<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER II </h2>
<p>A Monk there was, a fayre for the maistrie,<br/>
An outrider that loved venerie;<br/>
A manly man, to be an Abbot able,<br/>
Full many a daintie horse had he in stable:<br/>
And whan he rode, men might his bridle hear<br/>
Gingeling in a whistling wind as clear,<br/>
And eke as loud, as doth the chapell bell,<br/>
There as this lord was keeper of the cell.<br/>
—Chaucer.<br/></p>
<p>Notwithstanding the occasional exhortation and chiding of his companion,
the noise of the horsemen's feet continuing to approach, Wamba could not
be prevented from lingering occasionally on the road, upon every pretence
which occurred; now catching from the hazel a cluster of half-ripe nuts,
and now turning his head to leer after a cottage maiden who crossed their
path. The horsemen, therefore, soon overtook them on the road.</p>
<p>Their numbers amounted to ten men, of whom the two who rode foremost
seemed to be persons of considerable importance, and the others their
attendants. It was not difficult to ascertain the condition and character
of one of these personages. He was obviously an ecclesiastic of high rank;
his dress was that of a Cistercian Monk, but composed of materials much
finer than those which the rule of that order admitted. His mantle and
hood were of the best Flanders cloth, and fell in ample, and not
ungraceful folds, around a handsome, though somewhat corpulent person. His
countenance bore as little the marks of self-denial, as his habit
indicated contempt of worldly splendour. His features might have been
called good, had there not lurked under the pent-house of his eye, that
sly epicurean twinkle which indicates the cautious voluptuary. In other
respects, his profession and situation had taught him a ready command over
his countenance, which he could contract at pleasure into solemnity,
although its natural expression was that of good-humoured social
indulgence. In defiance of conventual rules, and the edicts of popes and
councils, the sleeves of this dignitary were lined and turned up with rich
furs, his mantle secured at the throat with a golden clasp, and the whole
dress proper to his order as much refined upon and ornamented, as that of
a quaker beauty of the present day, who, while she retains the garb and
costume of her sect continues to give to its simplicity, by the choice of
materials and the mode of disposing them, a certain air of coquettish
attraction, savouring but too much of the vanities of the world.</p>
<p>This worthy churchman rode upon a well-fed ambling mule, whose furniture
was highly decorated, and whose bridle, according to the fashion of the
day, was ornamented with silver bells. In his seat he had nothing of the
awkwardness of the convent, but displayed the easy and habitual grace of a
well-trained horseman. Indeed, it seemed that so humble a conveyance as a
mule, in however good case, and however well broken to a pleasant and
accommodating amble, was only used by the gallant monk for travelling on
the road. A lay brother, one of those who followed in the train, had, for
his use on other occasions, one of the most handsome Spanish jennets ever
bred at Andalusia, which merchants used at that time to import, with great
trouble and risk, for the use of persons of wealth and distinction. The
saddle and housings of this superb palfrey were covered by a long
foot-cloth, which reached nearly to the ground, and on which were richly
embroidered, mitres, crosses, and other ecclesiastical emblems. Another
lay brother led a sumpter mule, loaded probably with his superior's
baggage; and two monks of his own order, of inferior station, rode
together in the rear, laughing and conversing with each other, without
taking much notice of the other members of the cavalcade.</p>
<p>The companion of the church dignitary was a man past forty, thin, strong,
tall, and muscular; an athletic figure, which long fatigue and constant
exercise seemed to have left none of the softer part of the human form,
having reduced the whole to brawn, bones, and sinews, which had sustained
a thousand toils, and were ready to dare a thousand more. His head was
covered with a scarlet cap, faced with fur—of that kind which the
French call "mortier", from its resemblance to the shape of an inverted
mortar. His countenance was therefore fully displayed, and its expression
was calculated to impress a degree of awe, if not of fear, upon strangers.
