"How long is it since the good keeper has been here?" said the knight
to his host, after having swallowed several hasty morsels of this
reinforcement to the hermit's good cheer.
"About two months," answered the father hastily.
"By the true Lord," answered the knight, "every thing in your hermitage
is miraculous, Holy Clerk! for I would have been sworn that the fat buck
which furnished this venison had been running on foot within the week."
The hermit was somewhat discountenanced by this observation; and,
moreover, he made but a poor figure while gazing on the diminution of
the pasty, on which his guest was making desperate inroads; a warfare
in which his previous profession of abstinence left him no pretext for
joining.
"I have been in Palestine, Sir Clerk," said the knight, stopping short
of a sudden, "and I bethink me it is a custom there that every host who
entertains a guest shall assure him of the wholesomeness of his food, by
partaking of it along with him. Far be it from me to suspect so holy a
man of aught inhospitable; nevertheless I will be highly bound to you
would you comply with this Eastern custom."
"To ease your unnecessary scruples, Sir Knight, I will for once depart
from my rule," replied the hermit. And as there were no forks in those
days, his clutches were instantly in the bowels of the pasty.
The ice of ceremony being once broken, it seemed matter of rivalry
between the guest and the entertainer which should display the best
appetite; and although the former had probably fasted longest, yet the
hermit fairly surpassed him.
"Holy Clerk," said the knight, when his hunger was appeased, "I would
gage my good horse yonder against a zecchin, that that same honest
keeper to whom we are obliged for the venison has left thee a stoup of
wine, or a runlet of canary, or some such trifle, by way of ally to this
noble pasty. This would be a circumstance, doubtless, totally unworthy
to dwell in the memory of so rigid an anchorite; yet, I think, were you
to search yonder crypt once more, you would find that I am right in my
conjecture."
The hermit only replied by a grin; and returning to the hutch, he
produced a leathern bottle, which might contain about four quarts. He
also brought forth two large drinking cups, made out of the horn of
the urus, and hooped with silver. Having made this goodly provision
for washing down the supper, he seemed to think no farther ceremonious
scruple necessary on his part; but filling both cups, and saying, in the
Saxon fashion, "'Waes hael', Sir Sluggish Knight!" he emptied his own at
a draught.