“My sweet lord,” again interposed Rowena, “mention him not.”
“Why? Because thou and he were so tender in days of yore—when you could not bear my plain face, being all in love with his pale one?”
“Those times are past now, dear Athelstane,” said his affectionate wife, looking up to the ceiling.
“Marry, thou never couldst forgive him the Jewess, Rowena.”
“The odious hussy! don't mention the name of the unbelieving creature,” exclaimed the lady.
“Well, well, poor Wil was a good lad—a thought melancholy and milksop though. Why, a pint of sack fuddled his poor brains.”
“Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe was a good lance,” said the friar. “I have heard there was none better in Christendom. He lay in our convent after his wounds, and it was there we tended him till he died. He was buried in our north cloister.”
“And there's an end of him,” said Athelstane. “But come, this is dismal talk. Where's Wamba the Jester? Let us have a song. Stir up, Wamba, and don't lie like a dog in the fire! Sing us a song, thou crack-brained jester, and leave off whimpering for bygones. Tush, man! There be many good fellows left in this world.”
“There be buzzards in eagles' nests,” Wamba said, who was lying stretched before the fire, sharing the hearth with the Thane's dogs. “There be dead men alive, and live men dead. There be merry songs and dismal songs. Marry, and the merriest are the saddest sometimes. I will leave off motley and wear black, gossip Athelstane. I will turn howler at funerals, and then, perhaps, I shall be merry. Motley is fit for mutes, and black for fools. Give me some drink, gossip, for my voice is as cracked as my brain.”
“Drink and sing, thou beast, and cease prating,” the Thane said.