Our design was to have laid an ambush for you in
the morning, but the storm and your observation of my unlucky
face through the casement made us change our purpose; and
what followed you can tell better than I can, being indeed mas-
ters of the subject.
the morning, but the storm and your observation of my unlucky
face through the casement made us change our purpose; and
what followed you can tell better than I can, being indeed mas-
ters of the subject.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v19 - Oli to Phi
The friar sang to him to
some tune. Give me my harper's cloak, and I will play a part
at this wedding. "
"These are dangerous times, Robin," said Marian, "for play-
ing pranks out of the forest. "
"Fear not," said Robin: "Edwinstow lies not Nottingham-
ward, and I will take my precautions. "
Robin put on his harper's cloak, while Little John painted his
eyebrows and cheeks, tipped his nose with red, and tied him on
a comely beard. Marian confessed that had she not been pres-
ent at the metamorphosis, she should not have known her own
true Robin. Robin took his harp and went to the wedding.
Robin found the bishop and his train in the church porch,
impatiently expecting the arrival of the bride and bridegroom.
## p. 11239 (#459) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11239
The clerk was observing to the bishop that the knight was some-
what gouty, and that the necessity of walking the last quarter
of a mile from the road to the church-yard probably detained
the lively bridegroom rather longer than had been calculated
upon.
"Oh! by my fay," said the music-loving bishop, "here comes
a harper in the nick of time; and now I care not how long they
tarry. Ho! honest friend, are you come to play at the wed-
ding? »
"I am come to play anywhere," answered Robin, "where I
can get a cup of sack; for which I will sing the praise of the
donor in lofty verse, and emblazon him with any virtue which he
may wish to have the credit of possessing, without the trouble of
practicing. "
"A most courtly harper," said the bishop; "I will fill thee
with sack, I will make thee a walking butt of sack, if thou wilt
delight my ears with thy melodies. "
"That will I," said Robin: "in what branch of my art shall I
exert my faculty? I am passing well in all, from the anthem to
the glee, and from the dirge to the coranto. "
"It would be idle," said the bishop, "to give thee sack for
playing me anthems, seeing that I myself do receive sack for
hearing them sung. Therefore, as the occasion is festive, thou
shalt play me a coranto. "
Robin struck up and played away merrily, the bishop all the
while in great delight, nodding his head and beating time with
his foot, till the bride and bridegroom appeared. The bridegroom
was richly appareled, and came slowly and painfully forward,
hobbling and leering, and pursing up his mouth into a smile of
resolute defiance to the gout, and of tender complacency towards
his lady-love, who, shining like gold at the old knight's expense,
followed slowly between her father and mother, her cheeks pale,
her head drooping, her steps faltering, and her eyes reddened
with tears.
Robin stopped his minstrelsy, and said to the bishop, "This
seems to me an unfit match. "
"What do you say, rascal? " said the old knight, hobbling up
to him.
"I say," said Robin, "this seems to me an unfit match.
What in the devil's name can you want with a young wife, who
have one foot in flannels and the other in the grave? »
## p. 11240 (#460) ##########################################
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THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
"What is that to thee, sirrah varlet? " said the old knight:
“stand away from the porch, or I will fracture thy sconce with
my cane. "
"I will not stand away from the porch," said Robin, "unless
the bride bid me, and tell me that you are her own true love. "
"Speak," » said the bride's father, in a severe tone, and with
a look of significant menace. The girl looked alternately at her
father and Robin. She attempted to speak, but her voice failed
in the effort, and she burst into tears.
"Here is lawful cause and just impediment," said Robin,
"and I forbid the banns. "
«< Who are you, villain? " said the old knight, stamping his
sound foot with rage.
"I am the Roman law," said Robin, "which says that there
shall not be more than ten years between a man and his wife;
and here are five times ten: and so says the law of nature. "
"Honest harper," said the bishop, "you are somewhat over-
officious here, and less courtly than I deemed you. If you love
sack, forbear; for this course will never bring you a drop: As to
your Roman law, and your law of nature, what right have they
to say anything which the law of Holy Writ says not? "
"The law of Holy Writ does say it," said Robin: "I expound
it so to say; and I will produce sixty commentators to establish
my exposition. »
And so saying he produced a horn from beneath his cloak,
and blew three blasts, and threescore bowmen in green came
leaping from the bushes and trees; and young Allen was the first
among them to give Robin his sword, while Friar Tuck and Lit-
tle John marched up to the altar. Robin stripped the bishop and
clerk of their robes, and put them on the friar and Little John;
and Allen advanced to take the hand of the bride. Her cheeks
grew red and her eyes grew bright, as she locked her hand in
her lover's and tripped lightly with him into the church.
"This marriage will not stand," said the bishop, "for they
have not been thrice asked in church. "
"We will ask them seven times," said Little John, "lest three
should not suffice. "
"And in the mean time," said Robin, "the knight and the
bishop shall dance to my harping. "
So Robin sat in the church porch and played away merrily,
while his foresters formed a ring, in the centre of which the
## p. 11241 (#461) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11241
knight and bishop danced with exemplary alacrity; and if they
relaxed their exertions, Scarlet gently touched them up with the
point of an arrow.
The knight grimaced ruefully, and begged Robin to think of
his gout.
"So I do," said Robin: "this is the true antipodagron; you
shall dance the gout away, and be thankful to me while you live.
I told you," he added to the bishop, "I would play at this wed-
ding, but you did not tell me that you would dance at it. The
next couple you marry, think of the Roman law. "
The bishop was too much out of breath to reply: and now
the young couple issued from church, and the bride having made
a farewell obeisance to her parents, they departed together with
the foresters; the parents storming, the attendants laughing, the
bishop puffing and blowing, and the knight rubbing his gouty
foot, and uttering doleful lamentations for the gold and jewels.
with which he had so unwittingly adorned and dowered the
bride.
PILGRIMS FROM HOLY LAND
As ye came from the Holy Land
Of blessed Walsinghame,
Oh, met ye not with my true love
As by the way ye came? -OLD BALLAD.
IN PURSUANCE of the arrangement recorded in the twelfth
chapter, the baron, Robin, and Marian disguised themselves as
pilgrims returned from Palestine, and traveling from the sea-
coast of Hampshire to their home in Northumberland By dint
of staff and cockle-shell, sandal and scrip, they proceeded in
safety the greater part of the way (for Robin had many sly inns
and resting-places between Barnsdale and Sherwood), and were
already on the borders of Yorkshire, when one evening they
passed within view of a castle, where they saw a lady standing
on a turret and surveying the whole extent of the valley through
which they were passing. A servant came running from the
castle, and delivered a message to them from his lady, who was
sick with expectation of news from her lord in the Holy Land,
and entreated them to come to her, that she might question them
concerning him. This was an awkward occurrence; but there
was no pretense for refusal, and they followed the servant into
## p. 11242 (#462) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11242
the castle. The baron, who had been in Palestine in his youth,
undertook to be spokesman on the occasion, and to relate his
own adventures to the lady as having happened to the lord in
question. This preparation enabled him to be so minute and
circumstantial in his detail, and so coherent in his replies to her
questions, that the lady fell implicitly into the delusion, and was
delighted to find that her lord was alive and in health, and in
high favor with the King, and performing prodigies of valor in
the name of his lady, whose miniature he always wore in his
bosom. The baron guessed at this circumstance from the cus-
toms of that age, and happened to be in the right.
"This miniature," added the baron, "I have had the felicity
to see, and should have known you by it among a million. " The
baron was a little embarrassed by some questions of the lady
concerning her lord's personal appearance; but Robin came to
his aid, observing a picture suspended opposite to him on the
wall, which he made a bold conjecture to be that of the lord in
question; and making a calculation of the influences of time and
war, which he weighed with a comparison of the lady's age, he
gave a description of her lord sufficiently like the picture in its
groundwork to be a true resemblance, and sufficiently differing
from it in circumstances to be more an original than a copy.
The lady was completely deceived, and entreated them to par-
take her hospitality for the night; but this they deemed it pru-
dent to decline, and with many humble thanks for her kindness,
and representations of the necessity of not delaying their home-
ward course, they proceeded on their way.
As they passed over the drawbridge they met Sir Ralph
Montfaucon and his squire, who were wandering in quest of
Marian, and were entering to claim that hospitality which the
pilgrims had declined. Their countenances struck Sir Ralph with
a kind of imperfect recognition, which would never have been
matured but that the eyes of Marian, as she passed him, encoun-
tered his; and the images of those stars of beauty continued
involuntarily twinkling in his sensorium to the exclusion of all
other ideas, till memory, love, and hope concurred with imagina-
tion to furnish a probable reason for their haunting him so per-
tinaciously. Those eyes, he thought, were certainly the eyes of
Matilda Fitzwater; and if the eyes were hers, it was extremely
probable, if not logically consecutive, that the rest of the body
they belonged to was hers also. Now, if it were really Matilda
## p. 11243 (#463) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11243
Fitzwater, who were her two companions? The baron? Ay, and
the elder pilgrim was something like him. And the Earl of
Huntingdon? Very probably. The earl and the baron might be
good friends again, now that they were both in disgrace together.
While he was revolving these cogitations, he was introduced to
the lady, and after claiming and receiving the promise of hospi-
tality, he inquired what she knew of the pilgrims who had just
departed. The lady told him they were newly returned from
Palestine, having been long in the Holy Land. The knight ex-
pressed some skepticism on this point. The lady replied that
they had given her so minute a detail of her lord's proceedings,
and so accurate a description of his person, that she could not be
deceived in them. This staggered the knight's confidence in his
own penetration; and if it had not been a heresy in knighthood
to suppose for a moment that there could be in rerum natura
such another pair of eyes as those of his mistress, he would have
acquiesced implicitly in the lady's judgment. But while the lady
and the knight were conversing, the warder blew his bugle-horn,
and presently entered a confidential messenger from Palestine,
who gave her to understand that her lord was well; but entered
into a detail of his adventures most completely at variance with
the baron's narrative, to which not the correspondence of a single
incident gave the remotest coloring of similarity. It now became.
manifest that the pilgrims were not true men; and Sir Ralph
Montfaucon sate down to supper with his head full of cogitations,
which we shall leave him to chew and digest with his pheasant
and canary.
Meanwhile our three pilgrims proceeded on their way. The
evening set in black and lowering, when Robin turned aside.
from the main track, to seek an asylum for the night along a
narrow way that led between rocky and woody hills.
A peas-
ant observed the pilgrims as they entered that narrow pass, and
called after them, "Whither go you, my masters? there are
rogues in that direction. ”
"Can you show us a direction," said Robin, "in which there
are none? If so, we will take it in preference. " The peasant
grinned, and walked away whistling.
The pass widened as they advanced, and the woods grew
thicker and darker around them. Their path wound along the
slope of a woody declivity, which rose high above them in a
thick rampart of foliage, and descended almost precipitously to
## p. 11244 (#464) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
II244
the bed of a small river, which they heard dashing in its rocky
channel, and saw its white foam gleaming at intervals in the last
faint glimmerings of twilight. In a short time all was dark,
and the rising voice of the wind foretold a coming storm. They
turned a point of the valley, and saw a light below them in the
depth of the hollow, shining through a cottage casement, and
dancing in its reflection on the restless stream. Robin blew his
horn, which was answered from below. The cottage door opened:
a boy came forth with a torch, ascended the steep, showed tokens
of great delight at meeting with Robin, and lighted them down
a flight of steps rudely cut in the rock, and over a series of
rugged stepping-stones, that crossed the channel of the river.
