The friar was now completely accoutred as a yeoman, with sword and
buckler, bow, and quiver, and a strong partisan over his shoulder. He
left his cell at the head of the party, and, having carefully locked the
door, deposited the key under the threshold.
"Art thou in condition to do good service, friar," said Locksley, "or
does the brown bowl still run in thy head?"
"Not more than a drought of St Dunstan's fountain will allay," answered
the priest; "something there is of a whizzing in my brain, and of
instability in my legs, but you shall presently see both pass away."
So saying, he stepped to the stone basin, in which the waters of
the fountain as they fell formed bubbles which danced in the white
moonlight, and took so long a drought as if he had meant to exhaust the
spring.
"When didst thou drink as deep a drought of water before, Holy Clerk 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?"