The Tournament.
The Earl of Moray’s sylvan banquet of refreshment was by this time
over, the balconies and galleries were already filled with the knights
and ladies, and the lists were surrounded by the populace, all eagerly
beholding the numerous tilting matches going on between young knights
who wished to exercise themselves, and prove each other’s strength of
arm, adroitness, and firmness of seat, or between squires or pages, who
wished to earn their first harvest of fame. The sport had been as yet
but indifferent. Most of those who had ridden against each other were
novices, who afforded but a poor specimen of what the Scottish chivalry
could do. The English knights, and, above all, the Lord Welles, were
sneering to each other at the wretchedness of the exhibition, and every
now and then throwing out sarcastic remarks against those who were
engaged, whenever the occurrence of any slight piece of awkwardness
gave them an opening for doing so. The Scottish knights who were within
ear-shot of what dropped from them, were nettled at what they heard;
and had not the sacred character of an ambassador compelled them to
keep down their emotions, the Lord Welles, or some of his suite, might
have been called on to show, in their own persons, what Englishmen
could do; but, circumstanced as they were, none of the members of this
diplomatic corps had considered it as necessary to put up his blazon in
the chapel of St. John.
“Thinkest thou, Courtenay, that there is any chance of men appearing
here to-day?” said the Lord Welles, in a voice that showed he little
cared who heard him, or what soreness he might occasion. “In my mind
those have been but women and boys who have been tilting for our
amusement.”
“Depardieux. thou sayest well, my lord,” replied Sir Piers Courtenay,
“for such woman’s play and child’s tilting did I never before behold.
Our Cheapside shop-boys would make better work on’t with their
yard-measures. Then there is no fancy in their armour—a crude and
barbarous taste, my Lord—yea, and a clownish and plebeian air about
their very persons, too. Trust me, my Lord, I do not rashly venture on
the grave and serious accusation I am now about to hazard, when I do
declare, solemnly and fervently, that I have not seen one spur of the
accurately proper fashion on any knightly heel in these Caledonian
wildernesses.”
“Ha, ha, ha. The nicety of thy judgment in such matters, Courtenay, is
unquestionable,” said the Lord Welles laughing.
A trumpet now sounded from one of the barriers, and was immediately
answered from that at the other end of the lists. The voice of a
pursuivant was next heard.
“Oyez! oyez! oyez! The good esquire Mortimer Sang doth call on the
gallant Knight of Cheviot to appear to answer his challenge.”
There was some delay for a little time, during which all eyes were
thrown towards the barrier, where Mortimer was steadily bestriding a
superb chestnut charger, with an ease and grace that might have led the
spectators to suppose that the horse and man were but one animal. One
of Sir Patrick Hepborne’s pages, well mounted, attended him, to do him
the necessary offices of the lists; and although his helmet displayed
no crest, and that his arms were plain, and his shield without
achievement, yet his whole appearance had something commanding about
it, and all were prepossessed in his favour.
“That looks something like a man,” quoth the English knights to each
other.
“What a noble-looking presence! If he be only an esquire, of a truth he
deserves to be a knight,” went round among the spectators.
“How handsome he is, and how gallant-looking and warlike!” whispered
the soft voice of Catherine Spears, who stood behind the Countess of
Moray.
The pursuivant from Sang’s barrier now repeated his challenge; a
confused murmur soon afterwards arose from that at the opposite end of
the lists, and by and by, the huge bulk of the Knight of Cheviot,
mounted on his enormous charger, was seen moving like the mountains he
took his name from, through an amazed group of wondering heads. The
horse and man seemed to have been made for each other, and they looked
like the creatures of a creation altogether different from that of this
earth, and as if such inhabitants would have required a larger world
than ours to have contained them.
“By’r Lady, but yonder comes no child, then,” exclaimed Sir Miles
Templeton, one of the English knights, who sat behind the Lord Welles.
“By St. George, ’tis an animated colossal monument,” said the Lord
Welles.
“If it be cast down, we cannot choose but have an earth-quake,” cried
Sir Piers Courtenay.
“Who or what can he be?” said Sir John Constable.
“We shall doubtless hear anon,” replied the Lord Welles.
“Hath not the brave esquire been rash in selecting so huge a monster
for his coup d’essai in the lists?” said the Countess of Moray. “To
what knight may he be attached?”
