The consternation which ensued on the death of the Rowski, speedily sent all his camp-followers, army, &c. to the right-about. They struck their tents at the first news of his discomfiture; and each man laying hold of what he could, the whole of the gallant force which had marched under his banner in the morning had disappeared ere the sun rose.
On that night, as it may be imagined, the gates of the Castle of Cleves were not shut. Everybody was free to come in. Wine-butts were broached in all the courts; the pickled meat prepared in such lots for the siege was distributed among the people, who crowded to congratulate their beloved sovereign on his victory; and the Prince, as was customary with that good man, who never lost an opportunity of giving a dinner-party, had a splendid entertainment made ready for the upper classes, the whole concluding with a tasteful display of fireworks.
In the midst of these entertainments, our old friend the Count of Hombourg arrived at the castle. The stalwart old warrior swore by Saint Bugo that he was grieved the killing of the Rowski had been taken out of his hand. The laughing Cleves vowed by Saint Bendigo, Hombourg could never have finished off his enemy so satisfactorily as the unknown knight had just done.
But who was he? was the question which now agitated the bosom of these two old nobles. How to find him—how to reward the champion and restorer of the honor and happiness of Cleves? They agreed over supper that he should be sought for everywhere. Beadles were sent round the principal cities within fifty miles, and the description of the knight advertised, in the Journal de Francfort and the Allgemeine Zeitung. The hand of the Princess Helen was solemnly offered to him in these advertisements, with the reversion of the Prince of Cleves's splendid though somewhat dilapidated property.
“But we don't know him, my dear papa,” faintly ejaculated that young lady. “Some impostor may come in a suit of plain armor, and pretend that he was the champion who overcame the Rowski (a prince who had his faults certainly, but whose attachment for me I can never forget); and how are you to say whether he is the real knight or not? There are so many deceivers in this world,” added the Princess, in tears, “that one can't be too cautious now.” The fact is, that she was thinking of the desertion of Otto in the morning; by which instance of faithlessness her heart was wellnigh broken.
As for that youth and his comrade Wolfgang, to the astonishment of everybody at their impudence, they came to the archers' mess that night, as if nothing had happened; got their supper, partaking both of meat and drink most plentifully; fell asleep when their comrades began to describe the events of the day, and the admirable achievements of the unknown warrior; and turning into their hammocks, did not appear on parade in the morning until twenty minutes after the names were called.
When the Prince of Cleves heard of the return of these deserters he was in a towering passion. “Where were you, fellows,” shouted he, “during the time my castle was at its utmost need?”
Otto replied, “We were out on particular business.”
“Does a soldier leave his post on the day of battle, sir?” exclaimed the Prince. “You know the reward of such—Death! and death you merit. But you are a soldier only of yesterday, and yesterday's victory has made me merciful. Hanged you shall not be, as you merit—only flogged, both of you. Parade the men, Colonel Tickelstern, after breakfast, and give these scoundrels five hundred apiece.”
You should have seen how young Otto bounded, when this information was thus abruptly conveyed to him. “Flog ME!” cried he. “Flog Otto of—”
“Not so, my father,” said the Princess Helen, who had been standing by during the conversation, and who had looked at Otto all the while with the most ineffable scorn. “Not so: although these PERSONS have forgotten their duty” (she laid a particularly sarcastic emphasis on the word persons), “we have had no need of their services, and have luckily found OTHERS more faithful. You promised your daughter a boon, papa; it is the pardon of these two PERSONS. Let them go, and quit a service they have disgraced; a mistress—that is, a master—they have deceived.”
“Drum 'em out of the castle, Ticklestern; strip their uniforms from their backs, and never let me hear of the scoundrels again.” So saying, the old Prince angrily turned on his heel to breakfast, leaving the two young men to the fun and derision of their surrounding comrades.
The noble Count of Hombourg, who was taking his usual airing on the ramparts before breakfast, came up at this juncture, and asked what was the row? Otto blushed when he saw him and turned away rapidly; but the Count, too, catching a glimpse of him, with a hundred exclamations of joyful surprise seized upon the lad, hugged him to his manly breast, kissed him most affectionately, and almost burst into tears as he embraced him. For, in sooth, the good Count had thought his godson long ere this at the bottom of the silver Rhine.
The Prince of Cleves, who had come to the breakfast-parlor window, (to invite his guest to enter, as the tea was made,) beheld this strange scene from the window, as did the lovely tea-maker likewise, with breathless and beautiful agitation. The old Count and the archer strolled up and down the battlements in deep conversation. By the gestures of surprise and delight exhibited by the former, 'twas easy to see the young archer was conveying some very strange and pleasing news to him; though the nature of the conversation was not allowed to transpire.
“A godson of mine,” said the noble Count, when interrogated over his muffins. “I know his family; worthy people; sad scapegrace; ran away; parents longing for him; glad you did not flog him; devil to pay,” and so forth. The Count was a man of few words, and told his tale in this brief, artless manner. But why, at its conclusion, did the gentle Helen leave the room, her eyes filled with tears? She left the room once more to kiss a certain lock of yellow hair she had pilfered. A dazzling, delicious thought, a strange wild hope, arose in her soul!
