Maid Marian Page 7

  CHAPTER VII

  Now, master sheriff, what's your will with me? --Henry IV.

  Matilda had carried her point with the baron of ranging at libertywhithersoever she would, under her positive promise to return home; shewas a sort of prisoner on parole: she had obtained this indulgence bymeans of an obsolete habit of always telling the truth and keeping herword, which our enlightened age has discarded with other barbarisms,but which had the effect of giving her father so much confidence in her,that he could not help considering her word a better security than locksand bars.

  The baron had been one of the last to hear of the rumours of the newoutlaws of Sherwood, as Matilda had taken all possible precautions tokeep those rumours from his knowledge, fearing that they might causethe interruption of her greenwood liberty; and it was only during herabsence at Gamwell feast, that the butler, being thrown off his guard byliquor, forgot her injunctions, and regaled the baron with a long storyof the right merry adventure of Robin Hood and the abbot of Doubleflask.

  The baron was one morning, as usual, cutting his way valorously througha rampart of cold provision, when his ears were suddenly assailed by atremendous alarum, and sallying forth, and looking from his castle wall,he perceived a large party of armed men on the other side of themoat, who were calling on the warder in the king's name to lower thedrawbridge and raise the portcullis, which had both been secured byMatilda's order. The baron walked along the battlement till he cameopposite to these unexpected visitors, who, as soon as they saw him,called out, "Lower the drawbridge, in the king's name."

  "For what, in the devil's name?" said the baron.

  "The sheriff of Nottingham," said one, "lies in bed grievously bruised,and many of his men are wounded, and several of them slain; and SirRalph Montfaucon, knight, is sore wounded in the arm; and we are chargedto apprehend William Gamwell the younger, of Gamwell Hall, and fatherMichael of Rubygill Abbey, and Matilda Fitzwater of Arlingford Castle,as agents and accomplices in the said breach of the king's peace."

  "Breach of the king's fiddlestick!" answered the baron. "What do youmean by coming here with your cock and bull, stories of my daughtergrievously bruising the sheriff of Nottingham? You are a set of vagabondrascals in disguise; and I hear, by the bye, there is a gang of thievesthat has just set up business in Sherwood Forest: a pretty presence,indeed, to get into my castle with force and arms, and make a famine inmy buttery, and a drought in my cellar, and a void in my strong box, anda vacuum in my silver scullery."

  "Lord Fitzwater," cried one, "take heed how you resist lawful authority:we will prove ourselves----"

  "You will prove yourselves arrant knaves, I doubt not," answered thebaron; "but, villains, you shall be more grievously bruised by me thanever was the sheriff by my daughter (a pretty tale truly!), if you donot forthwith avoid my territory."

  By this time the baron's men had flocked to the battlements, withlong-bows and cross-bows, slings and stones, and Matilda with her bowand quiver at their head. The assailants, finding the castle so welldefended, deemed it expedient to withdraw till they could return ingreater force, and rode off to Rubygill Abbey, where they made knowntheir errand to the father abbot, who, having satisfied himself of theirlegitimacy, and conned over the allegations, said that doubtless brotherMichael had heinously offended; but it was not for the civil law totake cognizance of the misdoings of a holy friar; that he would summona chapter of monks, and pass on the offender a sentence proportionate tohis offence. The ministers of civil justice said that would not do.The abbot said it would do and should; and bade them not provoke themeekness of his catholic charity to lay them under the curse of Rome.This threat had its effect, and the party rode off to Gamwell-Hall,where they found the Gamwells and their men just sitting down to dinner,which they saved them the trouble of eating by consuming it in theking's name themselves, having first seized and bound young Gamwell;all which they accomplished by dint of superior numbers, in despite ofa most vigorous stand made by the Gamwellites in defence of their youngmaster and their provisions.

  The baron, meanwhile, after the ministers of justice had departed,interrogated Matilda concerning the alleged fact of the grievousbruising of the sheriff of Nottingham. Matilda told him the wholehistory of Gamwell feast, and of their battle on the bridge, which hadits origin in a design of the sheriff of Nottingham to take one of theforesters into custody.

