Sir Scott - Ivanhoe

“Gallants of England,” said Front-de-Bœuf, “how relish ye your entertainment at Torquilstone? Are ye yet aware what your surquedy and outrecuidance, do merit, for scoffing at the entertainment of a prince of the house of Anjou? Have ye forgotten how ye requited the unmerited hospitality of the royal John? By God and St. Denis, an ye pay not the richer ransom, I will hang ye up by the feet from the iron bars of these windows, till the kites and hooded crows have made skeletons of you! Speak out, ye Saxon dogs—what bid ye for your worthless lives? How say you, you of Rotherwood?”

“Not a doit dpI,” answered poor Wamba; “and for hanging up by the feet, my brain has been topsy-turvy, they say, ever since the biggin dqwas bound first round my head; so turning me upside down may peradventure restore it again.”

“St. Genevieve!” said Front-de-Bœuf, “what have we got here?”

And with the back of his hand he struck Cedric’s cap from the head of the Jester, and throwing open his collar, discovered the fatal badge of servitude, the silver collar round his neck.

“Giles—Clement—dogs and varlets!” exclaimed the furious Norman, “what have you brought me here?”

“I think I can tell you,” said De Bracy, who just entered the apartment. “This is Cedric’s clown, who fought so manful a skirmish with Isaac of York about a question of precedence.”

“I shall settle it for them both,” replied Front-de-Bœuf; “they shall hang on the same gallows, unless his master and this boar of Coningsburgh will pay well for their lives. Their wealth is the least they can surrender; they must also carry off with them the swarms that are besetting the castle, subscribe a surrender of their pretended immunities, and live under us as serfs and vassals; too happy if, in the new world that is about to begin, we leave them the breath of their nostrils. Go,” said he to two of his attendants, “fetch me the right Cedric hither, and I pardon your error for once; the rather that you but mistook a fool for a Saxon franklin.”

“Ay, but,” said Wamba, “your chivalrous excellency will find there are more fools than franklins among us.”

“What means the knave?” said Front-de-Bœuf, looking towards his followers, who, lingering and loth, faltered forth their belief that, if this were not Cedric who was there in presence, they knew not what was become of him.

“Saints of Heaven!” exclaimed De Bracy, “he must have escaped in the monk’s garments!”

“Fiends of hell!” echoed Front-de-Bœuf, “it was then the boar of Rotherwood who I ushered to the postern, and dismissed with my own hands! And thou,” he said to Wamba, “whose folly could overreach the wisdom of idiots yet more gross than myself—I will give thee holy orders—I will shave thy crown for thee! Here, let them tear the scalp from his head, and then pitch him headlong from the battlements. Thy trade is to jest, canst thou jest now?”

“You deal with me better than your word, noble knight,” whimpered forth poor Wamba, whose habits of buffoonery were not to be overcome even by the immediate prospect of death; “if you give me the red cap you propose, out of a simple monk you will make a cardinal.”

“The poor wretch,” said De Bracy, “is resolved to die in his vocation. Front-de-Bœuf, you shall not slay him. Give him to me to make sport for my Free Companions. How sayst thou, knave? Wilt thou take heart of grace, and go to the wars with me?”

“Ay, with my master’s leave,” said Wamba; “for, look you, I must not slip collar (and he touched that which he wore) without his permission.”

“Oh, a Norman saw will soon cut a Saxon collar,” said De Bracy.

“Ay, noble sir,” said Wamba, “and thence goes the proverb:

‘Norman saw on English oak,

On English neck a Norman yoke;

Norman spoon in English dish,

And England ruled as Normans wish;

Blythe world to England never will be more,

Till England’s rid of all the four. “’

“Thou dost well, De Bracy,” said Front-de-Bœuf, “to stand there listening to a fool’s jargon, when destruction is gaping for us! Seest thou not we are overreached, and that our proposed mode of communicating with our friends without has been disconcerted by this same motley gentleman thou art so fond to brother? What views have we to expect but instant storm?”

“To the battlements then,” said De Bracy; “when didst thou ever see me the graver for the thoughts of battle? Call the Templar yonder, and let him fight but half so well for his life as he has done for his order. Make thou to the walls thyself with thy huge body. Let me do my poor endeavour in my own way, and I tell thee the Saxon outlaws may as well attempt to scale the clouds, as the castle of Torquilstone; or, if you will treat with the banditti, why not employ the mediation of this worthy franklin, who seems in such deep contemplation of the wine-flagon? Here, Saxon,” he continued, addressing Athelstane, and handing the cup to him, “rinse thy throat with that noble liquor, and rouse up thy soul to say what thou wilt do for thy liberty.”

“What a man of mould drmay,” answered Athelstane, “providing it be what a man of manhood ought. Dismiss me free, with my companions, and I will pay a ransom of a thousand marks.”

“And wilt moreover assure us the retreat of that scum of mankind who are swarming around the castle, contrary to God’s peace and the king’s?” said Front-de-Bœuf.

“In so far as I can,” answered Athelstane, “I will withdraw them; and I fear not but that my father Cedric will do his best to assist me.”

“We are agreed then,” said Front-de-Bœuf, “thou and they are to be set at freedom, and peace is to be on both sides, for payment of a thousand marks. It is a trifling ransom, Saxon, and thou wilt owe gratitude to the moderation which accepts of it in exchange of your persons. But mark, this extends not to the Jew Isaac.”

“Nor to the Jew Isaac’s daughter,” said the Templar, who had now joined them.

“Neither,” said Front-de-Bœuf, “belong to this Saxon’s company.

“I were unworthy to be called Christian, if they did,” replied Athelstane; “deal with the unbelievers as ye list.”

“Neither does the ransom include the Lady Rowena,” said De Bracy. “It shall never be said I was scared out of a fair prize without striking a blow for it.”

“Neither,” said Front-de-Bœuf, “does our treaty refer to this wretched Jester, whom I retain, that I may make him an example to every knave who turns jest into earnest.”

“The Lady Rowena,” answered Athelstane, with the most steady countenance, “is my affianced bride. I will be drawn by wild horses before I consent to part with her. The slave Wamba has this day saved the life of my father Cedric. I will lose mine ere a hair of his head be injured.”

“Thy affianced bride! The Lady Rowena the affianced bride of a vassal like thee!” said De Bracy. “Saxon, thou dreamest that the days of thy seven kingdoms are returned again. I tell thee, the princes of the house of Anjou confer not their wards on men of such lineage as thine.”

“My lineage, proud Norman,” replied Athelstane, “is drawn from a source more pure and ancient than that of a beggarly Frenchman, whose living is won by selling the blood of the thieves whom he assembles under his paltry standard. Kings were my ancestors, strong in war and wise in council, who every day feasted in their hall more hundreds than thou canst number individual followers; whose names have been sung by minstrels, and their laws recorded by Witenagemotes; whose bones were interred amid the prayers of saints, and over whose tombs minsters have been builded.”