When the Templar reached the hall of the castle, he found De Bracy already there. ``Your love-suit,'' said De Bracy, ``hath, I suppose, been disturbed, like mine, by this obstreperous summons. But you have come later and more reluctantly, and therefore I presume your interview has proved more agreeable than mine.''
``Has your suit, then, been unsuccessfully paid to the Saxon heiress?'' said the Templar.
``By the bones of Thomas a Becket,'' answered De Bracy, ``the Lady Rowena must have heard that I cannot endure the sight of women's tears.''
``Away!'' said the Templar; ``thou a leader of a Free Company, and regard a woman's tears! A few drops sprinkled on the torch of love, make the flame blaze the brighter.''
``Gramercy for the few drops of thy sprinkling,'' replied De Bracy; ``but this damsel hath wept enough to extinguish a beacon-light. Never was such wringing of hands and such overflowing of eyes, since the days of St Niobe, of whom Prior Aymer told us.* A water-fiend hath possessed the
* I wish the Prior had also informed them when Niobe was * sainted. Probably during that enlightened period when * * ``Pan to Moses lent his pagan horn.'' * L. T.fair Saxon.'' ``A legion of fiends have occupied the bosom of the Jewess,'' replied the Templar; ``for, I think no single one, not even Apollyon himself, could have inspired such indomitable pride and resolution. ---But where is Front-de-B
``He is negotiating with the Jew, I suppose,''
replied De Bracy, coolly; ``probably the howls of
Isaac have drowned the blast of the bugle. Thou
mayst know, by experience, Sir Brian, that a Jew
parting with his treasures on such terms as our
friend Front-de-B
They were soon after joined by Front-de-B
``Let us see the cause of this cursed clamour,''
said Front-de-B
He looked at it, turning it round and round as if he had had really some hopes of coming at the meaning by inverting the position of the paper, and then handed it to De Bracy.
``It may be magic spells for aught I know,'' said De Bracy, who possessed his full proportion of the ignorance which characterised the chivalry of the period. ``Our chaplain attempted to teach me to write,'' he said, ``but all my letters were formed like spear-heads and sword-blades, and so the old shaveling gave up the task.''
``Give it me,'' said the Templar. ``We have that of the priestly character, that we have some knowledge to enlighten our valour.''
``Let us profit by your most reverend knowledge, then,'' said De Bracy; ``what says the scroll?''
``It is a formal letter of defiance,'' answered the Templar; ``but, by our Lady of Bethlehem, if it be not a foolish jest, it is the most extraordinary cartel that ever was sent across the drawbridge of a baronial castle.''
``Jest!'' said Front-de-B
``I, Wamba, the son of Witless, Jester to a noble and free-born man, Cedric of Rotherwood, called the Saxon,---And I, Gurth, the son of Beowulph, the swineherd------''
``Thou art mad,'' said Front-de-B
``By St Luke, it is so set down,'' answered the
Templar. Then resuming his task, he went on,---
``I, Gurth, the son of Beowulph, swineherd unto
the said Cedric, with the assistance of our allies and
confederates, who make common cause with us in
this our feud, namely, the good knight, called for
the present _Le Noir Faineant_, and the stout yeoman,
Robert Locksley, called Cleave-the-wand, Do
you, Reginald Front de-B
At the bottom of this document was scrawled, in the first place, a rude sketch of a cock's head and comb, with a legend expressing this hieroglyphic to be the sign-manual of Wamba, son of Witless. Under this respectable emblem stood a cross, stated to be the mark of Gurth, the son of Beowulph. Then was written, in rough bold characters, the words, _Le Noir Faineant_. And, to conclude the whole, an arrow, neatly enough drawn, was described as the mark of the yeoman Locksley.
The knights heard this uncommon document
read from end to end, and then gazed upon each
other in silent amazement, as being utterly at a
loss to know what it could portend. De Bracy was
the first to break silence by an uncontrollable fit
of laughter, wherein he was joined, though with
more moderation, by the Templar. Front-de-B
``I give you plain warning,'' he said, ``fair sirs, that you had better consult how to bear yourselves under these circumstances, than give way to such misplaced merriment.''
``Front-de-B
``By St Michael,'' answered Front-de-B
``There are at least two hundred men assembled in the woods,'' answered a squire who was in attendance.
``Here is a proper matter!'' said Front-de-B
``Of hornets?'' said De Bracy; ``of stingless drones rather; a band of lazy knaves, who take to the wood, and destroy the venison rather than labour for their maintenance.''
``Stingless!'' replied Front-de-B
``For shame, Sir Knight!'' said the Templar. ``Let us summon our people, and sally forth upon them. One knight---ay, one man-at-arms, were enough for twenty such peasants.''
``Enough, and too much,'' said De Bracy; ``I should only be ashamed to couch lance against them.''
``True,'' answered Front-de-B
``Thou dost not fear,'' said the Templar, ``that they can assemble in force sufficient to attempt the castle?''
``Not so, Sir Brian,'' answered Front-de-B
``Send to thy neighbours,'' said the Templar,
``let them assemble their people, and come to the
rescue of three knights, besieged by a jester and a
swineherd in the baronial castle of Reginald Front-de-B
``You jest, Sir Knight,'' answered the baron; ``but to whom should I send?---Malvoisin is by this time at York with his retainers, and so are my other allies; and so should I have been, but for this infernal enterprise.''
``Then send to York, and recall our people,'' said De Bracy. ``If they abide the shaking of my standard, or the sight of my Free Companions, I will give them credit for the boldest outlaws ever bent bow in green-wood.''
