Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers | Page 3

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 newly opened grave.
"_Benedecite!_ fair son"--(the Baron was brown as a cigar)-- "_Benedecite!_" said the Chaplain.
The Baron was too angry to stand upon compliment. "Bury me that grinning caitiff there!" he, pointing to the defunct.
"It may not be, fair son," said the friar, "he hath perished without absolution."
"Bury the body!" roared Sir Robert.
"Water and earth alike reject him," returned the Chaplain; "holy St. Bridget herself--"
"Bridget me no Bridgets!--do me thine office quickly, Sir Shaveling!