Lord Fitzwater, said Sir Ralph, in obedience to my royal master, King Henry, I have been the unwilling instrument of frustrating the intended nuptials of your fair daughter; yet will you, I trust, owe me no displeasure for my agency herein, seeing that the noble maiden might otherwise by this time have been the bride of an outlaw.
I am very much obliged to you, sir, said the baron; very exceedingly obliged. Your solicitude for my daughter is truly paternal, and for a young man and a stranger very singular and exemplary: and it is very kind withal to come to the relief of my insufficiency and inexperience, and concern yourself so much in that which concerns you not.
You misconceive the knight, noble baron, said the friar. He urges not his reason in the shape of a preconceived intent, but in that of a subsequent extenuation. True, he has done the lady Matilda great wrong
How, great wrong? said the baron. What do you mean by great wrong? Would you have had her married to a wild fly-by-night, that accident made an earl and nature a deer-stealer? that has not wit enough to eat venison without picking a quarrel with monarchy? that flings away his own lands into the clutches of rascally friars, for the sake of hunting in other mens grounds, and feasting vagabonds that wear Lincoln green, and would have flung away mine into the bargain if he had had my daughter? What do you mean by great wrong?
True, said the friar, great right, I meant.
Right! exclaimed the baron: what right has any man to do my daughter right but myself? What right has any man to drive my daughters bridegroom out of the chapel in the middle of the marriage ceremony, and turn all our merry faces into green wounds and bloody coxcombs, and then come and tell me he has done us great right?
True, said the friar: he has done neither right nor wrong.
But he has, said the baron, he has done both, and I will maintain it with my glove.
It shall not need, said Sir Ralph; I will concede any thing in honour.
And I, said the baron, will concede nothing in honour: I will concede nothing in honour to any man.
Neither will I, Lord Fitzwater, said Sir Ralph, in that sense: but hear me. I was commissioned by the king to apprehend the Earl of Huntingdon. I brought with me a party of soldiers, picked and tried men, knowing that he would not lightly yield. I sent my lieutenant with a detachment to surprise the earls castle in his absence, and laid my measures for intercepting him on the way to his intended nuptials; but he seems to have had intimation of this part of my plan, for he brought with him a large armed retinue, and took a circuitous route, which made him, I believe, somewhat later than his appointed hour. When the lapse of time showed me that he had taken another track, I pursued him to the chapel; and I would have awaited the close of the ceremony, if I had thought that either yourself or your daughter would have felt desirous that she should have been the bride of an outlaw.
Who said, sir, cried the baron, that we were desirous of any such thing? But truly, sir, if I had a mind to the devil for a son-in-law, I would fain see the man that should venture to interfere.
That would I, said the friar; for I have undertaken to make her renounce the devil.
She shall not renounce the devil, said the baron, unless I please. You are very ready with your undertakings. Will you undertake to make her renounce the earl, who, I believe, is the devil incarnate? Will you undertake that?
Will I undertake, said the friar, to make Trent run westward, or to make flame burn downward, or to make a tree grow with its head in the earth and its root in the air?
So then, said the baron, a girls mind is as hard to change as nature and the elements, and it is easier to make her renounce the devil than a lover. Are you a match for the devil, and no match for a man?
My warfare, said the friar, is not of this world. I am militant not against man, but the devil, who goes about seeking what he may devour.
Oh! does he so? said the baron: then I take it that makes you look for him so often in my buttery. Will you cast out the devil whose name is Legion, when you cannot cast out the imp whose name is Love?
Marriages, said the friar, are made in heaven. Love is Gods work, and therewith I meddle not.
Gods work, indeed! said the baron, when the ceremony was cut short in the church. Could men have put them asunder, if God had joined them together? And the earl is now no earl, but plain Robert Fitz-Ooth: therefore, Ill none of him.
He may atone, said the friar, and the king may mollify. The earl is a worthy peer, and the king is a courteous king.
He cannot atone, said Sir Ralph. He has killed the kings men; and if the baron should aid and abet, he will lose his castle and land.
Will I? said the baron; not while I have a drop of blood in my veins. He that comes to take them shall first serve me as the friar serves my flasks of canary: he shall drain me dry as hay. Am I not disparaged? Am I not outraged? Is not my daughter vilified, and made a mockery? A girl half-married? There was my butler brought home with a broken head. My butler, friar: there is that may move your sympathy. Friar, the earl-no-earl shall come no more to my daughter.
