Ivanhoe by Walter Scott (reading books for 4 year olds txt) π
well, and go to sleep, And I will lap thee with my cope, Softly to lye."
It would seem that the manuscript is here imperfect, for we do not find the reasons which finally induce the curtal Friar to amend the King's cheer. But acknowledging his guest to be such a "good fellow" as has seldom graced his board, the holy man at length produces the best his cell affords. Two candles are placed on a table, white bread and baked pasties are displayed by the light, besides choice of venison, both salt and fresh, from which they select collops. "I might have eaten my bread dry," said the King, "had I not pressed thee on the score of archery, but now have I dined like a prince---if we had but drink enow."
This too is afforded by the hospitable anchorite, who dispatches an assistant to fetch a pot of four gallons from a secret corner near his bed, and the whole three set in to serious drinking. This amusement is superintended by the Friar, according to the recurrence of certain fustian words, to be repeate
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most familiar to him. βI care not,β he said, βI care not---let
me go. If there is damage, it will cost you nothing---if there
is usage money, Kirjath Jairam will forgive it for the sake of
his kinsman Isaac. Fare thee well!---Yet hark thee, good youth,β
said he, turning about, βthrust thyself not too forward into this
vain hurly-burly---I speak not for endangering the steed, and
coat of armour, but for the sake of thine own life and limbs.β
βGramercy for thy caution,β said the Palmer, again smiling; βI
will use thy courtesy frankly, and it will go hard with me but
I will requite it.β
They parted, and took different roads for the town of Sheffield.
CHAPTER VII
Knights, with a long retinue of their squires,
In gaudy liveries march and quaint attires;
One laced the helm, another held the lance,
A third the shining buckler did advance.
The courser pawβd the ground with restless feet,
And snorting foamβd and champβd the golden bit.
The smiths and armourers on palfreys ride,
Files in their hands, and hammers at their side;
And nails for loosenβd spears, and thongs for shields provide.
The yeomen guard the streets in seemly bands;
And clowns come crowding on, with cudgels in their hands.
Palamon and Arcite
The condition of the English nation was at this time sufficiently
miserable. King Richard was absent a prisoner, and in the power
of the perfidious and cruel Duke of Austria. Even the very place
of his captivity was uncertain, and his fate but very imperfectly
known to the generality of his subjects, who were, in the
meantime, a prey to every species of subaltern oppression.
Prince John, in league with Philip of France, Coeur-de-Lionβs
mortal enemy, was using every species of influence with the Duke
of Austria, to prolong the captivity of his brother Richard, to
whom he stood indebted for so many favours. In the meantime, he
was strengthening his own faction in the kingdom, of which he
proposed to dispute the succession, in case of the Kingβs death,
with the legitimate heir, Arthur Duke of Brittany, son of
Geoffrey Plantagenet, the elder brother of John. This
usurpation, it is well known, he afterwards effected. His own
character being light, profligate, and perfidious, John easily
attached to his person and faction, not only all who had reason
to dread the resentment of Richard for criminal proceedings
during his absence, but also the numerous class of βlawless
resolutes,β whom the crusades had turned back on their country,
accomplished in the vices of the East, impoverished in substance,
and hardened in character, and who placed their hopes of harvest
in civil commotion. To these causes of public distress and
apprehension, must be added, the multitude of outlaws, who,
driven to despair by the oppression of the feudal nobility, and
the severe exercise of the forest laws, banded together in large
gangs, and, keeping possession of the forests and the wastes, set
at defiance the justice and magistracy of the country. The
nobles themselves, each fortified within his own castle, and
playing the petty sovereign over his own dominions, were the
leaders of bands scarce less lawless and oppressive than those of
the avowed depredators. To maintain these retainers, and to
support the extravagance and magnificence which their pride
induced them to affect, the nobility borrowed sums of money from
the Jews at the most usurious interest, which gnawed into their
estates like consuming cankers, scarce to be cured unless when
circumstances gave them an opportunity of getting free, by
exercising upon their creditors some act of unprincipled
violence.
Under the various burdens imposed by this unhappy state of
affairs, the people of England suffered deeply for the present,
and had yet more dreadful cause to fear for the future. To
augment their misery, a contagious disorder of a dangerous nature
spread through the land; and, rendered more virulent by the
uncleanness, the indifferent food, and the wretched lodging of
the lower classes, swept off many whose fate the survivors were
tempted to envy, as exempting them from the evils which were to
come.
Yet amid these accumulated distresses, the poor as well as the
rich, the vulgar as well as the noble, in the event of a
tournament, which was the grand spectacle of that age, felt as
much interested as the half-starved citizen of Madrid, who has
not a real left to buy provisions for his family, feels in the
issue of a bull-feast. Neither duty nor infirmity could keep
youth or age from such exhibitions. The Passage of Arms, as it
was called, which was to take place at Ashby, in the county of
Leicester, as champions of the first renown were to take the
field in the presence of Prince John himself, who was expected to
grace the lists, had attracted universal attention, and an
immense confluence of persons of all ranks hastened upon the
appointed morning to the place of combat.
The scene was singularly romantic. On the verge of a wood, which
approached to within a mile of the town of Ashby, was an
extensive meadow, of the finest and most beautiful green turf,
surrounded on one side by the forest, and fringed on the other by
straggling oak-trees, some of which had grown to an immense size.
