Ivanhoe, who had other web to weave than to stand canvassing a palfrey’s paces with its owner, lent but a deaf ear to the Prior’s grave advices and facetious jests, and having leapt on his mare, and commanded his squire (for such Gurth now called himself) to keep close by his side, he followed the track of the Black Knight into the forest, while the Prior stood at the gate of the convent looking after him, and ejaculating⁠—“Saint Mary! how prompt and fiery be these men of war! I would I had not trusted Malkin to his keeping, for, crippled as I am with the cold rheum, I am undone if aught but good befalls her. And yet,” said he, recollecting himself, “as I would not spare my own old and disabled limbs in the good cause of Old England, so Malkin must e’en run her hazard on the same venture; and it may be they will think our poor house worthy of some munificent guerdon⁠—or, it may be, they will send the old Prior a pacing nag. And if they do none of these, as great men will forget little men’s service, truly I shall hold me well repaid in having done that which is right. And it is now well-nigh the fitting time to summon the brethren to breakfast in the refectory⁠—Ah! I doubt they obey that call more cheerily than the bells for primes and matins.”