marian loosed their arrows. Robin's arrow struck one of the assailants in the juncture of theshoulder, and disabled his right arm: Marian's struck a second in thejuncture of the knee, and rendered him unserviceable; for the night. The baron's long spear struck on the mailed breastplate of a third, andbeing stretched to its full extent by the long-armed hero, drove him tothe edge of the torrent, and plunged him into its eddies, along which hewas whirled down the darkness of the descending stream, calling vainlyon his comrades for aid, till his voice was lost in the mingled roar ofthe waters and the wind. A fourth springing through the door was laidprostrate by the cottager's cudgel: but the wife being less dexterousthan her company, though an Amazon in strength, missed her pass at afifth, and drove the point of the spit several inches into the righthand door-post as she stood close to the left, and thus made a newbarrier which the invaders could not pass without dipping under it andsubmitting their necks to the sword: but one of the assailants seizingit with gigantic rage, shook it at once from the grasp of its holderand from its lodgment in the post, and at the same time made good theirruption of the rest of his party into the cottage. 

Now raged an unequal combat, for the assailants fell two to one onRobin, Marian, the baron, and the cottager; while the wife, beingdeprived of her spit, converted every thing that was at hand to amissile, and rained pots, pans, and pipkins on the armed heads of theenemy. The baron raged like a tiger, and the cottager laid about himlike a thresher. One of the soldiers struck Robin's sword from his handand brought him on his knee, when the boy, who had been roused by thetumult and had been peeping through the inner door, leaped forward inhis shirt, picked up the sword and replaced it in Robin's hand, whoinstantly springing up, disarmed and wounded one of his antagonists, while the other was laid prostrate under the dint of a brass cauldronlaunched by the Amazonian dame. Robin now turned to the aid of Marian, who was parrying most dexterously the cuts and slashes of her twoassailants, of whom Robin delivered her from one, while a well-appliedblow of her sword struck off the helmet of the other, who fell on hisknees to beg a boon, and she recognised Sir Ralph Montfaucon. The menwho were engaged with the baron and the peasant, seeing their leadersubdued, immediately laid down their arms and cried for quarter. Thewife brought some strong rope, and the baron tied their arms behindthem. 

"Now, Sir Ralph, " said Marian, "once more you are at my mercy. "

"That I always am, cruel beauty, " said the discomfited lover. 

"Odso! courteous knight, " said the baron, "is this the return you makefor my beef and canary, when you kissed my daughter's hand in token ofcontrition for your intermeddling at her wedding? Heart, I am glad tosee she has given you a bloody coxcomb. Slice him down, Mawd! slice himdown, and fling him into the river. "

"Confess, " said Marian, "what brought you here, and how did you traceour steps?"

"I will confess nothing, " said the knight. 

"Then confess you, rascal, " said the baron, holding his sword to thethroat of the captive squire. 

"Take away the sword, " said the squire, "it is too near my mouth, andmy voice will not come out for fear: take away the sword, and I willconfess all. " The baron dropped his sword, and the squire proceeded;"Sir Ralph met you, as you quitted Lady Falkland's castle, and byrepresenting to her who you were, borrowed from her such a number ofher retainers as he deemed must ensure your capture, seeing that yourfamiliar the friar was not at your elbow. We set forth without delay, and traced you first by means of a peasant who saw you turn into thisvalley, and afterwards by the light from the casement of this solitarydwelling. Our design was to have laid an ambush for you in the morning, but the storm and your observation of my unlucky face through thecasement made us change our purpose; and what followed you can tellbetter than I can, being indeed masters of the subject. "

"You are a merry knave, " said the baron, "and here is a cup of wine foryou. "

"Gramercy, " said the squire, "and better late than never: but I lacked acup of this before. Had I been pot-valiant, I had held you play. "

"Sir knight, " said Marian, "this is the third time you have sought thelife of my lord and of me, for mine is interwoven with his. And do youthink me so spiritless as to believe that I can be yours by compulsion?Tempt me not again, for the next time shall be the last, and the fish ofthe nearest river shall commute the flesh of a recreant knight into thefast-day dinner of an uncarnivorous friar. I spare you now, not in pitybut in scorn. Yet shall you swear to a convention never more to pursueor molest my lord or me, and on this condition you shall live. "

The knight had no alternative but to comply, and swore, on the honour ofknighthood, to keep the convention inviolate. How well he kept his oathwe shall have no opportunity of narrating: Di lui la nostra istoria piunon parla. 

CHAPTER XVI

 Carry me over the water, thou fine fellowe. --Old Ballad. 

The pilgrims, without experiencing further molestation, arrived at theretreat of Sir Guy of Gamwell. They found the old knight a cup too low;partly from being cut off from the scenes of his old hospitality and theshouts of his Nottinghamshire vassals, who were wont to make the raftersof his ancient hall re-echo to their revelry; but principally from beingparted from his son, who had long been the better half of his flask andpasty. The arrival of our visitors cheered him up; and finding thatthe baron was to remain with him, he testified his delight and thecordiality of his welcome by pegging him in the ribs till he made himroar. 

