Maid Marian | Page 7

it is now of bankruptcy in a
base mechanic; the gentleman having in our wiser times a more liberal
privilege of gentility, which enables him to keep his land and laugh at
his creditor. Thus the mutual resentments and interests of the king and
the abbot concurred to subject the earl to the penalties of outlawry, by
which the abbot would gain his due upon the lands of Locksley, and the
rest would be confiscate to the king. Still the king did not think it
advisable to assail the earl in his own strong-hold, but caused a diligent
watch to be kept over his motions, till at length his rumoured marriage
with the heiress of Arlingford seemed to point out an easy method of
laying violent hands on the offender. Sir Ralph Montfaucon, a young
man of good lineage and of an aspiring temper, who readily seized the
first opportunity that offered of recommending himself to King Henry's
favour by manifesting his zeal in his service, undertook the charge: and
how he succeeded we have seen.
Sir Ralph's curiosity was strongly excited by the friar's description of
the young lady of Arlingford; and he prepared in the morning to visit
the castle, under the very plausible pretext of giving the baron an
explanation of his intervention at the nuptials. Brother Michael and the
little fat friar proposed to be his guides. The proposal was courteously
accepted, and they set out together, leaving Sir Ralph's followers at the
abbey. The knight was mounted on a spirited charger; brother Michael
on a large heavy-trotting horse; and the little fat friar on a plump
soft-paced galloway, so correspondent with himself in size, rotundity,
and sleekness, that if they had been amalgamated into a centaur, there
would have been nothing to alter in their proportions.
"Do you know," said the little friar, as they wound along the banks of

the stream, "the reason why lake-trout is better than river-trout, and
shyer withal?"
"I was not aware of the fact," said Sir Ralph.
"A most heterodox remark," said brother Michael: "know you not, that
in all nice matters you should take the implication for absolute, and,
without looking into the FACT WHETHER, seek only the reason why?
But the fact is so, on the word of a friar; which what layman will
venture to gainsay who prefers a down bed to a gridiron?"
"The fact being so," said the knight, "I am still at a loss for the reason;
nor would I undertake to opine in a matter of that magnitude: since, in
all that appertains to the good things either of this world or the next, my
reverend spiritual guides are kind enough to take the trouble of thinking
off my hands."
"Spoken," said brother Michael, "with a sound Catholic conscience. My
little brother here is most profound in the matter of trout. He has
marked, learned, and inwardly digested the subject, twice a week at
least for five-and-thirty years. I yield to him in this. My strong points
are venison and canary."
"The good qualities of a trout," said the little friar, "are firmness and
redness: the redness, indeed, being the visible sign of all other virtues."
"Whence," said brother Michael, "we choose our abbot by his nose:
The rose on the nose doth all virtues disclose: For the outward grace
shows That the inward overflows, When it glows in the rose of a red,
red nose."
"Now," said the little friar, "as is the firmness so is the redness, and as
is the redness so is the shyness."
"Marry why?" said brother Michael. "The solution is not
physical-natural, but physical-historical, or natural-superinductive. And
thereby hangs a tale, which may be either said or sung:

The damsel stood to watch the fight By the banks of Kingslea Mere,
And they brought to her feet her own true knight Sore-wounded on a
bier.
She knelt by him his wounds to bind, She washed them with many a
tear: And shouts rose fast upon the wind, Which told that the foe was
near.
"Oh! let not," he said, "while yet I live, The cruel foe me take: But with
thy sweet lips a last kiss give, And cast me in the lake."
Around his neck she wound her arms, And she kissed his lips so pale:
And evermore the war's alarms Came louder up the vale.
She drew him to the lake's steep side, Where the red heath fringed the
shore; She plunged with him beneath the tide, And they were seen no
more.
Their true blood mingled in Kingslea Mere, That to mingle on earth
was fain: And the trout that swims in that crystal clear Is tinged with
the crimson stain.
"Thus you see how good comes of evil, and how a holy friar may