Bot-S: Ivanhoe

“Go, search them out, Engelred,” said Front-de-Boeuf; “and then, Sir
Templar, thou shalt return an answer to this bold challenge.”

“I would rather do it at the sword’s point than at that of the pen,”
 said Bois-Guilbert; “but be it as you will.”

He sat down accordingly, and indited, in the French language, an epistle
of the following tenor:--“Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, with his noble
and knightly allies and confederates, receive no defiances at the hands
of slaves, bondsmen, or fugitives. If the person calling himself the
Black Knight have indeed a claim to the honours of chivalry, he ought
to know that he stands degraded by his present association, and has no
right to ask reckoning at the hands of good men of noble blood. Touching
the prisoners we have made, we do in Christian charity require you to
send a man of religion, to receive their confession, and reconcile them
with God; since it is our fixed intention to execute them this morning
before noon, so that their heads being placed on the battlements,
shall show to all men how lightly we esteem those who have bestirred
themselves in their rescue. Wherefore, as above, we require you to send
a priest to reconcile them to God, in doing which you shall render them
the last earthly service.”

This letter being folded, was delivered to the squire, and by him to
the messenger who waited without, as the answer to that which he had
brought.

The yeoman having thus accomplished his mission, returned to the
head-quarters of the allies, which were for the present established
under a venerable oak-tree, about three arrow-flights distant from the
castle. Here Wamba and Gurth, with their allies the Black Knight and
Locksley, and the jovial hermit, awaited with impatience an answer to
their summons. Around, and at a distance from them, were seen many a
bold yeoman, whose silvan dress and weatherbeaten countenances showed
the ordinary nature of their occupation. More than two hundred had
already assembled, and others were fast coming in. Those whom they
obeyed as leaders were only distinguished from the others by a feather
in the cap, their dress, arms, and equipments being in all other
respects the same.

Besides these bands, a less orderly and a worse armed force, consisting
of the Saxon inhabitants of the neighbouring township, as well as
many bondsmen and servants from Cedric’s extensive estate, had already
arrived, for the purpose of assisting in his rescue. Few of these were
armed otherwise than with such rustic weapons as necessity sometimes
converts to military purposes. Boar-spears, scythes, flails, and the
like, were their chief arms; for the Normans, with the usual policy
of conquerors, were jealous of permitting to the vanquished Saxons the
possession or the use of swords and spears. These circumstances rendered
the assistance of the Saxons far from being so formidable to the
besieged, as the strength of the men themselves, their superior numbers,
and the animation inspired by a just cause, might otherwise well have
made them. It was to the leaders of this motley army that the letter of
the Templar was now delivered.

Reference was at first made to the chaplain for an exposition of its
contents.

“By the crook of St Dunstan,” said that worthy ecclesiastic, “which hath
brought more sheep within the sheepfold than the crook of e’er another
saint in Paradise, I swear that I cannot expound unto you this jargon,
which, whether it be French or Arabic, is beyond my guess.”

He then gave the letter to Gurth, who shook his head gruffly, and passed
it to Wamba. The Jester looked at each of the four corners of the paper
with such a grin of affected intelligence as a monkey is apt to assume
upon similar occasions, then cut a caper, and gave the letter to
Locksley.

“If the long letters were bows, and the short letters broad arrows, I
might know something of the matter,” said the brave yeoman; “but as the
matter stands, the meaning is as safe, for me, as the stag that’s at
twelve miles distance.”

“I must be clerk, then,” said the Black Knight; and taking the letter
from Locksley, he first read it over to himself, and then explained the
meaning in Saxon to his confederates.

“Execute the noble Cedric!” exclaimed Wamba; “by the rood, thou must be
mistaken, Sir Knight.”

“Not I, my worthy friend,” replied the knight, “I have explained the
words as they are here set down.”

“Then, by St Thomas of Canterbury,” replied Gurth, “we will have the
castle, should we tear it down with our hands!”

“We have nothing else to tear it with,” replied Wamba; “but mine are
scarce fit to make mammocks of freestone and mortar.”

“‘Tis but a contrivance to gain time,” said Locksley; “they dare not do
a deed for which I could exact a fearful penalty.”

“I would,” said the Black Knight, “there were some one among us who
could obtain admission into the castle, and discover how the case stands
with the besieged. Methinks, as they require a confessor to be sent,
this holy hermit might at once exercise his pious vocation, and procure
us the information we desire.”

“A plague on thee, and thy advice!” said the pious hermit; “I tell thee,
Sir Slothful Knight, that when I doff my friar’s frock, my priesthood,
my sanctity, my very Latin, are put off along with it; and when in my
green jerkin, I can better kill twenty deer than confess one Christian.”

“I fear,” said the Black Knight, “I fear greatly, there is no one here
that is qualified to take upon him, for the nonce, this same character
of father confessor?”

All looked on each other, and were silent.

“I see,” said Wamba, after a short pause, “that the fool must be still
the fool, and put his neck in the venture which wise men shrink from.
You must know, my dear cousins and countrymen, that I wore russet before
I wore motley, and was bred to be a friar, until a brain-fever came
upon me and left me just wit enough to be a fool. I trust, with the
assistance of the good hermit’s frock, together with the priesthood,
sanctity, and learning which are stitched into the cowl of it, I shall
be found qualified to administer both worldly and ghostly comfort to our
worthy master Cedric, and his companions in adversity.”

“Hath he sense enough, thinkst thou?” said the Black Knight, addressing
Gurth.

“I know not,” said Gurth; “but if he hath not, it will be the first time
he hath wanted wit to turn his folly to account.”

“On with the frock, then, good fellow,” quoth the Knight, “and let thy
master send us an account of their situation within the castle. Their
numbers must be few, and it is five to one they may be accessible by a
sudden and bold attack. Time wears--away with thee.”

“And, in the meantime,” said Locksley, “we will beset the place so
closely, that not so much as a fly shall carry news from thence. So
that, my good friend,” he continued, addressing Wamba, “thou mayst
assure these tyrants, that whatever violence they exercise on the
persons of their prisoners, shall be most severely repaid upon their
own.”

“Pax vobiscum,” said Wamba, who was now muffled in his religious
disguise.

And so saying he imitated the solemn and stately deportment of a friar,
and departed to execute his mission.




CHAPTER XXVI

     The hottest horse will oft be cool,
     The dullest will show fire;
     The friar will often play the fool,
     The fool will play the friar.
     --Old Song

When the Jester, arrayed in the cowl and frock of the hermit, and having
his knotted cord twisted round his middle, stood before the portal of
the castle of Front-de-Boeuf, the warder demanded of him his name and
errand.

“Pax vobiscum,” answered the Jester, “I am a poor brother of the Order
of St Francis, who come hither to do my office to certain unhappy
prisoners now secured within this castle.”

“Thou art a bold friar,” said the warder, “to come hither, where, saving
our own drunken confessor, a cock of thy feather hath not crowed these
twenty years.”

“Yet I pray thee, do mine errand to the lord of the castle,” answered
the pretended friar; “trust me it will find good acceptance with him,
and the cock shall crow, that the whole castle shall hear him.”

“Gramercy,” said the warder; “but if I come to shame for leaving my
post upon thine errand, I will try whether a friar’s grey gown be proof
against a grey-goose shaft.”

With this threat he left his turret, and carried to the hall of the
castle his unwonted intelligence, that a holy friar stood before the
gate and demanded instant admission. With no small wonder he received
his master’s commands to admit the holy man immediately; and, having
previously manned the entrance to guard against surprise, he obeyed,
without further scruple, the commands which he had received. The
harebrained self-conceit which had emboldened Wamba to undertake this
dangerous office, was scarce sufficient to support him when he found
himself in the presence of a man so dreadful, and so much dreaded, as
Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, and he brought out his “pax vobiscum”, to which
he, in a good measure, trusted for supporting his character, with
more anxiety and hesitation than had hitherto accompanied it. But
Front-de-Boeuf was accustomed to see men of all ranks tremble in his
presence, so that the timidity of the supposed father did not give him
any cause of suspicion.

“Who and whence art thou, priest?” said he.

“‘Pax vobiscum’,” reiterated the Jester, “I am a poor servant of St
Francis, who, travelling through this wilderness, have fallen among
thieves, (as Scripture hath it,) ‘quidam viator incidit in latrones’,
which thieves have sent me unto this castle in order to do my ghostly
office on two persons condemned by your honourable justice.”

“Ay, right,” answered Front-de-Boeuf; “and canst thou tell me, holy
father, the number of those banditti?”

“Gallant sir,” answered the Jester, “‘nomen illis legio’, their name is
legion.”

“Tell me in plain terms what numbers there are, or, priest, thy cloak
and cord will ill protect thee.”

“Alas!” said the supposed friar, “‘cor meum eructavit’, that is to
say, I was like to burst with fear! but I conceive they may be--what of
yeomen--what of commons, at least five hundred men.”

“What!” said the Templar, who came into the hall that moment, “muster
the wasps so thick here? it is time to stifle such a mischievous brood.”
 Then taking Front-de-Boeuf aside “Knowest thou the priest?”

“He is a stranger from a distant convent,” said Front-de-Boeuf; “I know
him not.”

“Then trust him not with thy purpose in words,” answered the Templar.
“Let him carry a written order to De Bracy’s company of Free Companions,
to repair instantly to their master’s aid. In the meantime, and that the
shaveling may suspect nothing, permit him to go freely about his task of
preparing these Saxon hogs for the slaughter-house.”

“It shall be so,” said Front-de-Boeuf. And he forthwith appointed a
domestic to conduct Wamba to the apartment where Cedric and Athelstane
were confined.

The impatience of Cedric had been rather enhanced than diminished by his
confinement. He walked from one end of the hall to the other, with the
attitude of one who advances to charge an enemy, or to storm the breach
of a beleaguered place, sometimes ejaculating to himself, sometimes
addressing Athelstane, who stoutly and stoically awaited the issue of
the adventure, digesting, in the meantime, with great composure, the
liberal meal which he had made at noon, and not greatly interesting
himself about the duration of his captivity, which he concluded, would,
like all earthly evils, find an end in Heaven’s good time.

“‘Pax vobiscum’,” said the Jester, entering the apartment; “the blessing
of St Dunstan, St Dennis, St Duthoc, and all other saints whatsoever, be
upon ye and about ye.”

“Enter freely,” answered Cedric to the supposed friar; “with what intent
art thou come hither?”

“To bid you prepare yourselves for death,” answered the Jester.

“It is impossible!” replied Cedric, starting. “Fearless and wicked as
they are, they dare not attempt such open and gratuitous cruelty!”

“Alas!” said the Jester, “to restrain them by their sense of humanity,
is the same as to stop a runaway horse with a bridle of silk thread.
Bethink thee, therefore, noble Cedric, and you also, gallant Athelstane,
what crimes you have committed in the flesh; for this very day will ye
be called to answer at a higher tribunal.”

“Hearest thou this, Athelstane?” said Cedric; “we must rouse up our
hearts to this last action, since better it is we should die like men,
than live like slaves.”

“I am ready,” answered Athelstane, “to stand the worst of their malice,
and shall walk to my death with as much composure as ever I did to my
dinner.”

“Let us then unto our holy gear, father,” said Cedric.

“Wait yet a moment, good uncle,” said the Jester, in his natural tone;
“better look long before you leap in the dark.”

“By my faith,” said Cedric, “I should know that voice!”

“It is that of your trusty slave and jester,” answered Wamba, throwing
back his cowl. “Had you taken a fool’s advice formerly, you would not
have been here at all. Take a fool’s advice now, and you will not be
here long.”

“How mean’st thou, knave?” answered the Saxon.

“Even thus,” replied Wamba; “take thou this frock and cord, which are
all the orders I ever had, and march quietly out of the castle, leaving
me your cloak and girdle to take the long leap in thy stead.”

“Leave thee in my stead!” said Cedric, astonished at the proposal; “why,
they would hang thee, my poor knave.”

“E’en let them do as they are permitted,” said Wamba; “I trust--no
disparagement to your birth--that the son of Witless may hang in a chain
with as much gravity as the chain hung upon his ancestor the alderman.”

“Well, Wamba,” answered Cedric, “for one thing will I grant thy request.
And that is, if thou wilt make the exchange of garments with Lord
Athelstane instead of me.”

“No, by St Dunstan,” answered Wamba; “there were little reason in that.
Good right there is, that the son of Witless should suffer to save
the son of Hereward; but little wisdom there were in his dying for the
benefit of one whose fathers were strangers to his.”

“Villain,” said Cedric, “the fathers of Athelstane were monarchs of
England!”

“They might be whomsoever they pleased,” replied Wamba; “but my neck
stands too straight upon my shoulders to have it twisted for their sake.
Wherefore, good my master, either take my proffer yourself, or suffer me
to leave this dungeon as free as I entered.”

“Let the old tree wither,” continued Cedric, “so the stately hope of the
forest be preserved. Save the noble Athelstane, my trusty Wamba! it is
the duty of each who has Saxon blood in his veins. Thou and I will abide
together the utmost rage of our injurious oppressors, while he, free and
safe, shall arouse the awakened spirits of our countrymen to avenge us.”

“Not so, father Cedric,” said Athelstane, grasping his hand,--for, when
roused to think or act, his deeds and sentiments were not unbecoming his
high race--“Not so,” he continued; “I would rather remain in this hall
a week without food save the prisoner’s stinted loaf, or drink save
the prisoner’s measure of water, than embrace the opportunity to escape
which the slave’s untaught kindness has purveyed for his master.”

“You are called wise men, sirs,” said the Jester, “and I a crazed fool;
but, uncle Cedric, and cousin Athelstane, the fool shall decide this
controversy for ye, and save ye the trouble of straining courtesies any
farther. I am like John-a-Duck’s mare, that will let no man mount
her but John-a-Duck. I came to save my master, and if he will not
consent--basta--I can but go away home again. Kind service cannot be
chucked from hand to hand like a shuttlecock or stool-ball. I’ll hang
for no man but my own born master.”

“Go, then, noble Cedric,” said Athelstane, “neglect not this
opportunity. Your presence without may encourage friends to our
rescue--your remaining here would ruin us all.”

“And is there any prospect, then, of rescue from without?” said Cedric,
looking to the Jester.

