Of blessed Walsinghame,
Oh met ye not with my true love,
As by the way ye came?
— Old Ballad1.
In pursuance of the arrangement recorded in the twelfth chapter, the baron2, Robin3, and Marian disguised themselves as pilgrims returned from Palestine, and travelling from the sea-coast of Hampshire to their home in Northumberland. By dint4 of staff and cockle-shell, sandal and scrip, they proceeded in safety the greater part of the way (for Robin had many sly inns and resting-places between Barnsdale and Sherwood), and were already on the borders of Yorkshire, when, one evening, they passed within view of a castle, where they saw a lady standing5 on a turret6, and surveying the whole extent of the valley through which they were passing. A servant came running from the castle, and delivered to them a message from his lady, who was sick with expectation of news from her lord in the Holy Land, and entreated7 them to come to her, that she might question them concerning him. This was an awkward occurrence: but there was no presence for refusal, and they followed the servant into the castle. The baron, who had been in Palestine in his youth, undertook to be spokesman on the occasion, and to relate his own adventures to the lady as having happened to the lord in question. This preparation enabled him to be so minute and circumstantial in his detail, and so coherent in his replies to her questions, that the lady fell implicitly8 into the delusion9, and was delighted to find that her lord was alive and in health, and in high favour with the king, and performing prodigies10 of valour in the name of his lady, whose miniature he always wore in his bosom11. The baron guessed at this circumstance from the customs of that age, and happened to be in the right.
“This miniature,” added the baron, “I have had the felicity to see, and should have known you by it among a million.” The baron was a little embarrassed by some questions of the lady concerning her lord’s personal appearance; but Robin came to his aid, observing a picture suspended opposite to him on the wall, which he made a bold conjecture12 to be that of the lord in question; and making a calculation of the influences of time and war, which he weighed with a comparison of the lady’s age, he gave a description of her lord sufficiently13 like the picture in its groundwork to be a true resemblance, and sufficiently differing from it in circumstances to be more an original than a copy. The lady was completely deceived, and entreated them to partake her hospitality for the night; but this they deemed it prudent14 to decline, and with many humble15 thanks for her kindness, and representations of the necessity of not delaying their homeward course, they proceeded on their way.
As they passed over the drawbridge, they met Sir Ralph Montfaucon and his squire16, who were wandering in quest of Marian, and were entering to claim that hospitality which the pilgrims had declined. Their countenances17 struck Sir Ralph with a kind of imperfect recognition, which would never have been matured, but that the eyes of Marian, as she passed him, encountered his, and the images of those stars of beauty continued involuntarily twinkling in his sensorium to the exclusion18 of all other ideas, till memory, love, and hope concurred19 with imagination to furnish a probable reason for their haunting him so pertinaciously20. Those eyes, he thought, were certainly the eyes of Matilda Fitzwater; and if the eyes were hers, it was extremely probable, if not logically consecutive21, that the rest of the body they belonged to was hers also. Now, if it were really Matilda Fitzwater, who were her two companions? The baron? Aye, and the elder pilgrim was something like him. And the earl of Huntingdon? Very probably. The earl and the baron might be good friends again, now that they were both in disgrace together. While he was revolving22 these cogitations, he was introduced to the lady, and after claiming and receiving the promise of hospitality, he inquired what she knew of the pilgrims who had just departed? The lady told him they were newly returned from Palestine, having been long in the Holy Land. The knight23 expressed some scepticism on this point. The lady replied, that they had given her so minute a detail of her lord’s proceedings24, and so accurate a description of his person, that she could not be deceived in them. This staggered the knight’s confidence in his own penetration25; and if it had not been a heresy26 in knighthood to suppose for a moment that there could be in rerum natura such another pair of eyes as those of his mistress, he would have acquiesced27 implicitly in the lady’s judgment28. But while the lady and the knight were conversing29, the warder blew his bugle-horn, and presently entered a confidential30 messenger from Palestine, who gave her to understand that her lord was well; but entered into a detail of his adventures most completely at variance31 with the baron’s narrative32, to which not the correspondence of a single incident gave the remotest colouring of similarity. It now became manifest that the pilgrims were not true men; and Sir Ralph Montfaucon sate33 down to supper with his head full of cogitations, which we shall leave him to chew and digest with his pheasant and canary.
