of
Copmanhurst?" said the Black Knight.

"Never since my wine-butt leaked, and let out its liquor by an illegal
vent," replied the friar, "and so left me nothing to drink but my
patron's bounty here."

Then plunging his hands and head into the fountain, he washed from them
all marks of the midnight revel.

Thus refreshed and sobered, the jolly priest twirled his heavy partisan
round his head with three fingers, as if he had been balancing a reed,
exclaiming at the same time, "Where be those false ravishers, who carry
off wenches against their will? May the foul fiend fly off with me, if I
am not man enough for a dozen of them."

"Swearest thou, Holy Clerk?" said the Black Knight.

"Clerk me no Clerks," replied the transformed priest; "by Saint George
and the Dragon, I am no longer a shaveling than while my frock is on my
back--When I am cased in my green cassock, I will drink, swear, and woo
a lass, with any blithe forester in the West Riding."

"Come on, Jack Priest," said Locksley, "and be silent; thou art as noisy
as a whole convent on a holy eve, when the Father Abbot has gone to
bed.--Come on you, too, my masters, tarry not to talk of it--I say, come
on, we must collect all our forces, and few enough we shall have, if we
are to storm the Castle of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf."

"What! is it Front-de-Boeuf," said the Black Knight, "who has stopt on
the king's highway the king's liege subjects?--Is he turned thief and
oppressor?"

"Oppressor he ever was," said Locksley.

"And for thief," said the priest, "I doubt if ever he were even half so
honest a man as many a thief of my acquaintance."

"Move on, priest, and be silent," said the yeoman; "it were better you
led the way to the place of rendezvous, than say what should be left
unsaid, both in decency and prudence."

CHAPTER XXI

Alas, how many hours and years have past,
Since human forms have round this table sate,
Or lamp, or taper, on its surface gleam'd!
Methinks, I hear the sound of time long pass'd
Still murmuring o'er us, in the lofty void
Of these dark arches, like the ling'ring voices
Of those who long within their graves have slept.
Orra, a Tragedy

While these measures were taking in behalf of Cedric and his companions,
the armed men by whom the latter had been seized, hurried their captives
along towards the place of security, where they intended to imprison
them. But darkness came on fast, and