"
"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.
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