Robin and Marian took an affectionate leave of the baron and the oldknight; and before they quitted the vicinity of Barnsdale, deemingit prudent to return in a different disguise, they laid aside theirpilgrim's attire, and assumed the habits and appurtenances of wanderingminstrels. 

They travelled in this character safely and pleasantly, till one eveningat a late hour they arrived by the side of a river, where Robin lookingout for a mode of passage perceived a ferry-boat safely moored in a nookon the opposite bank; near which a chimney sending up a wreath of smokethrough the thick-set willows, was the only symptom of human habitation;and Robin naturally conceiving the said chimney and wreath of smoke tobe the outward signs of the inward ferryman, shouted "Over!" with muchstrength and clearness; but no voice replied, and no ferryman appeared. Robin raised his voice, and shouted with redoubled energy, "Over, Over, O-o-o-over!" A faint echo alone responded "Over!" and again died awayinto deep silence: but after a brief interval a voice from among thewillows, in a strange kind of mingled intonation that was half a shoutand half a song, answered:

 Over, over, over, jolly, jolly rover, Would you then come over? Over, over, over? Jolly, jolly rover, here's one lives in clover: Who finds the clover? The jolly, jolly rover. He finds the clover, let him then come over, The jolly, jolly rover, over, over, over, "I much doubt, " said Marian, "if this ferryman do not mean by cloversomething more than the toll of his ferry-boat. "

"I doubt not, " answered Robin, "he is a levier of toll and tithe, whichI shall put him upon proof of his right to receive, by making trial ofhis might to enforce. "

The ferryman emerged from the willows and stepped into his boat. "As Ilive, " exclaimed Robin, "the ferryman is a friar. "

"With a sword, " said Marian, "stuck in his rope girdle. "

The friar pushed his boat off manfully, and was presently half over theriver. 

"It is friar Tuck, " said Marian. 

"He will scarcely know us, " said Robin; "and if he do not, I will breaka staff with him for sport. "

The friar came singing across the water: the boat touched the land:Robin and Marian stepped on board: the friar pushed off again. 

"Silken doublets, silken doublets, " said the friar: "slenderly lined, Ibow: your wandering minstrel is always poor toll: your sweet angels ofvoices pass current for a bed and a supper at the house of everylord that likes to hear the fame of his valour without the trouble offighting for it. What need you of purse or pouch? You may sing beforethieves. Pedlars, pedlars: wandering from door to door with the smallware of lies and cajolery: exploits for carpet-knights; honesty forcourtiers; truth for monks, and chastity for nuns: a good saleable stockthat costs the vender nothing, defies wear and tear, and when it hasserved a hundred customers is as plentiful and as marketable as ever. But, sirrahs, I'll none of your balderdash. You pass not hence withoutclink of brass, or I'll knock your musical noddles together tillthey ring like a pair of cymbals. That will be a new tune for yourminstrelships. "

This friendly speech of the friar ended as they stepped on the oppositebank. Robin had noticed as they passed that the summer stream was low. 

"Why, thou brawling mongrel, " said Robin, "that whether thou be thief, friar, or ferryman, or an ill-mixed compound of all three, passesconjecture, though I judge thee to be simple thief, what barkest thouat thus? Villain, there is clink of brass for thee. Dost thou see thiscoin? Dost thou hear this music? Look and listen: for touch thou shaltnot: my minstrelship defies thee. Thou shalt carry me on thy back overthe water, and receive nothing but a cracked sconce for thy trouble. "

"A bargain, " said the friar: "for the water is low, the labour is light, and the reward is alluring. " And he stooped down for Robin, who mountedhis back, and the friar waded with him over the river. 

"Now, fine fellow, " said the friar, "thou shalt carry me back over thewater, and thou shalt have a cracked sconce for thy trouble. "

Robin took the friar on his back, and waded with him into the middleof the river, when by a dexterous jerk he suddenly flung him off andplunged him horizontally over head and ears in the water. Robin waded toshore, and the friar, half swimming and half scrambling, followed. 

"Fine fellow, fine fellow, " said the friar, "now will I pay thee thycracked sconce. "

"Not so, " said Robin, "I have not earned it: but thou hast earned it, and shalt have it. "

It was not, even in those good old times, a sight of every day to see atroubadour and a friar playing at single-stick by the side of a river, each aiming with fell intent at the other's coxcomb. The parties wereboth so skilled in attack and defence, that their mutual efforts for along time expended themselves in quick and loud rappings on each other'soaken staves. At length Robin by a dexterous feint contrived to scoreone on the friar's crown: but in the careless moment of triumph asplendid sweep of the friar's staff struck Robin's out of his hand intothe middle of the river, and repaid his crack on the head with a degreeof vigour that might have passed the bounds of a jest if Marian had notretarded its descent by catching the friar's arm. 

