CHAPTER XVII
Oh! this life Is nobler than attending for a check, Richer than doing nothing for a bribe Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk.--Cymbeline.
So Robin and Marian dwelt and reigned in the forest, ranging the gladesand the greenwoods from the matins of the lark to the vespers of thenightingale, and administering natural justice according to Robin'sideas of rectifying the inequalities of human condition: raisinggenial dews from the bags of the rich and idle, and returning them infertilising showers on the poor and industrious: an operation which moreenlightened statesmen have happily reversed, to the unspeakable benefitof the community at large. The light footsteps of Marian were impressedon the morning dew beside the firmer step of her lover, and they shookits large drops about them as they cleared themselves a passage throughthe thick tall fern, without any fear of catching cold, which was notmuch in fashion in the twelfth century. Robin was as hospitable asCathmor; for seven men stood on seven paths to call the stranger to hisfeast. It is true, he superadded the small improvement of making thestranger pay for it: than which what could be more generous? For Cathmorwas himself the prime giver of his feast, whereas Robin was onlythe agent to a series of strangers, who provided in turn forthe entertainment of their successors; which is carrying thedisinterestedness of hospitality to its acme. Marian often killed thedeer,
Which Scarlet dressed, and Friar Tuck blessed While Little John wandered in search of a guest.
Robin was very devout, though there was great unity in his religion: itwas exclusively given to our Lady the Virgin, and he never set forth ina morning till he had said three prayers, and had heard the sweet voiceof his Marian singing a hymn to their mutual patroness. Each of his menhad, as usual, a patron saint according to his name or taste. Thefriar chose a saint for himself, and fixed on Saint Botolph, whom heeuphonised into Saint Bottle, and maintained that he was that veryPanomphic Pantagruelian saint, well known in ancient France as a femaledivinity, by the name of La Dive Bouteille, whose oracular monosyllable"Trincq," is celebrated and under-stood by all nations, and isexpounded by the learned doctor Alcofribas, [6] who has treated at largeon the subject, to signify "drink." Saint Bottle, then, was the saint ofFriar Tuck, who did not yield even to Robin and Marian in the assiduityof his devotions to his chosen patron. Such was their summer life, andin their winter caves they had sufficient furniture, ample provender,store of old wine, and assuredly no lack of fuel, with joyous music andpleasant discourse to charm away the season of darkness and storms.
The reader who desires to know more about this oracular divinity, mayconsult the said doctor Alcofribas Nasier, who will usher him into theadytum through the medium of the high priestess Bacbuc.
Many moons had waxed and waned, when on the afternoon of a lovelysummer day a lusty broad-boned knight was riding through the forestof Sherwood. The sun shone brilliantly on the full green foliage, andafforded the knight a fine opportunity of observing picturesque effects,of which it is to be feared he did not avail himself. But he had notproceeded far, before he had an opportunity of observing somethingmuch more interesting, namely, a fine young outlaw leaning, in the trueSherwood fashion, with his back against a tree. The knight was preparingto ask the stranger a question, the answer to which, if correctly given,would have relieved him from a doubt that pressed heavily on his mind,as to whether he was in the right road or the wrong, when the youthprevented the inquiry by saying: "In God's name, sir knight, you arelate to your meals. My master has tarried dinner for you these threehours."
"I doubt," said the knight, "I am not he you wot of. I am no wherebidden to day and I know none in this vicinage."
"We feared," said the youth, "your memory would be treacherous:therefore am I stationed here to refresh it."
"Who is your master?" said the knight; "and where does he abide?"
"My master," said the youth, "is called Robin Hood, and he abides hardby."
"And what knows he of me?" said the knight.
"He knows you," answered the youth "as he does every way-faring knightand friar, by instinct."
"Gramercy," said the knight; "then I understand his bidding: but how ifI say I will not come?"
"I am enjoined to bring you," said the youth. "If persuasion avail not,I must use other argument."
"Say'st thou so?" said the knight; "I doubt if thy stripling rhetoricwould convince me."
"That," said the young forester, "we will see."
"We are not equally matched, boy," said the knight. "I should get lesshonour by thy conquest, than grief by thy injury."