“Prospect, indeed!” echoed Wamba; “let me tell you, when you fill my
cloak, you are wrapped in a general’s cassock. Five hundred men are
there without, and I was this morning one of the chief leaders. My
fool’s cap was a casque, and my bauble a truncheon. Well, we shall see
what good they will make by exchanging a fool for a wise man. Truly, I
fear they will lose in valour what they may gain in discretion. And so
farewell, master, and be kind to poor Gurth and his dog Fangs; and let
my cockscomb hang in the hall at Rotherwood, in memory that I flung away
my life for my master, like a faithful---fool.”

The last word came out with a sort of double expression, betwixt jest
and earnest. The tears stood in Cedric’s eyes.

“Thy memory shall be preserved,” he said, “while fidelity and affection
have honour upon earth! But that I trust I shall find the means of
saving Rowena, and thee, Athelstane, and thee, also, my poor Wamba, thou
shouldst not overbear me in this matter.”

The exchange of dress was now accomplished, when a sudden doubt struck
Cedric.

“I know no language,” he said, “but my own, and a few words of their
mincing Norman. How shall I bear myself like a reverend brother?”

“The spell lies in two words,” replied Wamba--“‘Pax vobiscum’ will
answer all queries. If you go or come, eat or drink, bless or ban, ‘Pax
vobiscum’ carries you through it all. It is as useful to a friar as a
broomstick to a witch, or a wand to a conjurer. Speak it but thus, in a
deep grave tone,--‘Pax vobiscum!’--it is irresistible--Watch and ward,
knight and squire, foot and horse, it acts as a charm upon them all.
I think, if they bring me out to be hanged to-morrow, as is much to
be doubted they may, I will try its weight upon the finisher of the
sentence.”

“If such prove the case,” said the master, “my religious orders are soon
taken--‘Pax vobiscum’. I trust I shall remember the pass-word.--Noble
Athelstane, farewell; and farewell, my poor boy, whose heart might make
amends for a weaker head--I will save you, or return and die with you.
The royal blood of our Saxon kings shall not be spilt while mine beats
in my veins; nor shall one hair fall from the head of the kind knave
who risked himself for his master, if Cedric’s peril can prevent
it.--Farewell.”

“Farewell, noble Cedric,” said Athelstane; “remember it is the true part
of a friar to accept refreshment, if you are offered any.”

“Farewell, uncle,” added Wamba; “and remember ‘Pax vobiscum’.”

Thus exhorted, Cedric sallied forth upon his expedition; and it was not
long ere he had occasion to try the force of that spell which his Jester
had recommended as omnipotent. In a low-arched and dusky passage, by
which he endeavoured to work his way to the hall of the castle, he was
interrupted by a female form.

“‘Pax vobiscum!’” said the pseudo friar, and was endeavouring to
hurry past, when a soft voice replied, “‘Et vobis--quaso, domine
reverendissime, pro misericordia vestra’.”

“I am somewhat deaf,” replied Cedric, in good Saxon, and at the same
time muttered to himself, “A curse on the fool and his ‘Pax vobiscum!’ I
have lost my javelin at the first cast.”

It was, however, no unusual thing for a priest of those days to be deaf
of his Latin ear, and this the person who now addressed Cedric knew full
well.

“I pray you of dear love, reverend father,” she replied in his own
language, “that you will deign to visit with your ghostly comfort a
wounded prisoner of this castle, and have such compassion upon him and
us as thy holy office teaches--Never shall good deed so highly advantage
thy convent.”

“Daughter,” answered Cedric, much embarrassed, “my time in this castle
will not permit me to exercise the duties of mine office--I must
presently forth--there is life and death upon my speed.”

“Yet, father, let me entreat you by the vow you have taken on you,”
 replied the suppliant, “not to leave the oppressed and endangered
without counsel or succour.”

“May the fiend fly away with me, and leave me in Ifrin with the souls of
Odin and of Thor!” answered Cedric impatiently, and would probably
have proceeded in the same tone of total departure from his spiritual
character, when the colloquy was interrupted by the harsh voice of
Urfried, the old crone of the turret.

“How, minion,” said she to the female speaker, “is this the manner
in which you requite the kindness which permitted thee to leave thy
prison-cell yonder?--Puttest thou the reverend man to use ungracious
language to free himself from the importunities of a Jewess?”

“A Jewess!” said Cedric, availing himself of the information to get
clear of their interruption,--“Let me pass, woman! stop me not at your
peril. I am fresh from my holy office, and would avoid pollution.”

“Come this way, father,” said the old hag, “thou art a stranger in this
castle, and canst not leave it without a guide. Come hither, for I would
speak with thee.--And you, daughter of an accursed race, go to the sick
man’s chamber, and tend him until my return; and woe betide you if you
again quit it without my permission!”

Rebecca retreated. Her importunities had prevailed upon Urfried to
suffer her to quit the turret, and Urfried had employed her services
where she herself would most gladly have paid them, by the bedside of
the wounded Ivanhoe. With an understanding awake to their dangerous
situation, and prompt to avail herself of each means of safety which
occurred, Rebecca had hoped something from the presence of a man of
religion, who, she learned from Urfried, had penetrated into this
godless castle. She watched the return of the supposed ecclesiastic,
with the purpose of addressing him, and interesting him in favour of
the prisoners; with what imperfect success the reader has been just
acquainted.




CHAPTER XXVII

     Fond wretch! and what canst thou relate,
     But deeds of sorrow, shame, and sin?
     Thy deeds are proved--thou know’st thy fate;
     But come, thy tale--begin--begin.
     * * * * *
     But I have griefs of other kind,
     Troubles and sorrows more severe;
     Give me to ease my tortured mind,
     Lend to my woes a patient ear;
     And let me, if I may not find
     A friend to help--find one to hear.
     --Crabbe’s Hall of Justice

When Urfried had with clamours and menaces driven Rebecca back to the
apartment from which she had sallied, she proceeded to conduct the
unwilling Cedric into a small apartment, the door of which she heedfully
secured. Then fetching from a cupboard a stoup of wine and two flagons,
she placed them on the table, and said in a tone rather asserting a
fact than asking a question, “Thou art Saxon, father--Deny it not,” she
continued, observing that Cedric hastened not to reply; “the sounds of
my native language are sweet to mine ears, though seldom heard save from
the tongues of the wretched and degraded serfs on whom the proud
Normans impose the meanest drudgery of this dwelling. Thou art a
Saxon, father--a Saxon, and, save as thou art a servant of God, a
freeman.--Thine accents are sweet in mine ear.”

“Do not Saxon priests visit this castle, then?” replied Cedric; “it
were, methinks, their duty to comfort the outcast and oppressed children
of the soil.”

“They come not--or if they come, they better love to revel at the boards
of their conquerors,” answered Urfried, “than to hear the groans of
their countrymen--so, at least, report speaks of them--of myself I can
say little. This castle, for ten years, has opened to no priest save
the debauched Norman chaplain who partook the nightly revels of
Front-de-Boeuf, and he has been long gone to render an account of his
stewardship.--But thou art a Saxon--a Saxon priest, and I have one
question to ask of thee.”

“I am a Saxon,” answered Cedric, “but unworthy, surely, of the name of
priest. Let me begone on my way--I swear I will return, or send one of
our fathers more worthy to hear your confession.”

“Stay yet a while,” said Urfried; “the accents of the voice which thou
hearest now will soon be choked with the cold earth, and I would
not descend to it like the beast I have lived. But wine must give me
strength to tell the horrors of my tale.” She poured out a cup, and
drank it with a frightful avidity, which seemed desirous of draining the
last drop in the goblet. “It stupifies,” she said, looking upwards as
she finished her drought, “but it cannot cheer--Partake it, father, if
you would hear my tale without sinking down upon the pavement.” Cedric
would have avoided pledging her in this ominous conviviality, but the
sign which she made to him expressed impatience and despair. He complied
with her request, and answered her challenge in a large wine-cup; she
then proceeded with her story, as if appeased by his complaisance.

“I was not born,” she said, “father, the wretch that thou now seest me.
I was free, was happy, was honoured, loved, and was beloved. I am now a
slave, miserable and degraded--the sport of my masters’ passions while
I had yet beauty--the object of their contempt, scorn, and hatred,
since it has passed away. Dost thou wonder, father, that I should hate
mankind, and, above all, the race that has wrought this change in me?
Can the wrinkled decrepit hag before thee, whose wrath must vent itself
in impotent curses, forget she was once the daughter of the noble Thane
of Torquilstone, before whose frown a thousand vassals trembled?”

“Thou the daughter of Torquil Wolfganger!” said Cedric, receding as he
spoke; “thou--thou--the daughter of that noble Saxon, my father’s friend
and companion in arms!”

“Thy father’s friend!” echoed Urfried; “then Cedric called the Saxon
stands before me, for the noble Hereward of Rotherwood had but one son,
whose name is well known among his countrymen. But if thou art Cedric of
Rotherwood, why this religious dress?--hast thou too despaired of saving
thy country, and sought refuge from oppression in the shade of the
convent?”

“It matters not who I am,” said Cedric; “proceed, unhappy woman, with
thy tale of horror and guilt!--Guilt there must be--there is guilt even
in thy living to tell it.”

“There is--there is,” answered the wretched woman, “deep, black, damning
guilt,--guilt, that lies like a load at my breast--guilt, that all the
penitential fires of hereafter cannot cleanse.--Yes, in these halls,
stained with the noble and pure blood of my father and my brethren--in
these very halls, to have lived the paramour of their murderer, the
slave at once and the partaker of his pleasures, was to render every
breath which I drew of vital air, a crime and a curse.”

“Wretched woman!” exclaimed Cedric. “And while the friends of thy
father--while each true Saxon heart, as it breathed a requiem for his
soul, and those of his valiant sons, forgot not in their prayers the
murdered Ulrica--while all mourned and honoured the dead, thou hast
lived to merit our hate and execration--lived to unite thyself with the
vile tyrant who murdered thy nearest and dearest--who shed the blood
of infancy, rather than a male of the noble house of Torquil Wolfganger
should survive--with him hast thou lived to unite thyself, and in the
hands of lawless love!”

“In lawless hands, indeed, but not in those of love!” answered the
hag; “love will sooner visit the regions of eternal doom, than
those unhallowed vaults.--No, with that at least I cannot reproach
myself--hatred to Front-de-Boeuf and his race governed my soul most
deeply, even in the hour of his guilty endearments.”

“You hated him, and yet you lived,” replied Cedric; “wretch! was there
no poniard--no knife--no bodkin!--Well was it for thee, since thou didst
prize such an existence, that the secrets of a Norman castle are like
those of the grave. For had I but dreamed of the daughter of Torquil
living in foul communion with the murderer of her father, the sword of a
true Saxon had found thee out even in the arms of thy paramour!”

“Wouldst thou indeed have done this justice to the name of Torquil?”
 said Ulrica, for we may now lay aside her assumed name of Urfried;
“thou art then the true Saxon report speaks thee! for even within these
accursed walls, where, as thou well sayest, guilt shrouds itself in
inscrutable mystery, even there has the name of Cedric been sounded--and
I, wretched and degraded, have rejoiced to think that there yet
breathed an avenger of our unhappy nation.--I also have had my hours of
vengeance--I have fomented the quarrels of our foes, and heated drunken
revelry into murderous broil--I have seen their blood flow--I have heard
their dying groans!--Look on me, Cedric--are there not still left on
this foul and faded face some traces of the features of Torquil?”

“Ask me not of them, Ulrica,” replied Cedric, in a tone of grief mixed
with abhorrence; “these traces form such a resemblance as arises from
the graves of the dead, when a fiend has animated the lifeless corpse.”

“Be it so,” answered Ulrica; “yet wore these fiendish features the mask
of a spirit of light when they were able to set at variance the elder
Front-de-Boeuf and his son Reginald! The darkness of hell should hide
what followed, but revenge must lift the veil, and darkly intimate what
it would raise the dead to speak aloud. Long had the smouldering fire of
discord glowed between the tyrant father and his savage son--long had I
nursed, in secret, the unnatural hatred--it blazed forth in an hour of
drunken wassail, and at his own board fell my oppressor by the hand of
his own son--such are the secrets these vaults conceal!--Rend asunder,
ye accursed arches,” she added, looking up towards the roof, “and bury
in your fall all who are conscious of the hideous mystery!”

“And thou, creature of guilt and misery,” said Cedric, “what became thy
lot on the death of thy ravisher?”

“Guess it, but ask it not.--Here--here I dwelt, till age, premature age,
has stamped its ghastly features on my countenance--scorned and insulted
where I was once obeyed, and compelled to bound the revenge which had
once such ample scope, to the efforts of petty malice of a discontented
menial, or the vain or unheeded curses of an impotent hag--condemned
to hear from my lonely turret the sounds of revelry in which I once
partook, or the shrieks and groans of new victims of oppression.”

“Ulrica,” said Cedric, “with a heart which still, I fear, regrets the
lost reward of thy crimes, as much as the deeds by which thou didst
acquire that meed, how didst thou dare to address thee to one who
wears this robe? Consider, unhappy woman, what could the sainted
Edward himself do for thee, were he here in bodily presence? The royal
Confessor was endowed by heaven with power to cleanse the ulcers of the
body, but only God himself can cure the leprosy of the soul.”

“Yet, turn not from me, stern prophet of wrath,” she exclaimed, “but
tell me, if thou canst, in what shall terminate these new and awful
feelings that burst on my solitude--Why do deeds, long since done, rise
before me in new and irresistible horrors? What fate is prepared beyond
the grave for her, to whom God has assigned on earth a lot of such
unspeakable wretchedness? Better had I turn to Woden, Hertha, and
Zernebock--to Mista, and to Skogula, the gods of our yet unbaptized
ancestors, than endure the dreadful anticipations which have of late
haunted my waking and my sleeping hours!”

“I am no priest,” said Cedric, turning with disgust from this miserable
picture of guilt, wretchedness, and despair; “I am no priest, though I
wear a priest’s garment.”

“Priest or layman,” answered Ulrica, “thou art the first I have seen for
twenty years, by whom God was feared or man regarded; and dost thou bid
me despair?”

“I bid thee repent,” said Cedric. “Seek to prayer and penance, and
mayest thou find acceptance! But I cannot, I will not, longer abide with
thee.”

“Stay yet a moment!” said Ulrica; “leave me not now, son of my father’s
friend, lest the demon who has governed my life should tempt me
to avenge myself of thy hard-hearted scorn--Thinkest thou, if
Front-de-Boeuf found Cedric the Saxon in his castle, in such a disguise,
that thy life would be a long one?--Already his eye has been upon thee
like a falcon on his prey.”

