When they had reached the little moonlight glade, having in front the
reverend, though ruinous chapel, and the rude hermitage, so well
suited to ascetic devotion, Wamba whispered to Gurth, "If this be the
habitation of a thief, it makes good the old proverb, The nearer the
church the farther from God.--And by my coxcomb," he added, "I think it
be even so--Hearken but to the black sanctus which they are singing in
the hermitage!"
In fact the anchorite and his guest were performing, at the full extent
of their very powerful lungs, an old drinking song, of which this was
the burden:-"Come, trowl the brown bowl to me,
Bully boy, bully boy,
Come, trowl the brown bowl to me:
Ho! jolly Jenkin, I spy a knave in drinking,
Come, trowl the brown bowl to me."
"Now, that is not ill sung," said Wamba, who had thrown in a few of his
own flourishes to help out the chorus. "But who, in the saint's name,
ever expected to have heard such a jolly chant come from out a hermit's
cell at midnight!"
"Marry, that should I," said Gurth, "for the jolly Clerk of Copmanhurst
is a known man, and kills half the deer that are stolen in this walk.
Men say that the keeper has complained to his official, and that he
will be stripped of his cowl and cope altogether, if he keeps not better
order."
While they were thus speaking, Locksley's loud and repeated knocks had
at length disturbed the anchorite and his guest. "By my beads," said the
hermit, stopping short in a grand flourish, "here come more benighted
guests. I would not for my cowl that they found us in this goodly
exercise. All men have their enemies, good Sir Sluggard; and there be
those malignant enough to construe the hospitable refreshment which I
have been offering to you, a weary traveller, for the matter of three
short hours, into sheer drunkenness and debauchery, vices alike alien to
my profession and my disposition."
"Base calumniators!" replied the knight; "I would I had the chastising
of them. Nevertheless, Holy Clerk, it is true that all have their
enemies; and there be those in this very land whom I would rather speak
to through the bars of my helmet than barefaced."
"Get thine iron pot on thy head then, friend Sluggard, as quickly as
thy nature will permit," said the hermit, "while I remove these pewter
flagons, whose late contents run strangely in mine own pate; and to
drown the clatter--for, in faith, I feel somewhat unsteady--strike into
the tune which thou hearest me sing; it is no matter for the words--I
scarce know them myself."