When she appeared again, she made some side-handed inquiries regarding Otto (with that gentle artifice oft employed by women); but he was gone. He and his companion were gone. The Count of Hombourg had likewise taken his departure, under pretext of particular business. How lonely the vast castle seemed to Helen, now that HE was no longer there. The transactions of the last few days; the beautiful archer-boy; the offer from the Rowski (always an event in a young lady's life); the siege of the castle; the death of her truculent admirer: all seemed like a fevered dream to her: all was passed away, and had left no trace behind. No trace?—yes! one: a little insignificant lock of golden hair, over which the young creature wept so much that she put it out of curl; passing hours and hours in the summer-house, where the operation had been performed.
On the second day (it is my belief she would have gone into a consumption and died of languor, if the event had been delayed a day longer,) a messenger, with a trumpet, brought a letter in haste to the Prince of Cleves, who was, as usual, taking refreshment. “To the High and Mighty Prince,” &c. the letter ran. “The Champion who had the honor of engaging on Wednesday last with his late Excellency the Rowski of Donnerblitz, presents his compliments to H. S. H. the Prince of Cleves. Through the medium of the public prints the C. has been made acquainted with the flattering proposal of His Serene Highness relative to a union between himself (the Champion) and her Serene Highness the Princess Helen of Cleves. The Champion accepts with pleasure that polite invitation, and will have the honor of waiting upon the Prince and Princess of Cleves about half an hour after the receipt of this letter.”
“Tol lol de rol, girl,” shouted the Prince with heartfelt joy. (Have you not remarked, dear friend, how often in novel-books, and on the stage, joy is announced by the above burst of insensate monosyllables?) “Tol lol de rol. Don thy best kirtle, child; thy husband will be here anon.” And Helen retired to arrange her toilet for this awful event in the life of a young woman. When she returned, attired to welcome her defender, her young cheek was as pale as the white satin slip and orange sprigs she wore.
She was scarce seated on the dais by her father's side, when a huge flourish of trumpets from without proclaimed the arrival of THE CHAMPION. Helen felt quite sick: a draught of ether was necessary to restore her tranquillity.
The great door was flung open. He entered,—the same tall warrior, slim, and beautiful, blazing in shining steel. He approached the Prince's throne, supported on each side by a friend likewise in armor. He knelt gracefully on one knee.
“I come,” said he in a voice trembling with emotion, “to claim, as per advertisement, the hand of the lovely Lady Helen.” And he held out a copy of the Allgemeine Zeitung as he spoke.
“Art thou noble, Sir Knight?” asked the Prince of Cleves.
“As noble as yourself,” answered the kneeling steel.
“Who answers for thee?”
“I, Karl, Margrave of Godesberg, his father!” said the knight on the right hand, lifting up his visor.
“And I—Ludwig, Count of Hombourg, his godfather!” said the knight on the left, doing likewise.
The kneeling knight lifted up his visor now, and looked on Helen.
“I KNEW IT WAS,” said she, and fainted as she saw Otto the Archer.
But she was soon brought to, gentles, as I have small need to tell ye. In a very few days after, a great marriage took place at Cleves under the patronage of Saint Bugo, Saint Buffo, and Saint Bendigo. After the marriage ceremony, the happiest and handsomest pair in the world drove off in a chaise-and-four, to pass the honeymoon at Kissingen. The Lady Theodora, whom we left locked up in her convent a long while since, was prevailed upon to come back to Godesberg, where she was reconciled to her husband. Jealous of her daughter-in-law, she idolized her son, and spoiled all her little grandchildren. And so all are happy, and my simple tale is done.
I read it in an old, old book, in a mouldy old circulating library. 'Twas written in the French tongue, by the noble Alexandre Dumas; but 'tis probable that he stole it from some other, and that the other had filched it from a former tale-teller. For nothing is new under the sun. Things die and are reproduced only. And so it is that the forgotten tale of the great Dumas reappears under the signature of
THERESA MACWHIRTER.
WHISTLEBINKIE, N.B., December 1.
BY MR. MICHAEL ANGELO TITMARSH.
Well-beloved novel-readers and gentle patronesses of romance, assuredly it has often occurred to every one of you, that the books we delight in have very unsatisfactory conclusions, and end quite prematurely with page 320 of the third volume. At that epoch of the history it is well known that the hero is seldom more than thirty years old, and the heroine by consequence some seven or eight years younger; and I would ask any of you whether it is fair to suppose that people after the above age have nothing worthy of note in their lives, and cease to exist as they drive away from Saint George's, Hanover Square? You, dear young ladies, who get your knowledge of life from the circulating library, may be led to imagine that when the marriage business is done, and Emilia is whisked off in the new travelling-carriage, by the side of the enraptured Earl; or Belinda, breaking away from the tearful embraces of her excellent mother, dries her own lovely eyes upon the throbbing waistcoat of her bridegroom—you may be apt, I say, to suppose that all is over then; that Emilia and the Earl are going to be happy for the rest of their lives in his lordship's romantic castle in the North, and Belinda and her young clergyman to enjoy uninterrupted bliss in their rose-trellised parsonage in the West of England: but some there be among the novel-reading classes—old experienced folks—who know better than this. Some there be who have been married, and found that they have still something to see and to do, and to suffer mayhap; and that adventures, and pains, and pleasures, and taxes, and sunrises and settings, and the business and joys and griefs of life go on after, as before the nuptial ceremony.