“And be it so,” said Cedric; “and let him tear me with beak and talons,
ere my tongue say one word which my heart doth not warrant. I will die
a Saxon--true in word, open in deed--I bid thee avaunt!--touch me not,
stay me not!--The sight of Front-de-Boeuf himself is less odious to me
than thou, degraded and degenerate as thou art.”

“Be it so,” said Ulrica, no longer interrupting him; “go thy way, and
forget, in the insolence of thy superority, that the wretch before thee
is the daughter of thy father’s friend.--Go thy way--if I am separated
from mankind by my sufferings--separated from those whose aid I might
most justly expect--not less will I be separated from them in my
revenge!--No man shall aid me, but the ears of all men shall tingle to
hear of the deed which I shall dare to do!--Farewell!--thy scorn has
burst the last tie which seemed yet to unite me to my kind--a thought
that my woes might claim the compassion of my people.”

“Ulrica,” said Cedric, softened by this appeal, “hast thou borne up and
endured to live through so much guilt and so much misery, and wilt thou
now yield to despair when thine eyes are opened to thy crimes, and when
repentance were thy fitter occupation?”

“Cedric,” answered Ulrica, “thou little knowest the human heart. To act
as I have acted, to think as I have thought, requires the maddening
love of pleasure, mingled with the keen appetite of revenge, the proud
consciousness of power; droughts too intoxicating for the human heart to
bear, and yet retain the power to prevent. Their force has long passed
away--Age has no pleasures, wrinkles have no influence, revenge itself
dies away in impotent curses. Then comes remorse, with all its vipers,
mixed with vain regrets for the past, and despair for the future!--Then,
when all other strong impulses have ceased, we become like the fiends
in hell, who may feel remorse, but never repentance.--But thy words have
awakened a new soul within me--Well hast thou said, all is possible for
those who dare to die!--Thou hast shown me the means of revenge, and be
assured I will embrace them. It has hitherto shared this wasted bosom
with other and with rival passions--henceforward it shall possess me
wholly, and thou thyself shalt say, that, whatever was the life of
Ulrica, her death well became the daughter of the noble Torquil. There
is a force without beleaguering this accursed castle--hasten to lead
them to the attack, and when thou shalt see a red flag wave from the
turret on the eastern angle of the donjon, press the Normans hard--they
will then have enough to do within, and you may win the wall in spite
both of bow and mangonel.--Begone, I pray thee--follow thine own fate,
and leave me to mine.”

Cedric would have enquired farther into the purpose which she thus
darkly announced, but the stern voice of Front-de-Boeuf was heard,
exclaiming, “Where tarries this loitering priest? By the scallop-shell
of Compostella, I will make a martyr of him, if he loiters here to hatch
treason among my domestics!”

“What a true prophet,” said Ulrica, “is an evil conscience! But heed him
not--out and to thy people--Cry your Saxon onslaught, and let them sing
their war-song of Rollo, if they will; vengeance shall bear a burden to
it.”

As she thus spoke, she vanished through a private door, and Reginald
Front-de-Boeuf entered the apartment. Cedric, with some difficulty,
compelled himself to make obeisance to the haughty Baron, who returned
his courtesy with a slight inclination of the head.

“Thy penitents, father, have made a long shrift--it is the better for
them, since it is the last they shall ever make. Hast thou prepared them
for death?”

“I found them,” said Cedric, in such French as he could command,
“expecting the worst, from the moment they knew into whose power they
had fallen.”

“How now, Sir Friar,” replied Front-de-Boeuf, “thy speech, methinks,
smacks of a Saxon tongue?”

“I was bred in the convent of St Withold of Burton,” answered Cedric.

“Ay?” said the Baron; “it had been better for thee to have been a
Norman, and better for my purpose too; but need has no choice of
messengers. That St Withold’s of Burton is an owlet’s nest worth the
harrying. The day will soon come that the frock shall protect the Saxon
as little as the mail-coat.”

“God’s will be done,” said Cedric, in a voice tremulous with passion,
which Front-de-Boeuf imputed to fear.

“I see,” said he, “thou dreamest already that our men-at-arms are in
thy refectory and thy ale-vaults. But do me one cast of thy holy office,
and, come what list of others, thou shalt sleep as safe in thy cell as a
snail within his shell of proof.”

“Speak your commands,” said Cedric, with suppressed emotion.

“Follow me through this passage, then, that I may dismiss thee by the
postern.”

And as he strode on his way before the supposed friar, Front-de-Boeuf
thus schooled him in the part which he desired he should act.

“Thou seest, Sir Friar, yon herd of Saxon swine, who have dared to
environ this castle of Torquilstone--Tell them whatever thou hast a mind
of the weakness of this fortalice, or aught else that can detain them
before it for twenty-four hours. Meantime bear thou this scroll--But
soft--canst read, Sir Priest?”

“Not a jot I,” answered Cedric, “save on my breviary; and then I know
the characters, because I have the holy service by heart, praised be Our
Lady and St Withold!”

“The fitter messenger for my purpose.--Carry thou this scroll to the
castle of Philip de Malvoisin; say it cometh from me, and is written by
the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and that I pray him to send it to
York with all the speed man and horse can make. Meanwhile, tell him
to doubt nothing, he shall find us whole and sound behind our
battlement--Shame on it, that we should be compelled to hide thus by a
pack of runagates, who are wont to fly even at the flash of our pennons
and the tramp of our horses! I say to thee, priest, contrive some cast
of thine art to keep the knaves where they are, until our friends
bring up their lances. My vengeance is awake, and she is a falcon that
slumbers not till she has been gorged.”

“By my patron saint,” said Cedric, with deeper energy than became his
character, “and by every saint who has lived and died in England, your
commands shall be obeyed! Not a Saxon shall stir from before these
walls, if I have art and influence to detain them there.”

“Ha!” said Front-de-Boeuf, “thou changest thy tone, Sir Priest, and
speakest brief and bold, as if thy heart were in the slaughter of the
Saxon herd; and yet thou art thyself of kindred to the swine?”

Cedric was no ready practiser of the art of dissimulation, and would
at this moment have been much the better of a hint from Wamba’s more
fertile brain. But necessity, according to the ancient proverb, sharpens
invention, and he muttered something under his cowl concerning the men
in question being excommunicated outlaws both to church and to kingdom.

“‘Despardieux’,” answered Front-de-Boeuf, “thou hast spoken the very
truth--I forgot that the knaves can strip a fat abbot, as well as if
they had been born south of yonder salt channel. Was it not he of St
Ives whom they tied to an oak-tree, and compelled to sing a mass while
they were rifling his mails and his wallets?--No, by our Lady--that jest
was played by Gualtier of Middleton, one of our own companions-at-arms.
But they were Saxons who robbed the chapel at St Bees of cup,
candlestick and chalice, were they not?”

“They were godless men,” answered Cedric.

“Ay, and they drank out all the good wine and ale that lay in store for
many a secret carousal, when ye pretend ye are but busied with vigils
and primes!--Priest, thou art bound to revenge such sacrilege.”

“I am indeed bound to vengeance,” murmured Cedric; “Saint Withold knows
my heart.”

Front-de-Boeuf, in the meanwhile, led the way to a postern, where,
passing the moat on a single plank, they reached a small barbican,
or exterior defence, which communicated with the open field by a
well-fortified sallyport.

“Begone, then; and if thou wilt do mine errand, and if thou return
hither when it is done, thou shalt see Saxon flesh cheap as ever was
hog’s in the shambles of Sheffield. And, hark thee, thou seemest to be a
jolly confessor--come hither after the onslaught, and thou shalt have as
much Malvoisie as would drench thy whole convent.”

“Assuredly we shall meet again,” answered Cedric.

“Something in hand the whilst,” continued the Norman; and, as they
parted at the postern door, he thrust into Cedric’s reluctant hand a
gold byzant, adding, “Remember, I will fly off both cowl and skin, if
thou failest in thy purpose.”

“And full leave will I give thee to do both,” answered Cedric, leaving
the postern, and striding forth over the free field with a joyful step,
“if, when we meet next, I deserve not better at thine hand.”--Turning
then back towards the castle, he threw the piece of gold towards the
donor, exclaiming at the same time, “False Norman, thy money perish with
thee!”

Front-de-Boeuf heard the words imperfectly, but the action was
suspicious--“Archers,” he called to the warders on the outward
battlements, “send me an arrow through yon monk’s frock!--yet stay,” he
said, as his retainers were bending their bows, “it avails not--we must
thus far trust him since we have no better shift. I think he dares not
betray me--at the worst I can but treat with these Saxon dogs whom
I have safe in kennel.--Ho! Giles jailor, let them bring Cedric of
Rotherwood before me, and the other churl, his companion--him I mean of
Coningsburgh--Athelstane there, or what call they him? Their very names
are an encumbrance to a Norman knight’s mouth, and have, as it were, a
flavour of bacon--Give me a stoup of wine, as jolly Prince John said,
that I may wash away the relish--place it in the armoury, and thither
lead the prisoners.”

His commands were obeyed; and, upon entering that Gothic apartment, hung
with many spoils won by his own valour and that of his father, he found
a flagon of wine on the massive oaken table, and the two Saxon captives
under the guard of four of his dependants. Front-de-Boeuf took a long
drought of wine, and then addressed his prisoners;--for the manner in
which Wamba drew the cap over his face, the change of dress, the gloomy
and broken light, and the Baron’s imperfect acquaintance with the
features of Cedric, (who avoided his Norman neighbours, and seldom
stirred beyond his own domains,) prevented him from discovering that the
most important of his captives had made his escape.

“Gallants of England,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “how relish ye your
entertainment at Torquilstone?--Are ye yet aware what your ‘surquedy’
and ‘outrecuidance’ [31] merit, for scoffing at the entertainment of
a prince of the House of Anjou?--Have ye forgotten how ye requited the
unmerited hospitality of the royal John? By God and St Dennis, an ye pay
not the richer ransom, I will hang ye up by the feet from the iron bars
of these windows, till the kites and hooded crows have made skeletons
of you!--Speak out, ye Saxon dogs--what bid ye for your worthless
lives?--How say you, you of Rotherwood?”

“Not a doit I,” answered poor Wamba--“and for hanging up by the feet,
my brain has been topsy-turvy, they say, ever since the biggin was bound
first round my head; so turning me upside down may peradventure restore
it again.”

“Saint Genevieve!” said Front-de-Boeuf, “what have we got here?”

And with the back of his hand he struck Cedric’s cap from the head of
the Jester, and throwing open his collar, discovered the fatal badge of
servitude, the silver collar round his neck.

“Giles--Clement--dogs and varlets!” exclaimed the furious Norman, “what
have you brought me here?”

“I think I can tell you,” said De Bracy, who just entered the apartment.
“This is Cedric’s clown, who fought so manful a skirmish with Isaac of
York about a question of precedence.”

“I shall settle it for them both,” replied Front-de-Boeuf; “they
shall hang on the same gallows, unless his master and this boar of
Coningsburgh will pay well for their lives. Their wealth is the least
they can surrender; they must also carry off with them the swarms that
are besetting the castle, subscribe a surrender of their pretended
immunities, and live under us as serfs and vassals; too happy if, in
the new world that is about to begin, we leave them the breath of their
nostrils.--Go,” said he to two of his attendants, “fetch me the right
Cedric hither, and I pardon your error for once; the rather that you but
mistook a fool for a Saxon franklin.”

“Ay, but,” said Wamba, “your chivalrous excellency will find there are
more fools than franklins among us.”

“What means the knave?” said Front-de-Boeuf, looking towards his
followers, who, lingering and loath, faltered forth their belief, that
if this were not Cedric who was there in presence, they knew not what
was become of him.

“Saints of Heaven!” exclaimed De Bracy, “he must have escaped in the
monk’s garments!”

“Fiends of hell!” echoed Front-de-Boeuf, “it was then the boar of
Rotherwood whom I ushered to the postern, and dismissed with my own
hands!--And thou,” he said to Wamba, “whose folly could overreach the
wisdom of idiots yet more gross than thyself--I will give thee holy
orders--I will shave thy crown for thee!--Here, let them tear the scalp
from his head, and then pitch him headlong from the battlements--Thy
trade is to jest, canst thou jest now?”

“You deal with me better than your word, noble knight,” whimpered forth
poor Wamba, whose habits of buffoonery were not to be overcome even
by the immediate prospect of death; “if you give me the red cap you
propose, out of a simple monk you will make a cardinal.”

“The poor wretch,” said De Bracy, “is resolved to die in his
vocation.--Front-de-Boeuf, you shall not slay him. Give him to me to
make sport for my Free Companions.--How sayst thou, knave? Wilt thou
take heart of grace, and go to the wars with me?”

“Ay, with my master’s leave,” said Wamba; “for, look you, I must
not slip collar” (and he touched that which he wore) “without his
permission.”

“Oh, a Norman saw will soon cut a Saxon collar.” said De Bracy.

“Ay, noble sir,” said Wamba, “and thence goes the proverb--

     ‘Norman saw on English oak,
     On English neck a Norman yoke;
     Norman spoon in English dish,
     And England ruled as Normans wish;
     Blithe world to England never will be more,
     Till England’s rid of all the four.’”

“Thou dost well, De Bracy,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “to stand there
listening to a fool’s jargon, when destruction is gaping for us! Seest
thou not we are overreached, and that our proposed mode of communicating
with our friends without has been disconcerted by this same motley
gentleman thou art so fond to brother? What views have we to expect but
instant storm?”

“To the battlements then,” said De Bracy; “when didst thou ever see me
the graver for the thoughts of battle? Call the Templar yonder, and
let him fight but half so well for his life as he has done for his
Order--Make thou to the walls thyself with thy huge body--Let me do my
poor endeavour in my own way, and I tell thee the Saxon outlaws may as
well attempt to scale the clouds, as the castle of Torquilstone; or, if
you will treat with the banditti, why not employ the mediation of
this worthy franklin, who seems in such deep contemplation of the
wine-flagon?--Here, Saxon,” he continued, addressing Athelstane, and
handing the cup to him, “rinse thy throat with that noble liquor, and
rouse up thy soul to say what thou wilt do for thy liberty.”

“What a man of mould may,” answered Athelstane, “providing it be what a
man of manhood ought.--Dismiss me free, with my companions, and I will
pay a ransom of a thousand marks.”

“And wilt moreover assure us the retreat of that scum of mankind who
are swarming around the castle, contrary to God’s peace and the king’s?”
 said Front-de-Boeuf.