"How now, recreant friar, " said Marian; "what have you to say why youshould not suffer instant execution, being detected in open rebellionagainst your liege lord? Therefore kneel down, traitor, and submit yourneck to the sword of the offended law. "

"Benefit of clergy, " said the friar: "I plead my clergy. And is it youindeed, ye scapegraces? Ye are well disguised: I knew ye not, by myflask. Robin, jolly Robin, he buys a jest dearly that pays for it witha bloody coxcomb. But here is balm for all bruises, outward and inward. (The friar produced a flask of canary. ) Wash thy wound twice and thythroat thrice with this solar concoction, and thou shalt marvel wherewas thy hurt. But what moved ye to this frolic? Knew ye not that yecould not appear in a mask more fashioned to move my bile than in thatof these gilders and lackerers of the smooth surface of worthlessness, that bring the gold of true valour into disrepute, by stamping the basermetal with the fairer im-pression? I marvelled to find any such givento fighting (for they have an old instinct of self-preservation): butI rejoiced thereat, that I might discuss to them poetical justice:and therefore have I cracked thy sconce: for which, let this be thymedicine. "

"But wherefore, " said Marian, "do we find you here, when we left youjoint lord warden of Sherwood?"

"I do but retire to my devotions, " replied the friar. "This is myhermitage, in which I first took refuge when I escaped from my belovedbrethren of Rubygill; and to which I still retreat at times from thevanities of the world, which else might cling to me too closely, sinceI have been promoted to be peer-spiritual of your forest-court. For, indeed, I do find in myself certain indications and admonitions that myday has past its noon; and none more cogent than this: that daily ofbad wine I grow more intolerant, and of good wine have a keener andmore fastidious relish. There is no surer symptom of receding years. Theferryman is my faithful varlet. I send him on some pious errand, that Imay meditate in ghostly privacy, when my presence in the forest can bestbe spared: and when can it be better spared than now, seeing thatthe neighbourhood of Prince John, and his incessant perquisitions forMarian, have made the forest too hot to hold more of us than areneedful to keep up a quorum, and preserve unbroken the continuity ofour forest-dominion? For, in truth, without your greenwood majesties, wehave hardly the wit to live in a body, and at the same time to keep ournecks out of jeopardy, while that arch-rebel and traitor John infeststhe precincts of our territory. "

The friar now conducted them to his peaceful cell, where he spread hisfrugal board with fish, venison, wild-fowl, fruit, and canary. Under thecompound operation of this materia medica Robin's wounds healed apace, and the friar, who hated minstrelsy, began as usual chirping in hiscups. Robin and Marian chimed in with his tuneful humour till themidnight moon peeped in upon their revelry. 

It was now the very witching time of night, when they heard a voiceshouting, "Over!" They paused to listen, and the voice repeated "Over!"in accents clear and loud, but which at the same time either were inthemselves, or seemed to be, from the place and the hour, singularlyplaintive and dreary. The friar fidgetted about in his seat: fell into adeep musing: shook himself, and looked about him: first at Marian, thenat Robin, then at Marian again; filled and tossed off a cup of canary, and relapsed into his reverie. 

"Will you not bring your passenger over?" said Robin. The friar shookhis head and looked mysterious. 

"That passenger, " said the friar, "will never come over. Every fullmoon, at midnight, that voice calls, 'Over!' I and my varlet have morethan once obeyed the summons, and we have sometimes had a glimpse of awhite figure under the opposite trees: but when the boat has touched thebank, nothing has been to be seen; and the voice has been heard no moretill the midnight of the next full moon. "

"It is very strange, " said Robin. 

"Wondrous strange, " said the friar, looking solemn. 

The voice again called "Over!" in a long plaintive musical cry. 

"I must go to it, " said the friar, "or it will give us no peace. I wouldall my customers were of this world. I begin to think that I am Charon, and that this river is Styx. "

"I will go with you, friar, " said Robin. 

"By my flask, " said the friar, "but you shall not. "

"Then I will, " said Marian. 

"Still less, " said the friar, hurrying out of the cell. Robin and Marianfollowed: but the friar outstepped them, and pushed off his boat. 

A white figure was visible under the shade of the opposite trees. The boat approached the shore, and the figure glided away. The friarreturned. 

They re-entered the cottage, and sat some time conversing on thephenomenon they had seen. The friar sipped his wine, and after a time, said:

"There is a tradition of a damsel who was drowned here some years ago. The tradition is----"

But the friar could not narrate a plain tale: he therefore cleared histhroat, and sang with due solemnity, in a ghostly voice:

 A damsel came in midnight rain, And called across the ferry: The weary wight she called in vain, Whose senses sleep did bury. At evening, from her father's door She turned to meet her lover: At midnight, on the lonely shore, She shouted "Over, over!"