They entered the cottage, which exhibited neatness, comfort, and
plenty; being amply enriched with pots, pans, and pipkins, and
adorned with flitches of bacon and sundry similar ornaments, that
gave goodly promise in the firelight that gleamed upon the
rafters.
A woman, who seemed just old enough to be the boy's mother,
had thrown down her spinning-wheel in her joy at the sound
of Robin's horn, and was bustling with singular alacrity to set
forth her festal ware and prepare an abundant supper. Her
features, though not beautiful, were agreeable and expressive;
and were now lighted up with such manifest joy at the sight
of Robin, that Marian could not help feeling a momentary touch
of jealousy, and a half-formed suspicion that Robin had broken
his forest law, and had occasionally gone out of bounds, as other
great men have done upon occasion, in order to reconcile the
breach of the spirit with the preservation of the letter of their
own legislation. However, this suspicion, if it could be said to
exist in a mind so generous as Marian's, was very soon dissi-
pated by the entrance of the woman's husband, who testified as
much joy as his wife had done at the sight of Robin; and in
a short time the whole of the party were amicably seated around
a smoking supper of river-fish and wild wood-fowl, on which the
baron fell with as much alacrity as if he had been a true pilgrim
from Palestine.
The husband produced some recondite flasks of wine, which
were laid by in a bin consecrated to Robin, whose occasional
visits to them in his wanderings were the festal days of these
warm-hearted cottagers, whose manners showed that they had not
been born to this low estate. Their story had no mystery, and
## p. 11245 (#465) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11245
Marian easily collected it from the tenor of their conversation.
The young man had been, like Robin, the victim of an usurious
abbot, and had been outlawed for debt, and his nut-brown maid
had accompanied him to the depths of Sherwood, where they
lived an unholy and illegitimate life, killing the king's deer and
never hearing mass. In this state, Robin, then Earl of Hunt-
ingdon, discovered them in one of his huntings, and gave them
aid and protection. When Robin himself became an outlaw, the
necessary qualification or gift of continency was too hard a law
for our lovers to subscribe to; and as they were thus disqualified
for foresters, Robin had found them a retreat in this romantic
and secluded spot. He had done similar service to other lovers
similarly circumstanced, and had disposed them in various wild
scenes which he and his men had discovered in their flittings
from place to place, supplying them with all necessaries and
comforts from the reluctant disgorgings of fat abbots and usur-
ers. The benefit was in some measure mutual: for these cottages
served him as resting-places in his removals, and enabled him to
travel untraced and unmolested; and in the delight with which
he was always received, he found himself even more welcome
than he would have been at an inn,-and this is saying very
much for gratitude and affection together. The smiles which sur-
rounded him were of his own creation, and he participated in the
happiness he had bestowed.
The casements began to rattle in the wind, and the rain to
beat upon the windows. The wind swelled to a hurricane, and
the rain dashed like a flood against the glass. The boy retired
to his little bed, the wife trimmed the lamp, the husband heaped
logs upon the fire; Robin broached another flask; and Marian
filled the baron's cup, and sweetened Robin's by touching its
edge with her lips.
-
"Well," said the baron, "give me a roof over my head, be it
never so humble. Your greenwood canopy is pretty and pleasant
in sunshine; but if I were doomed to live under it, I should
wish it were water-tight. "
«<
"But," said Robin, we have tents and caves for foul weather,
good store of wine and venison, and fuel in abundance. "
"Ay, but," said the baron, "I like to pull off my boots of a
night, which you foresters seldom do,- and to ensconce myself
thereafter in a comfortable bed. Your beech-root is over-hard
for a couch, and your mossy stump is somewhat rough for a
bolster. "
## p. 11246 (#466) ##########################################
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THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
"Had you not dry leaves," said Robin, "with a bishop's sur-
plice over them? what would you have softer? And had you not
an abbot's traveling-cloak for a coverlet? what would you have
warmer? "
"Very true," said the baron; "but that was an indulgence to
a guest, and I dreamed all night of the Sheriff of Nottingham.
I like to feel myself safe," he added, stretching out his legs to
the fire, and throwing himself back in his chair with the air of a
man determined to be comfortable. "I like to feel myself safe,"
said the baron.
At that moment the woman caught her husband's arm; and
all the party, following the direction of her eyes, looked simul-
taneously to the window, where they had just time to catch a
glimpse of an apparition of an armed head, with its plumage
tossing in the storm, on which the light shone from within, and
which disappeared immediately.
STORMING THE FORTRESS
"O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary. When did I see thee so put down? »
-TWELFTH NIGHT. '
SEVERAL knocks, as from the knuckles of an iron glove, were
given at the door of the cottage; and a voice was heard entreat-
ing shelter from the storm for a traveler who had lost his way.
Robin rose and went the door.
"What are you? " said Robin.
"A soldier,” replied the voice; "an unfortunate adherent of
Longchamp, flying the vengeance of Prince John. "
"Are you alone? " said Robin.
"Yes," said the voice. "It is a dreadful night: hospitable
cottagers, pray give me admittance. I would not have asked it
but for the storm. I would have kept my watch in the woods. "
"That I believe," said Robin. "You did not reckon on the
storm when you turned into this pass. Do you know there are
rogues this way? "
"I do," said the voice.
"So do I," said Robin.
A pause ensued, during which Robin listening attentively
caught a faint sound of whispering.
"You are not alone," said Robin. "Who are your compan-
ions? "
## p. 11247 (#467) ##########################################
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11247
"None but the wind and the water," said the voice, “and I
would I had them not. "
«<
"The wind and the water have many voices," said Robin,
but I never before heard them say, 'What shall we do? >»
Another pause ensued; after which-
"Look ye, master cottager," said the voice in an altered
tone, "if you do not let us in willingly, we will break down the
door. "
"Ho! ho! " roared the baron, "you are become plural, are you,
rascals? How many are there of you, thieves? What, I war-
rant you thought to rob and murder a poor harmless cottager
and his wife, and did not dream of a garrison? You looked
for no weapon of opposition but spit, poker, and basting-ladle,
wielded by unskillful hands; but, rascals, here is short sword and
long cudgel in hands well tried in war, wherewith you shall be
drilled into cullenders and beaten into mummy. "
No reply was made, but furious strokes from without re-
sounded upon the door. Robin, Marian, and the baron threw by
their pilgrim's attire, and stood in arms on the defensive. They
were provided with swords, and the cottager gave them bucklers.
and helmets; for all Robin's haunts were furnished with secret
armories. But they kept their swords sheathed, and the baron
wielded a ponderous spear, which he pointed towards the door
ready to run through the first that should enter; and Robin and
Marian each held a bow, with the arrow drawn to its head and
pointed in the same direction. The cottager flourished a strong
cudgel (a weapon in the use of which he prided himself on
being particularly expert), and the wife seized the spit from the
fireplace, and held it as she saw the baron hold his spear. The
storm of wind and rain continued to beat on the roof and case-
ment, and the storm of blows to resound upon the door, which
at length gave way with a violent crash, and a cluster of armed.
men appeared without, seemingly not less than twelve. Behind.
them rolled the stream, now changed from a gentle and shallow
river to a mighty and impetuous torrent, roaring in waves of yel-
low foam, partially reddened by the light that streamed through
the open door, and turning up its convulsed surface in flashes.
of shifting radiance from restless masses of half-visible shadow.
The stepping-stones by which the intruders must have crossed
were buried under the waters. On the opposite bank the light
fell on the stems and boughs of the rock-rooted oak and ash,
## p. 11248 (#468) ##########################################
11248
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
tossing and swaying in the blast, and sweeping the flashing spray
Iwith their leaves.
The instant the door broke, Robin and Marian loosed their
arrows. Robin's arrow struck one of the assailants in the junc-
ture of the shoulder, and disabled his right arm; Marian's struck
a second in the juncture of the knee, and rendered him unserv-
iceable for the night. The baron's long spear struck on the
mailed breastplate of a third, and being stretched to its full
extent by the long-armed hero, drove him to the edge of the
torrent and plunged him into its eddies, along which he was
whirled down the darkness of the descending stream, calling
vainly on his comrades for aid, till his voice was lost in the min-
gled roar of the waters and the wind. A fourth springing through
the door was laid prostrate by the cottager's cudgel: but the wife,
being less dexterous than her company, though an Amazon in
strength, missed her pass at a fifth, and drove the point of the
spit several inches into the right-hand doorpost as she stood close
to the left, and thus made a new barrier, which the invaders
could not pass without dipping under it and submitting their
necks to the sword; but one of the assailants, seizing it with
gigantic rage, shook it at once from the grasp of its holder and
from its lodgment in the post, and at the same time made good
the irruption of the rest of his party into the cottage.
Now raged an unequal combat, for the assailants fell two to
one on Robin, Marian, the baron, and the cottager; while the
wife, being deprived of her spit, converted everything that was
at hand to a missile, and rained pots, pans, and pipkins on the
armed heads of the enemy. The baron raged like a tiger, and
the cottager laid about him like a thresher. One of the soldiers
struck Robin's sword from his hand, and brought him on his
knee; when the boy, who had been roused by the tumult, and
had been peeping through the inner door, leaped forward in his
shirt, picked up the sword and replaced it in Robin's hand, who
instantly springing up, disarmed and wounded one of his antag-
onists, while the other was laid prostrate under the dint of a
brass cauldron launched by the Amazonian dame.
Robin now
turned to the aid of Marian, who was parrying most dexterously
the cuts and slashes of her two assailants; of whom Robin
delivered her from one, while a well-applied blow of her sword
struck off the helmet of the other, who fell on his knees to
beg a boon, and she recognized Sir Ralph Montfaucon. The men
## p. 11249 (#469) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11249
who were engaged with the baron and the peasant, seeing their
leader subdued, immediately laid down their arms and cried for
quarter. The wife brought some strong rope, and the baron tied
their arms behind them.
«<
"Now, Sir Ralph," said Marian, once more you are at my
mercy. "
"That I always am, cruel beauty," said the discomfited lover.
"Odso! courteous knight," said the baron, "is this the return
you make for my beef and canary, when you kissed my daugh
ter's hand in token of contrition for your intermeddling at her
wedding? 'Heart, I am glad to see she has given you a bloody
cockscomb. Slice him down, Mawd! slice him down, and fling
him into the river. ”
"Confess," said Marian: "what brought you here, and how did
you trace our steps? "
"I will confess nothing," said the knight.
"Then confess, you rascal," said the baron, holding his sword
to the throat of the captive squire.
