The Literary World Seventh Reader Part 26

"Devoutly spoken," said Locksley. "And where is Allan-a-Dale?"

"Walked up toward the [v]Watling Street, to watch for the Prior of Jorvaulx."

"That is well thought on also," replied the captain. "And where is the friar?"

"In his cell."

"Thither will I go," said Locksley. "Disperse and seek your companions.

Collect what force you can, for there's game afoot that must be hunted hard and will turn to bay. Meet me here at daybreak. And stay," he added; "I have forgotten what is most necessary of the whole. Two of you take the road quickly toward Torquilstone, the castle of [v]Front-de-Boeuf. A set of gallants, who have been [v]masquerading in such guise as our own, are carrying a band of prisoners thither. Watch them closely, for, even if they reach the castle before we collect our force, our honor is concerned to punish them, and we will find means to do so. Keep a good watch on them, therefore, and despatch one of your comrades to bring the news of the yeomen thereabouts."

The men promised obedience and departed on their several errands.

Meanwhile, their leader and his two companions, who now looked upon him with great respect as well as some fear, pursued their way to the chapel where dwelt the friar mentioned by Locksley. Presently they reached a little moonlit glade, in front of which stood an ancient and ruinous chapel and beside it a rude hermitage of stone half-covered with ivy vines.

The sounds which proceeded at that moment from the latter place were anything but churchly. In fact, the hermit and another voice were performing at the full extent of very powerful lungs an old drinking-song, of which this was the burden:

Come, trowl the brown bowl to me, Bully boy, bully boy; Come trowl the brown bowl to me: Ho! jolly Jenkin, I spy a knave drinking; Come trowl the brown bowl to me.

"Now, that is not ill sung," said Wamba, who had thrown in a few of his own flourishes to help out the chorus. "But who, in the saint's name, ever expected to have heard such a jolly chant come from a hermit's cell at midnight?"

"Marry, that should I," said Gurth, "for the jolly Clerk of Copmanhurst is a known man and kills half the deer that are stolen in this walk. Men say that the deer-keeper has complained of him and that he will be stripped of his [v]cowl and [v]cope altogether if he keep not better order."

While they were thus speaking, Locksley's loud and repeated knocks had at length disturbed the [v]anchorite and his guest, who was a knight of singularly powerful build and open, handsome face, and in black armor.

"By my beads," said the hermit, "here come other guests. I would not for my cowl that they found us in this goodly exercise. All men have enemies, sir knight; and there be those malignant enough to construe the hospitable refreshment I have been offering to you, a weary traveler, into drinking and gluttony, vices alike alien to my profession and my disposition."

"Base [v]calumniators!" replied the knight. "I would I had the chastising of them. Nevertheless, holy clerk, it is true that all have their enemies; and there be those in this very land whom I would rather speak to through the bars of my helmet than bare-faced."

"Get thine iron pot on thy head, then, sir knight," said the hermit, "while I remove these pewter flagons."

He struck up a thundering [v]_De profundis clamavi_, under cover of which he removed the apparatus of their banquet, while the knight, laughing heartily and arming himself all the while, a.s.sisted his host with his voice from time to time as his mirth permitted.

"What devil's [v]matins are you after at this hour?" demanded a voice from outside.

"Heaven forgive you, sir traveler!" said the hermit, whose own noise prevented him from recognizing accents which were tolerably familiar to him. "Wend on your way, in the name of G.o.d and Saint Dunstan, and disturb not the devotions of me and my holy brother."

"Mad priest," answered the voice from without; "open to Locksley!"

"All's safe--all's right," said the hermit to his companion.

"But who is he?" asked the Black Knight. "It imports me much to know."

"Who is he?" answered the hermit. "I tell thee he is a friend."

"But what friend?" persisted the knight; "for he may be a friend to thee and none of mine."

"What friend?" replied the hermit; "that now is one of the questions that is more easily asked than answered."

"Well, open the door," ordered the knight, "before he beat it from its hinges."

The hermit speedily unbolted his portal and admitted Locksley, with his two companions.

"Why, hermit," was the yeoman's first question as soon as he beheld the knight, "what boon companion hast thou here?"

"A brother of our order," replied the friar, shaking his head; "we have been at our devotions all night."