 She had not met him by the tree Of their accustomed meeting, And sad and sick at heart was she, Her heart all wildly beating. In chill suspense the hours went by, The wild storm burst above her: She turned her to the river nigh, And shouted, "Over, over!"

 A dim, discoloured, doubtful light The moon's dark veil permitted, And thick before her troubled sight Fantastic shadows flitted. Her lover's form appeared to glide, And beckon o'er the water: Alas! his blood that morn had dyed Her brother's sword with slaughter. 

 Upon a little rock she stood, To make her invocation: She marked not that the rain-swoll'n flood Was islanding her station. The tempest mocked her feeble cry: No saint his aid would give her: The flood swelled high and yet more high, And swept her down the river. 

 Yet oft beneath the pale moonlight, When hollow winds are blowing, The shadow of that maiden bright Glides by the dark stream's flowing. And when the storms of midnight rave, While clouds the broad moon cover, The wild gusts waft across the wave The cry of, "Over, over!"

While the friar was singing, Marian was meditating: and when he hadended she said, "Honest friar, you have misplaced your tradition, whichbelongs to the aestuary of a nobler river, where the damsel wasswept away by the rising of the tide, for which your land-flood is anindifferent substitute. But the true tradition of this stream I think Imyself possess, and I will narrate it in your own way:

 It was a friar of orders free, A friar of Rubygill: At the greenwood-tree a vow made he, But he kept it very ill: A vow made he of chastity, But he kept it very ill. He kept it, perchance, in the conscious shade Of the bounds of the forest wherein it was made: But he roamed where he listed, as free as the wind, And he left his good vow in the forest behind: For its woods out of sight were his vow out of mind, With the friar of Rubygill. 

 In lonely hut himself he shut, The friar of Rubygill; Where the ghostly elf absolved himself, To follow his own good will: And he had no lack of canary sack, To keep his conscience still. And a damsel well knew, when at lonely midnight It gleamed on the waters, his signal-lamp-light: "Over! over!" she warbled with nightingale throat, And the friar sprung forth at the magical note, And she crossed the dark stream in his trim ferryboat, With the friar of Rubygill. "

"Look you now, " said Robin, "if the friar does not blush. Many strangesights have I seen in my day, but never till this moment did I see ablushing friar. "

"I think, " said the friar, "you never saw one that blushed not, oryou saw good canary thrown away. But you are welcome to laugh if it soplease you. None shall laugh in my company, though it be at my expense, but I will have my share of the merriment. The world is a stage, and life is a farce, and he that laughs most has most profit of theperformance. The worst thing is good enough to be laughed at, thoughit be good for nothing else; and the best thing, though it be good forsomething else, is good for nothing better. "

And he struck up a song in praise of laughing and quaffing, withoutfurther adverting to Marian's insinuated accusation; being, perhaps, of opinion, that it was a subject on which the least said would be thesoonest mended. 

So passed the night. In the morning a forester came to the friar, withintelligence that Prince John had been compelled, by the urgency ofhis affairs in other quarters, to disembarrass Nottingham Castle ofhis royal presence. Our wanderers returned joyfully to theirforest-dominion, being thus relieved from the vicinity of any moreformidable belligerent than their old bruised and beaten enemy thesheriff of Nottingham. 

CHAPTER XVII

 Oh! this life Is nobler than attending for a check, Richer than doing nothing for a bribe Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk. --Cymbeline. 

So Robin and Marian dwelt and reigned in the forest, ranging the gladesand the greenwoods from the matins of the lark to the vespers of thenightingale, and administering natural justice according to Robin'sideas of rectifying the inequalities of human condition: raisinggenial dews from the bags of the rich and idle, and returning them infertilising showers on the poor and industrious: an operation which moreenlightened statesmen have happily reversed, to the unspeakable benefitof the community at large. The light footsteps of Marian were impressedon the morning dew beside the firmer step of her lover, and they shookits large drops about them as they cleared themselves a passage throughthe thick tall fern, without any fear of catching cold, which was notmuch in fashion in the twelfth century. Robin was as hospitable asCathmor; for seven men stood on seven paths to call the stranger to hisfeast. It is true, he superadded the small improvement of making thestranger pay for it: than which what could be more generous? For Cathmorwas himself the prime giver of his feast, whereas Robin was onlythe agent to a series of strangers, who provided in turn forthe entertainment of their successors; which is carrying thedisinterestedness of hospitality to its acme. Marian often killed thedeer, Which Scarlet dressed, and Friar Tuck blessed While Little John wandered in search of a guest. 