  "Ay! ay!" said the baron, "and I guess who that forester was; but trulythis friar is a desperate fellow. I did not think there could have beenso much valour under a grey frock. And so you wounded the knight in thearm. You are a wild girl, Mawd,--a chip of the old block, Mawd. A wildgirl, and a wild friar, and three or four foresters, wild lads all, tokeep a bridge against a tame knight, and a tame sheriff, and fifty tamevarlets; by this light, the like was never heard! But do you know, Mawd,you must not go about so any more, sweet Mawd: you must stay at home,you must ensconce; for there is your tame sheriff on the one hand, thatwill take you perforce; and there is your wild forester on the otherhand, that will take you without any force at all, Mawd: your wildforester, Robin, cousin Robin, Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest, that beatsand binds bishops, spreads nets for archbishops, and hunts a fat abbotas if he were a buck: excellent game, no doubt, but you must hunt nomore in such company. I see it now: truly I might have guessed beforethat the bold outlaw Robin, the most courteous Robin, the new thief ofSherwood Forest, was your lover, the earl that has been: I might haveguessed it before, and what led you so much to the woods; but you huntno more in such company. No more May games and Gamwell feasts. My landsand castle would be the forfeit of a few more such pranks; and I thinkthey are as well in my hands as the king's, quite as well."

  "You know, father," said Matilda, "the condition of keeping me at home:I get out if I can, and not on parole."

  "Ay! ay!" said the baron, "if you can; very true: watch and ward, Mawd,watch and ward is my word: if you can, is yours. The mark is set, and sostart fair."

  The baron would have gone on in this way for an hour; but the friar madehis appearance with a long oak staff in his hand, singing,--

  Drink and sing, and eat and laugh, And so go forth to battle: For the top of a skull and the end of a staff Do make a ghostly rattle.

  "Ho! ho! friar!" said the baron--"singing friar, laughing friar,roaring friar, fighting friar, hacking friar, thwacking friar; cracking,cracking, cracking friar; joke-cracking, bottle-cracking, skull-crackingfriar!"

  "And ho! ho!" said the friar,--"bold baron, old baron, sturdy baron,wordy baron, long baron, strong baron, mighty baron, flighty baron,mazed baron, crazed baron, hacked baron, thwacked baron; cracked,cracked, cracked baron; bone-cracked, sconce-cracked, brain-crackedbaron!"

  "What do you mean," said the baron, "bully friar, by calling me hackedand thwacked?"

  "Were you not in the wars?" said the friar, "where he who escapesuntracked does more credit to his heels than his arms. I pay tribute toyour valour in calling you hacked and thwacked."

  "I never was thwacked in my life," said the baron; "I stood my groundmanfully, and covered my body with my sword. If I had had the luckto meet with a fighting friar indeed, I might have been thwacked, andsoundly too; but I hold myself a match for any two laymen; it takes ninefighting laymen to make a fighting friar."

  "Whence come you now, holy father?" asked Matilda.

  "From Rubygill Abbey," said the friar, "whither I never return:

  For I must seek some hermit cell, Where I alone my beads may tell, And on the wight who that way fares Levy a toll for my ghostly pray'rs, Levy a toll, levy a toll, Levy a toll for my ghostly pray'rs."

  "What is the matter then, father?" said Matilda.

  "This is the matter," said the friar: "my holy brethren have held achapter on me, and sentenced me to seven years' privation of wine. Itherefore deemed it fitting to take my departure, which they would fainhave prohibited. I was enforced to clear the way with my staff. I havegrievously beaten my dearly beloved brethren: I grieve t
hereat; but theyenforced me thereto. I have beaten them much; I mowed them down to theright and to the left, and left them like an ill-reaped field of wheat,ear and straw pointing all ways, scattered in singleness and jumbled inmasses; and so bade them farewell, saying, Peace be with you. But Imust not tarry, lest danger be in my rear: therefore, farewell, sweetMatilda; and farewell, noble baron; and farewell, sweet Matilda again,the alpha and omega of father Michael, the first and the last."

  "Farewell, father," said the baron, a little softened; "and God send yoube never assailed by more than fifty men at a time."

  "Amen," said the friar, "to that good wish."

  "And we shall meet again, father, I trust," said Matilda.

  "When the storm is blown over," said the baron.

  "Doubt it not," said the friar, "though flooded Trent were between us,and fifty devils guarded the bridge."

  He kissed Matilda's forehead, and walked away without a song.