第9章 CHAPTER IV(2)

"But through that loophole," said Matilda, "will I take my flight, like a young eagle from its eerie; and, father, while I go out freely, I will return willingly: but if once I slip out through a loop-hole----"

She paused a moment, and then added, singing,--

The love that follows fain Will never its faith betray:

But the faith that is held in a chain Will never be found again, If a single link give way.

The melody acted irresistibly on the harmonious propensities of the friar, who accordingly sang in his turn,--

For hark! hark! hark!

The dog doth bark, That watches the wild deer's lair.

The hunter awakes at the peep of the dawn, But the lair it is empty, the deer it is gone, And the hunter knows not where.

Matilda and the friar then sang together,--

Then follow, oh follow! the hounds do cry:

The red sun flames in the eastern sky:

The stag bounds over the hollow.

He that lingers in spirit, or loiters in hall, Shall see us no more till the evening fall, And no voice but the echo shall answer his call:

Then follow, oh follow, follow:

Follow, oh follow, follow!

During the process of this harmony, the baron's eyes wandered from his daughter to the friar, and from the friar to his daughter again, with an alternate expression of anger differently modified: when he looked on the friar, it was anger without qualification; when he looked on his daughter it was still anger, but tempered by an expression of involuntary admiration and pleasure.

These rapid fluctuations of the baron's physiognomy--the habitual, reckless, resolute merriment in the jovial face of the friar,-- and the cheerful, elastic spirits that played on the lips and sparkled in the eyes of Matilda,--would have presented a very amusing combination to Sir Ralph, if one of the three images in the group had not absorbed his total attention with feelings of intense delight very nearly allied to pain.

The baron's wrath was somewhat counteracted by the reflection that his daughter's good spirits seemed to show that they would naturally rise triumphant over all disappointments; and he had had sufficient experience of her humour to know that she might sometimes be led, but never could be driven.

Then, too, he was always delighted to hear her sing, though he was not at all pleased in this instance with the subject of her song.

Still he would have endured the subject for the sake of the melody of the treble, but his mind was not sufficiently attuned to unison to relish the harmony of the bass. The friar's accompaniment put him out of all patience, and--"So," he exclaimed, "this is the way, you teach my daughter to renounce the devil, is it?

A hunting friar, truly! Who ever heard before of a hunting friar?

A profane, roaring, bawling, bumper-bibbing, neck-breaking, catch-singing friar?"

"Under favour, bold baron," said the friar; but the friar was warm with canary, and in his singing vein; and he could not go on in plain unmusical prose. He therefore sang in a new tune,--

Though I be now a grey, grey friar, Yet I was once a hale young knight:

The cry of my dogs was the only choir In which my spirit did take delight.

Little I recked of matin bell, But drowned its toll with my clanging horn:

And the only beads I loved to tell Were the beads of dew on the spangled thorn.

The baron was going to storm, but the friar paused, and Matilda sang in repetition,--

Little I reck of matin bell, But drown its toll with my clanging horn:

And the only beads I love to tell Are the beads of dew on the spangled thorn.

And then she and the friar sang the four lines together, and rang the changes upon them alternately.

Little I reck of matin bell, sang the friar.

"A precious friar," said the baron.

But drown its toll with my clanging horn, sang Matilda.

"More shame for you," said the baron.

And the only beads I love to tell Are the beads of dew on the spangled thorn, sang Matilda and the friar together.

"Penitent and confessor," said the baron: "a hopeful pair truly."

The friar went on,--

An archer keen I was withal, As ever did lean on greenwood tree;

And could make the fleetest roebuck fall, A good three hundred yards from me.

Though changeful time, with hand severe, Has made me now these joys forego, Yet my heart bounds whene'er I hear Yoicks! hark away! and tally ho!

Matilda chimed in as before.

"Are you mad?" said the baron. "Are you insane? Are you possessed?

What do you mean? What in the devil's name do you both mean?"

Yoicks! hark away! and tally ho! roared the friar.

The baron's pent-up wrath had accumulated like the waters above the dam of an overshot mill. The pond-head of his passion being now filled to the utmost limit of its capacity, and beginning to overflow in the quivering of his lips and the flashing of his eyes, he pulled up all the flash-boards at once, and gave loose to the full torrent of his indignation, by seizing, like furious Ajax, not a messy stone more than two modern men could raise, but a vast dish of beef more than fifty ancient yeomen could eat, and whirled it like a coit, in terrorem, over the head of the friar, to the extremity of the apartment, Where it on oaken floor did settle, With mighty din of ponderous metal.

"Nay father," said Matilda, taking the baron's hand, "do not harm the friar: he means not to offend you. My gaiety never before displeased you.

Least of all should it do so now, when I have need of all my spirits to outweigh the severity of my fortune."

As she spoke the last words, tears started into her eyes, which, as if ashamed of the involuntary betraying of her feelings, she turned away to conceal. The baron was subdued at once. He kissed his daughter, held out his hand to the friar, and said, "Sing on, in God's name, and crack away the flasks till your voice swims in canary."

Then turning to Sir Ralph, he said, "You see how it is, sir knight.

Matilda is my daughter; but she has me in leading-strings, that is the truth of it."