Robin was very devout, though there was great unity in his religion: itwas exclusively given to our Lady the Virgin, and he never set forth ina morning till he had said three prayers, and had heard the sweet voiceof his Marian singing a hymn to their mutual patroness. Each of his menhad, as usual, a patron saint according to his name or taste. Thefriar chose a saint for himself, and fixed on Saint Botolph, whom heeuphonised into Saint Bottle, and maintained that he was that veryPanomphic Pantagruelian saint, well known in ancient France as a femaledivinity, by the name of La Dive Bouteille, whose oracular monosyllable"Trincq, " is celebrated and under-stood by all nations, and isexpounded by the learned doctor Alcofribas, [6] who has treated at largeon the subject, to signify "drink. " Saint Bottle, then, was the saint ofFriar Tuck, who did not yield even to Robin and Marian in the assiduityof his devotions to his chosen patron. Such was their summer life, andin their winter caves they had sufficient furniture, ample provender, store of old wine, and assuredly no lack of fuel, with joyous music andpleasant discourse to charm away the season of darkness and storms. 

The reader who desires to know more about this oracular divinity, mayconsult the said doctor Alcofribas Nasier, who will usher him into theadytum through the medium of the high priestess Bacbuc. 

Many moons had waxed and waned, when on the afternoon of a lovelysummer day a lusty broad-boned knight was riding through the forestof Sherwood. The sun shone brilliantly on the full green foliage, andafforded the knight a fine opportunity of observing picturesque effects, of which it is to be feared he did not avail himself. But he had notproceeded far, before he had an opportunity of observing somethingmuch more interesting, namely, a fine young outlaw leaning, in the trueSherwood fashion, with his back against a tree. The knight was preparingto ask the stranger a question, the answer to which, if correctly given, would have relieved him from a doubt that pressed heavily on his mind, as to whether he was in the right road or the wrong, when the youthprevented the inquiry by saying: "In God's name, sir knight, you arelate to your meals. My master has tarried dinner for you these threehours. "

"I doubt, " said the knight, "I am not he you wot of. I am no wherebidden to day and I know none in this vicinage. "

"We feared, " said the youth, "your memory would be treacherous:therefore am I stationed here to refresh it. "

"Who is your master?" said the knight; "and where does he abide?"

"My master, " said the youth, "is called Robin Hood, and he abides hardby. "

"And what knows he of me?" said the knight. 

"He knows you, " answered the youth "as he does every way-faring knightand friar, by instinct. "

"Gramercy, " said the knight; "then I understand his bidding: but how ifI say I will not come?"

"I am enjoined to bring you, " said the youth. "If persuasion avail not, I must use other argument. "

"Say'st thou so?" said the knight; "I doubt if thy stripling rhetoricwould convince me. "

"That, " said the young forester, "we will see. "

"We are not equally matched, boy, " said the knight. "I should get lesshonour by thy conquest, than grief by thy injury. "

"Perhaps, " said the youth, "my strength is more than my seeming, and mycunning more than my strength. Therefore let it please your knighthoodto dismount. "

"It shall please my knighthood to chastise thy presumption, " said theknight, springing from his saddle. 

Hereupon, which in those days was usually the result of a meetingbetween any two persons anywhere, they proceeded to fight. 

The knight had in an uncommon degree both strength and skill: theforester had less strength, but not less skill than the knight, andshowed such a mastery of his weapon as reduced the latter to greatadmiration. 

They had not fought many minutes by the forest clock, the sun; and hadas yet done each other no worse injury than that the knight had woundedthe forester's jerkin, and the forester had disabled the knight's plume;when they were interrupted by a voice from a thicket, exclaiming, "Wellfought, girl: well fought. Mass, that had nigh been a shrewd hit. Thouowest him for that, lass. Marry, stand by, I'll pay him for thee. "

The knight turning to the voice, beheld a tall friar issuing from thethicket, brandishing a ponderous cudgel. 

"Who art thou?" said the knight. 

"I am the church militant of Sherwood, " answered the friar. "Why artthou in arms against our lady queen?"

"What meanest thou?" said the knight. 

"Truly, this, " said the friar, "is our liege lady of the forest, againstwhom I do apprehend thee in overt act of treason. What sayest thou forthyself?"

"I say, " answered the knight, "that if this be indeed a lady, man neveryet held me so long. "

"Spoken, " said the friar, "like one who hath done execution. Hast thouthy stomach full of steel? Wilt thou diversify thy repast with a tasteof my oak-graff? Or wilt thou incline thine heart to our venison whichtruly is cooling? Wilt thou fight? or wilt thou dine? or wilt thou fightand dine? or wilt thou dine and fight? I am for thee, choose as thoumayest. "

"I will dine, " said the knight; "for with lady I never fought before, and with friar I never fought yet, and with neither will I ever fightknowingly: and if this be the queen of the forest, I will not, being inher own dominions, be backward to do her homage. "

So saying, he kissed the hand of Marian, who was pleased most graciouslyto express her approbation. 