"Perhaps," said the youth, "my strength is more than my seeming, and mycunning more than my strength. Therefore let it please your knighthoodto dismount."
"It shall please my knighthood to chastise thy presumption," said theknight, springing from his saddle.
Hereupon, which in those days was usually the result of a meetingbetween any two persons anywhere, they proceeded to fight.
The knight had in an uncommon degree both strength and skill: theforester had less strength, but not less skill than the knight, andshowed such a mastery of his weapon as reduced the latter to greatadmiration.
They had not fought many minutes by the forest clock, the sun; and hadas yet done each other no worse injury than that the knight had woundedthe forester's jerkin, and the forester had disabled the knight's plume;when they were interrupted by a voice from a thicket, exclaiming, "Wellfought, girl: well fought. Mass, that had nigh been a shrewd hit. Thouowest him for that, lass. Marry, stand by, I'll pay him for thee."
The knight turning to the voice, beheld a tall friar issuing from thethicket, brandishing a ponderous cudgel.
"Who art thou?" said the knight.
"I am the church militant of Sherwood," answered the friar. "Why artthou in arms against our lady queen?"
"What meanest thou?" said the knight.
"Truly, this," said the friar, "is our liege lady of the forest, againstwhom I do apprehend thee in overt act of treason. What sayest thou forthyself?"
"I say," answered the knight, "that if this be indeed a lady, man neveryet held me so long."
"Spoken," said the friar, "like one who hath done execution. Hast thouthy stomach full of steel? Wilt thou diversify thy repast with a tasteof my oak-graff? Or wilt thou incline thine heart to our venison whichtruly is cooling? Wilt thou fight? or wilt thou dine? or wilt thou fightand dine? or wilt thou dine and fight? I am for thee, choose as thoumayest."
"I will dine," said the knight; "for with lady I never fought before,and with friar I never fought yet, and with neither will I ever fightknowingly: and if this be the queen of the forest, I will not, being inher own dominions, be backward to do her homage."
So saying, he kissed the hand of Marian, who was pleased most graciouslyto express her approbation.
"Gramercy, sir knight," said the friar, "I laud thee for thy courtesy,which I deem to be no less than thy valour. Now do thou follow me, whileI follow my nose, which scents the pleasant odour of roast from thedepth of the forest recesses. I will lead thy horse, and do thou lead mylady."
The knight took Marian's hand, and followed the friar, who walked beforethem, singing:
When the wind blows, when the wind blows From where under buck the dry log glows, What guide can you follow, O'er brake and o'er hollow, So true as a ghostly, ghostly nose?
CHAPTER XVIII
Robin and Richard were two pretty men. --Mother Goose's Melody.
They proceeded, following their infallible guide, first along a lightelastic greensward under the shade of lofty and wide-spreading treesthat skirted a sunny opening of the forest, then along labyrinthinepaths, which the deer, the outlaw, or the woodman had made, through theclose shoots of the young coppices, through the thick undergrowth ofthe ancient woods, through beds of gigantic fern that filled the narrowglades and waved their green feathery heads above the plume of theknight. Along these sylvan alleys they walked in single file; the fr
iarsinging and pioneering in the van, the horse plunging and flounderingbehind the friar, the lady following "in maiden meditation fancy free,"and the knight bringing up the rear, much marvelling at the strangecompany into which his stars had thrown him. Their path had expandedsufficiently to allow the knight to take Marian's hand again, when theyarrived in the august presence of Robin Hood and his court.
Robin's table was spread under a high overarching canopy of livingboughs, on the edge of a natural lawn of verdure starred with flowers,through which a swift transparent rivulet ran sparkling in the sun. Theboard was covered with abundance of choice food and excellent liquor,not without the comeliness of snow-white linen and the splendourof costly plate, which the sheriff of Nottingham had unwillinglycontributed to supply, at the same time with an excellent cook, whomLittle John's art had spirited away to the forest with the contents ofhis master's silver scullery.
An hundred foresters were here assembled over-ready for their dinner,some seated at the table and some lying in groups under the trees.
