my poor kinsman Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe? They say he fought well at
Chalus!"
"My sweet lord," again interposed Rowena, "mention him not."
"Why? Because thou and he were so tender in days of yore when you
could not bear my plain face, being all in love with his pale one?"
"Those times are past now, dear Athelstane," said his affectionate
wife, looking up to the ceiling.
"Marry, thou never could st forgive him the Jewess, Rowena."
"The odious hussy! don't mention the name of the unbelieving
creature," exclaimed the lady.
"Well, well, poor Wil was a good lad a thought melancholy and milksop
though. Why, a pint of sack fuddled his poor brains."
"Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe was a good lance," said the friar.
"I have heard there was none better in Christendom. He lay in our
convent after his wounds, and it was there we tended him till he died.
He was buried in our north cloister."
"And there's an end of him," said Athelstane. "But come, this is
dismal talk. Where's Wamba the Jester? Let us have a song. Stir up,
Wamba, and don't lie like a dog in the fire! Sing us a song, thou
crack-brained jester, and leave off whimpering for bygones. Tush, man!
There be many good fellows left in this world."
"There be buzzards in eagles' nests," Wamba said, who was lying
stretched before the fire, sharing the hearth with the Thane's dogs.
"There be dead men alive, and live men dead. There be merry songs and
dismal songs. Marry, and the merriest are the saddest sometimes. I
will leave off motley and wear black, gossip Athelstane. I will turn
howler at funerals, and then, perhaps, I shall be merry. Motley is fit
for mutes, and black for fools. Give me some drink, gossip, for my
voice is as cracked as my brain."
"Drink and sing, thou beast, and cease prating," the Thane said.
And Wamba, touching his re beck wildly, sat up in the chimney-side and
curled his lean shanks together and began:
LOVE AT TWO SCORE.
"Ho! pretty page, with dimpled chin,
That never has known the barber's shear,
All your aim is woman to win This is the way that boys begin Wait till
you've come to forty year!
"Curly gold locks cover foolish brains,
Billing and cooing is all your cheer,
Sighing and singing of midnight strains
Under Bonnybells' window-panes.
Wait till you've come to forty year!
"Forty times over let Michaelmas pass,
Grizzling hair the brain doth clear;
Then you know a boy is an ass,
Then you know the worth of a lass,
Once you have come to forty year.
"Pledge me round, I bid ye declare,
All good fellows whose beards are gray:
Did not the fairest of the fair
Common grow, and wearisome, ere
Ever a month was passed away?
"The reddest lips that ever have kissed,
The brightest eyes that ever have shone,
May pray and whisper and we not list,
Or took away and never be missed,
Ere yet ever a month was gone.
"Gillian's dead, Heaven rest her bier,
How I loved her twenty years sync!
Marian's married, but I sit here,
Alive and merry at forty year,
Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine."
"Who taught thee that merry lay, Wamba, thou son of Witless?" roared
Athelstane, clattering his cup on the table and shouting the chorus.
"It was a good and holy hermit, sir, the pious clerk of Copmanhurst,
that you wot of, who played many a prank with us in the days that we
knew King Richard. Ah, noble sir, that was a jovial time and a good
priest."
"They say the holy priest is sure of the next bishopric, my love," said
Rowena. "His Majesty hath taken him into much favor. My Lord of
Huntingdon looked very well at the last ball; but I never could see any
beauty in the Countess a freckled, blowsy thing, whom they used to call
flirtations with Major Littlejohn and Captain Scarlett, really-"
"Jealous again haw! haw!" laughed Athelstane.
"I am above jealousy, and scorn it," Rowena answered, drawing herself
up very majestically.
"Well, well, Wamba's was a good song," Athelstane said.
"Nay, a wicked song," said Rowena, turning up her eyes as usual. "What!
rail at woman's love? Prefer a filthy wine-cup to a true wife?
