Maid Marian, Page 2

  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 d
amsel?" 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."