"Gramercy, sir knight, " said the friar, "I laud thee for thy courtesy, which I deem to be no less than thy valour. Now do thou follow me, whileI follow my nose, which scents the pleasant odour of roast from thedepth of the forest recesses. I will lead thy horse, and do thou lead mylady. "

The knight took Marian's hand, and followed the friar, who walked beforethem, singing:

 When the wind blows, when the wind blows From where under buck the dry log glows, What guide can you follow, O'er brake and o'er hollow, So true as a ghostly, ghostly nose?

CHAPTER XVIII

 Robin and Richard were two pretty men. --Mother Goose's Melody. 

They proceeded, following their infallible guide, first along a lightelastic greensward under the shade of lofty and wide-spreading treesthat skirted a sunny opening of the forest, then along labyrinthinepaths, which the deer, the outlaw, or the woodman had made, through theclose shoots of the young coppices, through the thick undergrowth ofthe ancient woods, through beds of gigantic fern that filled the narrowglades and waved their green feathery heads above the plume of theknight. Along these sylvan alleys they walked in single file; the friarsinging and pioneering in the van, the horse plunging and flounderingbehind the friar, the lady following "in maiden meditation fancy free, "and the knight bringing up the rear, much marvelling at the strangecompany into which his stars had thrown him. Their path had expandedsufficiently to allow the knight to take Marian's hand again, when theyarrived in the august presence of Robin Hood and his court. 

Robin's table was spread under a high overarching canopy of livingboughs, on the edge of a natural lawn of verdure starred with flowers, through which a swift transparent rivulet ran sparkling in the sun. Theboard was covered with abundance of choice food and excellent liquor, not without the comeliness of snow-white linen and the splendourof costly plate, which the sheriff of Nottingham had unwillinglycontributed to supply, at the same time with an excellent cook, whomLittle John's art had spirited away to the forest with the contents ofhis master's silver scullery. 

An hundred foresters were here assembled over-ready for their dinner, some seated at the table and some lying in groups under the trees. 

Robin bade courteous welcome to the knight, who took his seat betweenRobin and Marian at the festal board; at which was already placed onestrange guest in the person of a portly monk, sitting between LittleJohn and Scarlet, with, his rotund physiognomy elongated into anunnatural oval by the conjoint influence of sorrow and fear: sorrow forthe departed contents of his travelling treasury, a good-looking valisewhich was hanging empty on a bough; and fear for his personal safety, of which all the flasks and pasties before him could not give himassurance. The appearance of the knight, however, cheered him up witha semblance of protection, and gave him just sufficient courage todemolish a cygnet and a rumble-pie, which he diluted with the contentsof two flasks of canary sack. 

But wine, which sometimes creates and often increases joy, doth also, upon occasion, heighten sorrow: and so it fared now with our portlymonk, who had no sooner explained away his portion of provender, than hebegan to weep and bewail himself bitterly. 

"Why dost thou weep, man?" said Robin Hood. "Thou hast done thineembassy justly, and shalt have thy Lady's grace. "

"Alack! alack!" said the monk: "no embassy had I, luckless sinner, as well thou wottest, but to take to my abbey in safety the treasurewhereof thou hast despoiled me. "

"Propound me his case, " said Friar Tuck, "and I will give him ghostlycounsel. "

"You well remember, " said Robin Hood, "the sorrowful knight who dinedwith us here twelve months and a day gone by. "

"Well do I, " said Friar Tuck. "His lands were in jeopardy with a certainabbot, who would allow him no longer day for their redemption. Whereuponyou lent to him the four hundred pounds which he needed, and which hewas to repay this day, though he had no better security to give than ourLady the Virgin. "

"I never desired better, " said Robin, "for she never yet failed tosend me my pay; and here is one of her own flock, this faithful andwell-favoured monk of St. Mary's, hath brought it me duly, principal andinterest to a penny, as Little John can testify, who told it forth. Tobe sure, he denied having it, but that was to prove our faith. We soughtand found it. "

"I know nothing of your knight, " said the monk: "and the money was ourown, as the Virgin shall bless me. "

"She shall bless thee, " said Friar Tuck, "for a faithful messenger. "

The monk resumed his wailing. Little John brought him his horse. Robingave him leave to depart. He sprang with singular nimbleness into thesaddle, and vanished without saying, God give you good day. 

The stranger knight laughed heartily as the monk rode off. 

"They say, sir knight, " said Friar Tuck, "they should laugh who win: butthou laughest who art likely to lose. "

"I have won, " said the knight, "a good dinner, some mirth, and someknowledge: and I cannot lose by paying for them. "

"Bravely said, " answered Robin. "Still it becomes thee to pay: for it isnot meet that a poor forester should treat a rich knight. How much moneyhast thou with thee?"