High features, naturally strong and powerfully expressive, had been burnt
almost into Negro blackness by constant exposure to the tropical sun, and
might, in their ordinary state, be said to slumber after the storm of
passion had passed away; but the projection of the veins of the forehead,
the readiness with which the upper lip and its thick black moustaches
quivered upon the slightest emotion, plainly intimated that the tempest
might be again and easily awakened. His keen, piercing, dark eyes, told in
every glance a history of difficulties subdued, and dangers dared, and
seemed to challenge opposition to his wishes, for the pleasure of sweeping
it from his road by a determined exertion of courage and of will; a deep
scar on his brow gave additional sternness to his countenance, and a
sinister expression to one of his eyes, which had been slightly injured on
the same occasion, and of which the vision, though perfect, was in a
slight and partial degree distorted.</p>
<p>The upper dress of this personage resembled that of his companion in
shape, being a long monastic mantle; but the colour, being scarlet, showed
that he did not belong to any of the four regular orders of monks. On the
right shoulder of the mantle there was cut, in white cloth, a cross of a
peculiar form. This upper robe concealed what at first view seemed rather
inconsistent with its form, a shirt, namely, of linked mail, with sleeves
and gloves of the same, curiously plaited and interwoven, as flexible to
the body as those which are now wrought in the stocking-loom, out of less
obdurate materials. The fore-part of his thighs, where the folds of his
mantle permitted them to be seen, were also covered with linked mail; the
knees and feet were defended by splints, or thin plates of steel,
ingeniously jointed upon each other; and mail hose, reaching from the
ankle to the knee, effectually protected the legs, and completed the
rider's defensive armour. In his girdle he wore a long and double-edged
dagger, which was the only offensive weapon about his person.</p>
<p>He rode, not a mule, like his companion, but a strong hackney for the
road, to save his gallant war-horse, which a squire led behind, fully
accoutred for battle, with a chamfron or plaited head-piece upon his head,
having a short spike projecting from the front. On one side of the saddle
hung a short battle-axe, richly inlaid with Damascene carving; on the
other the rider's plumed head-piece and hood of mail, with a long
two-handed sword, used by the chivalry of the period. A second squire held
aloft his master's lance, from the extremity of which fluttered a small
banderole, or streamer, bearing a cross of the same form with that
embroidered upon his cloak. He also carried his small triangular shield,
broad enough at the top to protect the breast, and from thence diminishing
to a point. It was covered with a scarlet cloth, which prevented the
device from being seen.</p>
<p>These two squires were followed by two attendants, whose dark visages,
white turbans, and the Oriental form of their garments, showed them to be
natives of some distant Eastern country. <SPAN href="#linknote-9"
name="linknoteref-9" id="linknoteref-9"><small>9</small></SPAN></p>
<p>The whole appearance of this warrior and his retinue was wild and
outlandish; the dress of his squires was gorgeous, and his Eastern
attendants wore silver collars round their throats, and bracelets of the
same metal upon their swarthy arms and legs, of which the former were
naked from the elbow, and the latter from mid-leg to ankle. Silk and
embroidery distinguished their dresses, and marked the wealth and
importance of their master; forming, at the same time, a striking contrast
with the martial simplicity of his own attire. They were armed with
crooked sabres, having the hilt and baldric inlaid with gold, and matched
with Turkish daggers of yet more costly workmanship. Each of them bore at
his saddle-bow a bundle of darts or javelins, about four feet in length,
having sharp steel heads, a weapon much in use among the Saracens, and of
which the memory is yet preserved in the martial exercise called "El
Jerrid", still practised in the Eastern countries.</p>
<p>The steeds of these attendants were in appearance as foreign as their
riders. They were of Saracen origin, and consequently of Arabian descent;
and their fine slender limbs, small fetlocks, thin manes, and easy springy
motion, formed a marked contrast with the large-jointed, heavy horses, of
which the race was cultivated in Flanders and in Normandy, for mounting
the men-at-arms of the period in all the panoply of plate and mail; and
which, placed by the side of those Eastern coursers, might have passed for
a personification of substance and of shadow.</p>
<p>The singular appearance of this cavalcade not only attracted the curiosity
of Wamba, but excited even that of his less volatile companion. The monk
he instantly knew to be the Prior of Jorvaulx Abbey, well known for many
miles around as a lover of the chase, of the banquet, and, if fame did him
not wrong, of other worldly pleasures still more inconsistent with his
monastic vows.</p>
<p>Yet so loose were the ideas of the times respecting the conduct of the
clergy, whether secular or regular, that the Prior Aymer maintained a fair
character in the neighbourhood of his abbey. His free and jovial temper,
and the readiness with which he granted absolution from all ordinary
delinquencies, rendered him a favourite among the nobility and principal
gentry, to several of whom he was allied by birth, being of a
distinguished Norman family. The ladies, in particular, were not disposed
to scan too nicely the morals of a man who was a professed admirer of
their sex, and who possessed many means of dispelling the ennui which was
too apt to intrude upon the halls and bowers of an ancient feudal castle.