"Take away the sword," said the squire: "it is too near my
mouth, and my voice will not come out for fear; take away the
sword, and I will confess all. " The baron dropped his sword,
and the squire proceeded:-"Sir Ralph met you as you quitted
Lady Falkland's castle; and by representing to her who you were,
borrowed from her such a number of her retainers as he deemed
must insure your capture, seeing that your familiar the friar was
not at your elbow. We set forth without delay, and traced you
first by means of a peasant who saw you turn into this valley,
and afterwards by the light from the casement of this solitary
dwelling.
Our design was to have laid an ambush for you in
the morning, but the storm and your observation of my unlucky
face through the casement made us change our purpose; and
what followed you can tell better than I can, being indeed mas-
ters of the subject. "
"You are a merry knave," said the baron, "and here is a cup
of wine for you. "
"Gramercy," said the squire, "and better late than never; but
I lacked a cup of this before. Had I been pot-valiant, I had
held you play. "
"Sir knight," said Marian, "this is the third time you have
sought the life of my lord and of me,- for mine is interwoven.
with his. And do you think me so spiritless as to believe that I
XIX-704
## p. 11250 (#470) ##########################################
11250
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
can be yours by compulsion? Tempt me not again; for the
next time shall be the last, and the fish of the nearest river shall
commute the flesh of a recreant knight into the fast-day dinner
of an uncarnivorous friar. I spare you now, not in pity but in
scorn. Yet shall you swear to a convention never more to pur-
sue or molest my lord or me, and on this condition you shall
live. "
The knight had no alternative but to comply, and swore, on
the honor of knighthood, to keep the convention inviolate. How
well he kept his oath we shall have no opportunity of narrating:
Di lui la nostra istoria piu non parla.
CROSSING THE FORD
Carry me over the water, thou fine fellowe. -OLD BALLAD.
THE pilgrims, without experiencing further molestation, arrived
at the retreat of Sir Guy of Gamwell. They found the old
knight a cup too low: partly from being cut off from the scenes
of his old hospitality and the shouts of his Nottinghamshire vas-
sals, who were wont to make the rafters of his ancient hall
re-echo to their revelry; but principally from being parted from
his son, who had long been the better half of his flask and
pasty. The arrival of our visitors cheered him up; and finding
that the baron was to remain with him, he testified his delight
and the cordiality of his welcome by pegging him in the ribs till
he made him roar.
Robin and Marian took an affectionate leave of the baron and
the old knight; and before they quitted the vicinity of Barns-
dale, deeming it prudent to return in a different disguise, they
laid aside their pilgrim's attire, and assumed the habits and ap-
purtenances of wandering minstrels.
They traveled in this character safely and pleasantly, till one
evening at a late hour they arrived by the side of a river, where
Robin, looking out for a mode of passage, perceived a ferry-boat
in a nook on the opposite bank, near which a chimney, sending
up a wreath of smoke through the thick-set willows, was the
only symptom of human habitation: and Robin, naturally con-
ceiving the said chimney and wreath of smoke to be the out-
ward signs of the inward ferryman, shouted "Over! " with much
strength and clearness; but no voice replied, and no ferryman
appeared. Robin raised his voice and shouted with redoubled
## p. 11251 (#471) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11251
energy, "Over, Over, O-o-o-over! " A faint echo alone responded
"Over! " and again died away into deep silence; but after a
brief interval a voice from among the willows, in a strange kind.
of mingled intonation that was half a shout and half a song, an-
swered:
"Over, over, over, jolly, jolly rover,
Would you then come over? over, over, over?
Jolly, jolly rover, here's one lives in clover:
Who finds the clover? The jolly, jolly rover.
He finds the clover, let him then come over,
The jolly, jolly rover, over, over, over. "
"I much doubt," said Marian, "if this ferryman do not mean.
by clover something more than the toll of his ferry-boat. "
"I doubt not," answered Robin, "he is a levier of toll and
tithe, which I shall put him upon proof of his right to receive,
by making trial of his might to enforce. "
The ferryman emerged from the willows and stepped into
his boat. "As I live," exclaimed Robin, "the ferryman is a
friar. "
"With a sword," said Marian, "stuck in his rope girdle. "
The friar pushed his boat off manfully, and was presently
half over the river.
"It is friar Tuck," said Marian.
"He will scarcely know us," said Robin; "and if he do not, I
will break a staff with him for sport. "
The friar came singing across the water; the boat touched
the land; Robin and Marian stepped on board; the friar pushed
off again.
"Silken doublets, silken doublets," said the friar; "slenderly
lined, I trow: your wandering minstrel is always poor toll; your
sweet angels of voices pass current for a bed and
supper at
the house of every lord that likes to hear the fame of his valor
without the trouble of fighting for it. What need you of purse
or pouch? You may sing before thieves. Pedlars, pedlars:
wandering from door to door with the small-ware of lies and
cajolery; exploits for carpet-knights, honesty for courtiers, truth
for monks, and chastity for nuns,- a good salable stock that
costs the vender nothing, defies wear and tear, and when it has
served a hundred customers is as plentiful and as remarkable as
ever. But, sirrahs, I'll none of your balderdash. You pass not
hence without clink of brass, or I'll knock your musical noddles
## p. 11252 (#472) ##########################################
11252
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
together till they ring like a pair of cymbals. That will be a
new tune for your minstrelships. "
This friendly speech of the friar ended as they stepped on the
opposite bank. Robin had noticed as they passed that the sum-
low.
mer stream was
"Why, thou brawling mongrel," said Robin,-"that whether
thou be thief, friar, or ferryman, or an ill-mixed compound of
all three, passes conjecture, though I judge thee to be simple
thief,- what barkest thou at thus? Villain, there is clink of
brass for thee. Dost thou see this coin? Dost thou hear this
music? Look and listen; for touch thou shalt not,—my minstrel-
ship defies thee. Thou shalt carry me on thy back over the
water, and receive nothing but a cracked sconce for thy trouble. "
"A bargain," said the friar; "for the water is low, the labor
is light, and the reward is alluring. " And he stooped down for
Robin, who mounted his back, and the friar waded with him over
the river.
"Now, fine fellow," said the friar, "thou shalt carry me back
over the water, and thou shalt have a cracked sconce for thy
trouble. "
Robin took the friar on his back, and waded with him into
the middle of the river, when by a dexterous jerk he suddenly
flung him off and plunged him horizontally over head and ears
in the water. Robin waded to the shore, and the friar, half
swimming and half scrambling, followed.
"Fine fellow, fine fellow," said the friar, "now will I pay
thee thy cracked sconce. "
"Not so," said Robin,-"I have not earned it; but thou hast
earned it, and shalt have it. "
It was not, even in those good old times, a sight of every
day to see a troubadour and a friar playing at single-stick by the
side of a river, each aiming with fell intent at the other's cocks-
comb. The parties were both so skilled in attack and defense,
that their mutual efforts for a long time expended themselves in
quick and loud rappings on each other's oaken staves. At length
Robin by a dexterous feint contrived to score one on the friar's
crown; but in the careless moment of triumph a splendid sweep
of the friar's staff struck Robin's out of his hand into the middle
of the river, and repaid his crack on the head with a degree of
vigor that might have passed the bounds of a jest if Marian had
not retarded its descent by catching the friar's arm.
## p. 11253 (#473) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11253
"How now, recreant friar," said Marian: "what have you to
say why you should not suffer instant execution, being de-
tected in open rebellion against your liege lord? Therefore kneel
down, traitor, and submit your neck to the sword of the offended
law. "
"Benefit of clergy," said the friar; "I plead my clergy. And
is it you indeed, ye scapegraces? Ye are well disguised: I knew
ye not, by my flask. Robin, jolly Robin, he buys a jest dearly
that pays for it with a bloody cockscomb. But here is a balm
for all bruises, outward and inward. " (The friar produced a flask
of canary. ) "Wash thy wound twice and thy throat thrice with
this solar concoction, and thou shalt marvel where was thy hurt.
But what moved ye to this frolic? Knew ye not that ye could
not appear in a mask more fashioned to move my bile than in
that of these gilders and lackerers of the smooth surface of
worthlessness, that bring the gold of true valor into disrepute by
stamping the baser metal with the fairer impression? I marveled
to find any such given to fighting (for they have an old instinct
of self-preservation); but I rejoiced thereat, that I might discuss
to them poetical justice: and therefore have I cracked thy sconce;
for which, let this be thy medicine. "
"But wherefore," said Marian, "do we find you here, when
we left you joint lord warden of Sherwood? "
"I do but retire to my devotions," replied the friar.
"This
is my hermitage, in which I first took refuge when I escaped
from my beloved brethren of Rubygill; and to which I still
retreat at times from the vanities of the world, which else might
cling to me too closely since I have been promoted to be peer
spiritual of your forest court. For indeed, I do find in myself
certain indications and admonitions that my day has past its
noon; and none more cogent than this: that daily of bad wine I
grow more intolerant, and of good wine have a keener and more
fastidious relish. There is no surer symptom of receding years.
The ferryman is my faithful varlet. I send him on some pious
errand, that I may meditate in ghostly privacy, when my pres-
ence in the forest can best be spared; and when can it be better
spared than now, seeing that the neighborhood of Prince John,
and his incessant perquisitions for Marian, have made the for-
est too hot to hold more of us than are needful to keep up
a quorum, and preserve unbroken the continuity of our forest
dominion? For in truth, without your greenwood majesties, we
## p. 11254 (#474) ##########################################
11254
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
have hardly the wit to live in a body, and at the same time to
keep our necks out of jeopardy, while that arch-rebel and traitor
John infests the precincts of our territory. "
The friar now conducted them to his peaceful cell, where he
spread his frugal board with fish, venison, wild-fowl, fruit, and
canary. Under the compound operation of this materia medica
Robin's wounds healed apace, and the friar, who hated min-
strelsy, began as usual chirping in his cups. Robin and Marian
chimed in with his tuneful humor till the midnight moon peeped
in upon their revelry.
It was now the very witching-time of night, when they heard
a voice shouting, "Over! " They paused to listen, and the voice
repeated "Over! " in accents clear and loud, but which at the
same time either were in themselves, or seemed to be from the
place and the hour, singularly plaintive and dreary. The friar
fidgeted about in his seat; fell into a deep musing; shook him-
self, and looked about him,-first at Marian, then at Robin,
then at Marian again,- filled and tossed off a cup of canary, and
relapsed into his reverie.
"Will you not bring your passenger over? " said Robin. The
friar shook his head and looked mysterious.
<<
"That passenger," said the friar, will never come over.
Every full moon, at midnight, that voice calls, 'Over! ' I and
my varlet have more than once obeyed the summons, and we
have sometimes had a glimpse of a white figure under the oppo-
site trees: but when the boat has touched the bank, nothing has
been to be seen; and the voice has been heard no more till the
midnight of the next full moon. ”
"It is very strange," said Robin.
"Wondrous strange," said the friar, looking solemn.
The voice again called "Over! " in a long and plaintive mu-
sical cry.
"I must go to it," said the friar, "or it will give us no peace.
I would all my customers were of this world. I begin to think
that I am Charon, and that this river is Styx. "
"I will go with you, friar," said Robin.
By my flask," said the friar, "but you shall not. "
"Then I will," said Marian.
"Still less," said the friar, hurrying out of the cell. Robin
and Marian followed; but the friar outstepped them, and pushed
off his boat.
