ts, "fetch me the right
Cedric hither, and I pardon your error for once; the rather that you but
mistook a fool for a Saxon franklin."

"Ay, but," said Wamba, "your chivalrous excellency will find there are
more fools than franklins among us."

"What means the knave?" said Front-de-Boeuf, looking towards his
followers, who, lingering and loath, faltered forth their belief, that
if this were not Cedric who was there in presence, they knew not what
was become of him.

"Saints of Heaven!" exclaimed De Bracy, "he must have escaped in the
monk's garments!"

"Fiends of hell!" echoed Front-de-Boeuf, "it was then the boar of
Rotherwood whom I ushered to the postern, and dismissed with my own
hands!--And thou," he said to Wamba, "whose folly could overreach the
wisdom of idiots yet more gross than thyself--I will give thee holy
orders--I will shave thy crown for thee!--Here, let them tear the scalp
from his head, and then pitch him headlong from the battlements--Thy
trade is to jest, canst thou jest now?"

"You deal with me better than your word, noble knight," whimpered forth
poor Wamba, whose habits of buffoonery were not to be overcome even
by the immediate prospect of death; "if you give me the red cap you
propose, out of a simple monk you will make a cardinal."

"The poor wretch," said De Bracy, "is resolved to die in his
vocation.--Front-de-Boeuf, you shall not slay him. Give him to me to
make sport for my Free Companions.--How sayst thou, knave? Wilt thou
take heart of grace, and go to the wars with me?"

"Ay, with my master's leave," said Wamba; "for, look you, I must
not slip collar" (and he touched that which he wore) "without his
permission."

"Oh, a Norman saw will soon cut a Saxon collar." said De Bracy.

"Ay, noble sir," said Wamba, "and thence goes the proverb--

'Norman saw on English oak,
On English neck a Norman yoke;
Norman spoon in English dish,
And England ruled as Normans wish;
Blithe world to England never will be more,
Till England's rid of all the four.'"

"Thou dost well, De Bracy," said Front-de-Boeuf, "to stand there
listening to a fool's jargon, when destruction is gaping for us! Seest
thou not we are overreached, and that our proposed mode of communicating
with our friends without has been disconcerted by this same motley
gentleman thou art so fond to brother? What views have we to expect but
instant storm?"

"To the battlements then," said De Bracy; "