Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers | Page 3

creek," said the
seneschal.
The Baron was going to throw the shells at his head; but paused in the

act, and said with much dignity,
"Turn out the fellow's pockets!"
But the defunct had before been subjected to the double scrutiny of
Father Fothergill and the Clerk of St. Bridget's. It was ill gleaning after
such hands; there was not a single maravedi.
We have already said that Sir Robert de Shurland, Lord of the Isle of
Sheppey, and of many a fair manor on the main land, was a man of
worship. He had rights of free-warren, saccage and sockage, cuisage
and jambage, fosse and fork, infang theofe and outfang theofe; and all
waifs and strays belonged to him in fee simple.
"Turn out his pockets!" said the knight.
"An't please you, my lord, I must say as how they was turned afore, and
the devil a rap's left."
"Then bury the blackguard!"
"Please your lordship, he had been buried once."
"Then bury him again, and be--" The Baron bestowed a benediction.
The seneschal bowed low as he left the room and the Baron went on
with his oysters.
"Scarcely ten dozen more had vanished, when Periwinkle reappeared.
"An't please you, my lord, Father Fothergill says as how it's the
Grinning Sailor, and he won't bury him anyhow."
"Oh! he won't--won't he?" said the Baron. Can it be wondered at that he
called for his boots?
Sir Robert de Shurland, Lord of Shurland and Minster, Baron of
Sheppey in comitatu Kent, was, as has been before hinted, a very great
man. He was also a very little man; that is, he was relatively great, and
relatively little--or physically little, and metaphorically great-- like Sir
Sidney Smith and the late Mr. Buonaparte. To the frame of a dwarf, he
united the soul of a giant, and the valor of a gamecock. Then, for so
small a man, his strength was prodigious; his fist would fell an ox, and
his kick!--oh! his kick was tremendous, and, when he had his boots on,
would--to use an expression of his own, which he had picked up in the
holy wars--would "send a man from Jericho to June." He was
bull-necked and bandy-legged; his chest was broad and deep, his head
large and uncommonly thick, his eyes a little bloodshot, and his nose
retrousse with a remarkably red tip. Strictly speaking, the Baron could
not be called handsome; but his tout ensemble was singularly

impressive; and when he called for his boots, everybody trembled and
dreaded the worst.
"Periwinkle," said the Baron, as he encased his better leg, "let the grave
be twenty feet deep!"
"Your lordship's command is law."
"And, Perwinkle"--Sir Robert stamped his left heel into it's
receptacle--"and, Periwinkle, see that it be wide enough to hold not
exceeding two!"
"Ye--ye--yes, my lord."
"And, Periwinkle--tell Father Fothergill I would fain speak with his
Reverence."
"Ye--ye--yes, my lord."
The Baron's beard was peaked; and his mustache, stiff and stumpy,
projected horizontally like those of a Tom Cat; he twirled the one, he
stroked the other, he drew the buckle of his surcingle a thought tighter,
and strode down the great staircase three steps at a stride.
The vassals were assembled in the great hall of Shurland Castle; every
cheek was pale, every tongue was mute, expectation and perplexity
were visible on every brow. What would his lordship do? Were the
recusant anybody else, gyves to the heels and hemp to the throat were
but too good for him; but it was Father Fothergill who had said "I
won't;" and though the Baron was a very great man, the Pope was a
greater, and the Pope was Father Fothergill's great friend--some people
said he was his uncle.
Father Fothergill was busy in the refectory trying conclusions with a
venison pasty, when he received the summons of his patron to attend
him in the chapel cemetery. Of course he lost no time in obeying it, for
obedience was the general rule in Shurland Castle. If anybody ever said
"I won't" it was the exception; and, like all other exceptions, only
proved the rule the stronger. The Father was a friar of the Augustine
persuasion; a brotherhood which, having been planted in Kent some
few centuries earlier, had taken very kindly to the soil, and overspread
the county much as hops did some few centuries later. He was plump
and portly, a little thick-winded, especially after dinner, stood five feet
four in his sandals, and weighed hard upon eighteen stone. He was,
moreover, a personage of singular piety; and the iron girdle, which, he
said, he wore under his cassock to mortify withal, might have been well

mistaken for the tire of a cart-wheel. When he arrived, Sir Robert was
pacing up and down by the side of a