Meanwhile our three pilgrims proceeded on their way. The evening set in black and lowering, when Robin turned aside from the main track, to seek an asylum34 for the night, along a narrow way that led between rocky and woody hills. A peasant observed the pilgrims as they entered that narrow pass, and called after them: “Whither go you, my masters? there are rogues35 in that direction.”
“Can you show us a direction,” said Robin, “in which there are none? If so we will take it in preference.” The peasant grinned, and walked away whistling.
The pass widened as they advanced, and the woods grew thicker and darker around them. Their path wound along the slope of a woody declivity36, which rose high above them in a thick rampart of foliage37, and descended38 almost precipitously to the bed of a small river, which they heard dashing in its rocky channel, and saw its white foam39 gleaming at intervals40 in the last faint glimmerings of twilight41. In a short time all was dark, and the rising voice of the wind foretold42 a coming storm. They turned a point of the valley, and saw a light below them in the depth of the hollow, shining through a cottage-casement and dancing in its reflection on the restless stream. Robin blew his horn, which was answered from below. The cottage door opened: a boy came forth43 with a torch, ascended44 the steep, showed tokens of great delight at meeting with Robin, and lighted them down a flight of steps rudely cut in the rock, and over a series of rugged45 stepping-stones, that crossed the channel of the river. They entered the cottage, which exhibited neatness, comfort, and plenty, being amply enriched with pots, pans, and pipkins, and adorned46 with flitches of bacon and sundry47 similar ornaments48, that gave goodly promise in the firelight that gleamed upon the rafters. A woman, who seemed just old enough to be the boy’s mother, had thrown down her spinning wheel in her joy at the sound of Robin’s horn, and was bustling49 with singular alacrity50 to set forth her festal ware51 and prepare an abundant supper. Her features, though not beautiful, were agreeable and expressive52, and were now lighted up with such manifest joy at the sight of Robin, that Marian could not help feeling a momentary53 touch of jealousy54, and a half-formed suspicion that Robin had broken his forest law, and had occasionally gone out of bounds, as other great men have done upon occasion, in order to reconcile the breach55 of the spirit, with the preservation56 of the letter, of their own legislation. However, this suspicion, if it could be said to exist in a mind so generous as Marian’s, was very soon dissipated by the entrance of the woman’s husband, who testified as much joy as his wife had done at the sight of Robin; and in a short time the whole of the party were amicably57 seated round a smoking supper of river-fish and wild wood fowl58, on which the baron fell with as much alacrity as if he had been a true pilgrim from Palestine.
The husband produced some recondite59 flasks60 of wine, which were laid by in a binn consecrated62 to Robin, whose occasional visits to them in his wanderings were the festal days of these warm-hearted cottagers, whose manners showed that they had not been born to this low estate. Their story had no mystery, and Marian easily collected it from the tenour of their conversation. The young man had been, like Robin, the victim of an usurious abbot, and had been outlawed64 for debt, and his nut-brown maid had accompanied him to the depths of Sherwood, where they lived an unholy and illegitimate life, killing65 the king’s deer, and never hearing mass. In this state, Robin, then earl of Huntingdon, discovered them in one of his huntings, and gave them aid and protection. When Robin himself became an outlaw63, the necessary qualification or gift of continency was too hard a law for our lovers to subscribe66 to; and as they were thus disqualified for foresters, Robin had found them a retreat in this romantic and secluded67 spot. He had done similar service to other lovers similarly circumstanced, and had disposed them in various wild scenes which he and his men had discovered in their flittings from place to place, supplying them with all necessaries and comforts from the reluctant disgorgings of fat abbots and usurers. The benefit was in some measure mutual68; for these cottages served him as resting-places in his removals, and enabled him to travel untraced and unmolested; and in the delight with which he was always received he found himself even more welcome than he would have been at an inn; and this is saying very much for gratitude69 and affection together. The smiles which surrounded him were of his own creation, and he participated in the happiness he had bestowed70.