## p. 11255 (#475) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11255
A white figure was visible under the shade of the opposite
trees. The boat approached the shore, and the figure glided
The friar returned.
away.
They re-entered the cottage, and sat some time conversing on
the phenomenon they had seen. The friar sipped his wine, and
after a time said:
"There is a tradition of a damsel who was drowned here
some years ago.
The tradition is->
But the friar could not narrate a plain tale: he therefore
cleared his throat, and sang with due solemnity, in a ghostly
voice: -
-
"A damsel came in midnight rain,
And called across the ferry:
The weary wight she called in vain,
Whose senses sleep did bury.
At evening from her father's door
She turned to meet her lover;
At midnight, on the lonely shore,
She shouted, 'Over, over! '
"She had not met him by the tree
Of their accustomed meeting,
And sad and sick at heart was she,
Her heart all wildly beating.
In chill suspense the hours went by,
The wild storm burst above her:
She turned her to the river nigh,
And shouted, 'Over, over! '
"A dim, discolored, doubtful light
The moon's dark veil permitted,
And thick before her troubled sight
Fantastic shadows flitted.
Her lover's form appeared to glide,
And beckon o'er the water:
Alas! his blood that morn had dyed
Her brother's sword with slaughter.
«<
Upon a little rock she stood,
To make her invocation:
She marked not that the rain-swoll'n flood
Was islanding her station.
The tempest mocked her feeble cry;
No saint his aid would give her:
## p. 11256 (#476) ##########################################
11256
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
The flood swelled high and yet more high,
And swept her down the river.
"Yet oft beneath the pale moonlight,
When hollow winds are blowing,
The shadow of that maiden bright
Glides by the dark stream's flowing.
And when the storms of midnight rave,
While clouds the broad moon cover,
The wild gusts waft across the wave
The cry of Over, over! >»
While the friar was singing, Marian was meditating; and
when he had ended she said, "Honest friar, you have misplaced
your tradition, which belongs to the æstuary of a nobler river,
where the damsel was swept away by the rising of the tide, for
which your land-flood is an indifferent substitute. But the true
tradition of this stream I think I myself possess, and I will nar-
rate it in your own way: —
"It was a friar of orders free,
A friar of Rubygill;
At the greenwood tree a vow made he,
But he kept it very ill;
A vow made he of chastity,
But he kept it very ill.
He kept it, perchance, in the conscious shade
Of the bounds of the forest wherein it was made:
But he roamed where he listed, as free as the wind,
And he left his good vow in the forest behind;
For its woods out of sight were his vow out of mind,
With the friar of Rubygill.
"In lonely hut himself he shut,
The friar of Rubygill;
Where the ghostly elf absolved himself
To follow his own good will:
And he had no lack of canary sack
To keep his conscience still.
And a damsel well knew, when at lonely midnight
It gleamed on the waters, his signal-lamp light:
'Over! over! ' she warbled with nightingale throat,
And the friar sprang forth at the magical note,
And she crossed the dark stream in his trim ferry-boat,
With the friar of Rubygill. »
## p. 11257 (#477) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11257
"Look you now," said Robin, "if the friar does not blush.
Many strange sights have I seen in my day, but never till this
moment did I see a blushing friar. "
"I think," said the friar, "you never saw one that blushed
not, or you saw good canary thrown away. But you are welcome
to laugh if it so please you.
None shall laugh in my company,
though it be at my expense, but I will have my share of the
merriment. The world is a stage, and life is a farce, and he
that laughs most has most profit of the performance. The worst
thing is good enough to be laughed at, though it be good for
nothing else; and the best thing, though it be good for some-
thing else, is good for nothing better. "
And he struck up a song in praise of laughing and quaffing,
without further adverting to Marian's insinuated accusation; be-
ing perhaps of opinion that it was a subject on which the least
said would be the soonest mended.
So passed the night. In the morning a forester came to the
friar with the intelligence that Prince John had been compelled,
by the urgency of his affairs in other quarters, to disembarrass
Nottingham Castle of his royal presence. Our wanderers re-
turned joyfully to their forest dominion, being thus relieved from
the vicinity of any more formidable belligerent than their old
bruised and beaten enemy, the Sheriff of Nottingham.
## p. 11258 (#478) ##########################################
11258
―――
EORGE PEELE's life is shrouded in mystery; but enough is
known of him to say that he was a man of education, who,
like so many of his fellow Elizabethan playwrights, lived fast
and died young.
He formed one of the group of pre-Shakespearean
dramatists, who stand for the transitional period between the older
moralities those crude attempts at stage allegory-and the crafts-
manship of the master-poet. Neither the birthday nor the death-day
of Peele is known. He is believed to have been born in Devonshire
in or about 1553; and he was dead by 1598. His father was a Lon-
don merchant, who had the distinction of writing a work on book-
keeping said to have introduced the Italian system to England. The
son was an Oxford man, and took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in
1577, and his degree of Master of Arts two years later. Before he
left the University he was recognized as a poet, and was marked for
his tendencies to social gayety; a trait that became still more pro-
nounced when he went up to London, where he was ejected from his
father's house, and joined the roystering set of blades known as the
University wits, who wrote plays and poems and burned life's candle
at both ends. He was reputed a sad wag, as the untrustworthy vol-
ume The Jests of George Peele' testifies. He foregathered with
Nash, Marlowe, and Greene, and by tradition haunted the tavern and
the green-room,- a dissolute scribbler in whom was a spark of gen-
ius, and who, however irregular his habits, dying in mid-manhood left
literary work which declares him, after all, an industrious author. He
made five dramas, and besides published a number of volumes of
poems and pageants. The first drama, 'The Arraignment of Paris,'
probably presented in 1581, is a pastoral treatment, mostly in heroic
couplets, of the myth of the awarding of the golden apple, with a
naïve patriotic application,-making Venus, who wins the prize of
beauty, yield it in turn to Queen Elizabeth. The Famous Chronicle
of Edward I. ' (1593) shows the writer struggling towards the true
historical tragedy. It has some effective scenes but little poetry, and
as a whole is confused and ill-welded. The Battle of Alcazar'
(1592) is a vigorous play, but lacks construction. The Old Wives'
Tales' (1595) is a rollicking farce, stuffed with nonsense, and one of
those inchoate dramatic performances very characteristic of the earlier
-
GEORGE PEELE
(1553 ? -1598? )
## p. 11259 (#479) ##########################################
GEORGE PEELE
11259
Its
English playwrights, but far removed from a serious art purpose.
main significance lies in its having supplied Milton with Comus. ' It
is in his last play, 'David and Bethsabe,' printed in 1599, that Peele
reached his high-water mark of imaginative poetry. It deals with the
Bible story in a spirit of sensuous romanticism, and contains lovely
passages of blank verse of the amatory and descriptive sort, handling
that measure with a skill such as only Marlowe of the forerunners
of Shakespeare has surpassed. The piece lacks dramatic force, being
idyllic in motive and manner. A pastoral drama, 'The Hunting of
Cupid,' known to have been written by Peele, has been lost. This
author's miscellaneous writings include three pageants or court spec-
tacles, and half a dozen volumes of poems,—the most elaborate of
which is 'The Honor of the Garter,' a blank-verse gratulatory address
to several noblemen, and containing in its dedication a fine tribute to
his dead friend Marlowe. Some of Peele's lyrics, found in his plays
or in his various volumes of verse, are among the most beautiful in
the whole range of Elizabethan song; and no representation of his
work can omit them. They became popular at once, and were printed
in various song collections of the time. A man of considerable cult-
ure, he shows both classic and Italian influence in his writing; but
his occasional rich, smooth, fanciful utterance was his by birthright,
and merits forgiveness for his dramatic shortcomings. As a play-
maker he did not do so much in preparing the way for Shakespeare
as other contemporaries like Lyly or Greene. But he surpassed them
in his occasional lyric touch and tone.
OLD AGE
Is golden locks time hath to silver turned;
HTS
Oh time too swift, oh swiftness never ceasing:
His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned,
But spurned in vain,-youth waneth by increasing,
Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen;
Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
And lovers' songs be turned to holy psalms;
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are old age's alms:
But though from court to cottage he depart,
His saint is sure of his unspotted heart.
And when he saddest sits in homely cell,
He'll teach his swains this carol for a song:-
## p. 11260 (#480) ##########################################
11260
GEORGE PEELE
"Blessed be the hearts that wish my Sovereign well,
Cursed be the souls that think her any wrong.
Goddess, allow this aged man his right,
To be your beadsman now that was your knight. "
DAVID AND BETHSABE
From Dyce's Edition of Peele's Works, Vol. II.
He draws a curtain and discovers Bethsabe with her maid bathing over a
spring; she sings, and David sits above viewing her.
Bethsabe-
-----
THE SONG
OT sun, cool fire, tempered with sweet air,
H
Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair:
Shine, sun; burn, fire; breathe, air, and ease me;
Black shade, fair nurse, shroud me and please me;
Shadow, my sweet nurse, keep me from burning,-
Make not my glad cause, cause of mourning.
Let not my beauty's fire
Inflame unstayed desire,
Nor pierce any bright eye
That wandereth lightly.
Come, gentle Zephyr, trickt with those perfumes
That erst in Eden sweetened Adam's love,
And stroke my bosom with thy silken fan:
This shade, sun-proof, is yet no proof for thee;
Thy body, smoother than this waveless spring,
And purer than the substance of the same,
Can creep through that his lances cannot pierce.
Thou and thy sister, soft and sacred air,
Goddess of life, and governess of health,
Keep every fountain fresh and arbor sweet;
No brazen gate her passage can repulse,
Nor bushy thicket bar thy subtle breath:
Then deck thee with thy loose delightsome robes,
And on thy wings bring delicate perfumes,
To play the wanton with us through the leaves.
David What tunes, what words, what looks, what wonders pierce
My soul, incensèd with a sudden fire?
What tree, what shade, what spring, what paradise,
Enjoys the beauty of so fair a dame?
## p. 11261 (#481) ##########################################
GEORGE PEELE
11261
Fair Eva, placed in perfect happiness,
Lending her praise-notes to the liberal heavens,
Strook with the accents of archangels' tunes,
Wrought not more pleasure to her husband's thoughts
Than this fair woman's words and notes to mine.
May that sweet plain that bears her pleasant weight
Be still enameled with discolored flowers;
That precious fount bear sand of purest gold;
And for the pebble, let the silver streams
That pierce earth's bowels to maintain the source,
Play upon rubies, sapphires, chrysolites;
The brims let be embraced with golden curls
Of moss, that sleeps with sound the waters make,
For joy to feed the fount with their recourse;
Let all the grass that beautifies her bower
Bear manna every morn instead of dew;
Or let the dew be sweeter far than that
That hangs, like chains of pearl, on Hermon's hill,
Or balm which trickled from old Aaron's beard.
Now comes my lover tripping like the roe,
And brings my longings tangled in her hair.
To joy her love I'll build a kingly bower,
Seated in hearing of a hundred streams,
That, for their homage to her sovereign joys,
Shall, as the serpents fold into their nests
In oblique turnings, wind the nimble waves
About the circles of her curious walks;
And with their murmur summon easeful sleep,
To lay his golden sceptre on her brows.
