take upon him, for the nonce, this same character
of father confessor?"

All looked on each other, and were silent.

"I see," said Wamba, after a short pause, "that the fool must be still
the fool, and put his neck in the venture which wise men shrink from.
You must know, my dear cousins and countrymen, that I wore russet before
I wore motley, and was bred to be a friar, until a brain-fever came
upon me and left me just wit enough to be a fool. I trust, with the
assistance of the good hermit's frock, together with the priesthood,
sanctity, and learning which are stitched into the cowl of it, I shall
be found qualified to administer both worldly and ghostly comfort to our
worthy master Cedric, and his companions in adversity."

"Hath he sense enough, thinkst thou?" said the Black Knight, addressing
Gurth.

"I know not," said Gurth; "but if he hath not, it will be the first time
he hath wanted wit to turn his folly to account."

"On with the frock, then, good fellow," quoth the Knight, "and let thy
master send us an account of their situation within the castle. Their
numbers must be few, and it is five to one they may be accessible by a
sudden and bold attack. Time wears--away with thee."

"And, in the meantime," said Locksley, "we will beset the place so
closely, that not so much as a fly shall carry news from thence. So
that, my good friend," he continued, addressing Wamba, "thou mayst
assure these tyrants, that whatever violence they exercise on the
persons of their prisoners, shall be most severely repaid upon their
own."

"Pax vobiscum," said Wamba, who was now muffled in his religious
disguise.

And so saying he imitated the solemn and stately deportment of a friar,
and departed to execute his mission.

CHAPTER XXVI

The hottest horse will oft be cool,
The dullest will show fire;
The friar will often play the fool,
The fool will play the friar.
--Old Song

When the Jester, arrayed in the cowl and frock of the hermit, and having
his knotted cord twisted round his middle, stood before the portal of
the castle of Front-de-Boeuf, the warder demanded of him his name and
errand.

"Pax vobiscum," answered the Jester, "I am a poor brother of the Order
of St Francis, who come hither to do my office to certain unhappy
prisoners now secured within this castle."

"Thou art a bold friar," said the warder, "to come hither, where, saving
our own drunken confessor, a cock of thy f