Therefore I say, it is an unfair advantage which the novelist takes of hero and heroine, as of his inexperienced reader, to say good-by to the two former, as soon as ever they are made husband and wife; and I have often wished that additions should be made to all works of fiction which have been brought to abrupt terminations in the manner described; and that we should hear what occurs to the sober married man, as well as to the ardent bachelor; to the matron, as well as to the blushing spinster. And in this respect I admire (and would desire to imitate,) the noble and prolific French author, Alexandre Dumas, who carries his heroes from early youth down to the most venerable old age; and does not let them rest until they are so old, that it is full time the poor fellows should get a little peace and quiet. A hero is much too valuable a gentleman to be put upon the retired list, in the prime and vigor of his youth; and I wish to know what lady among us would like to be put on the shelf, and thought no longer interesting, because she has a family growing up, and is four or five and thirty years of age? I have known ladies at sixty, with hearts as tender and ideas as romantic as any young misses of sixteen. Let us have middle-aged novels then, as well as your extremely juvenile legends: let the young ones be warned that the old folks have a right to be interesting: and that a lady may continue to have a heart, although she is somewhat stouter than she was when a school-girl, and a man his feelings, although he gets his hair from Truefitt's.
Thus I would desire that the biographies of many of our most illustrious personages of romance should be continued by fitting hands, and that they should be heard of, until at least a decent age.—Look at Mr. James's heroes: they invariably marry young. Look at Mr. Dickens's: they disappear from the scene when they are mere chits. I trust these authors, who are still alive, will see the propriety of telling us something more about people in whom we took a considerable interest, and who must be at present strong and hearty, and in the full vigor of health and intellect. And in the tales of the great Sir Walter (may honor be to his name), I am sure there are a number of people who are untimely carried away from us, and of whom we ought to hear more.
My dear Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York, has always, in my mind, been one of these; nor can I ever believe that such a woman, so admirable, so tender, so heroic, so beautiful, could disappear altogether before such another woman as Rowena, that vapid, flaxen-headed creature, who is, in my humble opinion, unworthy of Ivanhoe, and unworthy of her place as heroine. Had both of them got their rights, it ever seemed to me that Rebecca would have had the husband, and Rowena would have gone off to a convent and shut herself up, where I, for one, would never have taken the trouble of inquiring for her.
But after all she married Ivanhoe. What is to be done? There is no help for it. There it is in black and white at the end of the third volume of Sir Walter Scott's chronicle, that the couple were joined together in matrimony. And must the Disinherited Knight, whose blood has been fired by the suns of Palestine, and whose heart has been warmed in the company of the tender and beautiful Rebecca, sit down contented for life by the side of such a frigid piece of propriety as that icy, faultless, prim, niminy-piminy Rowena? Forbid it fate, forbid it poetical justice! There is a simple plan for setting matters right, and giving all parties their due, which is here submitted to the novel-reader. Ivanhoe's history MUST have had a continuation; and it is this which ensues. I may be wrong in some particulars of the narrative,—as what writer will not be?—but of the main incidents of the history, I have in my own mind no sort of doubt, and confidently submit them to that generous public which likes to see virtue righted, true love rewarded, and the brilliant Fairy descend out of the blazing chariot at the end of the pantomime, and make Harlequin and Columbine happy. What, if reality be not so, gentlemen and ladies; and if, after dancing a variety of jigs and antics, and jumping in and out of endless trap-doors and windows, through life's shifting scenes, no fairy comes down to make US comfortable at the close of the performance? Ah! let us give our honest novel-folks the benefit of their position, and not be envious of their good luck.
No person who has read the preceding volumes of this history, as the famous chronicler of Abbotsford has recorded them, can doubt for a moment what was the result of the marriage between Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe and Lady Rowena. Those who have marked her conduct during her maidenhood, her distinguished politeness, her spotless modesty of demeanor, her unalterable coolness under all circumstances, and her lofty and gentlewomanlike bearing, must be sure that her married conduct would equal her spinster behavior, and that Rowena the wife would be a pattern of correctness for all the matrons of England.
Such was the fact. For miles around Rotherwood her character for piety was known. Her castle was a rendezvous for all the clergy and monks of the district, whom she fed with the richest viands, while she pinched herself upon pulse and water. There was not an invalid in the three Ridings, Saxon or Norman, but the palfrey of the Lady Rowena might be seen journeying to his door, in company with Father Glauber, her almoner, and Brother Thomas of Epsom, her leech. She lighted up all the churches in Yorkshire with wax-candles, the offerings of her piety. The bells of her chapel began to ring at two o'clock in the morning; and all the domestics of Rotherwood were called upon to attend at matins, at complins, at nones, at vespers, and at sermon. I need not say that fasting was observed with all the rigors of the Church; and that those of the servants of the Lady Rowena were looked upon with most favor whose hair-shirts were the roughest, and who flagellated themselves with the most becoming perseverance.