"Troth, I know not, " said the knight. "Sometimes much, sometimes little, sometimes none. But search, and what thou findest, keep: and for thesake of thy kind heart and open hand, be it what it may, I shall wish itwere more. "

"Then, since thou sayest so, " said Robin, "not a penny will I touch. Many a false churl comes hither, and disburses against his will: andtill there is lack of these, I prey not on true men. "

"Thou art thyself a true man, right well I judge, Robin, " said thestranger knight, "and seemest more like one bred in court than to thypresent outlaw life. "

"Our life, " said the friar, "is a craft, an art, and a mystery. How muchof it, think you, could be learned at court?"

"Indeed, I cannot say, " said the stranger knight: "but I shouldapprehend very little. "

"And so should I, " said the friar: "for we should find very littleof our bold open practice, but should hear abundance of praise of ourprinciples. To live in seeming fellowship and secret rivalry; to have ahand for all, and a heart for none; to be everybody's acquaintance, andnobody's friend; to meditate the ruin of all on whom we smile, and todread the secret stratagems of all who smile on us; to pilfer honoursand despoil fortunes, not by fighting in daylight, but by sapping indarkness: these are arts which the court can teach, but which we, by 'rLady, have not learned. But let your court-minstrel tune up his throatto the praise of your court-hero, then come our principles into play:then is our practice extolled not by the same name, for their Richardis a hero, and our Robin is a thief: marry, your hero guts an exchequer, while your thief disembowels a portmanteau, your hero sacks a city, while your thief sacks a cellar: your hero marauds on a larger scale, and that is all the difference, for the principle and the virtue areone: but two of a trade cannot agree: therefore your hero makes laws toget rid of your thief, and gives him an ill name that he may hang him:for might is right, and the strong make laws for the weak, and they thatmake laws to serve their own turn do also make morals to give colour totheir laws. "

"Your comparison, friar, " said the stranger, "fails in this: that yourthief fights for profit, and your hero for honour. I have fought underthe banners of Richard, and if, as you phrase it, he guts exchequers, and sacks cities, it is not to win treasure for himself, but to furnishforth the means of his greater and more glorious aim. "

"Misconceive me not, sir knight, " said the friar. "We all love andhonour King Richard, and here is a deep draught to his health: but Iwould show you, that we foresters are miscalled by opprobrious names, and that our virtues, though they follow at humble distance, are yettruly akin to those of Coeur-de-Lion. I say not that Richard is athief, but I say that Robin is a hero: and for honour, did ever yet man, miscalled thief, win greater honour than Robin? Do not all men grace himwith some honourable epithet? The most gentle thief, the most courteousthief, the most bountiful thief, yea, and the most honest thief? Richardis courteous, bountiful, honest, and valiant: but so also is Robin:it is the false word that makes the unjust distinction. They aretwin-spirits, and should be friends, but that fortune hath differentlycast their lot: but their names shall descend together to the latestdays, as the flower of their age and of England: for in the pureprinciples of freebootery have they excelled all men; and to theprinciples of freebootery, diversely developed, belong all the qualitiesto which song and story concede renown. "

"And you may add, friar, " said Marian, "that Robin, no less thanRichard, is king in his own dominion; and that if his subjects be fewer, yet are they more uniformly loyal. "

"I would, fair lady, " said the stranger, "that thy latter observationwere not so true. But I nothing doubt, Robin, that if Richard could hearyour friar, and see you and your lady, as I now do, there is not a manin England whom he would take by the hand more cordially than yourself. "

"Gramercy, sir knight, " said Robin---- But his speech was cut short byLittle John calling, "Hark!"

All listened. A distant trampling of horses was heard. The soundsapproached rapidly, and at length a group of horsemen glittering inholyday dresses was visible among the trees. 

"God's my life!" said Robin, "what means this? To arms, my merrymenall. "

"No arms, Robin, " said the foremost horseman, riding up and springingfrom his saddle: "have you forgotten Sir William of the Lee?"

"No, by my fay, " said Robin; "and right welcome again to Sherwood. "

Little John bustled to re-array the disorganised economy of the table, and replace the dilapidations of the provender. 

"I come late, Robin, " said Sir William, "but I came by a wrestling, where I found a good yeoman wrongfully beset by a crowd of sturdyvarlets, and I staid to do him right. "

"I thank thee for that, in God's name, " said Robin, "as if thy goodservice had been to myself. "

"And here, " said the knight, "is thy four hundred pound; and my men havebrought thee an hundred bows and as many well-furnished quivers; whichI beseech thee to receive and to use as a poor token of my gratefulkindness to thee: for me and my wife and children didst thou redeem frombeggary. "

"Thy bows and arrows, " said Robin, "will I joyfully receive: but of thymoney, not a penny. It is paid already. My Lady, who was thy security, hath sent it me for thee. "

Sir William pressed, but Robin was inflexible. 

