Maid Marian | Page 4

ban upon their contract. The earl drew his own sword
instantly, and struck down the interposing weapon; then clasped his left
arm round Matilda, who sprang into his embrace, and held his sword
before her with his right hand. His yeomen ranged themselves at his
side, and stood with their swords drawn, still and prepared, like men
determined to die in his defence. The soldiers, confident in superiority
of numbers, paused. The abbot took advantage of the pause to introduce
a word of exhortation. "My children," said he, "if you are going to cut
each other's throats, I entreat you, in the name of peace and charity, to
do it out of the chapel."
"Sweet Matilda," said the earl, "did you give your love to the Earl of
Huntingdon, whose lands touch the Ouse and the Trent, or to Robert
Fitz-Ooth, the son of his mother?"
"Neither to the earl nor his earldom," answered Matilda firmly, "but to
Robert Fitz-Ooth and his love."
"That I well knew," said the earl; "and though the ceremony be
incomplete, we are not the less married in the eye of my only saint, our
Lady, who will yet bring us together. Lord Fitzwater, to your care, for
the present, I commit your daughter.--Nay, sweet Matilda, part we must
for a while; but we will soon meet under brighter skies, and be this the
seal of our faith."
He kissed Matilda's lips, and consigned her to the baron, who glowered
about him with an expression of countenance that showed he was
mortally wroth with somebody; but whatever he thought or felt he kept

to himself. The earl, with a sign to his followers, made a sudden charge
on the soldiers, with the intention of cutting his way through. The
soldiers were prepared for such an occurrence, and a desperate skirmish
succeeded. Some of the women screamed, but none of them fainted; for
fainting was not so much the fashion in those days, when the ladies
breakfasted on brawn and ale at sunrise, as in our more refined age of
green tea and muffins at noon. Matilda seemed disposed to fly again to
her lover, but the baron forced her from the chapel. The earl's bowmen
at the door sent in among the assailants a volley of arrows, one of
which whizzed past the ear of the abbot, who, in mortal fear of being
suddenly translated from a ghostly friar into a friarly ghost, began to
roll out of the chapel as fast as his bulk and his holy robes would
permit, roaring "Sacrilege!" with all his monks at his heels, who were,
like himself, more intent to go at once than to stand upon the order of
their going. The abbot, thus pressed from behind, and stumbling over
his own drapery before, fell suddenly prostrate in the door-way that
connected the chapel with the abbey, and was instantaneously buried
under a pyramid of ghostly carcasses, that fell over him and each other,
and lay a rolling chaos of animated rotundities, sprawling and bawling
in unseemly disarray, and sending forth the names of all the saints in
and out of heaven, amidst the clashing of swords, the ringing of
bucklers, the clattering of helmets, the twanging of bow-strings, the
whizzing of arrows, the screams of women, the shouts of the warriors,
and the vociferations of the peasantry, who had been assembled to the
intended nuptials, and who, seeing a fair set-to, contrived to pick a
quarrel among themselves on the occasion, and proceeded, with staff
and cudgel, to crack each other's skulls for the good of the king and the
earl. One tall friar alone was untouched by the panic of his brethren,
and stood steadfastly watching the combat with his arms a-kembo, the
colossal emblem of an unarmed neutrality.
At length, through the midst of the internal confusion, the earl, by the
help of his good sword, the staunch valour of his men, and the blessing
of the Virgin, fought his way to the chapel-gate-- his bowmen closed
him in--he vaulted into his saddle, clapped spurs to his horse, rallied his
men on the first eminence, and exchanged his sword for a bow and
arrow, with which he did old execution among the pursuers, who at last

thought it most expedient to desist from offensive warfare, and to
retreat into the abbey, where, in the king's name, they broached a pipe
of the best wine, and attached all the venison in the larder, having first
carefully unpacked the tuft of friars, and set the fallen abbot on his legs.
The friars, it may be well supposed, and such of the king's men as
escaped unhurt from the affray, found their spirits a cup too low, and
kept the flask moving from noon till night. The peaceful brethren,