Whether it was that this discipline cleared poor Wamba's wits or cooled his humor, it is certain that he became the most melancholy fool in England, and if ever he ventured upon a pun to the shuddering poor servitors, who were mumbling their dry crusts below the salt, it was such a faint and stale joke that noboby dared to laugh at the innuendoes of the unfortunate wag, and a sickly smile was the best applause he could muster. Once, indeed, when Guffo, the goose-boy (a half-witted poor wretch), laughed outright at a lamentably stale pun which Wamba palmed upon him at supper-time, (it was dark, and the torches being brought in, Wamba said, “Guffo, they can't see their way in the argument, and are going TO THROW A LITTLE LIGHT UPON THE SUBJECT,”) the Lady Rowena, being disturbed in a theological controversy with Father Willibald, (afterwards canonized as St. Willibald, of Bareacres, hermit and confessor,) called out to know what was the cause of the unseemly interruption, and Guffo and Wamba being pointed out as the culprits, ordered them straightway into the court-yard, and three dozen to be administered to each of them.
“I got you out of Front-de-Boeufs castle,” said poor Wamba, piteously, appealing to Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, “and canst thou not save me from the lash?”
“Yes, from Front-de-Boeuf's castle, WHERE YOU WERE LOCKED UP WITH THE JEWESS IN THE TOWER!” said Rowena, haughtily replying to the timid appeal of her husband. “Gurth, give him four dozen!”
And this was all poor Wamba got by applying for the mediation of his master.
In fact, Rowena knew her own dignity so well as a princess of the royal blood of England, that Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, her consort, could scarcely call his life his own, and was made, in all things, to feel the inferiority of his station. And which of us is there acquainted with the sex that has not remarked this propensity in lovely woman, and how often the wisest in the council are made to be as fools at HER board, and the boldest in the battle-field are craven when facing her distaff?
“Where you were locked up with the Jewess in the tower,” was a remark, too, of which Wilfrid keenly felt, and perhaps the reader will understand, the significancy. When the daughter of Isaac of York brought her diamonds and rubies—the poor gentle victim!—and, meekly laying them at the feet of the conquering Rowena, departed into foreign lands to tend the sick of her people, and to brood over the bootless passion which consumed her own pure heart, one would have thought that the heart of the royal lady would have melted before such beauty and humility, and that she would have been generous in the moment of her victory.
But did you ever know a right-minded woman pardon another for being handsome and more love-worthy than herself? The Lady Rowena did certainly say with mighty magnanimity to the Jewish maiden, “Come and live with me as a sister,” as the former part of this history shows; but Rebecca knew in her heart that her ladyship's proposition was what is called BOSH (in that noble Eastern language with which Wilfrid the Crusader was familiar), or fudge, in plain Saxon; and retired with a broken, gentle spirit, neither able to bear the sight of her rival's happiness, nor willing to disturb it by the contrast of her own wretchedness. Rowena, like the most high-bred and virtuous of women, never forgave Isaac's daughter her beauty, nor her flirtation with Wilfrid (as the Saxon lady chose to term it); nor, above all, her admirable diamonds and jewels, although Rowena was actually in possession of them.
In a word, she was always flinging Rebecca into Ivanhoe's teeth. There was not a day in his life but that unhappy warrior was made to remember that a Hebrew damsel had been in love with him, and that a Christian lady of fashion could never forgive the insult. For instance, if Gurth, the swineherd, who was now promoted to be a gamekeeper and verderer, brought the account of a famous wild-boar in the wood, and proposed a hunt, Rowena would say, “Do, Sir Wilfrid, persecute these poor pigs: you know your friends the Jews can't abide them!” Or when, as it oft would happen, our lion-hearted monarch, Richard, in order to get a loan or a benevolence from the Jews, would roast a few of the Hebrew capitalists, or extract some of the principal rabbis' teeth, Rowena would exult and say, “Serve them right, the misbelieving wretches! England can never be a happy country until every one of these monsters is exterminated!” or else, adopting a strain of still more savage sarcasm, would exclaim, “Ivanhoe my dear, more persecution for the Jews! Hadn't you better interfere, my love? His Majesty will do anything for you; and, you know, the Jews were ALWAYS SUCH FAVORITES OF YOURS,” or words to that effect. But, nevertheless, her ladyship never lost an opportunity of wearing Rebecca's jewels at court, whenever the Queen held a drawing-room; or at the York assizes and ball, when she appeared there: not of course because she took any interest in such things, but because she considered it her duty to attend, as one of the chief ladies of the county.
Thus Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, having attained the height of his wishes, was, like many a man when he has reached that dangerous elevation, disappointed. Ah, dear friends, it is but too often so in life! Many a garden, seen from a distance, looks fresh and green, which, when beheld closely, is dismal and weedy; the shady walks melancholy and grass-grown; the bowers you would fain repose in, cushioned with stinging-nettles. I have ridden in a caique upon the waters of the Bosphorus, and looked upon the capital of the Soldan of Turkey. As seen from those blue waters, with palace and pinnacle, with gilded dome and towering cypress, it seemeth a very Paradise of Mahound: but, enter the city, and it is but a beggarly labyrinth of rickety huts and dirty alleys, where the ways are steep and the smells are foul, tenanted by mangy dogs and ragged beggars—a dismal illusion! Life is such, ah, well-a-day! It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a deceit.