“In so far as I can,” answered Athelstane, “I will withdraw them; and I
fear not but that my father Cedric will do his best to assist me.”

“We are agreed then,” said Front-de-Boeuf--“thou and they are to be set
at freedom, and peace is to be on both sides, for payment of a thousand
marks. It is a trifling ransom, Saxon, and thou wilt owe gratitude to
the moderation which accepts of it in exchange of your persons. But
mark, this extends not to the Jew Isaac.”

“Nor to the Jew Isaac’s daughter,” said the Templar, who had now joined
them.

“Neither,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “belong to this Saxon’s company.”

“I were unworthy to be called Christian, if they did,” replied
Athelstane: “deal with the unbelievers as ye list.”

“Neither does the ransom include the Lady Rowena,” said De Bracy. “It
shall never be said I was scared out of a fair prize without striking a
blow for it.”

“Neither,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “does our treaty refer to this wretched
Jester, whom I retain, that I may make him an example to every knave who
turns jest into earnest.”

“The Lady Rowena,” answered Athelstane, with the most steady
countenance, “is my affianced bride. I will be drawn by wild horses
before I consent to part with her. The slave Wamba has this day saved
the life of my father Cedric--I will lose mine ere a hair of his head be
injured.”

“Thy affianced bride?--The Lady Rowena the affianced bride of a vassal
like thee?” said De Bracy; “Saxon, thou dreamest that the days of thy
seven kingdoms are returned again. I tell thee, the Princes of the House
of Anjou confer not their wards on men of such lineage as thine.”

“My lineage, proud Norman,” replied Athelstane, “is drawn from a source
more pure and ancient than that of a beggarly Frenchman, whose living
is won by selling the blood of the thieves whom he assembles under his
paltry standard. Kings were my ancestors, strong in war and wise in
council, who every day feasted in their hall more hundreds than thou
canst number individual followers; whose names have been sung by
minstrels, and their laws recorded by Wittenagemotes; whose bones were
interred amid the prayers of saints, and over whose tombs minsters have
been builded.”

“Thou hast it, De Bracy,” said Front-de-Boeuf, well pleased with the
rebuff which his companion had received; “the Saxon hath hit thee
fairly.”

“As fairly as a captive can strike,” said De Bracy, with apparent
carelessness; “for he whose hands are tied should have his tongue at
freedom.--But thy glibness of reply, comrade,” rejoined he, speaking to
Athelstane, “will not win the freedom of the Lady Rowena.”

To this Athelstane, who had already made a longer speech than was his
custom to do on any topic, however interesting, returned no answer. The
conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a menial, who announced
that a monk demanded admittance at the postern gate.

“In the name of Saint Bennet, the prince of these bull-beggars,” said
Front-de-Boeuf, “have we a real monk this time, or another impostor?
Search him, slaves--for an ye suffer a second impostor to be palmed
upon you, I will have your eyes torn out, and hot coals put into the
sockets.”

“Let me endure the extremity of your anger, my lord,” said Giles, “if
this be not a real shaveling. Your squire Jocelyn knows him well, and
will vouch him to be brother Ambrose, a monk in attendance upon the
Prior of Jorvaulx.”

“Admit him,” said Front-de-Boeuf; “most likely he brings us news from
his jovial master. Surely the devil keeps holiday, and the priests are
relieved from duty, that they are strolling thus wildly through the
country. Remove these prisoners; and, Saxon, think on what thou hast
heard.”

“I claim,” said Athelstane, “an honourable imprisonment, with due care
of my board and of my couch, as becomes my rank, and as is due to one
who is in treaty for ransom. Moreover, I hold him that deems himself the
best of you, bound to answer to me with his body for this aggression on
my freedom. This defiance hath already been sent to thee by thy sewer;
thou underliest it, and art bound to answer me--There lies my glove.”

“I answer not the challenge of my prisoner,” said Front-de-Boeuf;
“nor shalt thou, Maurice de Bracy.--Giles,” he continued, “hang the
franklin’s glove upon the tine of yonder branched antlers: there shall
it remain until he is a free man. Should he then presume to demand it,
or to affirm he was unlawfully made my prisoner, by the belt of Saint
Christopher, he will speak to one who hath never refused to meet a foe
on foot or on horseback, alone or with his vassals at his back!”

The Saxon prisoners were accordingly removed, just as they introduced
the monk Ambrose, who appeared to be in great perturbation.

“This is the real ‘Deus vobiscum’,” said Wamba, as he passed the
reverend brother; “the others were but counterfeits.”

“Holy Mother,” said the monk, as he addressed the assembled knights, “I
am at last safe and in Christian keeping!”

“Safe thou art,” replied De Bracy; “and for Christianity, here is the
stout Baron Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, whose utter abomination is a Jew;
and the good Knight Templar, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, whose trade is to
slay Saracens--If these are not good marks of Christianity, I know no
other which they bear about them.”

“Ye are friends and allies of our reverend father in God, Aymer, Prior
of Jorvaulx,” said the monk, without noticing the tone of De Bracy’s
reply; “ye owe him aid both by knightly faith and holy charity; for what
saith the blessed Saint Augustin, in his treatise ‘De Civitate Dei’---”

“What saith the devil!” interrupted Front-de-Boeuf; “or rather what dost
thou say, Sir Priest? We have little time to hear texts from the holy
fathers.”

“‘Sancta Maria!’” ejaculated Father Ambrose, “how prompt to ire are
these unhallowed laymen!--But be it known to you, brave knights,
that certain murderous caitiffs, casting behind them fear of God, and
reverence of his church, and not regarding the bull of the holy see, ‘Si
quis, suadende Diabolo’---”

“Brother priest,” said the Templar, “all this we know or guess at--tell
us plainly, is thy master, the Prior, made prisoner, and to whom?”

“Surely,” said Ambrose, “he is in the hands of the men of Belial,
infesters of these woods, and contemners of the holy text, ‘Touch not
mine anointed, and do my prophets naught of evil.’”

“Here is a new argument for our swords, sirs,” said Front-de-Boeuf,
turning to his companions; “and so, instead of reaching us any
assistance, the Prior of Jorvaulx requests aid at our hands? a man is
well helped of these lazy churchmen when he hath most to do!--But speak
out, priest, and say at once, what doth thy master expect from us?”

“So please you,” said Ambrose, “violent hands having been imposed on my
reverend superior, contrary to the holy ordinance which I did already
quote, and the men of Belial having rifled his mails and budgets, and
stripped him of two hundred marks of pure refined gold, they do yet
demand of him a large sum beside, ere they will suffer him to depart
from their uncircumcised hands. Wherefore the reverend father in God
prays you, as his dear friends, to rescue him, either by paying down
the ransom at which they hold him, or by force of arms, at your best
discretion.”

“The foul fiend quell the Prior!” said Front-de-Boeuf; “his morning’s
drought has been a deep one. When did thy master hear of a Norman baron
unbuckling his purse to relieve a churchman, whose bags are ten times
as weighty as ours?--And how can we do aught by valour to free him, that
are cooped up here by ten times our number, and expect an assault every
moment?”

“And that was what I was about to tell you,” said the monk, “had your
hastiness allowed me time. But, God help me, I am old, and these foul
onslaughts distract an aged man’s brain. Nevertheless, it is of verity
that they assemble a camp, and raise a bank against the walls of this
castle.”

“To the battlements!” cried De Bracy, “and let us mark what these knaves
do without;” and so saying, he opened a latticed window which led to
a sort of bartisan or projecting balcony, and immediately called from
thence to those in the apartment--“Saint Dennis, but the old monk hath
brought true tidings!--They bring forward mantelets and pavisses, [32]
and the archers muster on the skirts of the wood like a dark cloud
before a hailstorm.”

Reginald Front-de-Boeuf also looked out upon the field, and immediately
snatched his bugle; and, after winding a long and loud blast, commanded
his men to their posts on the walls.

“De Bracy, look to the eastern side, where the walls are lowest--Noble
Bois-Guilbert, thy trade hath well taught thee how to attack and defend,
look thou to the western side--I myself will take post at the barbican.
Yet, do not confine your exertions to any one spot, noble friends!--we
must this day be everywhere, and multiply ourselves, were it possible,
so as to carry by our presence succour and relief wherever the attack is
hottest. Our numbers are few, but activity and courage may supply that
defect, since we have only to do with rascal clowns.”

“But, noble knights,” exclaimed Father Ambrose, amidst the bustle and
confusion occasioned by the preparations for defence, “will none of
ye hear the message of the reverend father in God Aymer, Prior of
Jorvaulx?--I beseech thee to hear me, noble Sir Reginald!”

“Go patter thy petitions to heaven,” said the fierce Norman, “for we
on earth have no time to listen to them.--Ho! there, Anselm I see that
seething pitch and oil are ready to pour on the heads of these audacious
traitors--Look that the cross-bowmen lack not bolts. [33]--Fling abroad
my banner with the old bull’s head--the knaves shall soon find with whom
they have to do this day!”

“But, noble sir,” continued the monk, persevering in his endeavours
to draw attention, “consider my vow of obedience, and let me discharge
myself of my Superior’s errand.”

“Away with this prating dotard,” said Front-de Boeuf, “lock him up in
the chapel, to tell his beads till the broil be over. It will be a new
thing to the saints in Torquilstone to hear aves and paters; they have
not been so honoured, I trow, since they were cut out of stone.”

“Blaspheme not the holy saints, Sir Reginald,” said De Bracy, “we shall
have need of their aid to-day before yon rascal rout disband.”

“I expect little aid from their hand,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “unless we
were to hurl them from the battlements on the heads of the villains.
There is a huge lumbering Saint Christopher yonder, sufficient to bear a
whole company to the earth.”

The Templar had in the meantime been looking out on the proceedings of
the besiegers, with rather more attention than the brutal Front-de-Boeuf
or his giddy companion.

“By the faith of mine order,” he said, “these men approach with more
touch of discipline than could have been judged, however they come by
it. See ye how dexterously they avail themselves of every cover which
a tree or bush affords, and shun exposing themselves to the shot of our
cross-bows? I spy neither banner nor pennon among them, and yet will
I gage my golden chain, that they are led on by some noble knight or
gentleman, skilful in the practice of wars.”

“I espy him,” said De Bracy; “I see the waving of a knight’s crest,
and the gleam of his armour. See yon tall man in the black mail, who is
busied marshalling the farther troop of the rascaille yeomen--by Saint
Dennis, I hold him to be the same whom we called ‘Le Noir Faineant’, who
overthrew thee, Front-de-Boeuf, in the lists at Ashby.”

“So much the better,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “that he comes here to give
me my revenge. Some hilding fellow he must be, who dared not stay to
assert his claim to the tourney prize which chance had assigned him. I
should in vain have sought for him where knights and nobles seek their
foes, and right glad am I he hath here shown himself among yon villain
yeomanry.”

The demonstrations of the enemy’s immediate approach cut off all farther
discourse. Each knight repaired to his post, and at the head of the
few followers whom they were able to muster, and who were in numbers
inadequate to defend the whole extent of the walls, they awaited with
calm determination the threatened assault.




CHAPTER XXVIII

     This wandering race, sever’d from other men,
     Boast yet their intercourse with human arts;
     The seas, the woods, the deserts, which they haunt,
     Find them acquainted with their secret treasures:
     And unregarded herbs, and flowers, and blossoms,
     Display undreamt-of powers when gather’d by them.
     --The Jew

Our history must needs retrograde for the space of a few pages, to
inform the reader of certain passages material to his understanding the
rest of this important narrative. His own intelligence may indeed have
easily anticipated that, when Ivanhoe sunk down, and seemed abandoned by
all the world, it was the importunity of Rebecca which prevailed on her
father to have the gallant young warrior transported from the lists to
the house which for the time the Jews inhabited in the suburbs of Ashby.

It would not have been difficult to have persuaded Isaac to this step in
any other circumstances, for his disposition was kind and grateful. But
he had also the prejudices and scrupulous timidity of his persecuted
people, and those were to be conquered.

“Holy Abraham!” he exclaimed, “he is a good youth, and my heart bleeds
to see the gore trickle down his rich embroidered hacqueton, and his
corslet of goodly price--but to carry him to our house!--damsel, hast
thou well considered?--he is a Christian, and by our law we may not deal
with the stranger and Gentile, save for the advantage of our commerce.”

“Speak not so, my dear father,” replied Rebecca; “we may not indeed mix
with them in banquet and in jollity; but in wounds and in misery, the
Gentile becometh the Jew’s brother.”

“I would I knew what the Rabbi Jacob Ben Tudela would opine on it,”
 replied Isaac;--“nevertheless, the good youth must not bleed to death.
Let Seth and Reuben bear him to Ashby.”

“Nay, let them place him in my litter,” said Rebecca; “I will mount one
of the palfreys.”

“That were to expose thee to the gaze of those dogs of Ishmael and of
Edom,” whispered Isaac, with a suspicious glance towards the crowd of
knights and squires. But Rebecca was already busied in carrying her
charitable purpose into effect, and listed not what he said, until
Isaac, seizing the sleeve of her mantle, again exclaimed, in a hurried
voice--“Beard of Aaron!--what if the youth perish!--if he die in our
custody, shall we not be held guilty of his blood, and be torn to pieces
by the multitude?”

“He will not die, my father,” said Rebecca, gently extricating herself
from the grasp of Isaac “he will not die unless we abandon him; and if
so, we are indeed answerable for his blood to God and to man.”

“Nay,” said Isaac, releasing his hold, “it grieveth me as much to see
the drops of his blood, as if they were so many golden byzants from mine
own purse; and I well know, that the lessons of Miriam, daughter of the
Rabbi Manasses of Byzantium whose soul is in Paradise, have made thee
skilful in the art of healing, and that thou knowest the craft of herbs,
and the force of elixirs. Therefore, do as thy mind giveth thee--thou
art a good damsel, a blessing, and a crown, and a song of rejoicing unto
me and unto my house, and unto the people of my fathers.”

The apprehensions of Isaac, however, were not ill founded; and the
generous and grateful benevolence of his daughter exposed her, on her
return to Ashby, to the unhallowed gaze of Brian de Bois-Guilbert. The
Templar twice passed and repassed them on the road, fixing his bold
and ardent look on the beautiful Jewess; and we have already seen the
consequences of the admiration which her charms excited when accident
threw her into the power of that unprincipled voluptuary.