``And who shall bear such a message?'' said
Front-de-B
``So please ye,'' said the squire, who was still in attendance, ``I think old Urfried has them somewhere in keeping, for love of the confessor. He was the last man, I have heard her tell, who ever said aught to her, which man ought in courtesy to address to maid or matron.''
``Go, search them out, Engelred,'' said Front-de-B
``I would rather do it at the sword's point than at that of the pen,'' said Bois-Guilbert; ``but be it as you will.''
He sat down accordingly, and indited, in the French language, an epistle of the following tenor:---
``Sir Reginald Front-de-B
This letter being folded, was delivered to the squire, and by him to the messenger who waited without, as the answer to that which be had brought.
The yeoman having thus accomplished his mission, returned to the head-quarters of the allies, which were for the present established under a venerable oak-tree, about three arrow-flights distant from the castle. Here Wamba and Gurth, with their allies the Black Knight and Locksley, and the jovial hermit, awaited with impatience an answer to their summons. Around, and at a distance from them, were seen many a bold yeoman, whose silvan dress and weatherbeaten countenances showed the ordinary nature of their occupation. More than two hundred had already assembled, and others were fast coming in. Those whom they obeyed as leaders were only distinguished from the others by a feather in the cap, their dress, arms, and equipments being in all other respects the same.
Besides these bands, a less orderly and a worse armed force, consisting of the Saxon inhabitants of the neighbouring township, as well as many bondsmen and servants from Cedric's extensive estate, had already arrived, for the purpose of assisting in his rescue. Few of these were armed otherwise than with such rustic weapons as necessity sometimes converts to military purposes. Boar-spears, scythes, flails, and the like, were their chief arms; for the Normans, with the usual policy of conquerors, were jealous of permitting to the vanquished Saxons the possession or the use of swords and spears. These circumstances rendered the assistance of the Saxons far from being so formidable to the besieged, as the strength of the men themselves, their superior numbers, and the animation inspired by a just cause, might otherwise well have made them. It was to the leaders of this motley army that the letter of the Templar was now delivered.
Reference was at first made to the chaplain for an exposition of its contents.
``By the crook of St Dunstan,'' said that worthy ecclesiastic, ``which hath brought more sheep within the sheepfold than the crook of e'er another saint in Paradise, I swear that I cannot expound unto you this jargon, which, whether it be French or Arabic, is beyond my guess.''
He then gave the letter to Gurth, who shook his head gruffly, and passed it to Wamba. The Jester looked at each of the four corners of the paper with such a grin of affected intelligence as a monkey is apt to assume upon similar occasions, then cut a caper, and gave the letter to Locksley.
``If the long letters were bows, and the short letters broad arrows, I might know something of the matter,'' said the brave yeoman; ``but as the matter stands, the meaning is as safe, for me, as the stag that's at twelve miles distance.''
``I must be clerk, then,'' said the Black Knight; and taking the letter from Locksley, he first read it over to himself, and then explained the meaning in Saxon to his confederates.
``Execute the noble Cedric!'' exclaimed Wamba; ``by the rood, thou must be mistaken, Sir Knight.''
``Not I, my worthy friend,'' replied the knight, ``I have explained the words as they are here set down.''
``Then, by St Thomas of Canterbury,'' replied Gurth, ``we will have the castle, should we tear it down with our hands!''
``We have nothing else to tear it with,'' replied Wamba; ``but mine are scarce fit to make mammocks of freestone and mortar.''
``'Tis but a contrivance to gain time,'' said Locksley; ``they dare not do a deed for which I could exact a fearful penalty.''
``I would,'' said the Black Knight, ``there were some one among us who could obtain admission into the castle, and discover how the case stands with the besieged. Methinks, as they require a confessor to be sent, this holy hermit might at once exercise his pious vocation, and procure us the information we desire.''
``A plague on thee, and thy advice!'' said the pious hermit; ``I tell thee, Sir Slothful Knight, that when I doff my friar's frock, my priesthood, my sanctity, my very Latin, are put off along with it; and when in my green jerkin, I can better kill twenty deer than confess one Christian.''
``I fear,'' said the Black Knight, ``I fear greatly, there is no one here that is qualified to take upon him, for the nonce, this same character of father confessor?''
All looked on each other, and were silent.
``I see,'' said Wamba, after a short pause, ``that the fool must be still the fool, and put his neck in the venture which wise men shrink from. You must know, my dear cousins and countrymen, that I more russet before I wore motley, and was bred to be a friar, until a brain-fever came upon me and left me just wit enough to be a fool. I trust, with the assistance of the good hermit's frock, together with the priesthood, sanctity, and learning which are stitched into the cowl of it, I shall be found qualified to administer both worldly and ghostly comfort to our worthy master Cedric, and his companions in adversity.''
``Hath he sense enough, thinkst thou?'' said the Black Knight, addressing Gurth.
``I know not,'' said Gurth; ``but if he hath not, it will be the first time he hath wanted wit to turn his folly to account.''
``On with the frock, then, good fellow,'' quoth the Knight, ``and let thy master send us an account of their situation within the castle. Their numbers must be few, and it is five to one they may be accessible by a sudden and bold attack. Time wears---away with thee.''
``And, in the meantime,'' said Locksley, ``we will beset the place so closely, that not so much as a fly shall carry news from thence. So that, my good friend,'' he continued, addressing Wamba, ``thou mayst assure these tyrants, that whatever violence they exercise on the persons of their prisoners, shall be most severely repaid upon their own.''
``_Pax vobiscum_,'' said Wamba, who was now muffled in his religious disguise.
And so saying he imitated the solemn and stately deportment of a friar, and departed to execute his mission.