Perhaps a man with Ivanhoe's high principles would never bring himself to acknowledge this fact; but others did for him. He grew thin, and pined away as much as if he had been in a fever under the scorching sun of Ascalon. He had no appetite for his meals; he slept ill, though he was yawning all day. The jangling of the doctors and friars whom Rowena brought together did not in the least enliven him, and he would sometimes give proofs of somnolency during their disputes, greatly to the consternation of his lady. He hunted a good deal, and, I very much fear, as Rowena rightly remarked, that he might have an excuse for being absent from home. He began to like wine, too, who had been as sober as a hermit; and when he came back from Athelstane's (whither he would repair not unfrequently), the unsteadiness of his gait and the unnatural brilliancy of his eye were remarked by his lady: who, you may be sure, was sitting up for him. As for Athelstane, he swore by St. Wullstan that he was glad to have escaped a marriage with such a pattern of propriety; and honest Cedric the Saxon (who had been very speedily driven out of his daughter-in-law's castle) vowed by St. Waltheof that his son had bought a dear bargain.
So Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe became almost as tired of England as his royal master Richard was, (who always quitted the country when he had squeezed from his loyal nobles, commons, clergy, and Jews, all the money which he could get,) and when the lion-hearted Prince began to make war against the French King, in Normandy and Guienne, Sir Wilfrid pined like a true servant to be in company of the good champion, alongside of whom he had shivered so many lances, and dealt such woundy blows of sword and battle-axe on the plains of Jaffa or the breaches of Acre. Travellers were welcome at Rotherwood that brought news from the camp of the good King: and I warrant me that the knight listened with all his might when Father Drono, the chaplain, read in the St. James's Chronykyll (which was the paper of news he of Ivanhoe took in) of “another glorious triumph”—“Defeat of the French near Blois”—“Splendid victory at Epte, and narrow escape of the French King:” the which deeds of arms the learned scribes had to narrate.
However such tales might excite him during the reading, they left the Knight of Ivanhoe only the more melancholy after listening: and the more moody as he sat in his great hall silently draining his Gascony wine. Silently sat he and looked at his coats-of-mail hanging vacant on the wall, his banner covered with spider-webs, and his sword and axe rusting there. “Ah, dear axe,” sighed he (into his drinking-horn)—“ah, gentle steel! that was a merry time when I sent thee crashing into the pate of the Emir Abdul Melik as he rode on the right of Saladin. Ah, my sword, my dainty headsman? my sweet split-rib? my razor of infidel beards! is the rust to eat thine edge off, and am I never more to wield thee in battle? What is the use of a shield on a wall, or a lance that has a cobweb for a pennon? O Richard, my good king, would I could hear once more thy voice in the front of the onset! Bones of Brian the Templar? would ye could rise from your grave at Templestowe, and that we might break another spear for honor and—and—” . . .
“And REBECCA,” he would have said; but the knight paused here in rather a guilty panic: and her Royal Highness the Princess Rowena (as she chose to style herself at home) looked so hard at him out of her china-blue eyes, that Sir Wilfrid felt as if she was reading his thoughts, and was fain to drop his own eyes into his flagon.
In a word, his life was intolerable. The dinner hour of the twelfth century, it is known, was very early; in fact, people dined at ten o'clock in the morning: and after dinner Rowena sat mum under her canopy, embroidered with the arms of Edward the Confessor, working with her maidens at the most hideous pieces of tapestry, representing the tortures and martyrdoms of her favorite saints, and not allowing a soul to speak above his breath, except when she chose to cry out in her own shrill voice when a handmaid made a wrong stitch, or let fall a ball of worsted. It was a dreary life. Wamba, we have said, never ventured to crack a joke, save in a whisper, when he was ten miles from home; and then Sir Wilfrid Ivanhoe was too weary and blue-devilled to laugh; but hunted in silence, moodily bringing down deer and wild-boar with shaft and quarrel.
Then he besought Robin of Huntingdon, the jolly outlaw, nathless, to join him, and go to the help of their fair sire King Richard, with a score or two of lances. But the Earl of Huntingdon was a very different character from Robin Hood the forester. There was no more conscientious magistrate in all the county than his lordship: he was never known to miss church or quarter-sessions; he was the strictest game-proprietor in all the Riding, and sent scores of poachers to Botany Bay. “A man who has a stake in the country, my good Sir Wilfrid,” Lord Huntingdon said, with rather a patronizing air (his lordship had grown immensely fat since the King had taken him into grace, and required a horse as strong as an elephant to mount him)—“a man with a stake in the country ought to stay IN the country. Property has its duties as well as its privileges, and a person of my rank is bound to live on the land from which he gets his living.”
“'Amen!” sang out the Reverend —— Tuck, his lordship's domestic chaplain, who had also grown as sleek as the Abbot of Jorvaulx, who was as prim as a lady in his dress, wore bergamot in his handkerchief, and had his poll shaved and his beard curled every day. And so sanctified was his Reverence grown, that he thought it was a shame to kill the pretty deer, (though he ate of them still hugely, both in pasties and with French beans and currant-jelly,) and being shown a quarter-staff upon a certain occasion, handled it curiously, and asked “what that ugly great stick was?”
Lady Huntingdon, late Maid Marian, had still some of her old fun and spirits, and poor Ivanhoe begged and prayed that she would come and stay at Rotherwood occasionally, and egayer the general dulness of that castle. But her ladyship said that Rowena gave herself such airs, and bored her so intolerably with stories of King Edward the Confessor, that she preferred any place rather than Rotherwood, which was as dull as if it had been at the top of Mount Athos.