The Prior mingled in the sports of the field with more than due eagerness,
and was allowed to possess the best-trained hawks, and the fleetest
greyhounds in the North Riding; circumstances which strongly recommended
him to the youthful gentry. With the old, he had another part to play,
which, when needful, he could sustain with great decorum. His knowledge of
books, however superficial, was sufficient to impress upon their ignorance
respect for his supposed learning; and the gravity of his deportment and
language, with the high tone which he exerted in setting forth the
authority of the church and of the priesthood, impressed them no less with
an opinion of his sanctity. Even the common people, the severest critics
of the conduct of their betters, had commiseration with the follies of
Prior Aymer. He was generous; and charity, as it is well known, covereth a
multitude of sins, in another sense than that in which it is said to do so
in Scripture. The revenues of the monastery, of which a large part was at
his disposal, while they gave him the means of supplying his own very
considerable expenses, afforded also those largesses which he bestowed
among the peasantry, and with which he frequently relieved the distresses
of the oppressed. If Prior Aymer rode hard in the chase, or remained long
at the banquet,—if Prior Aymer was seen, at the early peep of dawn,
to enter the postern of the abbey, as he glided home from some rendezvous
which had occupied the hours of darkness, men only shrugged up their
shoulders, and reconciled themselves to his irregularities, by
recollecting that the same were practised by many of his brethren who had
no redeeming qualities whatsoever to atone for them. Prior Aymer,
therefore, and his character, were well known to our Saxon serfs, who made
their rude obeisance, and received his "benedicite, mes filz," in return.</p>
<p>But the singular appearance of his companion and his attendants, arrested
their attention and excited their wonder, and they could scarcely attend
to the Prior of Jorvaulx' question, when he demanded if they knew of any
place of harbourage in the vicinity; so much were they surprised at the
half monastic, half military appearance of the swarthy stranger, and at
the uncouth dress and arms of his Eastern attendants. It is probable, too,
that the language in which the benediction was conferred, and the
information asked, sounded ungracious, though not probably unintelligible,
in the ears of the Saxon peasants.</p>
<p>"I asked you, my children," said the Prior, raising his voice, and using
the lingua Franca, or mixed language, in which the Norman and Saxon races
conversed with each other, "if there be in this neighbourhood any good
man, who, for the love of God, and devotion to Mother Church, will give
two of her humblest servants, with their train, a night's hospitality and
refreshment?"</p>
<p>This he spoke with a tone of conscious importance, which formed a strong
contrast to the modest terms which he thought it proper to employ.</p>
<p>"Two of the humblest servants of Mother Church!" repeated Wamba to
himself,—but, fool as he was, taking care not to make his
observation audible; "I should like to see her seneschals, her chief
butlers, and other principal domestics!"</p>
<p>After this internal commentary on the Prior's speech, he raised his eyes,
and replied to the question which had been put.</p>
<p>"If the reverend fathers," he said, "loved good cheer and soft lodging,
few miles of riding would carry them to the Priory of Brinxworth, where
their quality could not but secure them the most honourable reception; or
if they preferred spending a penitential evening, they might turn down
yonder wild glade, which would bring them to the hermitage of Copmanhurst,
where a pious anchoret would make them sharers for the night of the
shelter of his roof and the benefit of his prayers."</p>
<p>The Prior shook his head at both proposals.</p>
<p>"Mine honest friend," said he, "if the jangling of thy bells had not
dizzied thine understanding, thou mightst know "Clericus clericum non
decimat"; that is to say, we churchmen do not exhaust each other's
hospitality, but rather require that of the laity, giving them thus an