Robin bade courteous welcome to the knight, who took his seat betweenRobin and Marian at the festal board; at which was already placed onestrange guest in the person of a portly monk, sitting between LittleJohn and Scarlet, with, his rotund physiognomy elongated into anunnatural oval by the conjoint influence of sorrow and fear: sorrow forthe departed contents of his travelling treasury, a good-looking valisewhich was hanging empty on a bough; and fear for his personal safety,of which all the flasks and pasties before him could not give himassurance. The appearance of the knight, however, cheered him up witha semblance of protection, and gave him just sufficient courage todemolish a cygnet and a rumble-pie, which he diluted with the contentsof two flasks of canary sack.
But wine, which sometimes creates and often increases joy, doth also,upon occasion, heighten sorrow: and so it fared now with our portlymonk, who had no sooner explained away his portion of provender, than hebegan to weep and bewail himself bitterly.
"Why dost thou weep, man?" said Robin Hood. "Thou hast done thineembassy justly, and shalt have thy Lady's grace."
"Alack! alack!" said the monk: "no embassy had I, luckless sinner,as well thou wottest, but to take to my abbey in safety the treasurewhereof thou hast despoiled me."
"Propound me his case," said Friar Tuck, "and I will give him ghostlycounsel."
"You well remember," said Robin Hood, "the sorrowful knight who dinedwith us here twelve months and a day gone by."
"Well do I," said Friar Tuck. "His lands were in jeopardy with a certainabbot, who would allow him no longer day for their redemption. Whereuponyou lent to him the four hundred pounds which he needed, and which hewas to repay this day, though he had no better security to give than ourLady the Virgin."
"I never desired better," said Robin, "for she never yet failed tosend me my pay; and here is one of her own flock, this faithful andwell-favoured monk of St. Mary's, hath brought it me duly, principal andinterest to a penny, as Little John can testify, who told it forth. Tobe sure, he denied having it, but that was to prove our faith. We soughtand found it."
"I know nothing of your knight," said the monk: "and the money was ourown, as the Virgin shall bless me."
"She shall bless thee," said Friar Tuck, "for a faithful messenger."
The monk resumed his wailing. Little John brought him his horse. Robingave him leave to depart. He sprang with singular nimbleness into thesaddle, and vanished without saying, God give you good day.
The stranger knight laughed heartily as the monk rode off.
"They say, sir knight," said Friar Tuck, "they should laugh who win: butthou laughest who art likely to lose."
"I have won," said the knight, "a good dinner, some mirth, and someknowledge: and I cannot lose by paying for them."
"Bravely said," answered Robin. "Still it becomes thee to pay: for it isnot meet that a poor forester should treat a rich knight. How much moneyhast thou with thee?"
"Troth, I know not," said the knight. "Sometimes much, sometimes little,sometimes none. But search, and what thou findest, keep: and for thesake of thy kind heart and open hand, be it what it may, I shall wish itwere more."
"Then, since thou sayest so," said Robin, "not a penny will I touch.Many a false churl comes hither, and disburses against his will: andtill there is lack of these, I prey not on true men."
"Thou art thyself a true man, right well I judge, Robin," said thestranger knight, "and seemest more like one bred in court than to thypresent outlaw life."
"Our life," said the friar, "is a craft, an art, and a mystery. How muchof it, think you, could be learned at court?"
"Indeed, I cannot say," said the stranger knight: "but I shouldapprehend very little."
"And so should I," said the friar: "for we should find very littleof our bold open practice, but should hear abundance of praise of ourprinciples. To live in seeming fellowship and secret rivalry; to have ahand for all, and a heart for none; to be everybody's acquaintance, andnobody's friend; to meditate the ruin of all on whom we smile, and todread the secret stratagems of all who smile on us; to pilfer honoursand despoil fortunes, not by fighting in daylight, but by sapping indarkness: these are arts which the court can teach, but which we, by 'rLady, have not learned. But let your court-minstrel tune up his throatto the praise of your court-hero, then come our principles into play:then is our practice extolled not by the same name, for their Richardis a hero, and our Robin is a thief: marry, your hero guts an exchequer,while your thief disembowels a portmanteau, your hero sacks a city,while your thief sacks a cellar: your hero marauds on a larger scale,and that is all the difference, for the principle and the virtue areone: but two of a trade cannot agree: therefore your hero makes laws toget rid of your thief, and gives him an ill name that he may hang him:for might is right, and the strong make laws for the weak, and they thatmake laws to serve their own turn do also make morals to give colour totheir laws."