The casements71 began to rattle72 in the wind, and the rain to beat upon the windows. The wind swelled73 to a hurricane, and the rain dashed like a flood against the glass. The boy retired74 to his little bed, the wife trimmed the lamp, the husband heaped logs upon the fire: Robin broached75 another flask61; and Marian filled the baron’s cup, and sweetened Robin’s by touching76 its edge with her lips.
“Well,” said the baron, “give me a roof over my head, be it never so humble. Your greenwood canopy77 is pretty and pleasant in sunshine; but if I were doomed78 to live under it, I should wish it were water-tight.”
“But,” said Robin, “we have tents and caves for foul79 weather, good store of wine and venison, and fuel in abundance.”
“Ay, but,” said the baron, “I like to pull off my boots of a night, which you foresters seldom do, and to ensconce myself thereafter in a comfortable bed. Your beech-root is over-hard for a couch, and your mossy stump80 is somewhat rough for a bolster81.”
“Had you not dry leaves,” said Robin, “with a bishop’s surplice over them? What would you have softer? And had you not an abbot’s travelling cloak for a coverlet? What would you have warmer?”
“Very true,” said the baron, “but that was an indulgence to a guest, and I dreamed all night of the sheriff of Nottingham. I like to feel myself safe,” he added, stretching out his legs to the fire, and throwing himself back in his chair with the air of a man determined82 to be comfortable. “I like to feel myself safe,” said the baron.
At that moment the woman caught her husband’s arm, and all the party following the direction of her eyes, looked simultaneously83 to the window, where they had just time to catch a glimpse of an apparition84 of an armed head, with its plumage tossing in the storm, on which the light shone from within, and which disappeared immediately.
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1
ballad
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| n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲 | |
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2
baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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3
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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dint
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| n.由于，靠；凹坑 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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6
turret
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| n.塔楼，角塔 | |
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7
entreated
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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9
delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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10
prodigies
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| n.奇才，天才（尤指神童）( prodigy的名词复数 ) | |
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11
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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12
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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13
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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14
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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15
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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16
squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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17
countenances
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| n.面容( countenance的名词复数 )；表情；镇静；道义支持 | |
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18
exclusion
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| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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concurred
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| 同意（concur的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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pertinaciously
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| adv.坚持地；固执地；坚决地；执拗地 | |
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consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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22
revolving
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| adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想 | |
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23
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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24
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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25
penetration
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| n.穿透，穿人，渗透 | |
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26
heresy
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| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
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27
acquiesced
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| v.默认，默许( acquiesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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28
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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29
conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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30
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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31
variance
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| n.矛盾，不同 | |
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32
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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33
sate
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| v.使充分满足 | |
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34
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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35
rogues
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| n.流氓( rogue的名词复数 )；无赖；调皮捣蛋的人；离群的野兽 | |
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36
declivity
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| n.下坡，倾斜面 | |
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37
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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38
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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39
foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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40
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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41
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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42
foretold
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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43
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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44
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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46
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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47
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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48
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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49
bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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alacrity
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| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
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51
ware
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| n.(常用复数)商品，货物 | |
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52
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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53
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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54
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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55
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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56
preservation
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| n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持 | |
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amicably
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| adv.友善地 | |
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58
fowl
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| n.家禽，鸡，禽肉 | |
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recondite
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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60
flasks
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| n.瓶，长颈瓶， 烧瓶( flask的名词复数 ) | |
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61
flask
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| n.瓶，火药筒，砂箱 | |
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62
consecrated
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| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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63
outlaw
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| n.歹徒，亡命之徒；vt.宣布…为不合法 | |
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outlawed
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| 宣布…为不合法（outlaw的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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subscribe
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| vi.(to)订阅，订购；同意；vt.捐助，赞助 | |
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67
secluded
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| adj.与世隔绝的；隐退的；偏僻的v.使隔开，使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
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68
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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70
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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71
casements
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| n.窗扉( casement的名词复数 ) | |
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72
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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73
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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74
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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broached
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| v.谈起( broach的过去式和过去分词 )；打开并开始用；用凿子扩大（或修光）；（在桶上）钻孔取液体 | |
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76
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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77
canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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80
stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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81
bolster
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| n.枕垫；v.支持，鼓励 | |
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82
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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83
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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84
apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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