“To me, my noble lady,” said Sir Patrick Hepborne from a place behind,
where he had sat unnoticed by the Countess. “Trust me, he will acquit
himself well—his heart is as stout as it is true.”
“Sayest thou so, Sir Knight?” said the Countess, turning round and
looking at him with some severity. “Then do I give thee joy that thou
hast at least one leal heart in thy company.”
“Oh, my lady,” cried the alarmed Katherine Spears, “Squire Mortimer can
never stand against yonder terrible giant. What will become of him?
Holy St. Andrew protect us, I dare not look!”
“Nay, fear thee not, gentle damsel,” said Sir Patrick, with assumed
composure; “though yonder living tower look so big and so threatening,
trust me I have no dread for friend Sang. He hath much good thew and
muscle packed into reasonable compass, and they are nerved by a heart
withal that nothing can danton. Fear ye not for Sang. By St. Baldrid, I
begin to feel a stirring interest in this coming shock.”
“May the blessed Virgin guard and aid him!” cried Katherine Spears,
half covering her eyes.
The pursuivant at the end of the lists where the Knight of Cheviot
appeared, now responded to him who had given forth the challenge.
“Oyez! oyez! oyez! The gallant Knight of Cheviot is here, and ready to
answer the darreigne of the good squire, Mortimer Sang.”
“Laissez les aller” cried the herald from the platform under the Royal
balcony; the trumpet sounded, and the barriers at both ends of the
lists were immediately dropped.
The lists, as was very commonly the case in those times, were double;
that is to say, they were divided towards the middle, for about
two-fourths of their length, by a longitudinal barrier of wood of about
four feet high. This was for the purpose of separating the horses of
the combatants from each other, to save them from injury; for each
knight, taking a different side of the wooden wall, ran his career
close to it, and tilted at his adversary over it, without risk of the
steeds meeting in shock, as in the undivided lists.
No sooner were the barriers withdrawn, than Mortimer Sang spurred his
courser, sprang forward, and swept along like a whirlwind. The huge
animal ridden by the gigantic and ponderous Knight of Cheviot was slow
in getting into motion, and came on blowing and snorting, with a heavy
lumbering gallop, that shook the very ground. The esquire had already
ridden along one-half of the wall of division ere his antagonist had
reached a third of the distance. His lance was firmly and truly pointed
against the immense body that approached, and every eye was intently
watching for the issue of a joust that promised to be unexampled in the
annals of chivalry. Both steeds were steadily maintaining the line in
which each had started. The enormous tilting-lance of the knight, as it
came on, resembled the bolt-sprit of some vessel driven before the
wind, and, blunt though it was, the annihilation of the esquire
appeared certain to the spectators. The collision was within a few
yards of taking place, when, to the astonishment of all, the Knight of
Cheviot suddenly dropped his lance, and, seizing the bridle of his
charger with both hands, exerted all his strength to pull him aside,
and succeeded in making him bolt away from the thrust of his opponent.
That it was an intentional effort and no accident was evident to every
one. A general hiss, mingled with loud hootings broke, from the
balconies and galleries. Mortimer Sang, exasperated at the shameful and
cowardly conduct of him on whom he had so sanguinely hoped to prove his
prowess, checked the straight course of his horse’s career, and,
sweeping around in a narrow circle, ran him at the wooden barrier, and,
leaping him desperately over it, rode furiously, lance in rest, against
the dastard Knight of Cheviot, who had hardly yet reined up his steed.
Shouts of applause followed this spirited manoeuvre of Sang’s. The base
knight heard them, looked around, beheld the esquire coming, and began
immediately to fly towards the gates of the lists. “Halt,” cried
Mortimer aloud, “halt, thou craven. What! fearest thou a blunt lance?
Halt, thou mountain of Cheviot, halt, I say, that I may climb to thine
uppermost peak to tweak thee by the nose, that I may pluck thy prickly
crest from thy foggy head, and stick it beneath the tail of the
draff-horse that beareth thee; halt, coward, that I may forthwith blot
out thy rising sun, that thou mayst no more dare to shine.”
But the Knight of Cheviot stayed not to look behind him. His legs
played upon the sides of his horse like some piece of powerful
machinery, and he spurred off as if the devil had been after him, the
animal exhibiting a pace which no one could have believed was in him.