Very good, said the friar.
It is not very good, said the baron, for I cannot get her to say so.
I fear, said Sir Ralph, the young lady must be much distressed and discomposed.
Not a whit, sir, said the baron. She is, as usual, in a most provoking imperturbability, and contradicts me so smilingly that it would enrage you to see her.
I had hoped, said Sir Ralph, that I might have seen her, to make my excuse in person for the hard necessity of my duty.
He had scarcely spoken, when the door opened, and the lady made her appearance.
CHAPTER IV
Are you mad, or what are you, that you squeak out your
catches without mitigation or remorse of voice?
Matilda, not dreaming of visitors, tripped into the apartment in a dress of forest green, with a small quiver by her side, and a bow and arrow in her hand. Her hair, black and glossy as the ravens wing, curled like wandering clusters of dark ripe grapes under the edge of her round bonnet; and a plume of black feathers fell back negligently above it, with an almost horizontal inclination, that seemed the habitual effect of rapid motion against the wind. Her black eyes sparkled like sunbeams on a river: a clear, deep, liquid radiance, the reflection of ethereal fire,tempered, not subdued, in the medium of its living and gentle mirror. Her lips were half opened to speak as she entered the apartment; and with a smile of recognition to the friar, and a courtesy to the stranger knight, she approached the baron and said, You are late at your breakfast, father.
I am not at breakfast, said the baron. I have been at supper: my last nights supper; for I had none.
I am sorry, said Matilda, you should have gone to bed supperless.
I did not go to bed supperless, said the baron: I did not go to bed at all: and what are you doing with that green dress and that bow and arrow?
I am going a-hunting, said Matilda.
A-hunting! said the baron. What, I warrant you, to meet with the earl, and slip your neck into the same noose?
Matilda, not dreaming of visitors, tripped into the apartment in a dress of forest green, with a small quiver by her side, and a bow and arrow in her hand. Her hair, black and glossy as the ravens wing, curled like wandering clusters of dark ripe grapes under the edge of her round bonnet; and a plume of black feathers fell back negligently above it, with an almost horizontal inclination, that seemed the habitual effect of rapid motion against the wind. Her black eyes sparkled like sunbeams on a river: a clear, deep, liquid radiance, the reflection of ethereal fire,tempered, not subdued, in the medium of its living and gentle mirror. Her lips were half opened to speak as she entered the apartment; and with a smile of recognition to the friar, and a courtesy to the stranger knight, she approached the baron and said, You are late at your breakfast, father.
I am not at breakfast, said the baron. I have been at supper: my last nights supper; for I had none.
I am sorry, said Matilda, you should have gone to bed supperless.
I did not go to bed supperless, said the baron: I did not go to bed at all: and what are you doing with that green dress and that bow and arrow?
I am going a-hunting, said Matilda.
A-hunting! said the baron. What, I warrant you, to meet with the earl, and slip your neck into the same noose?
No, said Matilda: I am not going out of our own woods to-day.
How do I know that? said the baron. What surety have I of that?
Here is the friar, said Matilda. He will be surety.
Not he, said the baron: he will undertake nothing but where the devil is a party concerned.
Yes, I will, said the friar: I will undertake any thing for the lady Matilda.
No matter for that, said the baron: she shall not go hunting to day.
Why, father, said Matilda, if you coop me up here in this odious castle, I shall pine and die like a lonely swan on a pool.
No, said the baron, the lonely swan does not die on the pool. If there be a river at hand, she flies to the river, and finds her a mate; and so shall not you.
But, said Matilda, you may send with me any, or as many, of your grooms as you will.
My grooms, said the baron, are all false knaves. There is not a rascal among them but loves you better than me. Villains that I feed and clothe.
Surely, said Matilda, it is not villany to love me: if it be, I should be sorry my father were an honest man. The baron relaxed his muscles into a smile. Or my lover either, added Matilda. The baron looked grim again.
For your lover, said the baron, you may give God thanks of him. He is as arrant a knave as ever poached.
What, for hunting the kings deer? said Matilda. Have I not heard you rail at the forest laws by the hour?
Did you ever hear me, said the baron, rail myself out of house and land? If I had done that, then were I a knave.
My lover, said Matilda, is a brave man, and a true man, and a generous man, and a young man, and a handsome man; aye, and an honest man too.
How can he be an honest man, said the baron, when he has neither house nor land, which are the better part of a man?
