So saying, he struck up a thundering de profundis clamavi, under cover of which he removed the apparatus of their banquet: while the knight, laughing heartily, and arming himself all the while, assisted his host with his voice from time to time as his mirth permitted.
“What devil’s matins are you after at this hour?” said a voice from without.
“Heaven forgive you, Sir Traveller!” said the hermit, whose own noise, and perhaps his nocturnal potations, prevented from recognising accents which were tolerably familiar to him—“Wend on your way, in the name of God and Saint Dunstan, and disturb not the devotions of me and my holy brother.”
“Mad priest,” answered the voice from without, “open to Locksley!”
“All’s safe—all’s right,” said the hermit to his companion.
“But who is he?” said the Black Knight; “it imports me much to know.”
“Who is he?” answered the hermit; “I tell thee he is a friend.”
“But what friend?” answered the knight; “for he may be friend to thee and none of mine?”
“What friend?” replied the hermit; “that, now, is one of the questions that is more easily asked than answered. What friend?—why, he is, now that I bethink me a little, the very same honest keeper I told thee of a while since.”
“Ay, as honest a keeper as thou art a pious hermit,” replied the knight, “I doubt it not. But undo the door to him before he beat it from its hinges.”