The only person who visited it was Athelstane. “His Royal Highness the Prince” Rowena of course called him, whom the lady received with royal honors. She had the guns fired, and the footmen turned out with presented arms when he arrived; helped him to all Ivanhoe's favorite cuts of the mutton or the turkey, and forced her poor husband to light him to the state bedroom, walking backwards, holding a pair of wax-candles. At this hour of bedtime the Thane used to be in such a condition, that he saw two pair of candles and two Ivanhoes reeling before him. Let us hope it was not Ivanhoe that was reeling, but only his kinsman's brains muddled with the quantities of drink which it was his daily custom to consume. Rowena said it was the crack which the wicked Bois Guilbert, “the Jewess's OTHER lover, Wilfrid my dear,” gave him on his royal skull, which caused the Prince to be disturbed so easily; but added, that drinking became a person of royal blood, and was but one of the duties of his station.
Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe saw it would be of no avail to ask this man to bear him company on his projected tour abroad; but still he himself was every day more and more bent upon going, and he long cast about for some means of breaking to his Rowena his firm resolution to join the King. He thought she would certainty fall ill if he communicated the news too abruptly to her: he would pretend a journey to York to attend a grand jury; then a call to London on law business or to buy stock; then he would slip over to Calais by the packet, by degrees as it were; and so be with the King before his wife knew that he was out of sight of Westminster Hall.
“Suppose your honor says you are going as your honor would say Bo! to a goose, plump, short, and to the point,” said Wamba the Jester—who was Sir Wilfrid's chief counsellor and attendant—“depend on't her Highness would bear the news like a Christian woman.”
“Tush, malapert! I will give thee the strap,” said Sir Wilfrid, in a fine tone of high-tragedy indignation. “Thou knowest not the delicacy of the nerves of high-born ladies. An she faint not, write me down Hollander.”
“I will wager my bauble against an Irish billet of exchange that she will let your honor go off readily: that is, if you press not the matter too strongly,” Wamba answered, knowingly. And this Ivanhoe found to his discomfiture: for one morning at breakfast, adopting a degage air, as he sipped his tea, he said, “My love, I was thinking of going over to pay his Majesty a visit in Normandy.” Upon which, laying down her muffin, (which, since the royal Alfred baked those cakes, had been the chosen breakfast cate of noble Anglo-Saxons, and which a kneeling page tendered to her on a salver, chased by the Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini,)—“When do you think of going, Wilfrid my dear?” the lady said; and the moment the tea-things were removed, and the tables and their trestles put away, she set about mending his linen, and getting ready his carpet-bag.
So Sir Wilfrid was as disgusted at her readiness to part with him as he had been weary of staying at home, which caused Wamba the Fool to say, “Marry, gossip, thou art like the man on ship-board, who, when the boatswain flogged him, did cry out 'Oh!' wherever the rope's-end fell on him: which caused Master Boatswain to say, 'Plague on thee, fellow, and a pize on thee, knave, wherever I hit thee there is no pleasing thee.'”
“And truly there are some backs which Fortune is always belaboring,” thought Sir Wilfrid with a groan, “and mine is one that is ever sore.”
So, with a moderate retinue, whereof the knave Wamba made one, and a large woollen comforter round his neck, which his wife's own white fingers had woven, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe left home to join the King his master. Rowena, standing on the steps, poured out a series of prayers and blessings, most edifying to hear, as her lord mounted his charger, which his squires led to the door. “It was the duty of the British female of rank,” she said, “to suffer all—ALL in the cause of her sovereign. SHE would not fear loneliness during the campaign: she would bear up against widowhood, desertion, and an unprotected situation.”
“My cousin Athelstane will protect thee,” said Ivanhoe, with profound emotion, as the tears trickled down his basenet; and bestowing a chaste salute upon the steel-clad warrior, Rowena modestly said “she hoped his Highness would be so kind.”
Then Ivanhoe's trumpet blew: then Rowena waved her pocket-handkerchief: then the household gave a shout: then the pursuivant of the good Knight, Sir Wilfrid the Crusader, flung out his banner (which was argent, a gules cramoisy with three Moors impaled sable): then Wamba gave a lash on his mule's haunch, and Ivanhoe, heaving a great sigh, turned the tail of his war-horse upon the castle of his fathers.
As they rode along the forest, they met Athelstane the Thane powdering along the road in the direction of Rotherwood on his great dray-horse of a charger. “Good-by, good luck to you, old brick,” cried the Prince, using the vernacular Saxon. “Pitch into those Frenchmen; give it 'em over the face and eyes; and I'll stop at home and take care of Mrs. I.”
“Thank you, kinsman,” said Ivanhoe—looking, however, not particularly well pleased; and the chiefs shaking hands, the train of each took its different way—Athelstane's to Rotherwood, Ivanhoe's towards his place of embarkation.
The poor knight had his wish, and yet his face was a yard long and as yellow as a lawyer's parchment; and having longed to quit home any time these three years past, he found himself envying Athelstane, because, forsooth, he was going to Rotherwood: which symptoms of discontent being observed by the witless Wamba, caused that absurd madman to bring his rebeck over his shoulder from his back, and to sing—
“ATRA CURA.“Before I lost my five poor wits,I mind me of a Romish clerk,Who sang how Care, the phantom dark,Beside the belted horseman sits.Methought I saw the griesly spriteJump up but now behind my Knight.”