They are but the husk of a man, said Matilda, the worthless coat of the chesnut: the man himself is the kernel.
The man is the grape stone, said the baron, and the pulp of the melon. The house and land are the true substantial fruit, and all that give him savour and value.
He will never want house or land, said Matilda, while the meeting boughs weave a green roof in the wood, and the free range of the hart marks out the bounds of the forest.
Vert and venison! vert and venison! exclaimed the baron. Treason and flat rebellion. Confound your smiling face! what makes you look so good-humoured? What! you think I cant look at you, and be in a passion? You think so, do you? We shall see. Have you no fear in talking thus, when here is the kings liegeman come to take us all into custody, and confiscate our goods and chattels?
Nay, Lord Fitzwater, said Sir Ralph, you wrong me in your report. My visit is one of courtesy and excuse, not of menace and authority.
There it is, said the baron: every one takes a pleasure in contradicting me. Here is this courteous knight, who has not opened his mouth three times since he has been in my house except to take in provision, cuts me short in my story with a flat denial.
Oh! I cry you mercy, sir knight, said Matilda; I did not mark you before. I am your debtor for no slight favour, and so is my liege lord.
Her liege lord! exclaimed the baron, taking large strides across the chamber.
Pardon me, gentle lady, said Sir Ralph. Had I known you before yesterday, I would have cut off my right hand ere it should have been raised to do you displeasure.
Oh sir, said Matilda, a good man may be forced on an ill office: but I can distinguish the man from his duty. She presented to him her hand, which he kissed respectfully, and simultaneously with the contact thirty-two invisible arrows plunged at once into his heart, one from every point of the compass of his pericardia.
Well, father, added Matilda, I must go to the woods.
Must you? said the baron; I say you must not.
But I am going, said Matilda
But I will have up the drawbridge, said the baron.
But I will swim the moat, said Matilda.
But I will secure the gates, said the baron.
But I will leap from the battlement, said Matilda.
But I will lock you in an upper chamber, said the baron.
But I will shred the tapestry, said Matilda, and let myself down.
But I will lock you in a turret, said the baron, where you shall only see light through a loophole.
But through that loophole, said Matilda, will I take my flight, like a young eagle from its eerie; and, father, while I go out freely, I will return willingly: but if once I slip out through a loop-hole She paused a moment, and then added, singing,
The love that follows fain
Will never its faith betray:
But the faith that is held in a chain
Will never be found again,
If a single link give way.
The melody acted irresistibly on the harmonious propensities of the friar, who accordingly sang in his turn,
For hark! hark! hark!
The dog doth bark,
That watches the wild deers lair.
The hunter awakes at the peep of the dawn,
But the lair it is empty, the deer it is gone,
And the hunter knows not where.
Matilda and the friar then sang together,
Then follow, oh follow! the hounds do cry:
The red sun flames in the eastern sky:
The stag bounds over the hollow.
He that lingers in spirit, or loiters in hall,
Shall see us no more till the evening fall,
And no voice but the echo shall answer his call:
Then follow, oh follow, follow:
Follow, oh follow, follow!
During the process of this harmony, the barons eyes wandered from his daughter to the friar, and from the friar to his daughter again, with an alternate expression of anger differently modified: when he looked on the friar, it was anger without qualification; when he looked on his daughter it was still anger, but tempered by an expression of involuntary admiration and pleasure. These rapid fluctuations of the barons physiognomythe habitual, reckless, resolute merriment in the jovial face of the friar,and the cheerful, elastic spirits that played on the lips and sparkled in the eyes of Matilda,would have presented a very amusing combination to Sir Ralph, if one of the three images in the group had not absorbed his total attention with feelings of intense delight very nearly allied to pain. The barons wrath was somewhat counteracted by the reflection that his daughters good spirits seemed to show that they would naturally rise triumphant over all disappointments; and he had had sufficient experience of her humour to know that she might sometimes be led, but never could be driven. Then, too, he was always delighted to hear her sing, though he was not at all pleased in this instance with the subject of her song. Still he would have endured the subject for the sake of the melody of the treble, but his mind was not sufficiently attuned to unison to relish the harmony of the bass. The friars accompaniment put him out of all patience, andSo, he exclaimed, this is the way, you teach my daughter to renounce the devil, is it? A hunting friar, truly! Who ever heard before of a hunting friar? A profane, roaring, bawling, bumper-bibbing, neck-breaking, catch-singing friar?