Open the doors, and entertain my love;
Open, I say, and as you open, sing,
Welcome fair Bethsabe, King David's darling.
some tune. Give me my harper's cloak, and I will play a part
at this wedding. "
"These are dangerous times, Robin," said Marian, "for play-
ing pranks out of the forest. "
"Fear not," said Robin: "Edwinstow lies not Nottingham-
ward, and I will take my precautions. "
Robin put on his harper's cloak, while Little John painted his
eyebrows and cheeks, tipped his nose with red, and tied him on
a comely beard. Marian confessed that had she not been pres-
ent at the metamorphosis, she should not have known her own
true Robin. Robin took his harp and went to the wedding.
Robin found the bishop and his train in the church porch,
impatiently expecting the arrival of the bride and bridegroom.
## p. 11239 (#459) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11239
The clerk was observing to the bishop that the knight was some-
what gouty, and that the necessity of walking the last quarter
of a mile from the road to the church-yard probably detained
the lively bridegroom rather longer than had been calculated
upon.
"Oh! by my fay," said the music-loving bishop, "here comes
a harper in the nick of time; and now I care not how long they
tarry. Ho! honest friend, are you come to play at the wed-
ding? »
"I am come to play anywhere," answered Robin, "where I
can get a cup of sack; for which I will sing the praise of the
donor in lofty verse, and emblazon him with any virtue which he
may wish to have the credit of possessing, without the trouble of
practicing. "
"A most courtly harper," said the bishop; "I will fill thee
with sack, I will make thee a walking butt of sack, if thou wilt
delight my ears with thy melodies. "
"That will I," said Robin: "in what branch of my art shall I
exert my faculty? I am passing well in all, from the anthem to
the glee, and from the dirge to the coranto. "
"It would be idle," said the bishop, "to give thee sack for
playing me anthems, seeing that I myself do receive sack for
hearing them sung. Therefore, as the occasion is festive, thou
shalt play me a coranto. "
Robin struck up and played away merrily, the bishop all the
while in great delight, nodding his head and beating time with
his foot, till the bride and bridegroom appeared. The bridegroom
was richly appareled, and came slowly and painfully forward,
hobbling and leering, and pursing up his mouth into a smile of
resolute defiance to the gout, and of tender complacency towards
his lady-love, who, shining like gold at the old knight's expense,
followed slowly between her father and mother, her cheeks pale,
her head drooping, her steps faltering, and her eyes reddened
with tears.
Robin stopped his minstrelsy, and said to the bishop, "This
seems to me an unfit match. "
"What do you say, rascal? " said the old knight, hobbling up
to him.
"I say," said Robin, "this seems to me an unfit match.
What in the devil's name can you want with a young wife, who
have one foot in flannels and the other in the grave? »
## p. 11240 (#460) ##########################################
11240
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
"What is that to thee, sirrah varlet? " said the old knight:
“stand away from the porch, or I will fracture thy sconce with
my cane. "
"I will not stand away from the porch," said Robin, "unless
the bride bid me, and tell me that you are her own true love. "
"Speak," » said the bride's father, in a severe tone, and with
a look of significant menace. The girl looked alternately at her
father and Robin. She attempted to speak, but her voice failed
in the effort, and she burst into tears.
"Here is lawful cause and just impediment," said Robin,
"and I forbid the banns. "
«< Who are you, villain? " said the old knight, stamping his
sound foot with rage.
"I am the Roman law," said Robin, "which says that there
shall not be more than ten years between a man and his wife;
and here are five times ten: and so says the law of nature. "
"Honest harper," said the bishop, "you are somewhat over-
officious here, and less courtly than I deemed you. If you love
sack, forbear; for this course will never bring you a drop: As to
your Roman law, and your law of nature, what right have they
to say anything which the law of Holy Writ says not? "
"The law of Holy Writ does say it," said Robin: "I expound
it so to say; and I will produce sixty commentators to establish
my exposition. »
And so saying he produced a horn from beneath his cloak,
and blew three blasts, and threescore bowmen in green came
leaping from the bushes and trees; and young Allen was the first
among them to give Robin his sword, while Friar Tuck and Lit-
tle John marched up to the altar. Robin stripped the bishop and
clerk of their robes, and put them on the friar and Little John;
and Allen advanced to take the hand of the bride. Her cheeks
grew red and her eyes grew bright, as she locked her hand in
her lover's and tripped lightly with him into the church.
"This marriage will not stand," said the bishop, "for they
have not been thrice asked in church. "
"We will ask them seven times," said Little John, "lest three
should not suffice. "
"And in the mean time," said Robin, "the knight and the
bishop shall dance to my harping. "
So Robin sat in the church porch and played away merrily,
while his foresters formed a ring, in the centre of which the
## p. 11241 (#461) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11241
knight and bishop danced with exemplary alacrity; and if they
relaxed their exertions, Scarlet gently touched them up with the
point of an arrow.
The knight grimaced ruefully, and begged Robin to think of
his gout.
"So I do," said Robin: "this is the true antipodagron; you
shall dance the gout away, and be thankful to me while you live.
I told you," he added to the bishop, "I would play at this wed-
ding, but you did not tell me that you would dance at it. The
next couple you marry, think of the Roman law. "
The bishop was too much out of breath to reply: and now
the young couple issued from church, and the bride having made
a farewell obeisance to her parents, they departed together with
the foresters; the parents storming, the attendants laughing, the
bishop puffing and blowing, and the knight rubbing his gouty
foot, and uttering doleful lamentations for the gold and jewels.
with which he had so unwittingly adorned and dowered the
bride.
PILGRIMS FROM HOLY LAND
As ye came from the Holy Land
Of blessed Walsinghame,
Oh, met ye not with my true love
As by the way ye came? -OLD BALLAD.
IN PURSUANCE of the arrangement recorded in the twelfth
chapter, the baron, Robin, and Marian disguised themselves as
pilgrims returned from Palestine, and traveling from the sea-
coast of Hampshire to their home in Northumberland By dint
of staff and cockle-shell, sandal and scrip, they proceeded in
safety the greater part of the way (for Robin had many sly inns
and resting-places between Barnsdale and Sherwood), and were
already on the borders of Yorkshire, when one evening they
passed within view of a castle, where they saw a lady standing
on a turret and surveying the whole extent of the valley through
which they were passing. A servant came running from the
castle, and delivered a message to them from his lady, who was
sick with expectation of news from her lord in the Holy Land,
and entreated them to come to her, that she might question them
concerning him. This was an awkward occurrence; but there
was no pretense for refusal, and they followed the servant into
## p. 11242 (#462) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11242
the castle. The baron, who had been in Palestine in his youth,
undertook to be spokesman on the occasion, and to relate his
own adventures to the lady as having happened to the lord in
question. This preparation enabled him to be so minute and
circumstantial in his detail, and so coherent in his replies to her
questions, that the lady fell implicitly into the delusion, and was
delighted to find that her lord was alive and in health, and in
high favor with the King, and performing prodigies of valor in
the name of his lady, whose miniature he always wore in his
bosom. The baron guessed at this circumstance from the cus-
toms of that age, and happened to be in the right.
"This miniature," added the baron, "I have had the felicity
to see, and should have known you by it among a million. " The
baron was a little embarrassed by some questions of the lady
concerning her lord's personal appearance; but Robin came to
his aid, observing a picture suspended opposite to him on the
wall, which he made a bold conjecture to be that of the lord in
question; and making a calculation of the influences of time and
war, which he weighed with a comparison of the lady's age, he
gave a description of her lord sufficiently like the picture in its
groundwork to be a true resemblance, and sufficiently differing
from it in circumstances to be more an original than a copy.
The lady was completely deceived, and entreated them to par-
take her hospitality for the night; but this they deemed it pru-
dent to decline, and with many humble thanks for her kindness,
and representations of the necessity of not delaying their home-
ward course, they proceeded on their way.
As they passed over the drawbridge they met Sir Ralph
Montfaucon and his squire, who were wandering in quest of
Marian, and were entering to claim that hospitality which the
pilgrims had declined. Their countenances struck Sir Ralph with
a kind of imperfect recognition, which would never have been
matured but that the eyes of Marian, as she passed him, encoun-
tered his; and the images of those stars of beauty continued
involuntarily twinkling in his sensorium to the exclusion of all
other ideas, till memory, love, and hope concurred with imagina-
tion to furnish a probable reason for their haunting him so per-
tinaciously. Those eyes, he thought, were certainly the eyes of
Matilda Fitzwater; and if the eyes were hers, it was extremely
probable, if not logically consecutive, that the rest of the body
they belonged to was hers also. Now, if it were really Matilda
## p. 11243 (#463) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11243
Fitzwater, who were her two companions? The baron? Ay, and
the elder pilgrim was something like him. And the Earl of
Huntingdon? Very probably. The earl and the baron might be
good friends again, now that they were both in disgrace together.
While he was revolving these cogitations, he was introduced to
the lady, and after claiming and receiving the promise of hospi-
tality, he inquired what she knew of the pilgrims who had just
departed. The lady told him they were newly returned from
Palestine, having been long in the Holy Land. The knight ex-
pressed some skepticism on this point. The lady replied that
they had given her so minute a detail of her lord's proceedings,
and so accurate a description of his person, that she could not be
deceived in them. This staggered the knight's confidence in his
own penetration; and if it had not been a heresy in knighthood
to suppose for a moment that there could be in rerum natura
such another pair of eyes as those of his mistress, he would have
acquiesced implicitly in the lady's judgment. But while the lady
and the knight were conversing, the warder blew his bugle-horn,
and presently entered a confidential messenger from Palestine,
who gave her to understand that her lord was well; but entered
into a detail of his adventures most completely at variance with
the baron's narrative, to which not the correspondence of a single
incident gave the remotest coloring of similarity. It now became.
manifest that the pilgrims were not true men; and Sir Ralph
Montfaucon sate down to supper with his head full of cogitations,
which we shall leave him to chew and digest with his pheasant
and canary.
Meanwhile our three pilgrims proceeded on their way. The
evening set in black and lowering, when Robin turned aside.
from the main track, to seek an asylum for the night along a
narrow way that led between rocky and woody hills.
A peas-
ant observed the pilgrims as they entered that narrow pass, and
called after them, "Whither go you, my masters? there are
rogues in that direction. ”
"Can you show us a direction," said Robin, "in which there
are none? If so, we will take it in preference. " The peasant
grinned, and walked away whistling.
The pass widened as they advanced, and the woods grew
thicker and darker around them. Their path wound along the
slope of a woody declivity, which rose high above them in a
thick rampart of foliage, and descended almost precipitously to
## p. 11244 (#464) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
II244
the bed of a small river, which they heard dashing in its rocky
channel, and saw its white foam gleaming at intervals in the last
faint glimmerings of twilight. In a short time all was dark,
and the rising voice of the wind foretold a coming storm. They
turned a point of the valley, and saw a light below them in the
depth of the hollow, shining through a cottage casement, and
dancing in its reflection on the restless stream. Robin blew his
horn, which was answered from below. The cottage door opened:
a boy came forth with a torch, ascended the steep, showed tokens
of great delight at meeting with Robin, and lighted them down
a flight of steps rudely cut in the rock, and over a series of
rugged stepping-stones, that crossed the channel of the river.