The marshalmen would have stopped him in his way to the gate, but to
have essayed to arrest the progress of a huge rock, just parted from
the summit of some lofty Alp, and spinning along the plain with all the
impetus derived from its descent, could not have been a more irrational
or more hopeless attempt, or one more pregnant with certain destruction
to those who made it. The way was cleared before him; but the gate was
shut. Neither horse nor man seemed to regard the obstruction, however;
it appeared as if both were influenced by the same blind fear. They ran
against it with so great an impetus, that its strong bars and rails
yielded before the shock, and were strewed upon the plain. Away flew
the fugitive across the Meads, and on Sang urged furiously after him.
The shouts from the lists were redoubled. Down rushed crowds of the
populace from the scaffolds, and away they poured with a hue and cry
after the chase.
The flying giant had much the start of Sang, but the superior speed of
the squire’s well-bred courser was fast lessening this advantage. It
was in vain that he attempted to double and wheel, for Sang, cutting
sharply round, only gained the more on him. He stretched his course
straight for the forest, but all saw that he must be speedily
overtaken. Sang neared him, and couching his lance, planted himself
firmly in his saddle. A single bound of his horse brought him within
reach of the knight, and giving him an alert and vigorous push in the
rear with his blunt weapon, he threw his unwieldy body forward on his
horse’s neck, so that, encumbered by the weight, the animal stumbled a
step or two, and then losing his fore legs, rolled himself and hurled
his rider forward upon the sod.
Ancient Æsop hath told us of a certain tortoise, that, being carried
into the clouds by an eagle, was dropped thence on a rock. It is easy
to conceive how the various compartments of the creature’s natural
armour must have been rent from each other by the fall. So it was with
the Knight of Cheviot. The descent of such a mountain was no light
matter. Large as his armour was, its various pieces were far from
meeting each other over the immense limbs and joints they should have
enclosed; and the leathern latchets which laced them together being
somewhat aged, they, and even the rivets, gave way with the shock; and
the fastenings of the helmet and of the different plates bursting
asunder, and there being no shirt of mail beneath them, the Knight of
Cheviot lay sprawling among the ruins of his defences, in a black
jerkin and hauselines. The active Sang would have been upon him in a
trice, but, filled with astonishment, he reined up his steed and halted
to wonder. Nor was superstitious fear altogether without its influence
in arresting him in his first intention of seizing the dastard
impostor, who had thus disgraced the name of knight, as well as the
lists in which he had dared to show himself, and of having him dragged
to that summary punishment inflicted on such occasions by the laws of
chivalry. His eyes stared with an amazement that was almost incredulous
of the reality of what they beheld. He whom he saw struggling on the
ground was the wizard, Ancient Haggerstone Fenwick, whom he had once
accidentally seen at Norham, and of whose supernatural powers he had
then heard enough to fill him now with temporary awe, at this his
unexpected appearance. Sang raised his own vizor and rubbed his eyes,
and when he saw that it was really the face and figure of the Ancient
which he beheld, he for a moment suspected that it was some demoniacal
trick of enchantment that had been played him to rob him of the fame he
had hoped to earn. Rage got the better of every feeling of
superstition.
“Ha!” exclaimed he, “be’st thou wizard or devil, I’ll wrestle with
thee;” and flinging himself from his horse, he strode towards the
struggling Knight of Cheviot.
But he was a moment too late. Ere he could reach the wizard, the latter
had recovered himself sufficiently to scramble to his legs; and just as
the squire was about to lay his fangs upon him, he escaped with a sort
of shuffling run, that grew as he proceeded into an awkward striding
gait that might have done honour to a camelopard; the plates of his
armour hanging to his body by frail tags, clattering and jingling as he
flew, and spinning off at a tangent from his person, as the thongs
successively gave way. The esquire pursued him as fast as he could, but
his armour hampered him so much that he had no chance in a race with
one who was loosely attired, and who was every moment lessening his
weight by getting rid of some part of his steel encumbrances.
“Halt, coward!” cried Sang, puffing and blowing after him. “Ha, by St.
Baldrid, ’tis in vain to follow him. An he were the Spirit of the
Cheviots himself, who may step thee from one hill-top to another, he
could not exert more alacrity of escape. He devoureth whole roods of
ground at a stride as he fleeth. By the mass, see him! he courses up
yonder bank with his backpiece hanging down behind him, rattling like a
canister at the tail of some mongrel hound. Body o’ me, how it got
atween his legs; would that it had thrown him down. Ha! now it hath
lost its hold of him—and now the red fiend may catch him for me, for
there he goes into the forest.”