opportunity to serve God in honouring and relieving his appointed
servants."</p>
<p>"It is true," replied Wamba, "that I, being but an ass, am, nevertheless,
honoured to hear the bells as well as your reverence's mule;
notwithstanding, I did conceive that the charity of Mother Church and her
servants might be said, with other charity, to begin at home."</p>
<p>"A truce to thine insolence, fellow," said the armed rider, breaking in on
his prattle with a high and stern voice, "and tell us, if thou canst, the
road to—How call'd you your Franklin, Prior Aymer?"</p>
<p>"Cedric," answered the Prior; "Cedric the Saxon.—Tell me, good
fellow, are we near his dwelling, and can you show us the road?"</p>
<p>"The road will be uneasy to find," answered Gurth, who broke silence for
the first time, "and the family of Cedric retire early to rest."</p>
<p>"Tush, tell not me, fellow," said the military rider; "'tis easy for them
to arise and supply the wants of travellers such as we are, who will not
stoop to beg the hospitality which we have a right to command."</p>
<p>"I know not," said Gurth, sullenly, "if I should show the way to my
master's house, to those who demand as a right, the shelter which most are
fain to ask as a favour."</p>
<p>"Do you dispute with me, slave!" said the soldier; and, setting spurs to
his horse, he caused him make a demivolte across the path, raising at the
same time the riding rod which he held in his hand, with a purpose of
chastising what he considered as the insolence of the peasant.</p>
<p>Gurth darted at him a savage and revengeful scowl, and with a fierce, yet
hesitating motion, laid his hand on the haft of his knife; but the
interference of Prior Aymer, who pushed his mule betwixt his companion and
the swineherd, prevented the meditated violence.</p>
<p>"Nay, by St Mary, brother Brian, you must not think you are now in
Palestine, predominating over heathen Turks and infidel Saracens; we
islanders love not blows, save those of holy Church, who chasteneth whom
she loveth.—Tell me, good fellow," said he to Wamba, and seconded
his speech by a small piece of silver coin, "the way to Cedric the
Saxon's; you cannot be ignorant of it, and it is your duty to direct the
wanderer even when his character is less sanctified than ours."</p>
<p>"In truth, venerable father," answered the Jester, "the Saracen head of
your right reverend companion has frightened out of mine the way home—I
am not sure I shall get there to-night myself."</p>
<p>"Tush," said the Abbot, "thou canst tell us if thou wilt. This reverend
brother has been all his life engaged in fighting among the Saracens for
the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre; he is of the order of Knights
Templars, whom you may have heard of; he is half a monk, half a soldier."</p>
<p>"If he is but half a monk," said the Jester, "he should not be wholly
unreasonable with those whom he meets upon the road, even if they should
be in no hurry to answer questions that no way concern them."</p>
<p>"I forgive thy wit," replied the Abbot, "on condition thou wilt show me
the way to Cedric's mansion."</p>
<p>"Well, then," answered Wamba, "your reverences must hold on this path till
you come to a sunken cross, of which scarce a cubit's length remains above
ground; then take the path to the left, for there are four which meet at
Sunken Cross, and I trust your reverences will obtain shelter before the
storm comes on."</p>
<p>The Abbot thanked his sage adviser; and the cavalcade, setting spurs to
their horses, rode on as men do who wish to reach their inn before the
bursting of a night-storm. As their horses' hoofs died away, Gurth said to
his companion, "If they follow thy wise direction, the reverend fathers
will hardly reach Rotherwood this night."</p>
<p>"No," said the Jester, grinning, "but they may reach Sheffield if they
have good luck, and that is as fit a place for them. I am not so bad a
woodsman as to show the dog where the deer lies, if I have no mind he
should chase him."</p>
<p>"Thou art right," said Gurth; "it were ill that Aymer saw the Lady Rowena;
and it were worse, it may be, for Cedric to quarrel, as is most likely he