Rebecca lost no time in causing the patient to be transported to their
temporary dwelling, and proceeded with her own hands to examine and
to bind up his wounds. The youngest reader of romances and romantic
ballads, must recollect how often the females, during the dark ages, as
they are called, were initiated into the mysteries of surgery, and how
frequently the gallant knight submitted the wounds of his person to her
cure, whose eyes had yet more deeply penetrated his heart.

But the Jews, both male and female, possessed and practised the medical
science in all its branches, and the monarchs and powerful barons of the
time frequently committed themselves to the charge of some experienced
sage among this despised people, when wounded or in sickness. The aid
of the Jewish physicians was not the less eagerly sought after, though
a general belief prevailed among the Christians, that the Jewish Rabbins
were deeply acquainted with the occult sciences, and particularly with
the cabalistical art, which had its name and origin in the studies of
the sages of Israel. Neither did the Rabbins disown such acquaintance
with supernatural arts, which added nothing (for what could add aught?)
to the hatred with which their nation was regarded, while it diminished
the contempt with which that malevolence was mingled. A Jewish magician
might be the subject of equal abhorrence with a Jewish usurer, but he
could not be equally despised. It is besides probable, considering the
wonderful cures they are said to have performed, that the Jews possessed
some secrets of the healing art peculiar to themselves, and which, with
the exclusive spirit arising out of their condition, they took great
care to conceal from the Christians amongst whom they dwelt.

The beautiful Rebecca had been heedfully brought up in all the knowledge
proper to her nation, which her apt and powerful mind had retained,
arranged, and enlarged, in the course of a progress beyond her years,
her sex, and even the age in which she lived. Her knowledge of medicine
and of the healing art had been acquired under an aged Jewess, the
daughter of one of their most celebrated doctors, who loved Rebecca as
her own child, and was believed to have communicated to her secrets,
which had been left to herself by her sage father at the same time, and
under the same circumstances. The fate of Miriam had indeed been to fall
a sacrifice to the fanaticism of the times; but her secrets had survived
in her apt pupil.

Rebecca, thus endowed with knowledge as with beauty, was universally
revered and admired by her own tribe, who almost regarded her as one of
those gifted women mentioned in the sacred history. Her father himself,
out of reverence for her talents, which involuntarily mingled itself
with his unbounded affection, permitted the maiden a greater liberty
than was usually indulged to those of her sex by the habits of her
people, and was, as we have just seen, frequently guided by her opinion,
even in preference to his own.

When Ivanhoe reached the habitation of Isaac, he was still in a state
of unconsciousness, owing to the profuse loss of blood which had taken
place during his exertions in the lists. Rebecca examined the wound,
and having applied to it such vulnerary remedies as her art prescribed,
informed her father that if fever could be averted, of which the great
bleeding rendered her little apprehensive, and if the healing balsam of
Miriam retained its virtue, there was nothing to fear for his guest’s
life, and that he might with safety travel to York with them on the
ensuing day. Isaac looked a little blank at this annunciation. His
charity would willingly have stopped short at Ashby, or at most would
have left the wounded Christian to be tended in the house where he
was residing at present, with an assurance to the Hebrew to whom it
belonged, that all expenses should be duly discharged. To this, however,
Rebecca opposed many reasons, of which we shall only mention two that
had peculiar weight with Isaac. The one was, that she would on no
account put the phial of precious balsam into the hands of another
physician even of her own tribe, lest that valuable mystery should be
discovered; the other, that this wounded knight, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, was
an intimate favourite of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, and that, in case the
monarch should return, Isaac, who had supplied his brother John with
treasure to prosecute his rebellious purposes, would stand in no small
need of a powerful protector who enjoyed Richard’s favour.

“Thou art speaking but sooth, Rebecca,” said Isaac, giving way to these
weighty arguments--“it were an offending of Heaven to betray the secrets
of the blessed Miriam; for the good which Heaven giveth, is not rashly
to be squandered upon others, whether it be talents of gold and
shekels of silver, or whether it be the secret mysteries of a wise
physician--assuredly they should be preserved to those to whom
Providence hath vouchsafed them. And him whom the Nazarenes of England
call the Lion’s Heart, assuredly it were better for me to fall into the
hands of a strong lion of Idumea than into his, if he shall have got
assurance of my dealing with his brother. Wherefore I will lend ear to
thy counsel, and this youth shall journey with us unto York, and our
house shall be as a home to him until his wounds shall be healed. And if
he of the Lion Heart shall return to the land, as is now noised abroad,
then shall this Wilfred of Ivanhoe be unto me as a wall of defence, when
the king’s displeasure shall burn high against thy father. And if he
doth not return, this Wilfred may natheless repay us our charges when he
shall gain treasure by the strength of his spear and of his sword, even
as he did yesterday and this day also. For the youth is a good youth,
and keepeth the day which he appointeth, and restoreth that which he
borroweth, and succoureth the Israelite, even the child of my father’s
house, when he is encompassed by strong thieves and sons of Belial.”

It was not until evening was nearly closed that Ivanhoe was restored to
consciousness of his situation. He awoke from a broken slumber, under
the confused impressions which are naturally attendant on the recovery
from a state of insensibility. He was unable for some time to recall
exactly to memory the circumstances which had preceded his fall in the
lists, or to make out any connected chain of the events in which he had
been engaged upon the yesterday. A sense of wounds and injury, joined
to great weakness and exhaustion, was mingled with the recollection
of blows dealt and received, of steeds rushing upon each other,
overthrowing and overthrown--of shouts and clashing of arms, and all the
heady tumult of a confused fight. An effort to draw aside the curtain of
his couch was in some degree successful, although rendered difficult by
the pain of his wound.

To his great surprise he found himself in a room magnificently
furnished, but having cushions instead of chairs to rest upon, and in
other respects partaking so much of Oriental costume, that he began to
doubt whether he had not, during his sleep, been transported back
again to the land of Palestine. The impression was increased, when,
the tapestry being drawn aside, a female form, dressed in a rich habit,
which partook more of the Eastern taste than that of Europe, glided
through the door which it concealed, and was followed by a swarthy
domestic.

As the wounded knight was about to address this fair apparition, she
imposed silence by placing her slender finger upon her ruby lips, while
the attendant, approaching him, proceeded to uncover Ivanhoe’s side, and
the lovely Jewess satisfied herself that the bandage was in its place,
and the wound doing well. She performed her task with a graceful and
dignified simplicity and modesty, which might, even in more civilized
days, have served to redeem it from whatever might seem repugnant to
female delicacy. The idea of so young and beautiful a person engaged in
attendance on a sick-bed, or in dressing the wound of one of a different
sex, was melted away and lost in that of a beneficent being contributing
her effectual aid to relieve pain, and to avert the stroke of death.
Rebecca’s few and brief directions were given in the Hebrew language
to the old domestic; and he, who had been frequently her assistant in
similar cases, obeyed them without reply.

The accents of an unknown tongue, however harsh they might have sounded
when uttered by another, had, coming from the beautiful Rebecca,
the romantic and pleasing effect which fancy ascribes to the charms
pronounced by some beneficent fairy, unintelligible, indeed, to the ear,
but, from the sweetness of utterance, and benignity of aspect, which
accompanied them, touching and affecting to the heart. Without making
an attempt at further question, Ivanhoe suffered them in silence to take
the measures they thought most proper for his recovery; and it was not
until those were completed, and this kind physician about to retire,
that his curiosity could no longer be suppressed.--“Gentle maiden,” he
began in the Arabian tongue, with which his Eastern travels had rendered
him familiar, and which he thought most likely to be understood by the
turban’d and caftan’d damsel who stood before him--“I pray you, gentle
maiden, of your courtesy---”

But here he was interrupted by his fair physician, a smile which she
could scarce suppress dimpling for an instant a face, whose general
expression was that of contemplative melancholy. “I am of England, Sir
Knight, and speak the English tongue, although my dress and my lineage
belong to another climate.”

“Noble damsel,”--again the Knight of Ivanhoe began; and again Rebecca
hastened to interrupt him.

“Bestow not on me, Sir Knight,” she said, “the epithet of noble. It is
well you should speedily know that your handmaiden is a poor Jewess, the
daughter of that Isaac of York, to whom you were so lately a good and
kind lord. It well becomes him, and those of his household, to render to
you such careful tendance as your present state necessarily demands.”

I know not whether the fair Rowena would have been altogether satisfied
with the species of emotion with which her devoted knight had hitherto
gazed on the beautiful features, and fair form, and lustrous eyes, of
the lovely Rebecca; eyes whose brilliancy was shaded, and, as it were,
mellowed, by the fringe of her long silken eyelashes, and which a
minstrel would have compared to the evening star darting its rays
through a bower of jessamine. But Ivanhoe was too good a Catholic to
retain the same class of feelings towards a Jewess. This Rebecca had
foreseen, and for this very purpose she had hastened to mention her
father’s name and lineage; yet--for the fair and wise daughter of Isaac
was not without a touch of female weakness--she could not but sigh
internally when the glance of respectful admiration, not altogether
unmixed with tenderness, with which Ivanhoe had hitherto regarded his
unknown benefactress, was exchanged at once for a manner cold, composed,
and collected, and fraught with no deeper feeling than that which
expressed a grateful sense of courtesy received from an unexpected
quarter, and from one of an inferior race. It was not that Ivanhoe’s
former carriage expressed more than that general devotional homage which
youth always pays to beauty; yet it was mortifying that one word should
operate as a spell to remove poor Rebecca, who could not be supposed
altogether ignorant of her title to such homage, into a degraded class,
to whom it could not be honourably rendered.

But the gentleness and candour of Rebecca’s nature imputed no fault to
Ivanhoe for sharing in the universal prejudices of his age and religion.
On the contrary the fair Jewess, though sensible her patient now
regarded her as one of a race of reprobation, with whom it was
disgraceful to hold any beyond the most necessary intercourse, ceased
not to pay the same patient and devoted attention to his safety and
convalescence. She informed him of the necessity they were under of
removing to York, and of her father’s resolution to transport him
thither, and tend him in his own house until his health should be
restored. Ivanhoe expressed great repugnance to this plan, which he
grounded on unwillingness to give farther trouble to his benefactors.

“Was there not,” he said, “in Ashby, or near it, some Saxon franklin,
or even some wealthy peasant, who would endure the burden of a wounded
countryman’s residence with him until he should be again able to bear
his armour?--Was there no convent of Saxon endowment, where he could be
received?--Or could he not be transported as far as Burton, where he was
sure to find hospitality with Waltheoff, the Abbot of St Withold’s, to
whom he was related?”

“Any, the worst of these harbourages,” said Rebecca, with a melancholy
smile, “would unquestionably be more fitting for your residence than the
abode of a despised Jew; yet, Sir Knight, unless you would dismiss your
physician, you cannot change your lodging. Our nation, as you well know,
can cure wounds, though we deal not in inflicting them; and in our own
family, in particular, are secrets which have been handed down since
the days of Solomon, and of which you have already experienced the
advantages. No Nazarene--I crave your forgiveness, Sir Knight--no
Christian leech, within the four seas of Britain, could enable you to
bear your corslet within a month.”

“And how soon wilt THOU enable me to brook it?” said Ivanhoe,
impatiently.

“Within eight days, if thou wilt be patient and conformable to my
directions,” replied Rebecca.

“By Our Blessed Lady,” said Wilfred, “if it be not a sin to name her
here, it is no time for me or any true knight to be bedridden; and if
thou accomplish thy promise, maiden, I will pay thee with my casque full
of crowns, come by them as I may.”

“I will accomplish my promise,” said Rebecca, “and thou shalt bear thine
armour on the eighth day from hence, if thou will grant me but one boon
in the stead of the silver thou dost promise me.”

“If it be within my power, and such as a true Christian knight may yield
to one of thy people,” replied Ivanhoe, “I will grant thy boon blithely
and thankfully.”

“Nay,” answered Rebecca, “I will but pray of thee to believe
henceforward that a Jew may do good service to a Christian, without
desiring other guerdon than the blessing of the Great Father who made
both Jew and Gentile.”

“It were sin to doubt it, maiden,” replied Ivanhoe; “and I repose myself
on thy skill without further scruple or question, well trusting you will
enable me to bear my corslet on the eighth day. And now, my kind leech,
let me enquire of the news abroad. What of the noble Saxon Cedric and
his household?--what of the lovely Lady--” He stopt, as if unwilling
to speak Rowena’s name in the house of a Jew--“Of her, I mean, who was
named Queen of the tournament?”

“And who was selected by you, Sir Knight, to hold that dignity, with
judgment which was admired as much as your valour,” replied Rebecca.

The blood which Ivanhoe had lost did not prevent a flush from crossing
his cheek, feeling that he had incautiously betrayed a deep interest in
Rowena by the awkward attempt he had made to conceal it.

“It was less of her I would speak,” said he, “than of Prince John; and I
would fain know somewhat of a faithful squire, and why he now attends me
not?”

“Let me use my authority as a leech,” answered Rebecca, “and enjoin you
to keep silence, and avoid agitating reflections, whilst I apprize you
of what you desire to know. Prince John hath broken off the tournament,
and set forward in all haste towards York, with the nobles, knights, and
churchmen of his party, after collecting such sums as they could wring,
by fair means or foul, from those who are esteemed the wealthy of the
land. It is said he designs to assume his brother’s crown.”

“Not without a blow struck in its defence,” said Ivanhoe, raising
himself upon the couch, “if there were but one true subject in England I
will fight for Richard’s title with the best of them--ay, one or two, in
his just quarrel!”

“But that you may be able to do so,” said Rebecca touching his shoulder
with her hand, “you must now observe my directions, and remain quiet.”

“True, maiden,” said Ivanhoe, “as quiet as these disquieted times will
permit--And of Cedric and his household?”

“His steward came but brief while since,” said the Jewess, “panting with
haste, to ask my father for certain monies, the price of wool the growth
of Cedric’s flocks, and from him I learned that Cedric and Athelstane
of Coningsburgh had left Prince John’s lodging in high displeasure, and
were about to set forth on their return homeward.”

“Went any lady with them to the banquet?” said Wilfred.

“The Lady Rowena,” said Rebecca, answering the question with more
precision than it had been asked--“The Lady Rowena went not to the
Prince’s feast, and, as the steward reported to us, she is now on her
journey back to Rotherwood, with her guardian Cedric. And touching your
faithful squire Gurth---”

“Ha!” exclaimed the knight, “knowest thou his name?--But thou dost,” he
immediately added, “and well thou mayst, for it was from thy hand, and,
as I am now convinced, from thine own generosity of spirit, that he
received but yesterday a hundred zecchins.”