The squire returned slowly and sullenly to meet his page, who was by
this time coming up. The huge dray horse of the Knight of Cheviot
having regained his legs, was standing heaving his enormous sides like
a stranded whale.
“’Tis a cruel bite, Archibald Lees,” said Mortimer Sang to the page;
“’tis a cruel bite, I say, when a man thinketh he hath roused a lion,
to find his game turn out but a stinking pole-cat after all. Get thee
after the lurdon, and pick up the pieces of his armour, the which did
drop from his scoundrel carcase as he fled.”
“Methought, as I chanced to see him casing, that he would turn out to
be some such vermin,” replied the page, as he proceeded to obey the
squire’s commands.
Sang sat himself down for a little time to recover his wind, comforting
himself with the idea that he had at least won a trophy of armour that
would be valuable from its very rarity.
“I shall have them hung up in mine own tower,” said he to himself. “As
for the horse, he may fetch as much as may repay Sir Patrick for the
advance he hath made for the arms I had of Andria Martellino. By mine
honour, he hath a body and limbs that might pull a castle after them.
He will sell right speedily to a wainman, ay, and that for a noble
price too.”
A crowd of the populace now began to approach the place where he was
sitting, clamouring as they came along. At their head came Rory Spears,
with his fish-clip brandished over his shoulder, and followed by a
party of the marshal’s men, bringing along the Italian armourer in
custody, whose face exhibited an expression of extreme dismay and
trepidation.
“Ay, ay, we shall soon ken whether the rogue speaketh truth or no,”
cried Spears indignantly. “He saith, if I mistake him not, that Squire
Sang knoweth somewhat of the matter. We shall see what he may hae to
say for himsel when he cometh before him. Bring him along here.”
“What turmoil is here, I beseech ye, my masters?” demanded Sang.
“Ah! Signor Mortimero,” cried the Italian, with a deplorable face of
terror; “a—a—ah! It is moss joy for me to see dee; I ask dem to bring
me to dee—dey no ondairstond me; ah, San Lorenzo!—dey do vant to hang
me by de naik—dey do accuse me of de steal.”
“Well,” said Sang, with a gruff laugh, as if the attempt at a joke
suited but ill with his present vexation and disappointment at the
issue of his combat, “by the mass, methinks thou mayest be well enow
content to be accused of steel in Scotland, for there lacketh not in
Paris those who did boldly affirm that thou didst employ a much softer
metal in thy warlike wares.”
“Pah! no, no, no, signor,” exclaimed Martellino, in extreme distress,
“not acciajo, vat dou do call steel van metal—ma, de steal, de rob; dey
do accuse me of steal a posse of gold, and as dou art mine verri good
friend, I did crave them to bring me to dee.”
“Nay,” said Sang, “that is in truth a more serious matter. An that be
made out to be truly the case, thy neck will assuredly be stretched,
friend Andria, in spite of all that I may do to help thee. But sith
thou hast come to me, I swear that I shall see that thou hast fair
play.”
“Oh, Signor Sang, sarai il mio protettore,” exclaimed the Italian, with
a gleam of hope in his anxious eyes. “All dat I do vant is de play
fair. If dou veelt listen to me, I vill make dee ondairstond dat I no
steal.”
“Nay,” said Rory Spears, coming forward, “I have no objection that he
should be questioned by Squire Mortimer. St. Lowry forbid that he sudna
get justice. Gif he be innocent o’ the coulpe, and can but make his
innocence clear, we sall be saved the trouble o’ hooking him up afore
the Yearl and his court. It wad be but an evil turn to do a poor
foreign deevil, to gar him dree two or three days’ jail, whan he hath
done naething that may call for sike a warison. Question him, Maister
Sang, question him.”
“If I am thus appointed preliminary judge,” replied Sang, mounting the
dray-horse, “I shall get me on my sack here, that I may sit at mine
ease, and have mine eye on all that passeth in court. Make way there;
clear the way for the prisoner,” continued he, motioning? to the crowd
to form a circle round him. “Who hath lost the purse the which he is
accused of having taken?” demanded he.
“My wife’s mother, auld Elspeth i’ the burrows town,” replied Rory, and
he hastily recapitulated the meagre particulars he had lately given the
Earl of Moray.
“Ha!” said Sang, “and who accuseth Andria Martellino of being the
thief?”
“Ich do dat, mynheer joodch,” replied a squat, thick-set, broad-faced,
heavy-looking German.