“Perhaps thou didst, knave,” said Ivanhoe, looking over his shoulder; and the knave went on with his jingle:
“And though he gallop as he may,I mark that cursed monster blackStill sits behind his honor's back,Tight squeezing of his heart alway.Like two black Templars sit they there,Beside one crupper, Knight and Care.“No knight am I with pennoned spear,To prance upon a bold destrere:I will not have black Care prevailUpon my long-eared charger's tail,For lo, I am a witless fool,And laugh at Grief and ride a mule.”
And his bells rattled as he kicked his mule's sides.
“Silence, fool!” said Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, in a voice both majestic and wrathful. “If thou knowest not care and grief, it is because thou knowest not love, whereof they are the companions. Who can love without an anxious heart? How shall there be joy at meeting, without tears at parting?” (“I did not see that his honor or my lady shed many anon,” thought Wamba the Fool; but he was only a zany, and his mind was not right.) “I would not exchange my very sorrows for thine indifference,” the knight continued. “Where there is a sun, there must be a shadow. If the shadow offend me, shall I put out my eyes and live in the dark? No! I am content with my fate, even such as it is. The Care of which thou speakest, hard though it may vex him, never yet rode down an honest man. I can bear him on my shoulders, and make my way through the world's press in spite of him; for my arm is strong, and my sword is keen, and my shield has no stain on it; and my heart, though it is sad, knows no guile.” And here, taking a locket out of his waistcoat (which was made of chain-mail), the knight kissed the token, put it back under the waistcoat again, heaved a profound sigh, and stuck spurs into his horse.
As for Wamba, he was munching a black pudding whilst Sir Wilfrid was making the above speech, (which implied some secret grief on the knight's part, that must have been perfectly unintelligible to the fool,) and so did not listen to a single word of Ivanhoe's pompous remarks. They travelled on by slow stages through the whole kingdom, until they came to Dover, whence they took shipping for Calais. And in this little voyage, being exceedingly sea-sick, and besides elated at the thought of meeting his sovereign, the good knight cast away that profound melancholy which had accompanied him during the whole of his land journey.
From Calais Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe took the diligence across country to Limoges, sending on Gurth, his squire, with the horses and the rest of his attendants: with the exception of Wamba, who travelled not only as the knight's fool, but as his valet, and who, perched on the roof of the carriage, amused himself by blowing tunes upon the conducteur's French horn. The good King Richard was, as Ivanhoe learned, in the Limousin, encamped before a little place called Chalus; the lord whereof, though a vassal of the King's, was holding the castle against his sovereign with a resolution and valor which caused a great fury and annoyance on the part of the Monarch with the Lion Heart. For brave and magnanimous as he was, the Lion-hearted one did not love to be balked any more than another; and, like the royal animal whom he was said to resemble, he commonly tore his adversary to pieces, and then, perchance, had leisure to think how brave the latter had been. The Count of Chalus had found, it was said, a pot of money; the royal Richard wanted it. As the count denied that he had it, why did he not open the gates of his castle at once? It was a clear proof that he was guilty; and the King was determined to punish this rebel, and have his money and his life too.
He had naturally brought no breaching guns with him, because those instruments were not yet invented: and though he had assaulted the place a score of times with the utmost fury, his Majesty had been beaten back on every occasion, until he was so savage that it was dangerous to approach the British Lion. The Lion's wife, the lovely Berengaria, scarcely ventured to come near him. He flung the joint-stools in his tent at the heads of the officers of state, and kicked his aides-de-camp round his pavilion; and, in fact, a maid of honor, who brought a sack-posset in to his Majesty from the Queen after he came in from the assault, came spinning like a football out of the royal tent just as Ivanhoe entered it.
“Send me my drum-major to flog that woman!” roared out the infuriate King. “By the bones of St. Barnabas she has burned the sack! By St. Wittikind, I will have her flayed alive. Ha, St. George! ha, St. Richard! whom have we here?” And he lifted up his demi-culverin, or curtal-axe—a weapon weighing about thirteen hundredweight—and was about to fling it at the intruder's head, when the latter, kneeling gracefully on one knee, said calmly, “It is I, my good liege, Wilfrid of Ivanhoe.”
“What, Wilfrid of Templestowe, Wilfrid the married man, Wilfrid the henpecked!” cried the King with a sudden burst of good-humor, flinging away the culverin from him, as though it had been a reed (it lighted three hundred yards off, on the foot of Hugo de Bunyon, who was smoking a cigar at the door of his tent, and caused that redoubted warrior to limp for some days after). “What, Wilfrid my gossip? Art come to see the lion's den? There are bones in it, man, bones and carcasses, and the lion is angry,” said the King, with a terrific glare of his eyes. “But tush! we will talk of that anon. Ho! bring two gallons of hypocras for the King and the good Knight, Wilfrid of Ivanhoe. Thou art come in time, Wilfrid, for, by St. Richard and St. George, we will give a grand assault to-morrow. There will be bones broken, ha!”
“I care not, my liege,” said Ivanhoe, pledging the sovereign respectfully, and tossing off the whole contents of the bowl of hypocras to his Highness's good health. And he at once appeared to be taken into high favor; not a little to the envy of many of the persons surrounding the King.