The ground, as if fashioned on purpose for the martial display
which was intended, sloped gradually down on all sides to a level
bottom, which was enclosed for the lists with strong palisades,
forming a space of a quarter of a mile in length, and about half
as broad. The form of the enclosure was an oblong square, save
that the corners were considerably rounded off, in order to
afford more convenience for the spectators. The openings for the
entry of the combatants were at the northern and southern
extremities of the lists, accessible by strong wooden gates, each
wide enough to admit two horsemen riding abreast. At each of
these portals were stationed two heralds, attended by six
trumpets, as many pursuivants, and a strong body of men-at-arms
for maintaining order, and ascertaining the quality of the
knights who proposed to engage in this martial game.
On a platform beyond the southern entrance, formed by a natural
elevation of the ground, were pitched five magnificent pavilions,
adorned with pennons of russet and black, the chosen colours of
the five knights challengers. The cords of the tents were of the
same colour. Before each pavilion was suspended the shield of
the knight by whom it was occupied, and beside it stood his
squire, quaintly disguised as a salvage or silvan man, or in some
other fantastic dress, according to the taste of his master, and
the character he was pleased to assume during the game.*
This sort of masquerade is supposed to have occasioned the introduction of supporters into the science of heraldry.The central pavilion, as the place of honour, had been assigned
to Brian be Bois-Guilbert, whose renown in all games of chivalry,
no less than his connexions with the knights who had undertaken
this Passage of Arms, had occasioned him to be eagerly received
into the company of the challengers, and even adopted as their
chief and leader, though he had so recently joined them. On one
side of his tent were pitched those of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf
and Richard de Malvoisin, and on the other was the pavilion of
Hugh de Grantmesnil, a noble baron in the vicinity, whose
ancestor had been Lord High Steward of England in the time of the
Conqueror, and his son William Rufus. Ralph de Vipont, a knight
of St John of Jerusalem, who had some ancient possessions at a
place called Heather, near Ashby-de-la-Zouche, occupied the fifth
pavilion. From the entrance into the lists, a gently sloping
passage, ten yards in breadth, led up to the platform on which
the tents were pitched. It was strongly secured by a palisade on
each side, as was the esplanade in front of the pavilions, and
the whole was guarded by men-at-arms.
The northern access to the lists terminated in a similar entrance
of thirty feet in breadth, at the extremity of which was a large
enclosed space for such knights as might be disposed to enter the
lists with the challengers, behind which were placed tents
containing refreshments of every kind for their accommodation,
with armourers, tarriers, and other attendants, in readiness to
give their services wherever they might be necessary.
The exterior of the lists was in part occupied by temporary
galleries, spread with tapestry and carpets, and accommodated
with cushions for the convenience of those ladies and nobles who
were expected to attend the tournament. A narrow space, betwixt
these galleries and the lists, gave accommodation for yeomanry
and spectators of a better degree than the mere vulgar, and might
be compared to the pit of a theatre. The promiscuous multitude
arranged themselves upon large banks of turf prepared for the
purpose, which, aided by the natural elevation of the ground,
enabled them to overlook the galleries, and obtain a fair view
into the lists. Besides the accommodation which these stations
afforded, many hundreds had perched themselves on the branches of
the trees which surrounded the meadow; and even the steeple of a
country church, at some distance, was crowded with spectators.
It only remains to notice respecting the general arrangement,
that one gallery in the very centre of the eastern side of the
lists, and consequently exactly opposite to the spot where the
shock of the combat was to take place, was raised higher than the
others, more richly decorated, and graced by a sort of throne and
canopy, on which the royal arms were emblazoned. Squires, pages,
and yeomen in rich liveries, waited around this place of honour,
which was designed for Prince John and his attendants. Opposite
to this royal gallery was another, elevated to the same height,
on the western side of the lists; and more gaily, if less
sumptuously decorated, than that destined for the Prince himself.
A train of pages and of young maidens, the most beautiful who
could be selected, gaily dressed in fancy habits of green and
pink, surrounded a throne decorated in the same colours. Among
pennons and flags bearing wounded hearts, burning hearts,
bleeding hearts, bows and quivers, and all the commonplace
emblems of the triumphs of Cupid, a blazoned inscription informed
the spectators, that this seat of honour was designed for βLa
Royne de las Beaulte et des Amoursβ. But who was to represent
the Queen of Beauty and of Love on the present occasion no one
was prepared to guess.
Meanwhile, spectators of every description thronged forward to
occupy their respective stations, and not without many quarrels
concerning those which they were entitled to hold. Some of these
were settled by the men-at-arms with brief ceremony; the shafts
of their battle-axes, and pummels of their swords, being readily
employed as arguments to convince the more refractory. Others,
which involved the rival claims of more elevated persons, were
determined by the heralds, or by the two marshals of the field,
William de Wyvil, and Stephen de Martival, who, armed at all
points, rode up and down the lists to enforce and preserve good
order among the spectators.
Gradually the galleries became filled with knights and nobles, in
their robes of peace, whose long and rich-tinted mantles were
contrasted with the gayer and more splendid habits of the ladies,
who, in a greater proportion than even the men themselves,
thronged to witness a sport, which one would have thought too
bloody and dangerous to afford their sex much pleasure. The
lower and interior space was soon filled by substantial yeomen
and burghers, and such of the lesser gentry, as, from modesty,
poverty, or dubious title, durst not assume any higher place. It
was of course amongst these that the most frequent disputes for
precedence occurred.
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