"Your comparison, friar," said the stranger, "fails in this: that yourthief fights for profit, and your hero for honour. I have fought underthe banners of Richard, and if, as you phrase it, he guts exchequers,and sacks cities, it is not to win treasure for himself, but to furnishforth the means of his greater and more glorious aim."
"Misconceive me not, sir knight," said the friar. "We all love andhonour King Richard, and here is a deep draught to his health: but Iwould show you, that we foresters are miscalled by opprobrious names,and that our virtues, though they follow at humble distance, are yettruly akin to those of Coeur-de-Lion. I say not that Richard is athief, but I say that Robin is a hero: and for honour, did ever yet man,miscalled thief, win greater honour than Robin? Do not all men grace himwith some honourable epithet? The most gentle thief, the most courteousthief, the most bountiful thief, yea, and the most honest thief? Richardis courteous, bountiful, honest, and valiant: but so also is Robin:it is the false word that makes the unjust distinction. They aretwin-spirits, and should be friends, but that fortune hath differentlycast their lot: but their names shall descend together to the latestdays, as the flower of their age and of England: for in the pureprinciples of freebootery have they excelled all men; and to theprinciples of freebootery, diversely developed, belong all the qualitiesto which song and story concede renown."
"And you may add, friar," said Marian, "that Robin, no less thanRichard, is king in his own dominion; and that if his subjects be fewer,yet are they more uniformly loyal."
"I would, fair lady," said the stranger, "that thy latter observationwere not so true. But I nothing doubt, Robin, that if Richard could hearyour friar, and see you and your lady, as I now do, there is not a manin England whom he would take by the hand more cordially than yourself."
"Gramercy, sir knight," said Robin---- But his speech was cut short byLittle John calling, "Hark!"
All listened. A distant trampling of horses was heard. The soundsapproached rapidly, and at length a group of horsemen glittering inholyday dresses was visible among the trees.
"
God's my life!" said Robin, "what means this? To arms, my merrymenall."
"No arms, Robin," said the foremost horseman, riding up and springingfrom his saddle: "have you forgotten Sir William of the Lee?"
"No, by my fay," said Robin; "and right welcome again to Sherwood."
Little John bustled to re-array the disorganised economy of the table,and replace the dilapidations of the provender.
"I come late, Robin," said Sir William, "but I came by a wrestling,where I found a good yeoman wrongfully beset by a crowd of sturdyvarlets, and I staid to do him right."
"I thank thee for that, in God's name," said Robin, "as if thy goodservice had been to myself."
"And here," said the knight, "is thy four hundred pound; and my men havebrought thee an hundred bows and as many well-furnished quivers; whichI beseech thee to receive and to use as a poor token of my gratefulkindness to thee: for me and my wife and children didst thou redeem frombeggary."
"Thy bows and arrows," said Robin, "will I joyfully receive: but of thymoney, not a penny. It is paid already. My Lady, who was thy security,hath sent it me for thee."
Sir William pressed, but Robin was inflexible.
"It is paid," said Robin, "as this good knight can testify, who saw myLady's messenger depart but now."
Sir William looked round to the stranger knight, and instantly fell onhis knee, saying, "God save King Richard."
The foresters, friar and all, dropped on their knees together, andrepeated in chorus: "God save King Richard."
"Rise, rise," said Richard, smiling: "Robin is king here, as his ladyhath shown. I have heard much of thee, Robin, both of thy present andthy former state. And this, thy fair forest-queen, is, if tales saytrue, the lady Matilda Fitzwater."
Marian signed acknowledgment.