“Speak not of that,” said Rebecca, blushing deeply; “I see how easy it
is for the tongue to betray what the heart would gladly conceal.”

“But this sum of gold,” said Ivanhoe, gravely, “my honour is concerned
in repaying it to your father.”

“Let it be as thou wilt,” said Rebecca, “when eight days have passed
away; but think not, and speak not now, of aught that may retard thy
recovery.”

“Be it so, kind maiden,” said Ivanhoe; “I were most ungrateful to
dispute thy commands. But one word of the fate of poor Gurth, and I have
done with questioning thee.”

“I grieve to tell thee, Sir Knight,” answered the Jewess, “that he is in
custody by the order of Cedric.”--And then observing the distress which
her communication gave to Wilfred, she instantly added, “But the steward
Oswald said, that if nothing occurred to renew his master’s displeasure
against him, he was sure that Cedric would pardon Gurth, a faithful
serf, and one who stood high in favour, and who had but committed
this error out of the love which he bore to Cedric’s son. And he said,
moreover, that he and his comrades, and especially Wamba the Jester,
were resolved to warn Gurth to make his escape by the way, in case
Cedric’s ire against him could not be mitigated.”

“Would to God they may keep their purpose!” said Ivanhoe; “but it seems
as if I were destined to bring ruin on whomsoever hath shown kindness to
me. My king, by whom I was honoured and distinguished, thou seest
that the brother most indebted to him is raising his arms to grasp his
crown;--my regard hath brought restraint and trouble on the fairest of
her sex;--and now my father in his mood may slay this poor bondsman
but for his love and loyal service to me!--Thou seest, maiden, what an
ill-fated wretch thou dost labour to assist; be wise, and let me go, ere
the misfortunes which track my footsteps like slot-hounds, shall involve
thee also in their pursuit.”

“Nay,” said Rebecca, “thy weakness and thy grief, Sir Knight, make thee
miscalculate the purposes of Heaven. Thou hast been restored to thy
country when it most needed the assistance of a strong hand and a true
heart, and thou hast humbled the pride of thine enemies and those of thy
king, when their horn was most highly exalted, and for the evil which
thou hast sustained, seest thou not that Heaven has raised thee a helper
and a physician, even among the most despised of the land?--Therefore,
be of good courage, and trust that thou art preserved for some marvel
which thine arm shall work before this people. Adieu--and having taken
the medicine which I shall send thee by the hand of Reuben, compose
thyself again to rest, that thou mayest be the more able to endure the
journey on the succeeding day.”

Ivanhoe was convinced by the reasoning, and obeyed the directions, of
Rebecca. The drought which Reuben administered was of a sedative
and narcotic quality, and secured the patient sound and undisturbed
slumbers. In the morning his kind physician found him entirely free from
feverish symptoms, and fit to undergo the fatigue of a journey.

He was deposited in the horse-litter which had brought him from the
lists, and every precaution taken for his travelling with ease. In one
circumstance only even the entreaties of Rebecca were unable to secure
sufficient attention to the accommodation of the wounded knight. Isaac,
like the enriched traveller of Juvenal’s tenth satire, had ever the fear
of robbery before his eyes, conscious that he would be alike accounted
fair game by the marauding Norman noble, and by the Saxon outlaw. He
therefore journeyed at a great rate, and made short halts, and shorter
repasts, so that he passed by Cedric and Athelstane who had several
hours the start of him, but who had been delayed by their protracted
feasting at the convent of Saint Withold’s. Yet such was the virtue of
Miriam’s balsam, or such the strength of Ivanhoe’s constitution, that
he did not sustain from the hurried journey that inconvenience which his
kind physician had apprehended.

In another point of view, however, the Jew’s haste proved somewhat more
than good speed. The rapidity with which he insisted on travelling, bred
several disputes between him and the party whom he had hired to attend
him as a guard. These men were Saxons, and not free by any means from
the national love of ease and good living which the Normans stigmatized
as laziness and gluttony. Reversing Shylock’s position, they had
accepted the employment in hopes of feeding upon the wealthy Jew, and
were very much displeased when they found themselves disappointed,
by the rapidity with which he insisted on their proceeding. They
remonstrated also upon the risk of damage to their horses by these
forced marches. Finally, there arose betwixt Isaac and his satellites a
deadly feud, concerning the quantity of wine and ale to be allowed for
consumption at each meal. And thus it happened, that when the alarm of
danger approached, and that which Isaac feared was likely to come upon
him, he was deserted by the discontented mercenaries on whose protection
he had relied, without using the means necessary to secure their
attachment.

In this deplorable condition the Jew, with his daughter and her wounded
patient, were found by Cedric, as has already been noticed, and soon
afterwards fell into the power of De Bracy and his confederates.
Little notice was at first taken of the horse-litter, and it might have
remained behind but for the curiosity of De Bracy, who looked into it
under the impression that it might contain the object of his enterprise,
for Rowena had not unveiled herself. But De Bracy’s astonishment was
considerable, when he discovered that the litter contained a wounded
man, who, conceiving himself to have fallen into the power of Saxon
outlaws, with whom his name might be a protection for himself and his
friends, frankly avowed himself to be Wilfred of Ivanhoe.

The ideas of chivalrous honour, which, amidst his wildness and levity,
never utterly abandoned De Bracy, prohibited him from doing the knight
any injury in his defenceless condition, and equally interdicted his
betraying him to Front-de-Boeuf, who would have had no scruples to put
to death, under any circumstances, the rival claimant of the fief of
Ivanhoe. On the other hand, to liberate a suitor preferred by the Lady
Rowena, as the events of the tournament, and indeed Wilfred’s previous
banishment from his father’s house, had made matter of notoriety, was
a pitch far above the flight of De Bracy’s generosity. A middle
course betwixt good and evil was all which he found himself capable of
adopting, and he commanded two of his own squires to keep close by the
litter, and to suffer no one to approach it. If questioned, they were
directed by their master to say, that the empty litter of the Lady
Rowena was employed to transport one of their comrades who had been
wounded in the scuffle. On arriving at Torquilstone, while the Knight
Templar and the lord of that castle were each intent upon their own
schemes, the one on the Jew’s treasure, and the other on his daughter,
De Bracy’s squires conveyed Ivanhoe, still under the name of a wounded
comrade, to a distant apartment. This explanation was accordingly
returned by these men to Front-de-Boeuf, when he questioned them why
they did not make for the battlements upon the alarm.

“A wounded companion!” he replied in great wrath and astonishment. “No
wonder that churls and yeomen wax so presumptuous as even to lay leaguer
before castles, and that clowns and swineherds send defiances to nobles,
since men-at-arms have turned sick men’s nurses, and Free Companions are
grown keepers of dying folk’s curtains, when the castle is about to be
assailed.--To the battlements, ye loitering villains!” he exclaimed,
raising his stentorian voice till the arches around rung again, “to the
battlements, or I will splinter your bones with this truncheon!”

The men sulkily replied, “that they desired nothing better than to go to
the battlements, providing Front-de-Boeuf would bear them out with their
master, who had commanded them to tend the dying man.”

“The dying man, knaves!” rejoined the Baron; “I promise thee we shall
all be dying men an we stand not to it the more stoutly. But I
will relieve the guard upon this caitiff companion of yours.--Here,
Urfried--hag--fiend of a Saxon witch--hearest me not?--tend me this
bedridden fellow since he must needs be tended, whilst these knaves
use their weapons.--Here be two arblasts, comrades, with windlaces and
quarrells [34]--to the barbican with you, and see you drive each bolt
through a Saxon brain.”

The men, who, like most of their description, were fond of enterprise
and detested inaction, went joyfully to the scene of danger as they were
commanded, and thus the charge of Ivanhoe was transferred to Urfried,
or Ulrica. But she, whose brain was burning with remembrance of injuries
and with hopes of vengeance, was readily induced to devolve upon Rebecca
the care of her patient.




CHAPTER XXIX

     Ascend the watch-tower yonder, valiant soldier,
     Look on the field, and say how goes the battle.
     --Schiller’s Maid of Orleans

A moment of peril is often also a moment of open-hearted kindness and
affection. We are thrown off our guard by the general agitation of our
feelings, and betray the intensity of those, which, at more tranquil
periods, our prudence at least conceals, if it cannot altogether
suppress them. In finding herself once more by the side of Ivanhoe,
Rebecca was astonished at the keen sensation of pleasure which she
experienced, even at a time when all around them both was danger, if not
despair. As she felt his pulse, and enquired after his health, there was
a softness in her touch and in her accents implying a kinder interest
than she would herself have been pleased to have voluntarily expressed.
Her voice faltered and her hand trembled, and it was only the cold
question of Ivanhoe, “Is it you, gentle maiden?” which recalled her to
herself, and reminded her the sensations which she felt were not and
could not be mutual. A sigh escaped, but it was scarce audible; and the
questions which she asked the knight concerning his state of health were
put in the tone of calm friendship. Ivanhoe answered her hastily that
he was, in point of health, as well, and better than he could have
expected--“Thanks,” he said, “dear Rebecca, to thy helpful skill.”

“He calls me DEAR Rebecca,” said the maiden to herself, “but it is in
the cold and careless tone which ill suits the word. His war-horse--his
hunting hound, are dearer to him than the despised Jewess!”

“My mind, gentle maiden,” continued Ivanhoe, “is more disturbed by
anxiety, than my body with pain. From the speeches of those men who
were my warders just now, I learn that I am a prisoner, and, if I judge
aright of the loud hoarse voice which even now dispatched them hence
on some military duty, I am in the castle of Front-de-Boeuf--If so, how
will this end, or how can I protect Rowena and my father?”

“He names not the Jew or Jewess,” said Rebecca internally; “yet what is
our portion in him, and how justly am I punished by Heaven for
letting my thoughts dwell upon him!” She hastened after this brief
self-accusation to give Ivanhoe what information she could; but it
amounted only to this, that the Templar Bois-Guilbert, and the
Baron Front-de-Boeuf, were commanders within the castle; that it was
beleaguered from without, but by whom she knew not. She added, that
there was a Christian priest within the castle who might be possessed of
more information.

“A Christian priest!” said the knight, joyfully; “fetch him hither,
Rebecca, if thou canst--say a sick man desires his ghostly counsel--say
what thou wilt, but bring him--something I must do or attempt, but how
can I determine until I know how matters stand without?”

Rebecca in compliance with the wishes of Ivanhoe, made that attempt to
bring Cedric into the wounded Knight’s chamber, which was defeated as we
have already seen by the interference of Urfried, who had also been on
the watch to intercept the supposed monk. Rebecca retired to communicate
to Ivanhoe the result of her errand.

They had not much leisure to regret the failure of this source of
intelligence, or to contrive by what means it might be supplied; for the
noise within the castle, occasioned by the defensive preparations which
had been considerable for some time, now increased into tenfold bustle
and clamour. The heavy, yet hasty step of the men-at-arms, traversed the
battlements or resounded on the narrow and winding passages and stairs
which led to the various bartisans and points of defence. The voices of
the knights were heard, animating their followers, or directing means
of defence, while their commands were often drowned in the clashing of
armour, or the clamorous shouts of those whom they addressed. Tremendous
as these sounds were, and yet more terrible from the awful event which
they presaged, there was a sublimity mixed with them, which Rebecca’s
high-toned mind could feel even in that moment of terror. Her eye
kindled, although the blood fled from her cheeks; and there was a
strong mixture of fear, and of a thrilling sense of the sublime, as she
repeated, half whispering to herself, half speaking to her companion,
the sacred text,--“The quiver rattleth--the glittering spear and the
shield--the noise of the captains and the shouting!”

But Ivanhoe was like the war-horse of that sublime passage, glowing with
impatience at his inactivity, and with his ardent desire to mingle in
the affray of which these sounds were the introduction. “If I could
but drag myself,” he said, “to yonder window, that I might see how
this brave game is like to go--If I had but bow to shoot a shaft, or
battle-axe to strike were it but a single blow for our deliverance!--It
is in vain--it is in vain--I am alike nerveless and weaponless!”

“Fret not thyself, noble knight,” answered Rebecca, “the sounds have
ceased of a sudden--it may be they join not battle.”

“Thou knowest nought of it,” said Wilfred, impatiently; “this dead pause
only shows that the men are at their posts on the walls, and expecting
an instant attack; what we have heard was but the instant muttering of
the storm--it will burst anon in all its fury.--Could I but reach yonder
window!”

“Thou wilt but injure thyself by the attempt, noble knight,” replied his
attendant. Observing his extreme solicitude, she firmly added, “I myself
will stand at the lattice, and describe to you as I can what passes
without.”

“You must not--you shall not!” exclaimed Ivanhoe; “each lattice, each
aperture, will be soon a mark for the archers; some random shaft--”

“It shall be welcome!” murmured Rebecca, as with firm pace she ascended
two or three steps, which led to the window of which they spoke.

“Rebecca, dear Rebecca!” exclaimed Ivanhoe, “this is no maiden’s
pastime--do not expose thyself to wounds and death, and render me for
ever miserable for having given the occasion; at least, cover thyself
with yonder ancient buckler, and show as little of your person at the
lattice as may be.”

Following with wonderful promptitude the directions of Ivanhoe, and
availing herself of the protection of the large ancient shield, which
she placed against the lower part of the window, Rebecca, with tolerable
security to herself, could witness part of what was passing without the
castle, and report to Ivanhoe the preparations which the assailants were
making for the storm. Indeed the situation which she thus obtained was
peculiarly favourable for this purpose, because, being placed on an
angle of the main building, Rebecca could not only see what passed
beyond the precincts of the castle, but also commanded a view of the
outwork likely to be the first object of the meditated assault. It was
an exterior fortification of no great height or strength, intended
to protect the postern-gate, through which Cedric had been recently
dismissed by Front-de-Boeuf. The castle moat divided this species of
barbican from the rest of the fortress, so that, in case of its being
taken, it was easy to cut off the communication with the main building,
by withdrawing the temporary bridge. In the outwork was a sallyport
corresponding to the postern of the castle, and the whole was surrounded
by a strong palisade. Rebecca could observe, from the number of men
placed for the defence of this post, that the besieged entertained
apprehensions for its safety; and from the mustering of the assailants
in a direction nearly opposite to the outwork, it seemed no less plain
that it had been selected as a vulnerable point of attack.

