ass. In truth,
she would have had little of her lover's company, if she had liked the
chaunt of the choristers better than the cry of the hounds: yet I
know not; for they were companions from the cradle, and reciprocally
fashioned each other to the love of the fern and the foxglove. Had
either been less sylvan, the other might have been more saintly; but
they will now never hear matins but those of the lark, nor reverence
vaulted aisle but that of the greenwood canopy. They are twin plants of
the forest, and are identified with its growth.

For the slender beech and the sapling oak,
That grow by the shadowy rill,
You may cut down both at a single stroke,
You may cut down which you will.

But this you must know, that as long as they grow
Whatever change may be,
You never can teach either oak or beech
To be aught but a greenwood tree."

CHAPTER III

Inflamed wrath in glowing breast.--BUTLER.

The knight and the friar arriving at Arlingford Castle, and leaving
their horses in the care of lady Matilda's groom, with whom the friar
was in great favour, were ushered into a stately apartment, where they
found the baron alone, flourishing an enormous carving-knife over a
brother baron--of beef--with as much vehemence of action as if he
were cutting down an enemy. The baron was a gentleman of a fierce and
choleric temperament: he was lineally descended from the redoubtable
Fierabras of Normandy, who came over to England with the Conqueror, and
who, in the battle of Hastings, killed with his own hand four-and-twenty
Saxon cavaliers all on a row. The very excess of the baron's internal
rage on the preceding day had smothered its external manifestation: he
was so equally angry with both parties, that he knew not on which to
vent his wrath. He was enraged with the earl for having brought himself
into such a dilemma without his privily; and he was no less enraged with
the king's men for their very unseasonable intrusion. He could willingly
have fallen upon both parties, but, he must necessarily have begun with
one; and he felt that on whichever side he should strike the first blow,
his retainers would immediately join battle. He had therefore contented
himself with forcing away his daughter from the scene of action. In
the course of the evening he had received intelligence that the earl's
castle was in possession of a party of the king's men, who had been
detached by Sir Ralph Montfaucon to