Maid Marian | Page 6

aurum potabile, the universal panacea for all diseases, thirst,
and short life. Your life was saved by canary."
"Indeed, reverend father," said Sir Ralph, "if the young lady be half
what you describe, she must be a paragon: but your commending her
for valour does somewhat amaze me."
"She can fence," said the little friar, "and draw the long bow, and play
at singlestick and quarter-staff."
"Yet mark you," said brother Michael, "not like a virago or a hoyden,

or one that would crack a serving-man's head for spilling gravy on her
ruff, but with such womanly grace and temperate self-command as if
those manly exercises belonged to her only, and were become for her
sake feminine."
"You incite me," said Sir Ralph, "to view her more nearly. That
madcap earl found me other employment than to remark her in the
chapel."
"The earl is a worthy peer," said brother Michael; "he is worth any
fourteen earls on this side Trent, and any seven on the other." (The
reader will please to remember that Rubygill Abbey was north of
Trent.)
"His mettle will be tried," said Sir Ralph. "There is many a courtier will
swear to King Henry to bring him in dead or alive."
"They must look to the brambles then," said brother Michael.
"The bramble, the bramble, the bonny forest bramble, Doth make a jest
Of silken vest, That will through greenwood scramble: The bramble,
the bramble, the bonny forest bramble."
"Plague on your lungs, son Michael," said the abbot; "this is your old
coil: always roaring in your cups."
"I know what I say," said brother Michael; "there is often more sense in
an old song than in a new homily.
The courtly pad doth amble, When his gay lord would ramble: But both
may catch An awkward scratch, If they ride among the bramble: The
bramble, the bramble, the bonny forest bramble."
"Tall friar," said Sir Ralph, "either you shoot the shafts of your
merriment at random, or you know more of the earl's designs than
beseems your frock."
"Let my frock," said brother Michael, "answer for its own sins. It is

worn past covering mine. It is too weak for a shield, too transparent for
a screen, too thin for a shelter, too light for gravity, and too threadbare
for a jest. The wearer would be naught indeed who should misbeseem
such a wedding garment.
But wherefore does the sheep wear wool? That he in season sheared
may be, And the shepherd be warm though his flock be cool: So I'll
have a new cloak about me."


CHAPTER II
Vray moyne si oncques en feut depuis que le monde moynant moyna
de moynerie.--RABELAIS.
The Earl of Huntingdon, living in the vicinity of a royal forest, and
passionately attached to the chase from his infancy, had long made as
free with the king's deer as Lord Percy proposed to do with those of
Lord Douglas in the memorable hunting of Cheviot. It is sufficiently
well known how severe were the forest-laws in those days, and with
what jealousy the kings of England maintained this branch of their
prerogative; but menaces and remonstrances were thrown away on the
earl, who declared that he would not thank Saint Peter for admission
into Paradise, if he were obliged to leave his bow and hounds at the
gate. King Henry (the Second) swore by Saint Botolph to make him rue
his sport, and, having caused him to be duly and formally accused,
summoned him to London to answer the charge. The earl, deeming
himself safer among his own vassals than among king Henry's courtiers,
took no notice of the mandate. King Henry sent a force to bring him, vi
et armis, to court. The earl made a resolute resistance, and put the
king's force to flight under a shower of arrows: an act which the
courtiers declared to be treason. At the same time, the abbot of
Doncaster sued up the payment of certain moneys, which the earl,
whose revenue ran a losing race with his hospitality, had borrowed at
sundry times of the said abbot: for the abbots and the bishops were the

chief usurers of those days, and, as the end sanctifies the means, were
not in the least scrupulous of employing what would have been
extortion in the profane, to accomplish the pious purpose of bringing a
blessing on the land by rescuing it from the frail hold of carnal and
temporal into the firmer grasp of ghostly and spiritual possessors. But
the earl, confident in the number and attachment of his retainers,
stoutly refused either to repay the money, which he could not, or to
yield the forfeiture, which he would not: a refusal which in those days
was an act of outlawry in a gentleman, as