would, with this military monk. But, like good servants let us hear and
see, and say nothing."</p>
<p>We return to the riders, who had soon left the bondsmen far behind them,
and who maintained the following conversation in the Norman-French
language, usually employed by the superior classes, with the exception of
the few who were still inclined to boast their Saxon descent.</p>
<p>"What mean these fellows by their capricious insolence?" said the Templar
to the Benedictine, "and why did you prevent me from chastising it?"</p>
<p>"Marry, brother Brian," replied the Prior, "touching the one of them, it
were hard for me to render a reason for a fool speaking according to his
folly; and the other churl is of that savage, fierce, intractable race,
some of whom, as I have often told you, are still to be found among the
descendants of the conquered Saxons, and whose supreme pleasure it is to
testify, by all means in their power, their aversion to their conquerors."</p>
<p>"I would soon have beat him into courtesy," observed Brian; "I am
accustomed to deal with such spirits: Our Turkish captives are as fierce
and intractable as Odin himself could have been; yet two months in my
household, under the management of my master of the slaves, has made them
humble, submissive, serviceable, and observant of your will. Marry, sir,
you must be aware of the poison and the dagger; for they use either with
free will when you give them the slightest opportunity."</p>
<p>"Ay, but," answered Prior Aymer, "every land has its own manners and
fashions; and, besides that beating this fellow could procure us no
information respecting the road to Cedric's house, it would have been sure
to have established a quarrel betwixt you and him had we found our way
thither. Remember what I told you: this wealthy franklin is proud, fierce,
jealous, and irritable, a withstander of the nobility, and even of his
neighbors, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf and Philip Malvoisin, who are no babies
to strive with. He stands up sternly for the privileges of his race, and
is so proud of his uninterrupted descend from Hereward, a renowned
champion of the Heptarchy, that he is universally called Cedric the Saxon;
and makes a boast of his belonging to a people from whom many others
endeaver to hide their descent, lest they should encounter a share of the
'vae victis,' or severities imposed upon the vanquished."</p>
<p>"Prior Aymer," said the Templar, "you are a man of gallantry, learned in
the study of beauty, and as expert as a troubadour in all matters
concerning the 'arrets' of love; but I shall expect much beauty in this
celebrated Rowena to counterbalance the self-denial and forbearance which
I must exert if I am to court the favor of such a seditious churl as you
have described her father Cedric."</p>
<p>"Cedric is not her father," replied the Prior, "and is but of remote
relation: she is descended from higher blood than even he pretends to, and
is but distantly connected with him by birth. Her guardian, however, he
is, self-constituted as I believe; but his ward is as dear to him as if
she were his own child. Of her beauty you shall soon be judge; and if the
purity of her complexion, and the majestic, yet soft expression of a mild
blue eye, do not chase from your memory the black-tressed girls of
Palestine, ay, or the houris of old Mahound's paradise, I am an infidel,
and no true son of the church."</p>
<p>"Should your boasted beauty," said the Templar, "be weighed in the balance
and found wanting, you know our wager?"</p>
<p>"My gold collar," answered the Prior, "against ten butts of Chian wine;—they
are mine as securely as if they were already in the convent vaults, under
the key of old Dennis the cellarer."</p>
<p>"And I am myself to be judge," said the Templar, "and am only to be
convicted on my own admission, that I have seen no maiden so beautiful
since Pentecost was a twelvemonth. Ran it not so?—Prior, your collar
is in danger; I will wear it over my gorget in the lists of
Ashby-de-la-Zouche."</p>
<p>"Win it fairly," said the Prior, "and wear it as ye will; I will trust
your giving true response, on your word as a knight and as a churchman.
