Sir Scott - Ivanhoe

“Gage not thy promise so lightly,” said the Knight of the Fetterlock; “yet well I hope to gain the boon I shall ask. Meanwhile, adieu.”

“I have but to say,” added the Saxon, “that, during the funeral rites of the noble Athelstane, I shall be an inhabitant of the halls of his castle of Coningsburgh. They will be open to all who choose to partake of the funeral banqueting; and—I speak in name of the noble Edith, mother of the fallen prince—they will never be shut against him who laboured so bravely, though unsuccessfully, to save Athelstane from Norman chains and Norman steel.”

“Ay, ay,” said Wamba, who had resumed his attendance on his master, “rare feeding there will be; pity that the noble Athelstane cannot banquet at his own funeral. But he,” continued the Jester, lifting up his eyes gravely, “is supping in Paradise, and doubtless does honour to the cheer.”

“Peace, and move on,” said Cedric, his anger at this untimely jest being checked by the recollection of Wamba’s recent services. Rowena waved a graceful adieu to him of the Fetterlock, the Saxon bade God speed him, and on they moved through a wide glade of the forest.

They had scarce departed, ere a sudden procession moved from under the greenwood branches, swept slowly round the silvan amphitheatre, and took the same direction with Rowena and her followers. The priests of a neighbouring convent, in expectation of the ample donation, or “soul-scat,” which Cedric had propined, attended upon the car in which the body of Athelstane was laid, and sang hymns as it was sadly and slowly borne on the shoulders of his vassals to his castle of Coningsburgh, to be there deposited in the grave of Hengist, from whom the deceased derived his long descent. Many of his vassals had assembled at the news of his death, and followed the bier with all the external marks, at least, of dejection and sorrow. Again the outlaws arose, and paid the same rude and spontaneous homage to death which they had so lately rendered to beauty: the slow chant and mournful step of the priests brought back to their remembrance such of their comrades as had fallen in the yesterday’s affray. But such recollections dwell not long with those who lead a life of danger and enterprise, and ere the sound of the death-hymn had died on the wind, the outlaws were again busied in the distribution of their spoil.

“Valiant knight,” said Locksley to the Black Champion, “without whose good heart and mighty arm our enterprise must altogether have failed, will it please you to take from that mass of spoil whatever may best serve to pleasure you, and to remind you of this my trysting-tree?”

“I accept the offer,” said the Knight, “as frankly as it is given; and I ask permission to dispose of Sir Maurice de Bracy at my own pleasure.”

“He is thine already,” said Locksley, “and well for him! else the tyrant had graced the highest bough of this oak, with as many of his Free Companions as we could gather hanging thick as acorns around him. But he is thy prisoner, and he is safe, though he had slain my father.”

“De Bracy,” said the Knight, “thou art free—depart. He whose prisoner thou art scorns to take mean revenge for what is past. But beware of the future, lest a worse thing befall thee. Maurice de Bracy, I say BEWARE!”

De Bracy bowed low and in silence, and was about to withdraw, when the yeomen burst at once into a shout of execration and derision. The proud knight instantly stopped, turned back, folded his arms, drew up his form to its full height, and exclaimed, “Peace, ye yelping curs! who open upon a cry which ye followed not when the stag was at bay. De Bracy scorns your censure as he would disdain your applause. To your brakes and caves, ye outlawed thieves! and be silent when aught knightly or noble is but spoken within a league of your fox-earths.”

This ill-timed defiance might have procured for De Bracy a volley of arrows, but for the hasty and imperative interference of the outlaw chief. Meanwhile, the knight caught a horse by the rein, for several which had been taken in the stables of Front-de-Bœuf stood accoutred around, and were a valuable part of the booty. He threw himself upon the saddle, and galloped off through the wood.

When the bustle occasioned by this incident was somewhat composed, the chief outlaw took from his neck the rich horn and baldric which he had recently gained at the strife of archery near Ashby.

“Noble knight,” he said to him of the Fetterlock, “if you disdain not to grace by your acceptance a bugle which an English yeoman has once worn, this I will pray you to keep as a memorial of your gallant bearing; and if ye have aught to do, and, as happeneth oft to a gallant knight, ye chance to be hard bested in any forest between Trent and Tees, wind three mots upon the horn thus, Wa-sa-hoa! and it may well chance ye shall find helpers and rescue.”

He then gave breath to the bugle, and winded once and again the call which he described, until the Knight had caught the notes.

“Gramercy for the gift, bold yeoman,” said the Knight; “and better help than thine and thy rangers would I never seek, were it at my utmost need.” And then in his turn he winded the call till all the greenwood rang.

“Well blown and clearly,” said the yeoman; “beshrew me an thou knowest not as much of woodcraft as of war! Thou hast been a striker of deer in thy day, I warrant. Comrades, mark these three mots, it is the call of the Knight of the Fetterlock; and he who hears it, and hastens not to serve him at his need, I will have him scourged out of our band with his own bowstring.”

“Long live our leader!” shouted the yeomen, “and long live the Black Knight of the Fetterlock! May he soon use our service to prove how readily it will be paid.”

Locksley now proceeded to the distribution of the spoil, which he performed with the most laudable impartiality. A tenth part of the whole was set apart for the church and for pious uses; a portion was next allotted to a sort of public treasury; a part was assigned to the widows and children of those who had fallen, or to be expended in masses for the souls of such as had left no surviving family. The rest was divided amongst the outlaws, according to their rank and merit; and the judgment of the chief, on all such doubtful questions as occurred, was delivered with great shrewdness, and received with absolute submission. The Black Knight was not a little surprised to find that men in a state so lawless were nevertheless among themselves so regularly and equitably governed, and all that he observed added to his opinion of the justice and judgment of their leader.

When each had taken his own proportion of the booty, and while the treasurer, accompanied by four tall yeomen, was transporting that belonging to the state to some place of concealment or of security, the portion devoted to the church still remained unappropriated.

“I would,” said the leader, “we could hear tidings of our joyous chaplain; he was never wont to be absent when meat was to be blessed, or spoil to be parted; and it is his duty to take care of these the tithes of our successful enterprise. It may be the office has helped to cover some of his canonical irregularities. Also, I have a holy brother of his a prisoner at no great distance, and I would fain have the Friar to help me to deal with him in due sort. I greatly misdoubt the safety of the bluff priest.”

“I were right sorry for that,” said the Knight of the Fetterlock, “for I stand indebted to him for the joyous hospitality of a merry night in his cell. Let us to the ruins of the castle; it may be we shall there learn some tidings of him.”

While they thus spoke, a loud shout among the yeomen announced the arrival of him for whom they feared, as they learned from the stentorian voice of the Friar himself, long before they saw his burly person.