Woman's love is eternal, my Athelstane. He who questions it would be a
blasphemer were he not a fool. The well-born and well-nurtured
gentlewoman loves once and once only.
"I pray you, madam, pardon me, I - I am not well," said the gray friar,
rising abruptly from his settle, and tottering down the steps of the
dais. Wamba sprung after him, his bells jingling as he rose, and
casting his arms around the apparently fainting man, he led him away
into the court. "There be dead men alive and live men dead," whispered
he. "There be coffins to laugh at and marriages to cry over. Said I
not sooth, holy friar?" And when they had got out into the solitary
court, which was deserted by all the followers of the Thane, who were
mingling in the drunken revelry in the hall, Wamba, seeing that none
were by knelt down, and kissing the friar's garment, said, "I knew
thee, I knew thee, my lord and my liege!"
"Get up," said Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, scarcely able to articulate: "only
fools are faithful."
And he passed on, and into the little chapel where his father lay
buried. All night long the friar spent there: and Wamba the Jester lay
outside watching as mute as the saint over the porch.
When the morning came, Wamba was gone; and the knave being in the habit
of wandering hither and thither as he chose, little notice was taken of
his absence by a master and mistress who had not much sense of humor.
As for Sir Wilfrid, a gentleman of his delicacy or feelings could not
be expected to remain in a house where things so naturally disagreeable
to him were occurring, and he quitted Rotherwood incontinently, after
paying a dutiful visit to the tomb where his old father, Cedric, was
buried; and hastened on to York, at which city he made himself renown
to the family attorney, a most respectable man, in whose hands his
ready money was deposited, and took up a sum sufficient to fit himself
out with credit, and a handsome retinue, as became a knight of
consideration. But he changed his name, wore a wig and spectacles, and
disguised himself entirely, so that it was impossible his friends or
the public should know him, and thus metamorphosed, went about
whithersoever his fancy led him. He was present at a public ball at
York, which the lord mayor gave, danced Sir Roger de Coverley in the
very same set with Rowena (who was disgusted that Maid Marian took
precedence of her) he saw little Athelstane overeat himself at the
supper and pledge his big father in a cup of sack; he met the Reverend
Mr. Tuck at a missionary meeting, where he seconded a resolution
proposed by that eminent divine; in fine, he saw a score of his old
acquaintances, none of whom recognized in him the warrior of Palestine
and Templestowe. Having a large fortune and nothing to do, he went
about this country performing charities, slaying robbers, rescuing the
distressed, and achieving noble feats of arms. Dragons and giants
existed in his day no more, or be sure he would have had a fling at
them: for the truth is, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe was somewhat sick of the
life which the hermits of Chalus had restored to him, and felt himself
so friendless and solitary that he would not have been sorry to come to
an end of it. Ah, my dear friends and intelligent British public, are
there not others who are melancholy under a mask of gayety, and who, in
the midst of crowds, are lonely? Liston was a most melancholy man;
Grimaldi had feelings; and there are others I wot of: but psha! let us
have the next chapter.
CHAPTER V.
IVAN HOE TO THE RESCUE.
THE rascally manner in which the chicken-livered successor of Richard
of the Lion-heart conducted himself to all parties, to his relatives,
his nobles, and his people, is a matter notorious, and set forth
clearly in the Historic Page: hence, although nothing, except perhaps
success, can, in my opinion, excuse disaffection to the sovereign, or
appearance in armed rebellion against him, the loyal reader will make
allowance for two of the principal personages of this narrative, who
will have to appear in the present chapter in the odious character of
exculpation of the fault of Athelstane and Rowena. (a fault for which
they were bitterly punished, as you shall presently hear,) that the
monarch exasperated his subjects in a variety, of ways, that before he
murdered his royal nephew, Prince Arthur, there was a great question
whether he was the rightful king of England at all, that his behavior
as an uncle, and a family man, was likely to wound the feelings of any
lady and mother, finally, that there were palliations for the conduct
of Rowena and Ivanhoe, which it now becomes our duty to relate.