They entered the cottage, which exhibited neatness, comfort, and
plenty; being amply enriched with pots, pans, and pipkins, and
adorned with flitches of bacon and sundry similar ornaments, that
gave goodly promise in the firelight that gleamed upon the
rafters.
A woman, who seemed just old enough to be the boy's mother,
had thrown down her spinning-wheel in her joy at the sound
of Robin's horn, and was bustling with singular alacrity to set
forth her festal ware and prepare an abundant supper. Her
features, though not beautiful, were agreeable and expressive;
and were now lighted up with such manifest joy at the sight
of Robin, that Marian could not help feeling a momentary touch
of jealousy, and a half-formed suspicion that Robin had broken
his forest law, and had occasionally gone out of bounds, as other
great men have done upon occasion, in order to reconcile the
breach of the spirit with the preservation of the letter of their
own legislation. However, this suspicion, if it could be said to
exist in a mind so generous as Marian's, was very soon dissi-
pated by the entrance of the woman's husband, who testified as
much joy as his wife had done at the sight of Robin; and in
a short time the whole of the party were amicably seated around
a smoking supper of river-fish and wild wood-fowl, on which the
baron fell with as much alacrity as if he had been a true pilgrim
from Palestine.
The husband produced some recondite flasks of wine, which
were laid by in a bin consecrated to Robin, whose occasional
visits to them in his wanderings were the festal days of these
warm-hearted cottagers, whose manners showed that they had not
been born to this low estate. Their story had no mystery, and
## p. 11245 (#465) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11245
Marian easily collected it from the tenor of their conversation.
The young man had been, like Robin, the victim of an usurious
abbot, and had been outlawed for debt, and his nut-brown maid
had accompanied him to the depths of Sherwood, where they
lived an unholy and illegitimate life, killing the king's deer and
never hearing mass. In this state, Robin, then Earl of Hunt-
ingdon, discovered them in one of his huntings, and gave them
aid and protection. When Robin himself became an outlaw, the
necessary qualification or gift of continency was too hard a law
for our lovers to subscribe to; and as they were thus disqualified
for foresters, Robin had found them a retreat in this romantic
and secluded spot. He had done similar service to other lovers
similarly circumstanced, and had disposed them in various wild
scenes which he and his men had discovered in their flittings
from place to place, supplying them with all necessaries and
comforts from the reluctant disgorgings of fat abbots and usur-
ers. The benefit was in some measure mutual: for these cottages
served him as resting-places in his removals, and enabled him to
travel untraced and unmolested; and in the delight with which
he was always received, he found himself even more welcome
than he would have been at an inn,-and this is saying very
much for gratitude and affection together. The smiles which sur-
rounded him were of his own creation, and he participated in the
happiness he had bestowed.
The casements began to rattle in the wind, and the rain to
beat upon the windows. The wind swelled to a hurricane, and
the rain dashed like a flood against the glass. The boy retired
to his little bed, the wife trimmed the lamp, the husband heaped
logs upon the fire; Robin broached another flask; and Marian
filled the baron's cup, and sweetened Robin's by touching its
edge with her lips.
-
"Well," said the baron, "give me a roof over my head, be it
never so humble. Your greenwood canopy is pretty and pleasant
in sunshine; but if I were doomed to live under it, I should
wish it were water-tight. "
«<
"But," said Robin, we have tents and caves for foul weather,
good store of wine and venison, and fuel in abundance. "
"Ay, but," said the baron, "I like to pull off my boots of a
night, which you foresters seldom do,- and to ensconce myself
thereafter in a comfortable bed. Your beech-root is over-hard
for a couch, and your mossy stump is somewhat rough for a
bolster. "
## p. 11246 (#466) ##########################################
11246
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
"Had you not dry leaves," said Robin, "with a bishop's sur-
plice over them? what would you have softer? And had you not
an abbot's traveling-cloak for a coverlet? what would you have
warmer? "
"Very true," said the baron; "but that was an indulgence to
a guest, and I dreamed all night of the Sheriff of Nottingham.
I like to feel myself safe," he added, stretching out his legs to
the fire, and throwing himself back in his chair with the air of a
man determined to be comfortable. "I like to feel myself safe,"
said the baron.
At that moment the woman caught her husband's arm; and
all the party, following the direction of her eyes, looked simul-
taneously to the window, where they had just time to catch a
glimpse of an apparition of an armed head, with its plumage
tossing in the storm, on which the light shone from within, and
which disappeared immediately.
STORMING THE FORTRESS
"O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary. When did I see thee so put down? »
-TWELFTH NIGHT. '
SEVERAL knocks, as from the knuckles of an iron glove, were
given at the door of the cottage; and a voice was heard entreat-
ing shelter from the storm for a traveler who had lost his way.
Robin rose and went the door.
"What are you? " said Robin.
"A soldier,” replied the voice; "an unfortunate adherent of
Longchamp, flying the vengeance of Prince John. "
"Are you alone? " said Robin.
"Yes," said the voice. "It is a dreadful night: hospitable
cottagers, pray give me admittance. I would not have asked it
but for the storm. I would have kept my watch in the woods. "
"That I believe," said Robin. "You did not reckon on the
storm when you turned into this pass. Do you know there are
rogues this way? "
"I do," said the voice.
"So do I," said Robin.
A pause ensued, during which Robin listening attentively
caught a faint sound of whispering.
"You are not alone," said Robin. "Who are your compan-
ions? "
## p. 11247 (#467) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11247
"None but the wind and the water," said the voice, “and I
would I had them not. "
«<
"The wind and the water have many voices," said Robin,
but I never before heard them say, 'What shall we do? >»
Another pause ensued; after which-
"Look ye, master cottager," said the voice in an altered
tone, "if you do not let us in willingly, we will break down the
door. "
"Ho! ho! " roared the baron, "you are become plural, are you,
rascals? How many are there of you, thieves? What, I war-
rant you thought to rob and murder a poor harmless cottager
and his wife, and did not dream of a garrison? You looked
for no weapon of opposition but spit, poker, and basting-ladle,
wielded by unskillful hands; but, rascals, here is short sword and
long cudgel in hands well tried in war, wherewith you shall be
drilled into cullenders and beaten into mummy. "
No reply was made, but furious strokes from without re-
sounded upon the door. Robin, Marian, and the baron threw by
their pilgrim's attire, and stood in arms on the defensive. They
were provided with swords, and the cottager gave them bucklers.
and helmets; for all Robin's haunts were furnished with secret
armories. But they kept their swords sheathed, and the baron
wielded a ponderous spear, which he pointed towards the door
ready to run through the first that should enter; and Robin and
Marian each held a bow, with the arrow drawn to its head and
pointed in the same direction. The cottager flourished a strong
cudgel (a weapon in the use of which he prided himself on
being particularly expert), and the wife seized the spit from the
fireplace, and held it as she saw the baron hold his spear. The
storm of wind and rain continued to beat on the roof and case-
ment, and the storm of blows to resound upon the door, which
at length gave way with a violent crash, and a cluster of armed.
men appeared without, seemingly not less than twelve. Behind.
them rolled the stream, now changed from a gentle and shallow
river to a mighty and impetuous torrent, roaring in waves of yel-
low foam, partially reddened by the light that streamed through
the open door, and turning up its convulsed surface in flashes.
of shifting radiance from restless masses of half-visible shadow.
The stepping-stones by which the intruders must have crossed
were buried under the waters. On the opposite bank the light
fell on the stems and boughs of the rock-rooted oak and ash,
## p. 11248 (#468) ##########################################
11248
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
tossing and swaying in the blast, and sweeping the flashing spray
Iwith their leaves.
The instant the door broke, Robin and Marian loosed their
arrows. Robin's arrow struck one of the assailants in the junc-
ture of the shoulder, and disabled his right arm; Marian's struck
a second in the juncture of the knee, and rendered him unserv-
iceable for the night. The baron's long spear struck on the
mailed breastplate of a third, and being stretched to its full
extent by the long-armed hero, drove him to the edge of the
torrent and plunged him into its eddies, along which he was
whirled down the darkness of the descending stream, calling
vainly on his comrades for aid, till his voice was lost in the min-
gled roar of the waters and the wind. A fourth springing through
the door was laid prostrate by the cottager's cudgel: but the wife,
being less dexterous than her company, though an Amazon in
strength, missed her pass at a fifth, and drove the point of the
spit several inches into the right-hand doorpost as she stood close
to the left, and thus made a new barrier, which the invaders
could not pass without dipping under it and submitting their
necks to the sword; but one of the assailants, seizing it with
gigantic rage, shook it at once from the grasp of its holder and
from its lodgment in the post, and at the same time made good
the irruption of the rest of his party into the cottage.
Now raged an unequal combat, for the assailants fell two to
one on Robin, Marian, the baron, and the cottager; while the
wife, being deprived of her spit, converted everything that was
at hand to a missile, and rained pots, pans, and pipkins on the
armed heads of the enemy. The baron raged like a tiger, and
the cottager laid about him like a thresher. One of the soldiers
struck Robin's sword from his hand, and brought him on his
knee; when the boy, who had been roused by the tumult, and
had been peeping through the inner door, leaped forward in his
shirt, picked up the sword and replaced it in Robin's hand, who
instantly springing up, disarmed and wounded one of his antag-
onists, while the other was laid prostrate under the dint of a
brass cauldron launched by the Amazonian dame.
Robin now
turned to the aid of Marian, who was parrying most dexterously
the cuts and slashes of her two assailants; of whom Robin
delivered her from one, while a well-applied blow of her sword
struck off the helmet of the other, who fell on his knees to
beg a boon, and she recognized Sir Ralph Montfaucon. The men
## p. 11249 (#469) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11249
who were engaged with the baron and the peasant, seeing their
leader subdued, immediately laid down their arms and cried for
quarter. The wife brought some strong rope, and the baron tied
their arms behind them.
«<
"Now, Sir Ralph," said Marian, once more you are at my
mercy. "
"That I always am, cruel beauty," said the discomfited lover.
"Odso! courteous knight," said the baron, "is this the return
you make for my beef and canary, when you kissed my daugh
ter's hand in token of contrition for your intermeddling at her
wedding? 'Heart, I am glad to see she has given you a bloody
cockscomb. Slice him down, Mawd! slice him down, and fling
him into the river. ”
"Confess," said Marian: "what brought you here, and how did
you trace our steps? "
"I will confess nothing," said the knight.
"Then confess, you rascal," said the baron, holding his sword
to the throat of the captive squire.
"Take away the sword," said the squire: "it is too near my
mouth, and my voice will not come out for fear; take away the
sword, and I will confess all. " The baron dropped his sword,
and the squire proceeded:-"Sir Ralph met you as you quitted
Lady Falkland's castle; and by representing to her who you were,
borrowed from her such a number of her retainers as he deemed
must insure your capture, seeing that your familiar the friar was
not at your elbow. We set forth without delay, and traced you
first by means of a peasant who saw you turn into this valley,
and afterwards by the light from the casement of this solitary
dwelling.
