Maid Marian | Page 5

unused to the tumult of war, had undergone, from fear and
discomposure, an exhaustion of animal spirits that required
extraordinary refection. During the repast, they interrogated Sir Ralph
Montfaucon, the leader of the soldiers, respecting the nature of the
earl's offence.
"A complication of offences," replied Sir Ralph, "superinduced on the
original basis of forest-treason. He began with hunting the king's deer,
in despite of all remonstrance; followed it up by contempt of the king's
mandates, and by armed resistance to his power, in defiance of all
authority; and combined with it the resolute withholding of payment of
certain moneys to the abbot of Doncaster, in denial of all law; and has
thus made himself the declared enemy of church and state, and all for
being too fond of venison." And the knight helped himself to half a
pasty.
"A heinous offender," said a little round oily friar, appropriating the
portion of pasty which Sir Ralph had left.
"The earl is a worthy peer," said the tall friar whom we have already
mentioned in the chapel scene, "and the best marksman in England."
"Why this is flat treason, brother Michael," said the little round friar,
"to call an attainted traitor a worthy peer."
"I pledge you," said brother Michael. The little friar smiled and filled
his cup. "He will draw the long bow," pursued brother Michael, "with
any bold yeoman among them all."
"Don't talk of the long bow," said the abbot, who had the sound of the

arrow still whizzing in his ear: "what have we pillars of the faith to do
with the long bow?"
"Be that as it may," said Sir Ralph, "he is an outlaw from this moment."
"So much the worse for the law then," said brother Michael. "The law
will have a heavier miss of him than he will have of the law. He will
strike as much venison as ever, and more of other game. I know what I
say: but basta: Let us drink."
"What other game?" said the little friar. "I hope he won't poach among
our partridges."
"Poach! not he," said brother Michael: "if he wants your partridges, he
will strike them under your nose (here's to you), and drag your
trout-stream for you on a Thursday evening."
"Monstrous! and starve us on fast-day," said the little friar.
"But that is not the game I mean," said brother Michael.
"Surely, son Michael," said the abbot, "you do not mean to insinuate
that the noble earl will turn freebooter?"
"A man must live," said brother Michael, "earl or no. If the law takes
his rents and beeves without his consent, he must take beeves and rents
where he can get them without the consent of the law. This is the lex
talionis."
"Truly," said Sir Ralph, "I am sorry for the damsel: she seems fond of
this wild runagate."
"A mad girl, a mad girl," said the little friar.
"How a mad girl?" said brother Michael. "Has she not beauty, grace,
wit, sense, discretion, dexterity, learning, and valour?"
"Learning!" exclaimed the little friar; "what has a woman to do with
learning? And valour! who ever heard a woman commended for valour?

Meekness and mildness, and softness, and gentleness, and tenderness,
and humility, and obedience to her husband, and faith in her confessor,
and domesticity, or, as learned doctors call it, the faculty of
stayathomeitiveness, and embroidery, and music, and pickling, and
preserving, and the whole complex and multiplex detail of the noble
science of dinner, as well in preparation for the table, as in arrangement
over it, and in distribution around it to knights, and squires, and ghostly
friars,--these are female virtues: but valour--why who ever heard----?"
"She is the all in all," said brother Michael, "gentle as a ring-dove, yet
high-soaring as a falcon: humble below her deserving, yet deserving
beyond the estimate of panegyric: an exact economist in all superfluity,
yet a most bountiful dispenser in all liberality: the chief regulator of her
household, the fairest pillar of her hall, and the sweetest blossom of her
bower: having, in all opposite proposings, sense to understand,
judgment to weigh, discretion to choose, firmness to undertake,
diligence to conduct, perseverance to accomplish, and resolution to
maintain. For obedience to her husband, that is not to be tried till she
has one: for faith in her confessor, she has as much as the law
prescribes: for embroidery an Arachne: for music a Siren: and for
pickling and preserving, did not one of her jars of sugared apricots give
you your last surfeit at Arlingford Castle?"
"Call you that preserving?" said the little friar; "I call it destroying. Call
you it pickling? Truly it pickled me. My life was saved by miracle."
"By canary," said brother Michael. "Canary is the only life preserver,
the true