"It is paid, " said Robin, "as this good knight can testify, who saw myLady's messenger depart but now. "

Sir William looked round to the stranger knight, and instantly fell onhis knee, saying, "God save King Richard. "

The foresters, friar and all, dropped on their knees together, andrepeated in chorus: "God save King Richard. "

"Rise, rise, " said Richard, smiling: "Robin is king here, as his ladyhath shown. I have heard much of thee, Robin, both of thy present andthy former state. And this, thy fair forest-queen, is, if tales saytrue, the lady Matilda Fitzwater. "

Marian signed acknowledgment. 

"Your father, " said the king, "has approved his fidelity to me, bythe loss of his lands, which the newness of my return, and many publiccares, have not yet given me time to restore: but this justice shall bedone to him, and to thee also, Robin, if thou wilt leave thy forest-lifeand resume thy earldom, and be a peer of Coeur-de-Lion: for braver heartand juster hand I never yet found. "

Robin looked round on his men. 

"Your followers, " said the king, "shall have free pardon, and such ofthem as thou wilt part with shall have maintenance from me; and if everI confess to priest, it shall be to thy friar. "

"Gramercy to your majesty, " said the friar; "and my inflictions shallbe flasks of canary; and if the number be (as in grave cases I may, peradventure, make it) too great for one frail mortality, I will relieveyou by vicarious penance, and pour down my own throat the redundancy ofthe burden. "

Robin and his followers embraced the king's proposal. A joyful meetingsoon followed with the baron and Sir Guy of Gamwell: and Richard himselfhonoured with his own presence a formal solemnization of the nuptials ofour lovers, whom he constantly distinguished with his peculiar regard. 

The friar could not say, Farewell to the forest, without something ofa heavy heart: and he sang as he turned his back upon its bounds, occasionally reverting his head:

 Ye woods, that oft at sultry noon Have o'er me spread your messy shade: Ye gushing streams, whose murmured tune Has in my ear sweet music made, While, where the dancing pebbles show Deep in the restless fountain-pool The gelid water's upward flow, My second flask was laid to cool:

 Ye pleasant sights of leaf and flower: Ye pleasant sounds of bird and bee: Ye sports of deer in sylvan bower: Ye feasts beneath the greenwood tree: Ye baskings in the vernal sun: Ye slumbers in the summer dell: Ye trophies that this arm has won: And must ye hear your friar's farewell?

But the friar's farewell was not destined to be eternal. He wasdomiciled as the family confessor of the earl and countess ofHuntingdon, who led a discreet and courtly life, and kept up oldhospitality in all its munificence, till the death of King Richard andthe usurpation of John, by placing their enemy in power, compelled themto return to their greenwood sovereignty; which, it is probable, theywould have before done from choice, if their love of sylvan libertyhad not been counteracted by their desire to retain the friendshipof Coeur-de-Lion. Their old and tried adherents, the friar among theforemost, flocked again round their forest-banner; and in merry Sherwoodthey long lived together, the lady still retaining her former name ofMaid Marian, though the appellation was then as much a misnomer as thatof Little John. 

THE END. 

Footnotes:

[Footnote 1: Roasting by a slow fire for the love of God. ]

[Footnote 2: Of these lines all that is not in italics belongs to Mr. Wordsworth: Resolution and Independence. ]

[Footnote 3: Harp-it-on: or, a corruption of (greek 'Erpeton), acreeping thing. ]

[Footnote 4:

 And therefore is she called Maid Marian Because she leads a spotless maiden life And shall till Robin's outlaw life have end. --Old Play. ]

[Footnote 5:

 "These byshoppes and these archbyshoppes Ye shall them bete and bynde, "

says Robin Hood, in an old ballad. Perhaps, however, thus is to be takennot in a literal, but in a figurative sense from the binding and beatingof wheat: for as all rich men were Robin's harvest, the bishops andarchbishops must have been the finest and fattest ears among them, fromwhich Robin merely proposes to thresh the grain when he directs them tobe bound and beaten: and as Pharaoh's fat kine were typical of fat earsof wheat, so may fat ears of wheat, mutatis mutandis, be typical of fatkine. ]

[Footnote 6: Alcofribas Nasier: an anagram of Francois Rabelais, and hisassumed appellation. ]

VARIANTS IN THE TEXT

Changes in spelling, use of capitals, punctuation and type are notrecorded. 

P. 15, ll. 12-13. And the bishops: and bishops 1822. 

P. 46, l. 12. United: re-united 1822. 

P. 63, l. 14. A posse of men: fifty men 1822. 

P. 74, l. 6. Privation: imprisonment and privation 1822. 

P. 80, l. 29. Tone: toll 1822. 

P. 153, ll. 21-23. Daily of bad wine. .. More fastidious relish: everyday I grow more intolerant of bad, and have a keener and more fastidiousrelish of good wine 1822. 

P. 159, l. 20. Passed: past 1822.