"He is a monk of the church militant," answered Locksley; "and there be more of them abroad. I tell thee, friar, thou must lay down the [v]rosary and take up the [v]quarter-staff; we shall need every one of our merry men, whether clerk or layman. But," he added, taking a step aside, "art thou mad--to give admittance to a knight thou dost not know?

Hast thou forgotten our agreement?"

"Good yeoman," said the knight, coming forward, "be not wroth with my merry host. He did but afford me the hospitality which I would have compelled from him if he had refused it."

"Thou compel!" cried the friar. "Wait but till I have changed this gray gown for a green ca.s.sock, and if I make not a quarter-staff ring twelve upon thy pate, I am neither true clerk nor good woodsman."

While he spoke thus he stript off his gown and appeared in a close buckram doublet and lower garment, over which he speedily did on a ca.s.sock of green and hose of the same color.

"I pray thee [v]truss my points," he said to Wamba, "and thou shalt have a cup of sack for thy labor."

"[v]Gramercy for thy sack," returned Wamba; "but thinkest thou that it is lawful for me to aid you to transmew thyself from a holy hermit into a sinful forester?"

So saying, he accommodated the friar with his a.s.sistance in tying the endless number of points, as the laces which attached the hose to the doublet were then termed.

While they were thus employed, Locksley led the knight a little apart and addressed him thus: "Deny it not, sir knight, you are he who played so glorious a part at the tournament at Ashby."

"And what follows, if you guess truly, good yeoman?"

"For my purpose," said the yeoman, "thou shouldst be as well a good Englishman as a good knight; for that which I have to speak of concerns, indeed, the duty of every honest man, but is more especially that of a true-born native of England."

"You can speak to no one," replied the knight, "to whom England, and the life of every Englishman, can be dearer than to me."

"I would willingly believe so," said the woodsman; "and never had this country such need to be supported by those who love her. A band of villains, in the disguise of better men than themselves, have become masters of the persons of a n.o.ble Englishman named Cedric the Saxon, together with his ward and his friend, Athelstane of Coningsburgh, and have transported them to a castle in this forest called Torquilstone. I ask of thee, as a good knight and a good Englishman, wilt thou aid in their rescue?"

"I am bound by my vow to do so," replied the knight; "but I would willingly know who you are who request my a.s.sistance in their behalf?"

"I am," said the forester, "a nameless man; but I am a friend of my country and my country's friends. Believe, however, that my word, when pledged, is as [v]inviolate as if I wore golden spurs."

"I willingly believe it," returned the knight. "I have been accustomed to study men's countenances, and I can read in thine honesty and resolution. I will, therefore, ask thee no farther questions but aid thee in setting at freedom these oppressed captives, which done, I trust we shall part better acquainted and well satisfied with each other."

When the friar was at length ready, Locksley turned to his companions.

"Come on, my masters," he said; "tarry not to talk. I say, come on: we must collect all our forces, and few enough shall we have if we are to storm the castle of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf."

II

While these measures were taking in behalf of Cedric and his companions, the armed men by whom the latter had been seized hurried their captives along toward the place of security, where they intended to imprison them. But darkness came on fast, and the paths of the wood seemed but imperfectly known to the [v]marauders. They were compelled to make several long halts and once or twice to return on their road to resume the direction which they wished to pursue. It was, therefore, not until the light of the summer morn had dawned upon them that they could travel in full a.s.surance that they held the right path.

In vain Cedric [v]expostulated with his guards, who refused to break their silence for his wrath or his protests. They continued to hurry him along, traveling at a very rapid rate, until, at the end of an avenue of huge trees, arose Torquilstone, the h.o.a.ry and ancient castle of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf. It was a fortress of no great size, consisting of a donjon, or large and high square tower, surrounded by buildings of inferior height. Around the exterior wall was a deep moat, supplied with water from a neighboring rivulet. Front-de-Boeuf, whose character placed him often at feud with his neighbors, had made considerable additions to the strength of his castle by building towers upon the outward wall, so as to flank it at every angle. The access, as usual in castles of the period, lay through an arched [v]barbican or outwork, which was defended by a small turret.

Cedric no sooner saw the turrets of Front-de-Boeuf's castle raise their gray and moss-grown battlements, glimmering in the morning sun, above the woods by which they were surrounded than he instantly augured more truly concerning the cause of his misfortune.