Crotchet Castle Part 17

An immense bowl of spiced wine, with roasted apples hissing on its surface, was borne into the hall by four men, followed by an empty bowl of the same dimensions, with all the materials of arrack punch, for the divine's especial brewage. He accinged himself to the task with his usual heroism, and having finished it to his entire satisfaction, reminded his host to order in the devil

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. I think, Mr. Chainmail, we can amuse ourselves very well here all night. The enemy may be still excubant: and we had better not disperse till daylight. I am perfectly satisfied with my quarters. Let the young folk go on with their gambols; let them dance to your old harper's minstrelsy; and if they please to kiss under the mistletoe, whereof I espy a goodly bunch suspended at the end of the hall, let those who like it not leave it to those who do. Moreover, if among the more sedate portion of the a.s.sembly, which, I foresee, will keep me company, there were any to revive the good old custom of singing after supper, so to fill up the intervals of the dances, the steps of night would move more lightly.

MR. CHAINMAIL. My Susan will set the example, after she has set that of joining in the rustic dance, according to good customs long departed.

After the first dance, in which all cla.s.ses of the company mingled, the young lady of the mansion took her harp, and following the reverend gentleman's suggestion, sang a song of the twelfth century.

FLORENCE AND BLANCHFLOR.

Florence and Blanchflor, loveliest maids, Within a summer grove, Amid the flower-enamelled shades Together talked of love.

A clerk sweet Blanchflor's heart had gain'd; Fair Florence loved a knight: And each with ardent voice maintained She loved the worthiest wight.

Sweet Blanchflor praised her scholar dear, As courteous, kind, and true!

Fair Florence said her chevalier Could every foe subdue.

And Florence scorned the bookworm vain, Who sword nor spear could raise; And Blanchflor scorned the unlettered brain Could sing no lady's praise.

From dearest love, the maidens bright To deadly hatred fell, Each turned to shun the other's sight, And neither said farewell.

The king of birds, who held his court Within that flowery grove, Sang loudly: "'Twill be rare disport To judge this suit of love."

Before him came the maidens bright, With all his birds around, To judge the cause, if clerk or knight In love be worthiest found.

The falcon and the sparrow-hawk Stood forward for the fight: Ready to do, and not to talk, They voted for the knight.

And Blanchflor's heart began to fail, Till rose the strong-voiced lark, And, after him, the nightingale, And pleaded for the clerk.

The nightingale prevailed at length, Her pleading had such charms; So eloquence can conquer strength, And arts can conquer arms.

The lovely Florence tore her hair, And died upon the place; And all the birds a.s.sembled there Bewailed the mournful case.

They piled up leaves and flowerets rare Above the maiden bright, And sang: "Farewell to Florence fair, Who too well loved her knight."

Several others of the party sang in the intervals of the dances.

Mr. Chainmail handed to Mr. Trillo another ballad of the twelfth century, of a merrier character than the former. Mr. Trillo readily accommodated it with an air, and sang:

THE PRIEST AND THE MULBERRY TREE.

Did you hear of the curate who mounted his mare, And merrily trotted along to the fair?

Of creature more tractable none ever heard; In the height of her speed she would stop at a word, And again with a word, when the curate said Hey, She put forth her mettle, and galloped away.

As near to the gates of the city he rode, While the sun of September all brilliantly glowed, The good priest discovered, with eyes of desire, A mulberry tree in a hedge of wild briar, On boughs long and lofty, in many a green shoot, Hung large, black, and glossy, the beautiful fruit.

The curate was hungry, and thirsty to boot; He shrunk from the thorns, though he longed for the fruit; With a word he arrested his courser's keen speed, And he stood up erect on the back of his steed; On the saddle he stood, while the creature stood still, And he gathered the fruit, till he took his good fill.

"Sure never," he thought, "was a creature so rare, So docile, so true, as my excellent mare.

Lo, here, how I stand" (and he gazed all around), "As safe and as steady as if on the ground, Yet how had it been, if some traveller this way, Had, dreaming no mischief, but chanced to cry Hey?"

He stood with his head in the mulberry tree, And he spoke out aloud in his fond reverie.

At the sound of the word, the good mare made a push, And down went the priest in the wild-briar bush.

He remembered too late, on his th.o.r.n.y green bed, Much that well may be thought cannot wisely be said.

Lady Clarinda, being prevailed on to take the harp in her turn, sang the following stanzas.

In the days of old, Lovers felt true pa.s.sion, Deeming years of sorrow By a smile repaid.

Now the charms of gold, Spells of pride and fashion, Bid them say good morrow To the best-loved maid.

Through the forests wild, O'er the mountains lonely, They were never weary Honour to pursue.

If the damsel smiled Once in seven years only, All their wanderings dreary Ample guerdon knew.

Now one day's caprice Weighs down years of smiling, Youthful hearts are rovers, Love is bought and sold: Fortune's gifts may cease, Love is less beguiling; Wisest were the lovers In the days of old.

The glance which she threw at the captain, as she sang the last verse, awakened his dormant hopes. Looking round for his rival, he saw that he was not in the hall; and, approaching the lady of his heart, he received one of the sweetest smiles of their earlier days.

After a time, the ladies, and all the females of the party, retired. The males remained on duty with punch and wa.s.sail, and dropped off one by one into sweet forgetfulness; so that when the rising sun of December looked through the painted windows on mouldering embers and flickering lamps, the vaulted roof was echoing to a mellifluous concert of noses, from the clarionet of the waiting-boy at one end of the hall, to the double ba.s.s of the Reverend Doctor, ringing over the empty punch-bowl, at the other.

CONCLUSION

From this eventful night, young Crotchet was seen no more on English mould. Whither he had vanished was a question that could no more be answered in his case than in that of King Arthur after the battle of Camlan. The great firm of Catchflat and Company figured in the Gazette, and paid sixpence in the pound; and it was clear that he had shrunk from exhibiting himself on the scene of his former greatness, shorn of the beams of his paper prosperity.

Some supposed him to be sleeping among the undiscoverable secrets of some barbel-pool in the Thames; but those who knew him best were more inclined to the opinion that he had gone across the Atlantic, with his pockets full of surplus capital, to join his old acquaintance, Mr. Touchandgo, in the bank of Dotandcarryonetown.

Lady Clarinda was more sorry for her father's disappointment than her own; but she had too much pride to allow herself to be put up a second time in the money-market; and when the Captain renewed his a.s.siduities, her old partiality for him, combining with a sense of grat.i.tude for a degree of constancy which she knew she scarcely deserved, induced her, with Lord Foolincourt's hard-wrung consent, to share with him a more humble, but less precarious fortune, than that to which she had been destined as the price of a rotten borough.

Footnotes:

{1} A mountain-wandering maid, Twin-nourished with the solitary wood.