“And who mayest thou be, friend?” asked Sang; “and what mayest thou
have to effunde that may throw light upon this affair?”
“Mine name ist Hans Eisenfelsenbroken, de grat Yarman, dat mach de
armou better nor nobody dat can mach dem so well. Ich dit see de borse
in de hond of dis him here mit mine own eyes.”
“A suspicious evidence,” said Sang shaking his head gravely, “a most
suspicious evidence; trust me, I shall tell no store by it without
strong corroboration. Hath the prisoner yet been searched?”
“Nay, there hath as yet been no time,” replied the marshalmen.
“Let him be forthwith riped, then,” said the esquire.
The marshalmen proceeded to execute his orders, and, to the joy of Rory
Spears, they very speedily drew forth from beneath his gaberdine a
leathern bag, containing a considerable weight of coin.
“By St. Lowry, but that is my auld mother’s money-bag,” cried Rory
Spears, eyeing it from a distance.
“Let me have it,” said Sang; “knowest thou thy mother’s money-bag by
any mark?”
“Yea,” replied Spears, readily; “it hath E. S. on the twa lugs of it,
and a cross on the braid side.”
“Of a truth, this is the very bag,” said the squire; “the marks are all
here.”
“Eh! mine Got, did not Ich tell dee de troot, Mynheer Spears! I do know
him to be a tafe. Ha, ha! Er wird be hanged, and Ich werde have all de
trade Ich selbst!” cried the rival German armourer, with a joy which he
could not contain.
“Silence, fellow, and respect the court,” cried Sang, in a tone of
authority. “Canst thou explain how thou hadst this leathern purse,
Master Martellino?” continued he. “By St. Andrew, if thou canst not, it
will go hard with thee.”
“Ah, si, signor,” replied Martellino, with a face of joy, “de page of
dy vorship, de good Signor Lees, he happain to be vid me in my shop at
de time after I did sell de great armour to de big gigante, and he did
see him give to me de posse of gold dat is dere—van fifty broad piece
of gold.”
“That is thy mother’s sum to a tittle,” said Sang, addressing Rory.
“But how camest thou to receive so much money from the dastard knave
for a suit of armour?” continued he, putting the question to the
Italian.
“He did bribe me to give him van of mine vaine horses, dat do carry
mine goods,” replied the Italian; “and he did give me de posse and de
money and all.”
Archibald Lees vouched for the truth of all this; and some one in the
crowd, who had been in Forres during the fire, had remarked the uncouth
and gigantic figure as it glided into the old bedrid woman’s house; and
having been struck with the strangeness of its appearance, had
particularly remembered its passing speedily out again in great haste.
Another remembered that the false knight and his two accomplices had
lodged in a house of entertainment next door to Elspeth Spears’ house;
and it was even supposed by many that they had aided the conflagration,
after it was begun by the Wolfe of Badenoch and his party.
All was now clear, and the upright judge proceeded to pronounce his
decision.
“Let the money be forthwith told over, and let it, and the bag that
holds it, be restored to Master Roderick Spears, as custos thereof for
his aged mother. Let the armour, the which hath been gathered piecemeal
from the plain, be restored to the rightful owner, Signor Andria
Martellino; and let him have our judgment-seat also, sith it doth of
right belong to him. I do hereby absolve him from all coulpe. Albeit he
is sharp enow in a bargain, verily I believe he would hardly steal. As
for thee, Mynheer Eisenfelsenbroken, I shall only say that thy zeal to
further justice was rather of the eagerest, and mought have been more
creditable to thee had not the culprit, against whom thou wert so ready
to witness, been thy rival in trade. Thy conduct will doubtless have
its weight with all good men. And now I dissolve the court,” added he,
jumping from the dray-horse, and proceeding to mount his own charger,
which the page held for him.
The German went grumbling away, disappointed wickedness giving a
blacker hue to his swarthy face.
“Ah, Signor Sang,” exclaimed the Italian, coming up to him with tears
of gratitude in his eyes; “dou hast been mine good friend; dou hast vin
dine armour. Here is de money—here is de price thou deedst pay me. Take
it back.”
“What, fellow!” cried Sang, jocularly, putting him by; “what, wouldst
thou bribe the hand of justice? Wouldst thou soil that which should be
pure? Avoid, I tell thee, avoid;” and, putting spurs to his horse, he
rode off towards the lists, followed by the cheers of those who had
witnessed the scene.