When his Majesty destroyed Prince Arthur, the Lady Rowena, who was one
of the ladies of honor to the Queen, gave up her place at court at
once, and retired to her castle of Rotherwood.
Expressions made use of by her, and derogatory to the character of the
sovereign, were carried to the monarch's ears, by some of those
parasites, doubtless, by whom it is the curse of kings to be attended;
and John swore, by St. Peter's teeth, that he would be revenged upon
the haughty Saxon lady a kind of oath which, though he did not trouble
himself about all other oaths, he was never known to break. It was not
for some years after he had registered this vow, that he was enabled to
keep it.
Had Ivanhoe been present at Rouen, when the King meditated his horrid
designs against his nephew, there is little doubt that Sir Wilfrid
would have prevented them, and rescued the boy: for Ivanhoe was, as we
need scarcely say, a hero of romance; and it is the custom and duty of
all gentlemen of that profession to be present on all occasions of
historic interest, to be engaged in all conspiracies, royal interviews,
and remarkable occurrences: and hence Sir Wilfrid would certainly have
rescued the young Prince, had he been anywhere in the neighborhood of
Rouen, where the foul tragedy occurred. But he was a couple of hundred
leagues off, at Chalus, when the circumstance happened; tied down in
his bed as crazy as a Bedlamite, and raving ceaselessly in the Hebrew
tongue (which he had caught up during a previous illness in which he
was tended by a maiden of that nation) about a certain Rebecca Ben
Isaacs, of whom, being a married man, he never would have thought, had
he been in his sound senses. During this delirium, what were politics
to him, or he to politics? King John or King Arthur was entirely
indifferent to a man who announced to his nurse-tenders, the good
hermits of Chalus before mentioned, that he was the Marquis of Jericho,
and about to marry Rebecca the Queen of Sheba. In a word, he only
heard of what had occurred when he reached England, and his senses were
restored to him. Whether was he happier, sound of brain and entirely
miserable, (as any man would be who found so admirable a wife as Rowena
married again,) or perfectly crazy, the husband of the beautiful
Rebecca? I don't know which he liked best.
Howbeit the conduct of King John inspired Sir Wilfrid with so thorough
a detestation of that sovereign, that he never could be brought to take
service under him; to get himself presented at St. James's, or in any
way to acknowledge, but by stern acquiescence, the authority of the
sanguinary successor of his beloved King Richard. It was Sir Wilfrid
of Ivanhoe, I need scarcely say, who got the Barons of England to
league together and extort from the king that famous instrument and
palladium of our liberties at present in the British Museum, Great
Russell Street, Bloomsbury the Magna Charta. His name does not
naturally appear in the list of Barons, because he was only a knight,
and a knight in disguise too: nor does Athelstane's signature figure on
that document. Athelstane, in the first place, could not write; nor
did he care a penny piece about politics, so long as he could drink his
wine at home undisturbed, and have his hunting and shooting in quiet.
It was not until the King wanted to interfere with the sport of every
gentleman in England (as we know by reference to the Historic Page that
this odious monarch did), that Athelstane broke out into open
rebellion, along with several Yorkshire squires and noblemen. It is
recorded of the King, that he forbade every man to hunt his own deer;
and, in order to secure an obedience to his orders, this Herod of a
monarch wanted to secure the eldest sons of all the nobility and
gentry, as hostages for the good behavior of their parents.
Athelstane was anxious about his game Rowena was anxious about her son.
The former swore that he would hunt his deer in spite of all Norman
tyrants the latter asked, should she give up her boy to the ruffian who
had murdered his own nephew? - (* See Hume, Giraldus Cambrensis, The
Monk of Croyland, and Pinnock's Catechism.) The speeches of both were
brought to the King at York; and, furious, he ordered an instant attack
upon Rotherwood, and that the lord and lady of that castle should be
brought before him dead or alive.
