Ivanhoe

"Go, search them out, Engelred," said Front-de-Boeuf; "and then, Sir

Templar, thou shalt return an answer to this bold challenge."

"I would rather do it at the sword's point than at that of the pen,"

said Bois-Guilbert; "but be it as you will."

He sat down accordingly, and indited, in the French language, an epistle

of the following tenor:--"Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, with his noble

and knightly allies and confederates, receive no defiances at the hands

of slaves, bondsmen, or fugitives. If the person calling himself the

Black Knight have indeed a claim to the honours of chivalry, he ought

to know that he stands degraded by his present association, and has no

right to ask reckoning at the hands of good men of noble blood. Touching

the prisoners we have made, we do in Christian charity require you to

send a man of religion, to receive their confession, and reconcile them

with God; since it is our fixed intention to execute them this morning

before noon, so that their heads being placed on the battlements,

shall show to all men how lightly we esteem those who have bestirred

themselves in their rescue. Wherefore, as above, we require you to send

a priest to reconcile them to God, in doing which you shall render them

the last earthly service."

This letter being folded, was delivered to the squire, and by him to

the messenger who waited without, as the answer to that which he had

brought.

The yeoman having thus accomplished his mission, returned to the

head-quarters of the allies, which were for the present established

under a venerable oak-tree, about three arrow-flights distant from the

castle. Here Wamba and Gurth, with their allies the Black Knight and

Locksley, and the jovial hermit, awaited with impatience an answer to

their summons. Around, and at a distance from them, were seen many a

bold yeoman, whose silvan dress and weatherbeaten countenances showed

the ordinary nature of their occupation. More than two hundred had

already assembled, and others were fast coming in. Those whom they

obeyed as leaders were only distinguished from the others by a feather

in the cap, their dress, arms, and equipments being in all other

respects the same.

Besides these bands, a less orderly and a worse armed force, consisting

of the Saxon inhabitants of the neighbouring township, as well as

many bondsmen and servants from Cedric's extensive estate, had already

arrived, for the purpose of assisting in his rescue. Few of these were

armed otherwise than with such rustic weapons as necessity sometimes

converts to military purposes. Boar-spears, scythes, flails, and the

like, were their chief arms; for the Normans, with the usual policy

of conquerors, were jealous of permitting to the vanquished Saxons the

possession or the use of swords and spears. These circumstances rendered

the assistance of the Saxons far from being so formidable to the

besieged, as the strength of the men themselves, their superior numbers,

and the animation inspired by a just cause, might otherwise well have

made them. It was to the leaders of this motley army that the letter of

the Templar was now delivered.