These appearances she hastily communicated to Ivanhoe, and added, “The
skirts of the wood seem lined with archers, although only a few are
advanced from its dark shadow.”

“Under what banner?” asked Ivanhoe.

“Under no ensign of war which I can observe,” answered Rebecca.

“A singular novelty,” muttered the knight, “to advance to storm such a
castle without pennon or banner displayed!--Seest thou who they be that
act as leaders?”

“A knight, clad in sable armour, is the most conspicuous,” said the
Jewess; “he alone is armed from head to heel, and seems to assume the
direction of all around him.”

“What device does he bear on his shield?” replied Ivanhoe.

“Something resembling a bar of iron, and a padlock painted blue on the
black shield.” [35]

“A fetterlock and shacklebolt azure,” said Ivanhoe; “I know not who may
bear the device, but well I ween it might now be mine own. Canst thou
not see the motto?”

“Scarce the device itself at this distance,” replied Rebecca; “but when
the sun glances fair upon his shield, it shows as I tell you.”

“Seem there no other leaders?” exclaimed the anxious enquirer.

“None of mark and distinction that I can behold from this station,” said
Rebecca; “but, doubtless, the other side of the castle is also assailed.
They appear even now preparing to advance--God of Zion, protect
us!--What a dreadful sight!--Those who advance first bear huge shields
and defences made of plank; the others follow, bending their bows
as they come on.--They raise their bows!--God of Moses, forgive the
creatures thou hast made!”

Her description was here suddenly interrupted by the signal for assault,
which was given by the blast of a shrill bugle, and at once answered by
a flourish of the Norman trumpets from the battlements, which,
mingled with the deep and hollow clang of the nakers, (a species of
kettle-drum,) retorted in notes of defiance the challenge of the enemy.
The shouts of both parties augmented the fearful din, the assailants
crying, “Saint George for merry England!” and the Normans answering
them with loud cries of “En avant De Bracy!--Beau-seant!
Beau-seant!--Front-de-Boeuf a la rescousse!” according to the war-cries
of their different commanders.

It was not, however, by clamour that the contest was to be decided, and
the desperate efforts of the assailants were met by an equally vigorous
defence on the part of the besieged. The archers, trained by their
woodland pastimes to the most effective use of the long-bow, shot, to
use the appropriate phrase of the time, so “wholly together,” that
no point at which a defender could show the least part of his person,
escaped their cloth-yard shafts. By this heavy discharge, which
continued as thick and sharp as hail, while, notwithstanding, every
arrow had its individual aim, and flew by scores together against each
embrasure and opening in the parapets, as well as at every window where
a defender either occasionally had post, or might be suspected to be
stationed,--by this sustained discharge, two or three of the garrison
were slain, and several others wounded. But, confident in their armour
of proof, and in the cover which their situation afforded, the followers
of Front-de-Boeuf, and his allies, showed an obstinacy in defence
proportioned to the fury of the attack and replied with the discharge
of their large cross-bows, as well as with their long-bows, slings, and
other missile weapons, to the close and continued shower of arrows;
and, as the assailants were necessarily but indifferently protected, did
considerably more damage than they received at their hand. The whizzing
of shafts and of missiles, on both sides, was only interrupted by the
shouts which arose when either side inflicted or sustained some notable
loss.

“And I must lie here like a bedridden monk,” exclaimed Ivanhoe, “while
the game that gives me freedom or death is played out by the hand of
others!--Look from the window once again, kind maiden, but beware that
you are not marked by the archers beneath--Look out once more, and tell
me if they yet advance to the storm.”

With patient courage, strengthened by the interval which she had
employed in mental devotion, Rebecca again took post at the lattice,
sheltering herself, however, so as not to be visible from beneath.

“What dost thou see, Rebecca?” again demanded the wounded knight.

“Nothing but the cloud of arrows flying so thick as to dazzle mine eyes,
and to hide the bowmen who shoot them.”

“That cannot endure,” said Ivanhoe; “if they press not right on to
carry the castle by pure force of arms, the archery may avail but little
against stone walls and bulwarks. Look for the Knight of the Fetterlock,
fair Rebecca, and see how he bears himself; for as the leader is, so
will his followers be.”

“I see him not,” said Rebecca.

“Foul craven!” exclaimed Ivanhoe; “does he blench from the helm when the
wind blows highest?”

“He blenches not! he blenches not!” said Rebecca, “I see him now; he
leads a body of men close under the outer barrier of the barbican. [36]
--They pull down the piles and palisades; they hew down the barriers
with axes.--His high black plume floats abroad over the throng, like
a raven over the field of the slain.--They have made a breach in the
barriers--they rush in--they are thrust back!--Front-de-Boeuf heads the
defenders; I see his gigantic form above the press. They throng again to
the breach, and the pass is disputed hand to hand, and man to man. God
of Jacob! it is the meeting of two fierce tides--the conflict of two
oceans moved by adverse winds!”

She turned her head from the lattice, as if unable longer to endure a
sight so terrible.

“Look forth again, Rebecca,” said Ivanhoe, mistaking the cause of her
retiring; “the archery must in some degree have ceased, since they are
now fighting hand to hand.--Look again, there is now less danger.”

Rebecca again looked forth, and almost immediately exclaimed, “Holy
prophets of the law! Front-de-Boeuf and the Black Knight fight hand
to hand on the breach, amid the roar of their followers, who watch the
progress of the strife--Heaven strike with the cause of the oppressed
and of the captive!” She then uttered a loud shriek, and exclaimed, “He
is down!--he is down!”

“Who is down?” cried Ivanhoe; “for our dear Lady’s sake, tell me which
has fallen?”

“The Black Knight,” answered Rebecca, faintly; then instantly again
shouted with joyful eagerness--“But no--but no!--the name of the Lord
of Hosts be blessed!--he is on foot again, and fights as if there
were twenty men’s strength in his single arm--His sword is broken--he
snatches an axe from a yeoman--he presses Front-de-Boeuf with blow on
blow--The giant stoops and totters like an oak under the steel of the
woodman--he falls--he falls!”

“Front-de-Boeuf?” exclaimed Ivanhoe.

“Front-de-Boeuf!” answered the Jewess; “his men rush to the rescue,
headed by the haughty Templar--their united force compels the champion
to pause--They drag Front-de-Boeuf within the walls.”

“The assailants have won the barriers, have they not?” said Ivanhoe.

“They have--they have!” exclaimed Rebecca--“and they press the besieged
hard upon the outer wall; some plant ladders, some swarm like bees, and
endeavour to ascend upon the shoulders of each other--down go stones,
beams, and trunks of trees upon their heads, and as fast as they
bear the wounded to the rear, fresh men supply their places in the
assault--Great God! hast thou given men thine own image, that it should
be thus cruelly defaced by the hands of their brethren!”

“Think not of that,” said Ivanhoe; “this is no time for such
thoughts--Who yield?--who push their way?”

“The ladders are thrown down,” replied Rebecca, shuddering; “the
soldiers lie grovelling under them like crushed reptiles--The besieged
have the better.”

“Saint George strike for us!” exclaimed the knight; “do the false yeomen
give way?”

“No!” exclaimed Rebecca, “they bear themselves right yeomanly--the Black
Knight approaches the postern with his huge axe--the thundering blows
which he deals, you may hear them above all the din and shouts of
the battle--Stones and beams are hailed down on the bold champion--he
regards them no more than if they were thistle-down or feathers!”

“By Saint John of Acre,” said Ivanhoe, raising himself joyfully on his
couch, “methought there was but one man in England that might do such a
deed!”

“The postern gate shakes,” continued Rebecca; “it crashes--it is
splintered by his blows--they rush in--the outwork is won--Oh,
God!--they hurl the defenders from the battlements--they throw them
into the moat--O men, if ye be indeed men, spare them that can resist no
longer!”

“The bridge--the bridge which communicates with the castle--have they
won that pass?” exclaimed Ivanhoe.

“No,” replied Rebecca, “The Templar has destroyed the plank on which
they crossed--few of the defenders escaped with him into the castle--the
shrieks and cries which you hear tell the fate of the others--Alas!--I
see it is still more difficult to look upon victory than upon battle.”

“What do they now, maiden?” said Ivanhoe; “look forth yet again--this is
no time to faint at bloodshed.”

“It is over for the time,” answered Rebecca; “our friends strengthen
themselves within the outwork which they have mastered, and it affords
them so good a shelter from the foemen’s shot, that the garrison only
bestow a few bolts on it from interval to interval, as if rather to
disquiet than effectually to injure them.”

“Our friends,” said Wilfred, “will surely not abandon an enterprise so
gloriously begun and so happily attained.--O no! I will put my faith
in the good knight whose axe hath rent heart-of-oak and bars of
iron.--Singular,” he again muttered to himself, “if there be two who can
do a deed of such derring-do! [37]--a fetterlock, and a shacklebolt on
a field sable--what may that mean?--seest thou nought else, Rebecca, by
which the Black Knight may be distinguished?”

“Nothing,” said the Jewess; “all about him is black as the wing of the
night raven. Nothing can I spy that can mark him further--but having
once seen him put forth his strength in battle, methinks I could know
him again among a thousand warriors. He rushes to the fray as if he were
summoned to a banquet. There is more than mere strength, there seems as
if the whole soul and spirit of the champion were given to every
blow which he deals upon his enemies. God assoilize him of the sin of
bloodshed!--it is fearful, yet magnificent, to behold how the arm and
heart of one man can triumph over hundreds.”

“Rebecca,” said Ivanhoe, “thou hast painted a hero; surely they rest
but to refresh their force, or to provide the means of crossing the
moat--Under such a leader as thou hast spoken this knight to be, there
are no craven fears, no cold-blooded delays, no yielding up a gallant
emprize; since the difficulties which render it arduous render it also
glorious. I swear by the honour of my house--I vow by the name of my
bright lady-love, I would endure ten years’ captivity to fight one day
by that good knight’s side in such a quarrel as this!”

“Alas,” said Rebecca, leaving her station at the window, and approaching
the couch of the wounded knight, “this impatient yearning after
action--this struggling with and repining at your present weakness,
will not fail to injure your returning health--How couldst thou hope
to inflict wounds on others, ere that be healed which thou thyself hast
received?”

“Rebecca,” he replied, “thou knowest not how impossible it is for one
trained to actions of chivalry to remain passive as a priest, or a
woman, when they are acting deeds of honour around him. The love of
battle is the food upon which we live--the dust of the ‘melee’ is the
breath of our nostrils! We live not--we wish not to live--longer than
while we are victorious and renowned--Such, maiden, are the laws of
chivalry to which we are sworn, and to which we offer all that we hold
dear.”

“Alas!” said the fair Jewess, “and what is it, valiant knight, save an
offering of sacrifice to a demon of vain glory, and a passing through
the fire to Moloch?--What remains to you as the prize of all the blood
you have spilled--of all the travail and pain you have endured--of
all the tears which your deeds have caused, when death hath broken the
strong man’s spear, and overtaken the speed of his war-horse?”

“What remains?” cried Ivanhoe; “Glory, maiden, glory! which gilds our
sepulchre and embalms our name.”

“Glory?” continued Rebecca; “alas, is the rusted mail which hangs as a
hatchment over the champion’s dim and mouldering tomb--is the defaced
sculpture of the inscription which the ignorant monk can hardly read to
the enquiring pilgrim--are these sufficient rewards for the sacrifice
of every kindly affection, for a life spent miserably that ye may
make others miserable? Or is there such virtue in the rude rhymes of
a wandering bard, that domestic love, kindly affection, peace and
happiness, are so wildly bartered, to become the hero of those ballads
which vagabond minstrels sing to drunken churls over their evening ale?”

“By the soul of Hereward!” replied the knight impatiently, “thou
speakest, maiden, of thou knowest not what. Thou wouldst quench the pure
light of chivalry, which alone distinguishes the noble from the base,
the gentle knight from the churl and the savage; which rates our life
far, far beneath the pitch of our honour; raises us victorious over
pain, toil, and suffering, and teaches us to fear no evil but disgrace.
Thou art no Christian, Rebecca; and to thee are unknown those high
feelings which swell the bosom of a noble maiden when her lover hath
done some deed of emprize which sanctions his flame. Chivalry!--why,
maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection--the stay of the
oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the
tyrant--Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds
the best protection in her lance and her sword.”

“I am, indeed,” said Rebecca, “sprung from a race whose courage was
distinguished in the defence of their own land, but who warred not, even
while yet a nation, save at the command of the Deity, or in defending
their country from oppression. The sound of the trumpet wakes Judah no
longer, and her despised children are now but the unresisting victims
of hostile and military oppression. Well hast thou spoken, Sir
Knight,--until the God of Jacob shall raise up for his chosen people a
second Gideon, or a new Maccabeus, it ill beseemeth the Jewish damsel to
speak of battle or of war.”

The high-minded maiden concluded the argument in a tone of sorrow, which
deeply expressed her sense of the degradation of her people, embittered
perhaps by the idea that Ivanhoe considered her as one not entitled
to interfere in a case of honour, and incapable of entertaining or
expressing sentiments of honour and generosity.

“How little he knows this bosom,” she said, “to imagine that cowardice
or meanness of soul must needs be its guests, because I have censured
the fantastic chivalry of the Nazarenes! Would to heaven that the
shedding of mine own blood, drop by drop, could redeem the captivity of
Judah! Nay, would to God it could avail to set free my father, and this
his benefactor, from the chains of the oppressor! The proud Christian
should then see whether the daughter of God’s chosen people dared not to
die as bravely as the vainest Nazarene maiden, that boasts her descent
from some petty chieftain of the rude and frozen north!”

She then looked towards the couch of the wounded knight.

“He sleeps,” she said; “nature exhausted by sufferance and the waste
of spirits, his wearied frame embraces the first moment of temporary
relaxation to sink into slumber. Alas! is it a crime that I should look
upon him, when it may be for the last time?--When yet but a short space,
and those fair features will be no longer animated by the bold and
buoyant spirit which forsakes them not even in sleep!--When the nostril
shall be distended, the mouth agape, the eyes fixed and bloodshot; and
when the proud and noble knight may be trodden on by the lowest caitiff
of this accursed castle, yet stir not when the heel is lifted up against
him!--And my father!--oh, my father! evil is it with his daughter,
when his grey hairs are not remembered because of the golden locks of
youth!--What know I but that these evils are the messengers of Jehovah’s
wrath to the unnatural child, who thinks of a stranger’s captivity
before a parent’s? who forgets the desolation of Judah, and looks upon
the comeliness of a Gentile and a stranger?--But I will tear this folly
from my heart, though every fibre bleed as I rend it away!”