Our design was to have laid an ambush for you in
the morning, but the storm and your observation of my unlucky
face through the casement made us change our purpose; and
what followed you can tell better than I can, being indeed mas-
ters of the subject. "
"You are a merry knave," said the baron, "and here is a cup
of wine for you. "
"Gramercy," said the squire, "and better late than never; but
I lacked a cup of this before. Had I been pot-valiant, I had
held you play. "
"Sir knight," said Marian, "this is the third time you have
sought the life of my lord and of me,- for mine is interwoven.
with his. And do you think me so spiritless as to believe that I
XIX-704
## p. 11250 (#470) ##########################################
11250
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
can be yours by compulsion? Tempt me not again; for the
next time shall be the last, and the fish of the nearest river shall
commute the flesh of a recreant knight into the fast-day dinner
of an uncarnivorous friar. I spare you now, not in pity but in
scorn. Yet shall you swear to a convention never more to pur-
sue or molest my lord or me, and on this condition you shall
live. "
The knight had no alternative but to comply, and swore, on
the honor of knighthood, to keep the convention inviolate. How
well he kept his oath we shall have no opportunity of narrating:
Di lui la nostra istoria piu non parla.
CROSSING THE FORD
Carry me over the water, thou fine fellowe. -OLD BALLAD.
THE pilgrims, without experiencing further molestation, arrived
at the retreat of Sir Guy of Gamwell. They found the old
knight a cup too low: partly from being cut off from the scenes
of his old hospitality and the shouts of his Nottinghamshire vas-
sals, who were wont to make the rafters of his ancient hall
re-echo to their revelry; but principally from being parted from
his son, who had long been the better half of his flask and
pasty. The arrival of our visitors cheered him up; and finding
that the baron was to remain with him, he testified his delight
and the cordiality of his welcome by pegging him in the ribs till
he made him roar.
Robin and Marian took an affectionate leave of the baron and
the old knight; and before they quitted the vicinity of Barns-
dale, deeming it prudent to return in a different disguise, they
laid aside their pilgrim's attire, and assumed the habits and ap-
purtenances of wandering minstrels.
They traveled in this character safely and pleasantly, till one
evening at a late hour they arrived by the side of a river, where
Robin, looking out for a mode of passage, perceived a ferry-boat
in a nook on the opposite bank, near which a chimney, sending
up a wreath of smoke through the thick-set willows, was the
only symptom of human habitation: and Robin, naturally con-
ceiving the said chimney and wreath of smoke to be the out-
ward signs of the inward ferryman, shouted "Over! " with much
strength and clearness; but no voice replied, and no ferryman
appeared. Robin raised his voice and shouted with redoubled
## p. 11251 (#471) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11251
energy, "Over, Over, O-o-o-over! " A faint echo alone responded
"Over! " and again died away into deep silence; but after a
brief interval a voice from among the willows, in a strange kind.
of mingled intonation that was half a shout and half a song, an-
swered:
"Over, over, over, jolly, jolly rover,
Would you then come over? over, over, over?
Jolly, jolly rover, here's one lives in clover:
Who finds the clover? The jolly, jolly rover.
He finds the clover, let him then come over,
The jolly, jolly rover, over, over, over. "
"I much doubt," said Marian, "if this ferryman do not mean.
by clover something more than the toll of his ferry-boat. "
"I doubt not," answered Robin, "he is a levier of toll and
tithe, which I shall put him upon proof of his right to receive,
by making trial of his might to enforce. "
The ferryman emerged from the willows and stepped into
his boat. "As I live," exclaimed Robin, "the ferryman is a
friar. "
"With a sword," said Marian, "stuck in his rope girdle. "
The friar pushed his boat off manfully, and was presently
half over the river.
"It is friar Tuck," said Marian.
"He will scarcely know us," said Robin; "and if he do not, I
will break a staff with him for sport. "
The friar came singing across the water; the boat touched
the land; Robin and Marian stepped on board; the friar pushed
off again.
"Silken doublets, silken doublets," said the friar; "slenderly
lined, I trow: your wandering minstrel is always poor toll; your
sweet angels of voices pass current for a bed and
supper at
the house of every lord that likes to hear the fame of his valor
without the trouble of fighting for it. What need you of purse
or pouch? You may sing before thieves. Pedlars, pedlars:
wandering from door to door with the small-ware of lies and
cajolery; exploits for carpet-knights, honesty for courtiers, truth
for monks, and chastity for nuns,- a good salable stock that
costs the vender nothing, defies wear and tear, and when it has
served a hundred customers is as plentiful and as remarkable as
ever. But, sirrahs, I'll none of your balderdash. You pass not
hence without clink of brass, or I'll knock your musical noddles
## p. 11252 (#472) ##########################################
11252
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
together till they ring like a pair of cymbals. That will be a
new tune for your minstrelships. "
This friendly speech of the friar ended as they stepped on the
opposite bank. Robin had noticed as they passed that the sum-
low.
mer stream was
"Why, thou brawling mongrel," said Robin,-"that whether
thou be thief, friar, or ferryman, or an ill-mixed compound of
all three, passes conjecture, though I judge thee to be simple
thief,- what barkest thou at thus? Villain, there is clink of
brass for thee. Dost thou see this coin? Dost thou hear this
music? Look and listen; for touch thou shalt not,—my minstrel-
ship defies thee. Thou shalt carry me on thy back over the
water, and receive nothing but a cracked sconce for thy trouble. "
"A bargain," said the friar; "for the water is low, the labor
is light, and the reward is alluring. " And he stooped down for
Robin, who mounted his back, and the friar waded with him over
the river.
"Now, fine fellow," said the friar, "thou shalt carry me back
over the water, and thou shalt have a cracked sconce for thy
trouble. "
Robin took the friar on his back, and waded with him into
the middle of the river, when by a dexterous jerk he suddenly
flung him off and plunged him horizontally over head and ears
in the water. Robin waded to the shore, and the friar, half
swimming and half scrambling, followed.
"Fine fellow, fine fellow," said the friar, "now will I pay
thee thy cracked sconce. "
"Not so," said Robin,-"I have not earned it; but thou hast
earned it, and shalt have it. "
It was not, even in those good old times, a sight of every
day to see a troubadour and a friar playing at single-stick by the
side of a river, each aiming with fell intent at the other's cocks-
comb. The parties were both so skilled in attack and defense,
that their mutual efforts for a long time expended themselves in
quick and loud rappings on each other's oaken staves. At length
Robin by a dexterous feint contrived to score one on the friar's
crown; but in the careless moment of triumph a splendid sweep
of the friar's staff struck Robin's out of his hand into the middle
of the river, and repaid his crack on the head with a degree of
vigor that might have passed the bounds of a jest if Marian had
not retarded its descent by catching the friar's arm.
## p. 11253 (#473) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11253
"How now, recreant friar," said Marian: "what have you to
say why you should not suffer instant execution, being de-
tected in open rebellion against your liege lord? Therefore kneel
down, traitor, and submit your neck to the sword of the offended
law. "
"Benefit of clergy," said the friar; "I plead my clergy. And
is it you indeed, ye scapegraces? Ye are well disguised: I knew
ye not, by my flask. Robin, jolly Robin, he buys a jest dearly
that pays for it with a bloody cockscomb. But here is a balm
for all bruises, outward and inward. " (The friar produced a flask
of canary. ) "Wash thy wound twice and thy throat thrice with
this solar concoction, and thou shalt marvel where was thy hurt.
But what moved ye to this frolic? Knew ye not that ye could
not appear in a mask more fashioned to move my bile than in
that of these gilders and lackerers of the smooth surface of
worthlessness, that bring the gold of true valor into disrepute by
stamping the baser metal with the fairer impression? I marveled
to find any such given to fighting (for they have an old instinct
of self-preservation); but I rejoiced thereat, that I might discuss
to them poetical justice: and therefore have I cracked thy sconce;
for which, let this be thy medicine. "
"But wherefore," said Marian, "do we find you here, when
we left you joint lord warden of Sherwood? "
"I do but retire to my devotions," replied the friar.
"This
is my hermitage, in which I first took refuge when I escaped
from my beloved brethren of Rubygill; and to which I still
retreat at times from the vanities of the world, which else might
cling to me too closely since I have been promoted to be peer
spiritual of your forest court. For indeed, I do find in myself
certain indications and admonitions that my day has past its
noon; and none more cogent than this: that daily of bad wine I
grow more intolerant, and of good wine have a keener and more
fastidious relish. There is no surer symptom of receding years.
The ferryman is my faithful varlet. I send him on some pious
errand, that I may meditate in ghostly privacy, when my pres-
ence in the forest can best be spared; and when can it be better
spared than now, seeing that the neighborhood of Prince John,
and his incessant perquisitions for Marian, have made the for-
est too hot to hold more of us than are needful to keep up
a quorum, and preserve unbroken the continuity of our forest
dominion? For in truth, without your greenwood majesties, we
## p. 11254 (#474) ##########################################
11254
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
have hardly the wit to live in a body, and at the same time to
keep our necks out of jeopardy, while that arch-rebel and traitor
John infests the precincts of our territory. "
The friar now conducted them to his peaceful cell, where he
spread his frugal board with fish, venison, wild-fowl, fruit, and
canary. Under the compound operation of this materia medica
Robin's wounds healed apace, and the friar, who hated min-
strelsy, began as usual chirping in his cups. Robin and Marian
chimed in with his tuneful humor till the midnight moon peeped
in upon their revelry.
It was now the very witching-time of night, when they heard
a voice shouting, "Over! " They paused to listen, and the voice
repeated "Over! " in accents clear and loud, but which at the
same time either were in themselves, or seemed to be from the
place and the hour, singularly plaintive and dreary. The friar
fidgeted about in his seat; fell into a deep musing; shook him-
self, and looked about him,-first at Marian, then at Robin,
then at Marian again,- filled and tossed off a cup of canary, and
relapsed into his reverie.
"Will you not bring your passenger over? " said Robin. The
friar shook his head and looked mysterious.
<<
"That passenger," said the friar, will never come over.
Every full moon, at midnight, that voice calls, 'Over! ' I and
my varlet have more than once obeyed the summons, and we
have sometimes had a glimpse of a white figure under the oppo-
site trees: but when the boat has touched the bank, nothing has
been to be seen; and the voice has been heard no more till the
midnight of the next full moon. ”
"It is very strange," said Robin.
"Wondrous strange," said the friar, looking solemn.
The voice again called "Over! " in a long and plaintive mu-
sical cry.
"I must go to it," said the friar, "or it will give us no peace.
I would all my customers were of this world. I begin to think
that I am Charon, and that this river is Styx. "
"I will go with you, friar," said Robin.
By my flask," said the friar, "but you shall not. "
"Then I will," said Marian.
"Still less," said the friar, hurrying out of the cell. Robin
and Marian followed; but the friar outstepped them, and pushed
off his boat.
## p. 11255 (#475) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11255
A white figure was visible under the shade of the opposite
trees. The boat approached the shore, and the figure glided
The friar returned.
away.
