"For fear of the Saxons?" said De Bracy, laughing; "we should need no
weapon but our hunting spears to bring these boars to bay."
"A truce with your raillery, Sir Knights," said Fitzurse;--"and it
were well," he added, addressing the Prince, "that your highness should
assure the worthy Cedric there is no insult intended him by jests, which
must sound but harshly in the ear of a stranger."
"Insult?" answered Prince John, resuming his courtesy of demeanour; "I
trust it will not be thought that I could mean, or permit any, to be
offered in my presence. Here! I fill my cup to Cedric himself, since he
refuses to pledge his son's health."
The cup went round amid the well-dissembled applause of the courtiers,
which, however, failed to make the impression on the mind of the Saxon
that had been designed. He was not naturally acute of perception,
but those too much undervalued his understanding who deemed that this
flattering compliment would obliterate the sense of the prior insult. He
was silent, however, when the royal pledge again passed round, "To Sir
Athelstane of Coningsburgh."
The knight made his obeisance, and showed his sense of the honour by
draining a huge goblet in answer to it.
"And now, sirs," said Prince John, who began to be warmed with the wine
which he had drank, "having done justice to our Saxon guests, we
will pray of them some requital to our courtesy.--Worthy Thane," he
continued, addressing Cedric, "may we pray you to name to us some Norman
whose mention may least sully your mouth, and to wash down with a goblet
of wine all bitterness which the sound may leave behind it?"
Fitzurse arose while Prince John spoke, and gliding behind the seat of
the Saxon, whispered to him not to omit the opportunity of putting an
end to unkindness betwixt the two races, by naming Prince John. The
Saxon replied not to this politic insinuation, but, rising up, and
filling his cup to the brim, he addressed Prince John in these words:
"Your highness has required that I should name a Norman deserving to
be remembered at our banquet. This, perchance, is a hard task, since
it calls on the slave to sing the praises of the master--upon the
vanquished, while pressed by all the evils of conquest, to sing the
praises of the conqueror. Yet I will name a Norman--the first in arms
and in place--the best and the noblest of his race. And the lips that
shall refuse to pledge me to his well-earned fame, I term false and
dishonoured, and will so maintain them with my life.--I quaff this
goblet to the health of Richard the Lion-hearted!"