Yet, brother, take my advice, and file your tongue to a little more
courtesy than your habits of predominating over infidel captives and
Eastern bondsmen have accustomed you. Cedric the Saxon, if offended,—and
he is noway slack in taking offence,—is a man who, without respect
to your knighthood, my high office, or the sanctity of either, would clear
his house of us, and send us to lodge with the larks, though the hour were
midnight. And be careful how you look on Rowena, whom he cherishes with
the most jealous care; an he take the least alarm in that quarter we are
but lost men. It is said he banished his only son from his family for
lifting his eyes in the way of affection towards this beauty, who may be
worshipped, it seems, at a distance, but is not to be approached with
other thoughts than such as we bring to the shrine of the Blessed Virgin."</p>
<p>"Well, you have said enough," answered the Templar; "I will for a night
put on the needful restraint, and deport me as meekly as a maiden; but as
for the fear of his expelling us by violence, myself and squires, with
Hamet and Abdalla, will warrant you against that disgrace. Doubt not that
we shall be strong enough to make good our quarters."</p>
<p>"We must not let it come so far," answered the Prior; "but here is the
clown's sunken cross, and the night is so dark that we can hardly see
which of the roads we are to follow. He bid us turn, I think to the left."</p>
<p>"To the right," said Brian, "to the best of my remembrance."</p>
<p>"To the left, certainly, the left; I remember his pointing with his wooden
sword."</p>
<p>"Ay, but he held his sword in his left hand, and so pointed across his
body with it," said the Templar.</p>
<p>Each maintained his opinion with sufficient obstinacy, as is usual in all
such cases; the attendants were appealed to, but they had not been near
enough to hear Wamba's directions. At length Brian remarked, what had at
first escaped him in the twilight; "Here is some one either asleep, or
lying dead at the foot of this cross—Hugo, stir him with the
butt-end of thy lance."</p>
<p>This was no sooner done than the figure arose, exclaiming in good French,
"Whosoever thou art, it is discourteous in you to disturb my thoughts."</p>
<p>"We did but wish to ask you," said the Prior, "the road to Rotherwood, the
abode of Cedric the Saxon."</p>
<p>"I myself am bound thither," replied the stranger; "and if I had a horse,
I would be your guide, for the way is somewhat intricate, though perfectly
well known to me."</p>
<p>"Thou shalt have both thanks and reward, my friend," said the Prior, "if
thou wilt bring us to Cedric's in safety."</p>
<p>And he caused one of his attendants to mount his own led horse, and give
that upon which he had hitherto ridden to the stranger, who was to serve
for a guide.</p>
<p>Their conductor pursued an opposite road from that which Wamba had
recommended, for the purpose of misleading them. The path soon led deeper
into the woodland, and crossed more than one brook, the approach to which
was rendered perilous by the marshes through which it flowed; but the
stranger seemed to know, as if by instinct, the soundest ground and the
safest points of passage; and by dint of caution and attention, brought
the party safely into a wilder avenue than any they had yet seen; and,
pointing to a large low irregular building at the upper extremity, he said
to the Prior, "Yonder is Rotherwood, the dwelling of Cedric the Saxon."</p>
<p>This was a joyful intimation to Aymer, whose nerves were none of the
strongest, and who had suffered such agitation and alarm in the course of
passing through the dangerous bogs, that he had not yet had the curiosity
to ask his guide a single question. Finding himself now at his ease and
near shelter, his curiosity began to awake, and he demanded of the guide
who and what he was.</p>
<p>"A Palmer, just returned from the Holy Land," was the answer.</p>
<p>"You had better have tarried there to fight for the recovery of the Holy
Sepulchre," said the Templar.</p>
<p>"True, Reverend Sir Knight," answered the Palmer, to whom the appearance
of the Templar seemed perfectly familiar; "but when those who are under
oath to recover the holy city, are found travelling at such a distance
from the scene of their duties, can you wonder that a peaceful peasant
like me should decline the task which they have abandoned?"</p>
<p>The Templar would have made an angry reply, but was interrupted by the
Prior, who again expressed his astonishment, that their guide, after such
long absence, should be so perfectly acquainted with the passes of the
forest.</p>
<p>"I was born a native of these parts," answered their guide, and as he made
the reply they stood before the mansion of Cedric;—a low irregular
building, containing several court-yards or enclosures, extending over a
considerable space of ground, and which, though its size argued the
inhabitant to be a person of wealth, differed entirely from the tall,
turretted, and castellated buildings in which the Norman nobility resided,
and which had become the universal style of architecture throughout
England.</p>
<p>Rotherwood was not, however, without defences; no habitation, in that
disturbed period, could have been so, without the risk of being plundered
and burnt before the next morning. A deep fosse, or ditch, was drawn round
the whole building, and filled with water from a neighbouring stream. A
double stockade, or palisade, composed of pointed beams, which the
adjacent forest supplied, defended the outer and inner bank of the trench.
There was an entrance from the west through the outer stockade, which
communicated by a drawbridge, with a similar opening in the interior
defences. Some precautions had been taken to place those entrances under
the protection of projecting angles, by which they might be flanked in
case of need by archers or slingers.</p>
<p>Before this entrance the Templar wound his horn loudly; for the rain,
which had long threatened, began now to descend with great violence.</p>
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