As his Majesty said, there was fighting and feasting in plenty before Chalus. Day after day, the besiegers made assaults upon the castle, but it was held so stoutly by the Count of Chalus and his gallant garrison, that each afternoon beheld the attacking-parties returning disconsolately to their tents, leaving behind them many of their own slain, and bringing back with them store of broken heads and maimed limbs, received in the unsuccessful onset. The valor displayed by Ivanhoe in all these contests was prodigious; and the way in which he escaped death from the discharges of mangonels, catapults, battering-rams, twenty-four pounders, boiling oil, and other artillery, with which the besieged received their enemies, was remarkable. After a day's fighting, Gurth and Wamba used to pick the arrows out of their intrepid master's coat-of-mail, as if they had been so many almonds in a pudding. 'Twas well for the good knight, that under his first coat-of armor he wore a choice suit of Toledan steel, perfectly impervious to arrow-shots, and given to him by a certain Jew, named Isaac of York, to whom he had done some considerable services a few years back.
If King Richard had not been in such a rage at the repeated failures of his attacks upon the castle, that all sense of justice was blinded in the lion-hearted monarch, he would have been the first to acknowledge the valor of Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, and would have given him a Peerage and the Grand Cross of the Bath at least a dozen times in the course of the siege: for Ivanhoe led more than a dozen storming parties, and with his own hand killed as many men (viz, two thousand three hundred and fifty-one) within six, as were slain by the lion-hearted monarch himself. But his Majesty was rather disgusted than pleased by his faithful servant's prowess; and all the courtiers, who hated Ivanhoe for his superior valor and dexterity (for he would kill you off a couple of hundreds of them of Chalus, whilst the strongest champions of the Kings host could not finish more than their two dozen of a day), poisoned the royal mind against Sir Wilfrid, and made the King look upon his feats of arms with an evil eye. Roger de Backbite sneeringly told the King that Sir Wilfrid had offered to bet an equal bet that he would kill more men than Richard himself in the next assault: Peter de Toadhole said that Ivanhoe stated everywhere that his Majesty was not the man he used to be; that pleasures and drink had enervated him; that he could neither ride, nor strike a blow with sword or axe, as he had been enabled to do in the old times in Palestine: and finally, in the twenty-fifth assault, in which they had very nearly carried the place, and in which onset Ivanhoe slew seven, and his Majesty six, of the sons of the Count de Chalus, its defender, Ivanhoe almost did for himself, by planting his banner before the King's upon the wall; and only rescued himself from utter disgrace by saving his Majesty's life several times in the course of this most desperate onslaught.
Then the luckless knight's very virtues (as, no doubt, my respected readers know,) made him enemies amongst the men—nor was Ivanhoe liked by the women frequenting the camp of the gay King Richard. His young Queen, and a brilliant court of ladies, attended the pleasure-loving monarch. His Majesty would transact business in the morning, then fight severely from after breakfast till about three o'clock in the afternoon; from which time, until after midnight, there was nothing but jigging and singing, feasting and revelry, in the royal tents. Ivanhoe, who was asked as a matter of ceremony, and forced to attend these entertainments, not caring about the blandishments of any of the ladies present, looked on at their ogling and dancing with a countenance as glum as an undertaker's, and was a perfect wet-blanket in the midst of the festivities. His favorite resort and conversation were with a remarkably austere hermit, who lived in the neighborhood of Chalus, and with whom Ivanhoe loved to talk about Palestine, and the Jews, and other grave matters of import, better than to mingle in the gayest amusements of the court of King Richard. Many a night, when the Queen and the ladies were dancing quadrilles and polkas (in which his Majesty, who was enormously stout as well as tall, insisted upon figuring, and in which he was about as graceful as an elephant dancing a hornpipe), Ivanhoe would steal away from the ball, and come and have a night's chat under the moon with his reverend friend. It pained him to see a man of the King's age and size dancing about with the young folks. They laughed at his Majesty whilst they flattered him: the pages and maids of honor mimicked the royal mountebank almost to his face; and, if Ivanhoe ever could have laughed, he certainly would one night when the King, in light-blue satin inexpressibles, with his hair in powder, chose to dance the minuet de la cour with the little Queen Berangeria.
Then, after dancing, his Majesty must needs order a guitar, and begin to sing. He was said to compose his own songs—words and music—but those who have read Lord Campobello's “Lives of the Lord Chancellors” are aware that there was a person by the name of Blondel, who, in fact, did all the musical part of the King's performances; and as for the words, when a king writes verses, we may be sure there will be plenty of people to admire his poetry. His Majesty would sing you a ballad, of which he had stolen every idea, to an air that was ringing on all the barrel-organs of Christendom, and, turning round to his courtiers, would say, “How do you like that? I dashed it off this morning.” Or, “Blondel, what do you think of this movement in B flat?” or what not; and the courtiers and Blondel, you may be sure, would applaud with all their might, like hypocrites as they were.
One evening—it was the evening of the 27th March, 1199, indeed—his Majesty, who was in the musical mood, treated the court with a quantity of his so-called composition, until the people were fairly tired of clapping with their hands and laughing in their sleeves. First he sang an ORIGINAL air and poem, beginning