"You errant cavaliers," said he,
addressing the knight, "may now perceive that others have their
travail and their toils to undergo as well as your honoured faculty.
And this I will say for myself and the soldiers of Saint Mary, among
whom I may be termed captain, that it is not our wont to flinch from
the heat of the service, or to withdraw from the good fight. No, by
Saint Mary!--no sooner did I learn that you were here, and dared
not for certain reasons come to the Monastery, where, with as good
will, and with more convenience, we might have given you a better
reception, than, striking the table with my hammer, I called a
brother--Timothy, said I, let them saddle Benedict--let them saddle my
black palfrey, and bid the Sub-Prior and some half-score of attendants
be in readiness tomorrow after matins--we would ride to
Glendearg.--Brother Timothy stared, thinking, I imagine, that his ears
had scarce done him justice--but I repeated my commands, and said, Let
the Kitchener and Refectioner go before to aid the poor vassals to
whom the place belongs in making a suitable collation. So that you
will consider, good Sir Piercie, our mutual in commodities, and
forgive whatever you may find amiss"
"By my faith," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "there is nothing to
forgive--If you spiritual warriors have to submit to the grievous
incommodities which your lordship narrates, it would ill become me, a
sinful and secular man, to complain of a bed as hard as a board, of
broth which relished as if made of burnt wool, of flesh, which, in its
sable and singed shape, seemed to put me on a level with Richard
Coeur-de-Lion,--when he ate up the head of a Moor carbonadoed, and of
other viands savouring rather of the rusticity of this northern
region.
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