“Ah! si, Signor Mortimero,” said the Italian, as if suddenly recollecting, and twanging his response obsequiously through his nose, accompanying it at the same time with a profound inclination of his body, “si, avete ragione davvero, I do now remember.”
“’Tis well,” said Sang, “take this then; I shall now go look for Polypheme. Master Spears, I bid thee good day;” and saying so, he walked out of the forge, and, taking the rein of his steed from the groom that attended him, mounted and rode off towards the chapel of St. John’s.
As he approached the gate of the enclosure that surrounded it, he observed a countryman holding two sorry ill-equipped hackneys with one hand, and with the other an enormous heavy long-tailed coarse black waggon-horse, covered with saddle and trappings of no small value; yet, unfit as it seemed for tourney, it bore all the furniture necessary to a steed destined for the lists.
Squire Mortimer dismounted, and, tossing his rein to the groom, hastened into the Chapel, to see what new knight had arrived who could own so unseemly a courser. The crowds who had visited the interior to gaze at the achievements of the chevaliers, were by this time all gone to the lists, and the most perfect stillness reigned within the Chapel. The pages, esquires, and bannermen stood by the heraldic trophies of their respective knights, immovable as statues; and the only sound or motion [[310]]within the place proceeded from a herald who remained to receive and put up the achievement of any knight who might yet arrive before sunset, and to register his name and titles, and who was at that moment employed in doing these offices for him who called himself the Knight of Cheviot.
This colossal man in armour was standing opposite to the place where his achievement was erecting. On the helmet was a furze bush, with the motto, “I prick full sore;” and the blazon bore on a field-vert, a mountain azure, with the sun’s disc beginning to appear from behind it, or, and the motto, “I shall shine.” The gigantic owner was leaning on a spear, the shaft of which looked liker some taper pine-tree of good growth, than any instrument that mortal might be supposed to wield. The vizor of his bassinet was down, and his face was hid so that no one could judge of it or know it; but the very shadow that he threw over the length of the pavement of the transept, even until it rose against the wall at the farther end of it, was enough to have daunted the boldest heart. Sang stood patiently, with his arms folded, attentively surveying him, and the achievement that was rearing for him; and no sooner was the arrangement of it completed than, clutching up the shaft of his lance short in his hand, he bestowed such a thwack with the butt end of it on one cheek of the tilting helmet of the Knight of Cheviot, that he made it sound through the Chapel like a bell, till all the squires, pages, and bannermen started to hear it.
“Who art thou,” demanded the huge figure in a hollow and indistinct voice—“who art thou who darest to challenge the Knight of Cheviot to tilt before the day of tourney?”
“I am Mortimer Sang, esquire of the body of the renowned Sir Patrick Hepborne, younger of Hailes,” replied he, “and thus may the herald inscribe me, so please him. Achievement have I none at present, but a bold heart and doughty deeds may yet win me a proud one. I do crave the boon of a meeting from thee, mighty Knight of Mountains, so soon as the lists may be free for us.”
“Am I, a knight, obliged to give ear to the challenge of an esquire?” demanded he of Cheviot.
“Sir Knight,” said the herald, “such matchers are not without example, both for jousting and outrance. But to-day and to-morrow are set apart for giving license to all esquires and pages of good report, who have fair reason to hope that they may one day win their spurs, that they may challenge whom they list.”
“I could have wished some nobler antagonist to begin with,” [[311]]muttered the Knight of Cheviot; “I could have wished that Sir Patrick Hepborne——”