world in company with a Jew, I heaved up my halberd to beat his brains out; but I took pity on his gray hairs, and judged it better to lay down the partisan and take up my spiritual weapon for his conversion. And truly, by the blessing of St. Dunstan! the seed has been sown in good soil. The Jew is converted, and understands all I have told him very nearly, if not altogether, as well as myself."

"Jew," said the captain, "is this true? Hast thou renounced thine unbelief?"

"May I so find mercy in your eyes," said the Jew, “as I know not one word which the reverend prelate spake to me all this fearful night. Alas! I was so distraught with agony and fear and grief, that, had our holy father Abraham come to preach to me, he had found but a deaf listener."

"Jew," said the friar, "I will remind thee but of one word of our conference: thou didst promise to give all thy substance to our holy order."

So help me the promise, fair sirs!" said Isaac, even more alarmed than before, as no such sounds ever crossed my lips. Alas! I am an aged, beggared man, I fear me a childless. ruth on me, and let me go!"

Have

"Nay," said the friar, "if thou dost retract vows made in favor of Holy Church, thou must do penance."

Accordingly he raised his halberd, and would have laid the staff of it lustily on the Jew's shoulders had not the Black Knight stopped the blow, and thereby transferred the holy clerk's resentment to himself.

"By St. Thomas of Kent,"1 said he, “an I buckle to my gear, I will teach thee, Sir Lazy Lover, to mell with thine own matters, mauger thine iron case there!"2

"Nay, be not wroth with me," said the knight; "thou knowest I am thy sworn friend and comrade."

1 Thomas à Becket.

2 "I will teach thee, Sir Lazy Lover, in spite of thy helmet, to attend to thine own business!"

"I know no such thing," answered the friar, "and defy thee for a meddling coxcomb."

"Nay, but," said the knight, who seemed to take a pleasure in provoking his quondam host, "hast thou forgotten how, that for my sake (for I say nothing of the temptation of the flagon and the pasty) thou didst break thy vow of fast and vigil?"

“Truly, friend,” said the friar, clinching his huge fist, “I will bestow a buffet on thee."

"I accept of no such presents," said the knight: "I am content to take thy cuff as a loan; but I will repay thee with usury as deep as ever thy prisoner there exacted in his traffic."

"I will prove that presently," said the friar.

"Hola!” cried the captain, "what art thou after, mad friar, brawling beneath our trysting-tree?"

"No brawling," said the knight: "it is but a friendly interchange of courtesy.- Friar, strike an thou darest.

thy blow if thou wilt stand mine."

I will stand

"Thou hast the advantage with that iron pot on thy head," said the churchman; "but have at thee. Down thou goest, an thou wert Goliath of Gath in his brazen helmet."

The friar bared his brawny arm up to the elbow, and, putting his full strength to the blow, gave the knight a buffet that might have felled an ox. But his adversary stood firm as a rock. A loud shout was uttered by all the yeomen around; for the clerk's cuff was proverbial among them, and there were few who, in jest or earnest, had not had occasion to know its vigor.

"Now, priest," said the knight, pulling off his gauntlet, "if I had vantage1 on my head, I will have none on my hand. Stand fast as a true man."

"Genam meam dedi vapulatori — I have given my cheek to the smiter," said the priest; an thou canst stir me from the spot, fellow, I will freely bestow on thee the Jew's ransom.”

So spoke the burly priest, assuming, on his part, high defiance. But who may resist his fate? The buffet of the knight was given

1 Advantage.

with such strength and good will that the friar rolled head over heels upon the plain, to the great amazement of all the spectators. But he arose neither angry nor crestfallen.

'Brother," said he to the knight, "thou shouldst have used thy strength with more discretion. I had mumbled but a lame mass an thou hadst broken my jaw, for the piper plays ill that wants the nether chops. Nevertheless there is my hand, in friendly witness that I will exchange no more cuffs with thee, having been a loser by the barter. End now all unkindness. Let us put the Jew to ransom, since the leopard will not change his spots, and a Jew he will continue to be."

The priest," said Clement, "is not half so confident of the Jew's conversion since he received that buffet on the ear."

Go to, knave! What, is there no respect, - all masters and But an thou gibest more of it, thou shalt learn I can give as well as take."

no men?

