The baron, meanwhile, after the ministers of justice had departed, interrogated Matilda concerning the alleged fact of the grievous bruising of the sheriff of Nottingham. Matilda told him the whole history of Gamwell feast, and of their battle on the bridge, which had its origin in a design of the sheriff of Nottingham to take one of the foresters into custody.
"Ay! ay!" said the baron, "and I guess who that forester was; but truly this friar is a desperate fellow. I did not think there could have been so much valour under a grey frock.
And so you wounded the knight in the arm. You are a wild girl, Mawd,--a chip of the old block, Mawd. A wild girl, and a wild friar, and three or four foresters, wild lads all, to keep a bridge against a tame knight, and a tame sheriff, and fifty tame varlets; by this light, the like was never heard!
But do you know, Mawd, you must not go about so any more, sweet Mawd: you must stay at home, you must ensconce; for there is your tame sheriff on the one hand, that will take you perforce; and there is your wild forester on the other hand, that will take you without any force at all, Mawd: your wild forester, Robin, cousin Robin, Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest, that beats and binds bishops, spreads nets for archbishops, and hunts a fat abbot as if he were a buck: excellent game, no doubt, but you must hunt no more in such company. I see it now: truly I might have guessed before that the bold outlaw Robin, the most courteous Robin, the new thief of Sherwood Forest, was your lover, the earl that has been: I might have guessed it before, and what led you so much to the woods; but you hunt no more in such company. No more May games and Gamwell feasts.
My lands and castle would be the forfeit of a few more such pranks; and I think they are as well in my hands as the king's, quite as well."
"You know, father," said Matilda, "the condition of keeping me at home:
I get out if I can, and not on parole."
"Ay! ay!" said the baron, "if you can; very true: watch and ward, Mawd, watch and ward is my word: if you can, is yours. The mark is set, and so start fair."
The baron would have gone on in this way for an hour; but the friar made his appearance with a long oak staff in his hand, singing,--
Drink and sing, and eat and laugh, And so go forth to battle:
For the top of a skull and the end of a staff Do make a ghostly rattle.
"Ho! ho! friar!" said the baron--"singing friar, laughing friar, roaring friar, fighting friar, hacking friar, thwacking friar; cracking, cracking, cracking friar; joke-cracking, bottle-cracking, skull-cracking friar!"
"And ho! ho!" said the friar,--"bold baron, old baron, sturdy baron, wordy baron, long baron, strong baron, mighty baron, flighty baron, mazed baron, crazed baron, hacked baron, thwacked baron; cracked, cracked, cracked baron; bone-cracked, sconce-cracked, brain-cracked baron!"
"What do you mean," said the baron, "bully friar, by calling me hacked and thwacked?"
"Were you not in the wars?" said the friar, "where he who escapes untracked does more credit to his heels than his arms.
I pay tribute to your valour in calling you hacked and thwacked."
"I never was thwacked in my life," said the baron; "I stood my ground manfully, and covered my body with my sword.
If I had had the luck to meet with a fighting friar indeed, I might have been thwacked, and soundly too; but I hold myself a match for any two laymen; it takes nine fighting laymen to make a fighting friar."
"Whence come you now, holy father?" asked Matilda.
"From Rubygill Abbey," said the friar, "whither I never return:
For I must seek some hermit cell, Where I alone my beads may tell, And on the wight who that way fares Levy a toll for my ghostly pray'rs, Levy a toll, levy a toll, Levy a toll for my ghostly pray'rs."
"What is the matter then, father?" said Matilda.
"This is the matter," said the friar: "my holy brethren have held a chapter on me, and sentenced me to seven years' privation of wine.
I therefore deemed it fitting to take my departure, which they would fain have prohibited. I was enforced to clear the way with my staff.
I have grievously beaten my dearly beloved brethren: I grieve thereat; but they enforced me thereto. I have beaten them much; I mowed them down to the right and to the left, and left them like an ill-reaped field of wheat, ear and straw pointing all ways, scattered in singleness and jumbled in masses; and so bade them farewell, saying, Peace be with you.
But I must not tarry, lest danger be in my rear: therefore, farewell, sweet Matilda; and farewell, noble baron; and farewell, sweet Matilda again, the alpha and omega of father Michael, the first and the last."
"Farewell, father," said the baron, a little softened;
"and God send you be never assailed by more than fifty men at a time."
"Amen," said the friar, "to that good wish."
"And we shall meet again, father, I trust," said Matilda.
"When the storm is blown over," said the baron.
"Doubt it not," said the friar, "though flooded Trent were between us, and fifty devils guarded the bridge."
He kissed Matilda's forehead, and walked away without a song.