Ah, where was Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, the unconquerable champion, to defend
the castle against the royal party? A few thrusts from his lance would
have spitted the leading warriors of the King's host: a few cuts from
his sword would have put John's forces to rout. But the lance and
sword of Ivanhoe were idle on this occasion. "No, be hanged to me!"
said the knight, bitterly, "this is a quarrel in which I can't
interfere. Common politeness forbids. Let yonder ale-swilling
Athelstane defend his ha, ha _wife; and my Lady Rowena guard her ha,
ha, ha _son."
And he laughed wildly and madly; and the sarcastic, way
in which he choked and gurgled out the words "wife" and "son" would
have made you shudder to hear.
When he heard, however, that, on the fourth day of the siege,
Athelstane had been slain by a cannon-ball, (and this time for good,
and not to come to life again as he had done before,) and that the
widow (if so the innocent bigamist may be called) was conducting the
defence of Rotherwood herself with the greatest intrepidity, showing
herself upon the walls with her little son, (who bellowed like a bull,
and did not like the fighting at all,) pointing the guns and
encouraging the garrison in every way better feelings returned to the
bosom of the Knight of Ivanhoe, and summoning his men, he armed himself
quickly and determined to go forth to the rescue.
He rode without stepping for two days and two nights in the direction
of Rotherwood, with such swiftness and disregard for refreshment,
indeed, that his men dropped one by one upon the road, and he arrived
alone at the lodge-gate of the park. The windows were smashed; the
door stove in; the lodge, a neat little Swiss cottage, with a garden
where the pinafores of Mrs. Gurth's children might have been seen
hanging on the gooseberry-bushes in more peaceful times, was now a
ghastly heap of smoking ruins: cottage, bushes, pinafores, children lay
mangled together, destroyed by the licentious soldiery of a infuriate
monarch! Far be it from me to excuse the disobedience of Athelstane
and Rowena to their sovereign; but surely, surely this cruelty might
have been spared.
Gurth, who was lodge-keeper, was lying dreadfully wounded and expiring
at the flaming and violated threshold of his lately picturesque home. A
catapult and a couple of mangonels had done his business. The faithful
fellow, recognizing his master, who had put up his visor and forgotten
his wig and spectacles in the agitation of the moment, exclaimed, " Sir
Wilfrid! my dear master praised be St. Waltheof there may be yet time
my beloved mistr- master Atheist ..." He sank back, and never spoke
again.
Ivanhoe spurred on his horse Bavieca madly up the chestnut avenue. The
castle was before him; the western tower was in flames; the besiegers
were pressing at the southern gate; Athelstane's banner, the bull
rampant, was still on the northern bartizan. "An Ivanhoe, an Ivanhoe!"
he bellowed out, with shout that overcame all the din of battle"
"Nostre Dame a la rescous se And to hurl his lance through the midriff
of Reginald de Bracy, who was commanding the assault who fell howling
with anguish to wave his battle-axe over his own head, and cut off
those of thirteen men-at-arms, was the work of an instant. "An
Ivanhoe, an Ivanhoe!" he still shouted, and down went a man as sure as
he said "hoe!"
"Ivanhoe! Ivanhoe" a shrill voice cried from the top of the northern
bartizan. Ivanhoe knew it.
"Rowena my love, I come!" he roared on his part. "Villains!
touch but a hair of her head, and I ..."
Here, with a sudden plunge and a squeal of agony, Bavieca sprang
forward wildly, and fell as wildly on her back, rolling over and over
upon the knight. All was dark before him; his brain reeled; it
whizzed; something came crashing down on his forehead. St. Waltheof
and all the saints of the Saxon calendar protect the knight! ... When
he came to himself, Wamba and the lieutenant of his lances were leaning
over him with a bottle of the hermit's elixir. "We arrived here the
day after the battle," said the fool; "marry, I have a knack of
that."
"Your worship rode so deucedly quick, there was no keeping up with your
worship," said the lieutenant.