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.”
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