They re-entered the cottage, and sat some time conversing on
the phenomenon they had seen. The friar sipped his wine, and
after a time said:
"There is a tradition of a damsel who was drowned here
some years ago.
The tradition is->
But the friar could not narrate a plain tale: he therefore
cleared his throat, and sang with due solemnity, in a ghostly
voice: -
-
"A damsel came in midnight rain,
And called across the ferry:
The weary wight she called in vain,
Whose senses sleep did bury.
At evening from her father's door
She turned to meet her lover;
At midnight, on the lonely shore,
She shouted, 'Over, over! '
"She had not met him by the tree
Of their accustomed meeting,
And sad and sick at heart was she,
Her heart all wildly beating.
In chill suspense the hours went by,
The wild storm burst above her:
She turned her to the river nigh,
And shouted, 'Over, over! '
"A dim, discolored, doubtful light
The moon's dark veil permitted,
And thick before her troubled sight
Fantastic shadows flitted.
Her lover's form appeared to glide,
And beckon o'er the water:
Alas! his blood that morn had dyed
Her brother's sword with slaughter.
«<
Upon a little rock she stood,
To make her invocation:
She marked not that the rain-swoll'n flood
Was islanding her station.
The tempest mocked her feeble cry;
No saint his aid would give her:
## p. 11256 (#476) ##########################################
11256
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
The flood swelled high and yet more high,
And swept her down the river.
"Yet oft beneath the pale moonlight,
When hollow winds are blowing,
The shadow of that maiden bright
Glides by the dark stream's flowing.
And when the storms of midnight rave,
While clouds the broad moon cover,
The wild gusts waft across the wave
The cry of Over, over! >»
While the friar was singing, Marian was meditating; and
when he had ended she said, "Honest friar, you have misplaced
your tradition, which belongs to the æstuary of a nobler river,
where the damsel was swept away by the rising of the tide, for
which your land-flood is an indifferent substitute. But the true
tradition of this stream I think I myself possess, and I will nar-
rate it in your own way: —
"It was a friar of orders free,
A friar of Rubygill;
At the greenwood tree a vow made he,
But he kept it very ill;
A vow made he of chastity,
But he kept it very ill.
He kept it, perchance, in the conscious shade
Of the bounds of the forest wherein it was made:
But he roamed where he listed, as free as the wind,
And he left his good vow in the forest behind;
For its woods out of sight were his vow out of mind,
With the friar of Rubygill.
"In lonely hut himself he shut,
The friar of Rubygill;
Where the ghostly elf absolved himself
To follow his own good will:
And he had no lack of canary sack
To keep his conscience still.
And a damsel well knew, when at lonely midnight
It gleamed on the waters, his signal-lamp light:
'Over! over! ' she warbled with nightingale throat,
And the friar sprang forth at the magical note,
And she crossed the dark stream in his trim ferry-boat,
With the friar of Rubygill. »
## p. 11257 (#477) ##########################################
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
11257
"Look you now," said Robin, "if the friar does not blush.
Many strange sights have I seen in my day, but never till this
moment did I see a blushing friar. "
"I think," said the friar, "you never saw one that blushed
not, or you saw good canary thrown away. But you are welcome
to laugh if it so please you.
None shall laugh in my company,
though it be at my expense, but I will have my share of the
merriment. The world is a stage, and life is a farce, and he
that laughs most has most profit of the performance. The worst
thing is good enough to be laughed at, though it be good for
nothing else; and the best thing, though it be good for some-
thing else, is good for nothing better. "
And he struck up a song in praise of laughing and quaffing,
without further adverting to Marian's insinuated accusation; be-
ing perhaps of opinion that it was a subject on which the least
said would be the soonest mended.
So passed the night. In the morning a forester came to the
friar with the intelligence that Prince John had been compelled,
by the urgency of his affairs in other quarters, to disembarrass
Nottingham Castle of his royal presence. Our wanderers re-
turned joyfully to their forest dominion, being thus relieved from
the vicinity of any more formidable belligerent than their old
bruised and beaten enemy, the Sheriff of Nottingham.
## p. 11258 (#478) ##########################################
11258
―――
EORGE PEELE's life is shrouded in mystery; but enough is
known of him to say that he was a man of education, who,
like so many of his fellow Elizabethan playwrights, lived fast
and died young.
He formed one of the group of pre-Shakespearean
dramatists, who stand for the transitional period between the older
moralities those crude attempts at stage allegory-and the crafts-
manship of the master-poet. Neither the birthday nor the death-day
of Peele is known. He is believed to have been born in Devonshire
in or about 1553; and he was dead by 1598. His father was a Lon-
don merchant, who had the distinction of writing a work on book-
keeping said to have introduced the Italian system to England. The
son was an Oxford man, and took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in
1577, and his degree of Master of Arts two years later. Before he
left the University he was recognized as a poet, and was marked for
his tendencies to social gayety; a trait that became still more pro-
nounced when he went up to London, where he was ejected from his
father's house, and joined the roystering set of blades known as the
University wits, who wrote plays and poems and burned life's candle
at both ends. He was reputed a sad wag, as the untrustworthy vol-
ume The Jests of George Peele' testifies. He foregathered with
Nash, Marlowe, and Greene, and by tradition haunted the tavern and
the green-room,- a dissolute scribbler in whom was a spark of gen-
ius, and who, however irregular his habits, dying in mid-manhood left
literary work which declares him, after all, an industrious author. He
made five dramas, and besides published a number of volumes of
poems and pageants. The first drama, 'The Arraignment of Paris,'
probably presented in 1581, is a pastoral treatment, mostly in heroic
couplets, of the myth of the awarding of the golden apple, with a
naïve patriotic application,-making Venus, who wins the prize of
beauty, yield it in turn to Queen Elizabeth. The Famous Chronicle
of Edward I. ' (1593) shows the writer struggling towards the true
historical tragedy. It has some effective scenes but little poetry, and
as a whole is confused and ill-welded. The Battle of Alcazar'
(1592) is a vigorous play, but lacks construction. The Old Wives'
Tales' (1595) is a rollicking farce, stuffed with nonsense, and one of
those inchoate dramatic performances very characteristic of the earlier
-
GEORGE PEELE
(1553 ? -1598? )
## p. 11259 (#479) ##########################################
GEORGE PEELE
11259
Its
English playwrights, but far removed from a serious art purpose.
main significance lies in its having supplied Milton with Comus. ' It
is in his last play, 'David and Bethsabe,' printed in 1599, that Peele
reached his high-water mark of imaginative poetry. It deals with the
Bible story in a spirit of sensuous romanticism, and contains lovely
passages of blank verse of the amatory and descriptive sort, handling
that measure with a skill such as only Marlowe of the forerunners
of Shakespeare has surpassed. The piece lacks dramatic force, being
idyllic in motive and manner. A pastoral drama, 'The Hunting of
Cupid,' known to have been written by Peele, has been lost. This
author's miscellaneous writings include three pageants or court spec-
tacles, and half a dozen volumes of poems,—the most elaborate of
which is 'The Honor of the Garter,' a blank-verse gratulatory address
to several noblemen, and containing in its dedication a fine tribute to
his dead friend Marlowe. Some of Peele's lyrics, found in his plays
or in his various volumes of verse, are among the most beautiful in
the whole range of Elizabethan song; and no representation of his
work can omit them. They became popular at once, and were printed
in various song collections of the time. A man of considerable cult-
ure, he shows both classic and Italian influence in his writing; but
his occasional rich, smooth, fanciful utterance was his by birthright,
and merits forgiveness for his dramatic shortcomings. As a play-
maker he did not do so much in preparing the way for Shakespeare
as other contemporaries like Lyly or Greene. But he surpassed them
in his occasional lyric touch and tone.
OLD AGE
Is golden locks time hath to silver turned;
HTS
Oh time too swift, oh swiftness never ceasing:
His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned,
But spurned in vain,-youth waneth by increasing,
Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen;
Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
And lovers' songs be turned to holy psalms;
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are old age's alms:
But though from court to cottage he depart,
His saint is sure of his unspotted heart.
And when he saddest sits in homely cell,
He'll teach his swains this carol for a song:-
## p. 11260 (#480) ##########################################
11260
GEORGE PEELE
"Blessed be the hearts that wish my Sovereign well,
Cursed be the souls that think her any wrong.
Goddess, allow this aged man his right,
To be your beadsman now that was your knight. "
DAVID AND BETHSABE
From Dyce's Edition of Peele's Works, Vol. II.
He draws a curtain and discovers Bethsabe with her maid bathing over a
spring; she sings, and David sits above viewing her.
Bethsabe-
-----
THE SONG
OT sun, cool fire, tempered with sweet air,
H
Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair:
Shine, sun; burn, fire; breathe, air, and ease me;
Black shade, fair nurse, shroud me and please me;
Shadow, my sweet nurse, keep me from burning,-
Make not my glad cause, cause of mourning.
Let not my beauty's fire
Inflame unstayed desire,
Nor pierce any bright eye
That wandereth lightly.
Come, gentle Zephyr, trickt with those perfumes
That erst in Eden sweetened Adam's love,
And stroke my bosom with thy silken fan:
This shade, sun-proof, is yet no proof for thee;
Thy body, smoother than this waveless spring,
And purer than the substance of the same,
Can creep through that his lances cannot pierce.
Thou and thy sister, soft and sacred air,
Goddess of life, and governess of health,
Keep every fountain fresh and arbor sweet;
No brazen gate her passage can repulse,
Nor bushy thicket bar thy subtle breath:
Then deck thee with thy loose delightsome robes,
And on thy wings bring delicate perfumes,
To play the wanton with us through the leaves.
David What tunes, what words, what looks, what wonders pierce
My soul, incensèd with a sudden fire?
What tree, what shade, what spring, what paradise,
Enjoys the beauty of so fair a dame?
## p. 11261 (#481) ##########################################
GEORGE PEELE
11261
Fair Eva, placed in perfect happiness,
Lending her praise-notes to the liberal heavens,
Strook with the accents of archangels' tunes,
Wrought not more pleasure to her husband's thoughts
Than this fair woman's words and notes to mine.
May that sweet plain that bears her pleasant weight
Be still enameled with discolored flowers;
That precious fount bear sand of purest gold;
And for the pebble, let the silver streams
That pierce earth's bowels to maintain the source,
Play upon rubies, sapphires, chrysolites;
The brims let be embraced with golden curls
Of moss, that sleeps with sound the waters make,
For joy to feed the fount with their recourse;
Let all the grass that beautifies her bower
Bear manna every morn instead of dew;
Or let the dew be sweeter far than that
That hangs, like chains of pearl, on Hermon's hill,
Or balm which trickled from old Aaron's beard.
Now comes my lover tripping like the roe,
And brings my longings tangled in her hair.
To joy her love I'll build a kingly bower,
Seated in hearing of a hundred streams,
That, for their homage to her sovereign joys,
Shall, as the serpents fold into their nests
In oblique turnings, wind the nimble waves
About the circles of her curious walks;
And with their murmur summon easeful sleep,
To lay his golden sceptre on her brows.
Open the doors, and entertain my love;
Open, I say, and as you open, sing,
Welcome fair Bethsabe, King David's darling.