"Your father," said the king, "has approved his fidelity to me, bythe loss of his lands, which the newness of my return, and many publiccares, have not yet given me time to restore: but this justice shall bedone to him, and to thee also, Robin, if thou wilt leave thy forest-lifeand resume thy earldom, and be a peer of Coeur-de-Lion: for braver heartand juster hand I never yet found."
Robin looked round on his men.
"Your followers," said the king, "shall have free pardon, and such ofthem as thou wilt part with shall have maintenance from me; and if everI confess to priest, it shall be to thy friar."
"Gramercy to your majesty," said the friar; "and my inflictions shallbe flasks of canary; and if the number be (as in grave cases I may,peradventure, make it) too great for one frail mortality, I will relieveyou by vicarious penance, and pour down my own throat the redundancy ofthe burden."
Robin and his followers embraced the king's proposal. A joyful meetingsoon followed with the baron and Sir Guy of Gamwell: and Richard himselfhonoured with his own presence a formal solemnization of the nuptials ofour lovers, whom he constantly distinguished with his peculiar regard.
The friar could not say, Farewell to the forest, without something ofa heavy heart: and he sang as he turned his back upon its bounds,occasionally reverting his head:
Ye woods, that oft at sultry noon Have o'er me spread your messy shade: Ye gushing streams, whose murmured tune Has in my ear sweet music made, While, where the dancing pebbles show Deep in the restless fountain-pool The gelid water's upward flow, My second flask was laid to cool:
Ye pleasant sights of leaf and flower: Ye pleasant sounds of bird and bee: Ye sports of deer in sylvan bower: Ye feasts beneath the greenwood tree: Ye baskings in the vernal sun: Ye slumbers in the summer dell: Ye trophies that this arm has won: And must ye hear your friar's farewell?
But the friar's farewell was not destined to be eternal. He wasdomiciled as the family confessor of the earl and countess ofHuntingdon, who led a discreet and courtly life, and kept up oldhospitality in all its munificence, till the death of King Richard andthe usurpation of John, by placing their enemy in power, compelled themto return to their greenwood sovereignty; which, it is probable, theywould have before done from choice, if their love of sylvan libertyhad not been counteracted by their desire to retain the friendshipof Coeur-de-Lion. Their old and tried adherents, the friar among theforemost, flocked again round their forest-banner; and in merry Sherwoodthey long lived together, the lady still retaining her former name ofMaid Marian, though the appellation was then as much a misnomer as thatof Little John.
THE END.
Footnotes:
[Footnote 1: Roasting by a slow fire for the love of God.]
[Footnote 2: Of these lines all that is not in italics belongs to Mr.Wordsworth: Resolution and Independence.]
[Footnote 3: Harp-it-on: or, a corruption of (greek 'Erpeton), acreeping thing.]
[Footnote 4:
And therefore is she called Maid Marian Because she leads a spotless maiden life And shall till Robin's outlaw life have end. --Old Play.]
[Footnote 5:
"These byshoppes and these archbyshoppes Ye shall them bete and bynde,"
says Robin Hood, in an old ballad. Perhaps, however, thus is to be takennot in a literal, but in a figurative sense from the binding and beatingof wheat: for as all rich men were Robin's harvest, the bishops andarchbishops must have been the finest and fattest ears among them, fromwhich Robin merely proposes to thresh the grain when he directs them tobe bound and beaten: and as Pharaoh's fat kine were typical of fat earsof wheat, so may fat ears of wheat, mutatis mutandis, be typical of fatkine.]
[Footnote 6: Alcofribas Nasier: an anagram of Francois Rabelais, and hisassumed appellation.]
VARIANTS IN THE TEXT
Changes in spelling, use of capitals, punctuation and type are notrecorded.
P. 15, ll. 12-13. and the bishops: and bishops 1822.
P. 46, l. 12. united: re-united 1822.
P. 63, l. 14. a posse of men: fifty men 1822.
P. 74, l. 6. privation: imprisonment and privation 1822.
P. 80, l. 29. tone: toll 1822.
P. 153, ll. 21-23. daily of bad wine... more fastidious relish: everyday I grow more intolerant of bad, and have a keener and more fastidiousrelish of good wine 1822.
P. 159, l. 20. passed: past 1822.
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