“A plague on thee, and thy advice!” said
the pious hermit; “I tell thee, Sir Slothful
Knight, that when I doff my friar’s frock, my
priesthood, my sanctity, my very Latin, are put off
along with it; and when in my green jerkin, I can better
kill twenty deer than confess one Christian.”
“I fear,” said the Black Knight, “I
fear greatly, there is no one here that is qualified
to take upon him, for the nonce, this same character
of father confessor?”
All looked on each other, and were silent.
“I see,” said Wamba, after a short pause,
“that the fool must be still the fool, and put
his neck in the venture which wise men shrink from.
You must know, my dear cousins and countrymen, that
I wore russet before I wore motley, and was bred to
be a friar, until a brain-fever came upon me and left
me just wit enough to be a fool. I trust, with
the assistance of the good hermit’s frock, together
with the priesthood, sanctity, and learning which
are stitched into the cowl of it, I shall be found
qualified to administer both worldly and ghostly comfort
to our worthy master Cedric, and his companions in
adversity.”
“Hath he sense enough, thinkst thou?”
said the Black Knight, addressing Gurth.
“I know not,” said Gurth; “but if
he hath not, it will be the first time he hath wanted
wit to turn his folly to account.”
“On with the frock, then, good fellow,”
quoth the Knight, “and let thy master send us
an account of their situation within the castle.
Their numbers must be few, and it is five to one they
may be accessible by a sudden and bold attack.
Time wears—–away with thee.”
“And, in the meantime,” said Locksley,
“we will beset the place so closely, that not
so much as a fly shall carry news from thence.
So that, my good friend,” he continued, addressing
Wamba, “thou mayst assure these tyrants, that
whatever violence they exercise on the persons of
their prisoners, shall be most severely repaid upon
their own.”
“Pax vobiscum,” said Wamba, who was now
muffled in his religious disguise.
And so saying he imitated the solemn and stately deportment
of a friar, and departed to execute his mission.
The hottest horse will oft be cool,
The dullest will show fire;
The friar will often play the fool,
The fool will play the friar.
Old Song
When the Jester, arrayed in the cowl and frock of
the hermit, and having his knotted cord twisted round
his middle, stood before the portal of the castle
of Front-de-Boeuf, the warder demanded of him his
name and errand.
“Pax vobiscum,” answered the Jester, “I
am a poor brother of the Order of St Francis, who
come hither to do my office to certain unhappy prisoners
now secured within this castle.”
“Thou art a bold friar,” said the warder,
“to come hither, where, saving our own drunken
confessor, a cock of thy feather hath not crowed these
twenty years.”