"Peace, all!" said the captain. "And thou, Jew, think of thy ransom. Thou needest not to be told that thy race are held to be accursed in all Christian communities, and trust me that we cannot endure thy presence among us.

Think, therefore, of an

offer, while I examine a prisoner of another cast." "Were many of Front-de-Bouf's men taken?" demanded the Black Knight.

"None of note enough to be put to ransom," answered the captain.

"A set of hilding fellows there were, whom we dismissed to find them a new master. Enough had been done for revenge and profit. The bunch of them were not worth a cardecu.1 The prisoner I speak of is better booty, an I may judge by his horsegear and wearing apparel. Here cometh the worthy prelate, as pert as a pyet." 2 And between two yeomen was brought before the silvan throne of the outlaw chief our friend Prior Aymer of Jorvaulx.

1 An old French coin worth about thirty cents. 2 As saucy as a magpie.

THE

CHAPTER XXXIII.

HE captive abbot's features and manners exhibited a whimiscal mixture of offended pride and deranged foppery and bodily terror.

"Why, how now, my masters?" said he with a voice in which all three emotions were blended. "What order is this among ye? Be ye Turks, or Christians, that handle a churchman? Know ye what it is manus imponere in servos Domini?1 Ye have plundered my mails; torn my cope of curious cut lace, which might have served a cardinal. Another in my place would have been at his excommunicabo vos,2 but I am placable; and if ye order forth my palfreys, release my brethren, and restore my mails, tell down with all speed an hundred crowns3 to be expended in masses at the high altar of Jorvaulx Abbey, and make your vow to eat no venison until next Pentecost, it may be you shall hear little more of this mad frolic."

"Holy father," said the chief outlaw, "it grieves me to think that you have met with such usage from any of my followers as calls for your fatherly reprehension."

"Usage!" echoed the priest, encouraged by the mild tone of the silvan leader: "it were usage fit for no hound of good race, much less for a Christian, far less for a priest, and least of all for the prior of the holy community of Jorvaulx. Here is a profane

1 To lay hands upon the servants of the Lord. 2 "I shall excommunicate you;" that is, shut out or expel from the Church.

3 A silver coin worth about $1.20.

4 A solemn Jewish festival celebrated at the close of harvest, being a solemn public thanksgiving to God for his bounties; called Pentecost because celebrated on the fiftieth (Greek, pentecostos) day after the second day of the Passover; also a festival (called also Whitsunday) of the Roman Catholic and other churches commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, which took place on the day of Pentecost.

and drunken minstrel, called Allan-a-Dale (nebulo quidam 1), who has menaced me with corporal punishment; nay, with death itself, an I pay not down four hundred crowns of ransom to the boot of all the treasure he hath already robbed me of,— gold chains and gymmal rings to an unknown value, besides what is broken and spoiled among their rude hands, such as my pouncetbox 3 and silver crisping-tongs."4

"It is impossible that Allan-a-Dale can have thus treated a man of your reverend bearing," replied the captain. "It is as true as the gospel of St. Nicodemus," "5 said the prior. "He swore, with many a cruel north-country oath, that he would hang me up on the highest tree in the greenwood."

"Did he so in very deed? Nay, then, reverend father, I think you had better comply with his demands, for Allan-a-Dale is the very man to abide by his word when he has so pledged it."

"You do but jest with me," said the astounded prior with a forced laugh; "and I love a good jest with all my heart. But, ha, ha, ha! when the mirth has lasted the livelong night, it is time to be grave in the morning."

"And I am as grave as a father confessor," replied the outlaw. "You must pay a round ransom, Sir Prior, or your convent is likely to be called to a new election, for your place will know you no more."

"Are ye Christians," said the prior, "and hold this language to a churchman?"

"Christians! Ay, marry are we," answered the outlaw. "Let our buxom chaplain stand forth, and expound to this reverend father the texts which concern this matter."

The friar had huddled a friar's frock over his green cassock;

1 A certain worthless wretch.

2 Rings interlocked, forming a kind of double ring.

3 Powder-box.

4 Tongs for curling.

5 A Pharisee, and ruler of the Jews, whose conversation with Christ (John iii. 1) revealed one of the great doctrines of Christianity,-regeneration by the spirit of God.