She wrapped herself closely in her veil, and sat down at a distance
from the couch of the wounded knight, with her back turned towards it,
fortifying, or endeavouring to fortify her mind, not only against
the impending evils from without, but also against those treacherous
feelings which assailed her from within.




CHAPTER XXX

     Approach the chamber, look upon his bed.
     His is the passing of no peaceful ghost,
     Which, as the lark arises to the sky,
     ‘Mid morning’s sweetest breeze and softest dew,
     Is wing’d to heaven by good men’s sighs and tears!--
     Anselm parts otherwise.
     --Old Play

During the interval of quiet which followed the first success of the
besiegers, while the one party was preparing to pursue their advantage,
and the other to strengthen their means of defence, the Templar and De
Bracy held brief council together in the hall of the castle.

“Where is Front-de-Boeuf?” said the latter, who had superintended the
defence of the fortress on the other side; “men say he hath been slain.”

“He lives,” said the Templar, coolly, “lives as yet; but had he worn the
bull’s head of which he bears the name, and ten plates of iron to fence
it withal, he must have gone down before yonder fatal axe. Yet a few
hours, and Front-de-Boeuf is with his fathers--a powerful limb lopped
off Prince John’s enterprise.”

“And a brave addition to the kingdom of Satan,” said De Bracy; “this
comes of reviling saints and angels, and ordering images of holy things
and holy men to be flung down on the heads of these rascaille yeomen.”

“Go to--thou art a fool,” said the Templar; “thy superstition is upon a
level with Front-de-Boeuf’s want of faith; neither of you can render a
reason for your belief or unbelief.”

“Benedicite, Sir Templar,” replied De Bracy, “pray you to keep better
rule with your tongue when I am the theme of it. By the Mother of
Heaven, I am a better Christian man than thou and thy fellowship; for
the ‘bruit’ goeth shrewdly out, that the most holy Order of the Temple
of Zion nurseth not a few heretics within its bosom, and that Sir Brian
de Bois-Guilbert is of the number.”

“Care not thou for such reports,” said the Templar; “but let us think of
making good the castle.--How fought these villain yeomen on thy side?”

“Like fiends incarnate,” said De Bracy. “They swarmed close up to
the walls, headed, as I think, by the knave who won the prize at the
archery, for I knew his horn and baldric. And this is old Fitzurse’s
boasted policy, encouraging these malapert knaves to rebel against us!
Had I not been armed in proof, the villain had marked me down seven
times with as little remorse as if I had been a buck in season. He told
every rivet on my armour with a cloth-yard shaft, that rapped against
my ribs with as little compunction as if my bones had been of iron--But
that I wore a shirt of Spanish mail under my plate-coat, I had been
fairly sped.”

“But you maintained your post?” said the Templar. “We lost the outwork
on our part.”

“That is a shrewd loss,” said De Bracy; “the knaves will find cover
there to assault the castle more closely, and may, if not well watched,
gain some unguarded corner of a tower, or some forgotten window, and
so break in upon us. Our numbers are too few for the defence of every
point, and the men complain that they can nowhere show themselves, but
they are the mark for as many arrows as a parish-butt on a holyday even.
Front-de-Boeuf is dying too, so we shall receive no more aid from his
bull’s head and brutal strength. How think you, Sir Brian, were we
not better make a virtue of necessity, and compound with the rogues by
delivering up our prisoners?”

“How?” exclaimed the Templar; “deliver up our prisoners, and stand an
object alike of ridicule and execration, as the doughty warriors who
dared by a night-attack to possess themselves of the persons of a party
of defenceless travellers, yet could not make good a strong castle
against a vagabond troop of outlaws, led by swineherds, jesters, and the
very refuse of mankind?--Shame on thy counsel, Maurice de Bracy!--The
ruins of this castle shall bury both my body and my shame, ere I consent
to such base and dishonourable composition.”

“Let us to the walls, then,” said De Bracy, carelessly; “that man never
breathed, be he Turk or Templar, who held life at lighter rate than I
do. But I trust there is no dishonour in wishing I had here some two
scores of my gallant troop of Free Companions?--Oh, my brave lances! if
ye knew but how hard your captain were this day bested, how soon should
I see my banner at the head of your clump of spears! And how short while
would these rabble villains stand to endure your encounter!”

“Wish for whom thou wilt,” said the Templar, “but let us make
what defence we can with the soldiers who remain--They are chiefly
Front-de-Boeuf’s followers, hated by the English for a thousand acts of
insolence and oppression.”

“The better,” said De Bracy; “the rugged slaves will defend themselves
to the last drop of their blood, ere they encounter the revenge of the
peasants without. Let us up and be doing, then, Brian de Bois-Guilbert;
and, live or die, thou shalt see Maurice de Bracy bear himself this day
as a gentleman of blood and lineage.”

“To the walls!” answered the Templar; and they both ascended the
battlements to do all that skill could dictate, and manhood accomplish,
in defence of the place. They readily agreed that the point of greatest
danger was that opposite to the outwork of which the assailants had
possessed themselves. The castle, indeed, was divided from that barbican
by the moat, and it was impossible that the besiegers could assail the
postern-door, with which the outwork corresponded, without surmounting
that obstacle; but it was the opinion both of the Templar and De Bracy,
that the besiegers, if governed by the same policy their leader had
already displayed, would endeavour, by a formidable assault, to draw
the chief part of the defenders’ observation to this point, and take
measures to avail themselves of every negligence which might take place
in the defence elsewhere. To guard against such an evil, their numbers
only permitted the knights to place sentinels from space to space along
the walls in communication with each other, who might give the alarm
whenever danger was threatened. Meanwhile, they agreed that De Bracy
should command the defence at the postern, and the Templar should keep
with him a score of men or thereabouts as a body of reserve, ready to
hasten to any other point which might be suddenly threatened. The loss
of the barbican had also this unfortunate effect, that, notwithstanding
the superior height of the castle walls, the besieged could not see from
them, with the same precision as before, the operations of the enemy;
for some straggling underwood approached so near the sallyport of the
outwork, that the assailants might introduce into it whatever force they
thought proper, not only under cover, but even without the knowledge of
the defenders. Utterly uncertain, therefore, upon what point the storm
was to burst, De Bracy and his companion were under the necessity of
providing against every possible contingency, and their followers,
however brave, experienced the anxious dejection of mind incident to men
enclosed by enemies, who possessed the power of choosing their time and
mode of attack.

Meanwhile, the lord of the beleaguered and endangered castle lay upon
a bed of bodily pain and mental agony. He had not the usual resource of
bigots in that superstitious period, most of whom were wont to atone for
the crimes they were guilty of by liberality to the church, stupefying
by this means their terrors by the idea of atonement and forgiveness;
and although the refuge which success thus purchased, was no more like
to the peace of mind which follows on sincere repentance, than the
turbid stupefaction procured by opium resembles healthy and natural
slumbers, it was still a state of mind preferable to the agonies of
awakened remorse. But among the vices of Front-de-Boeuf, a hard and
griping man, avarice was predominant; and he preferred setting church
and churchmen at defiance, to purchasing from them pardon and absolution
at the price of treasure and of manors. Nor did the Templar, an infidel
of another stamp, justly characterise his associate, when he said
Front-de-Boeuf could assign no cause for his unbelief and contempt for
the established faith; for the Baron would have alleged that the Church
sold her wares too dear, that the spiritual freedom which she put up to
sale was only to be bought like that of the chief captain of Jerusalem,
“with a great sum,” and Front-de-Boeuf preferred denying the virtue of
the medicine, to paying the expense of the physician.

But the moment had now arrived when earth and all his treasures were
gliding from before his eyes, and when the savage Baron’s heart, though
hard as a nether millstone, became appalled as he gazed forward into the
waste darkness of futurity. The fever of his body aided the impatience
and agony of his mind, and his death-bed exhibited a mixture of
the newly awakened feelings of horror, combating with the fixed and
inveterate obstinacy of his disposition;--a fearful state of mind, only
to be equalled in those tremendous regions, where there are complaints
without hope, remorse without repentance, a dreadful sense of present
agony, and a presentiment that it cannot cease or be diminished!

“Where be these dog-priests now,” growled the Baron, “who set such price
on their ghostly mummery?--where be all those unshod Carmelites, for
whom old Front-de-Boeuf founded the convent of St Anne, robbing his heir
of many a fair rood of meadow, and many a fat field and close--where be
the greedy hounds now?--Swilling, I warrant me, at the ale, or playing
their juggling tricks at the bedside of some miserly churl.--Me, the
heir of their founder--me, whom their foundation binds them to pray
for--me--ungrateful villains as they are!--they suffer to die like the
houseless dog on yonder common, unshriven and unhouseled!--Tell the
Templar to come hither--he is a priest, and may do something--But
no!--as well confess myself to the devil as to Brian de Bois-Guilbert,
who recks neither of heaven nor of hell.--I have heard old men talk of
prayer--prayer by their own voice--Such need not to court or to bribe
the false priest--But I--I dare not!”

“Lives Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,” said a broken and shrill voice close by
his bedside, “to say there is that which he dares not!”

The evil conscience and the shaken nerves of Front-de-Boeuf heard, in
this strange interruption to his soliloquy, the voice of one of those
demons, who, as the superstition of the times believed, beset the
beds of dying men to distract their thoughts, and turn them from the
meditations which concerned their eternal welfare. He shuddered and drew
himself together; but, instantly summoning up his wonted resolution, he
exclaimed, “Who is there?--what art thou, that darest to echo my words
in a tone like that of the night-raven?--Come before my couch that I may
see thee.”

“I am thine evil angel, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,” replied the voice.

“Let me behold thee then in thy bodily shape, if thou be’st indeed a
fiend,” replied the dying knight; “think not that I will blench from
thee.--By the eternal dungeon, could I but grapple with these horrors
that hover round me, as I have done with mortal dangers, heaven or hell
should never say that I shrunk from the conflict!”

“Think on thy sins, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,” said the almost unearthly
voice, “on rebellion, on rapine, on murder!--Who stirred up the
licentious John to war against his grey-headed father--against his
generous brother?”

“Be thou fiend, priest, or devil,” replied Front-de-Boeuf, “thou liest
in thy throat!--Not I stirred John to rebellion--not I alone--there were
fifty knights and barons, the flower of the midland counties--better
men never laid lance in rest--And must I answer for the fault done
by fifty?--False fiend, I defy thee! Depart, and haunt my couch no
more--let me die in peace if thou be mortal--if thou be a demon, thy
time is not yet come.”

“In peace thou shalt NOT die,” repeated the voice; “even in death
shalt thou think on thy murders--on the groans which this castle has
echoed--on the blood that is engrained in its floors!”

“Thou canst not shake me by thy petty malice,” answered Front-de-Boeuf,
with a ghastly and constrained laugh. “The infidel Jew--it was merit
with heaven to deal with him as I did, else wherefore are men canonized
who dip their hands in the blood of Saracens?--The Saxon porkers, whom I
have slain, they were the foes of my country, and of my lineage, and
of my liege lord.--Ho! ho! thou seest there is no crevice in my coat of
plate--Art thou fled?--art thou silenced?”

“No, foul parricide!” replied the voice; “think of thy father!--think
of his death!--think of his banquet-room flooded with his gore, and that
poured forth by the hand of a son!”

“Ha!” answered the Baron, after a long pause, “an thou knowest that,
thou art indeed the author of evil, and as omniscient as the monks call
thee!--That secret I deemed locked in my own breast, and in that of one
besides--the temptress, the partaker of my guilt.--Go, leave me, fiend!
and seek the Saxon witch Ulrica, who alone could tell thee what she
and I alone witnessed.--Go, I say, to her, who washed the wounds, and
straighted the corpse, and gave to the slain man the outward show of
one parted in time and in the course of nature--Go to her, she was my
temptress, the foul provoker, the more foul rewarder, of the deed--let
her, as well as I, taste of the tortures which anticipate hell!”

“She already tastes them,” said Ulrica, stepping before the couch of
Front-de-Boeuf; “she hath long drunken of this cup, and its bitterness
is now sweetened to see that thou dost partake it.--Grind not thy teeth,
Front-de-Boeuf--roll not thine eyes--clench not thine hand, nor shake
it at me with that gesture of menace!--The hand which, like that of thy
renowned ancestor who gained thy name, could have broken with one stroke
the skull of a mountain-bull, is now unnerved and powerless as mine
own!”

“Vile murderous hag!” replied Front-de-Boeuf; “detestable screech-owl!
it is then thou who art come to exult over the ruins thou hast assisted
to lay low?”

“Ay, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,” answered she, “it is Ulrica!--it is the
daughter of the murdered Torquil Wolfganger!--it is the sister of his
slaughtered sons!--it is she who demands of thee, and of thy father’s
house, father and kindred, name and fame--all that she has lost by the
name of Front-de-Boeuf!--Think of my wrongs, Front-de-Boeuf, and answer
me if I speak not truth. Thou hast been my evil angel, and I will be
thine--I will dog thee till the very instant of dissolution!”

“Detestable fury!” exclaimed Front-de-Boeuf, “that moment shalt thou
never witness--Ho! Giles, Clement, and Eustace! Saint Maur, and Stephen!
seize this damned witch, and hurl her from the battlements headlong--she
has betrayed us to the Saxon!--Ho! Saint Maur! Clement! false-hearted,
knaves, where tarry ye?”

“Call on them again, valiant Baron,” said the hag, with a smile of
grisly mockery; “summon thy vassals around thee, doom them that loiter
to the scourge and the dungeon--But know, mighty chief,” she continued,
suddenly changing her tone, “thou shalt have neither answer, nor aid,
nor obedience at their hands.--Listen to these horrid sounds,” for the
din of the recommenced assault and defence now rung fearfully loud from
the battlements of the castle; “in that war-cry is the downfall of thy
house--The blood-cemented fabric of Front-de-Boeuf’s power totters
to the foundation, and before the foes he most despised!--The Saxon,
Reginald!--the scorned Saxon assails thy walls!--Why liest thou here,
like a worn-out hind, when the Saxon storms thy place of strength?”

“Gods and fiends!” exclaimed the wounded knight; “O, for one moment’s
strength, to drag myself to the ‘melee’, and perish as becomes my name!”

“Think not of it, valiant warrior!” replied she; “thou shalt die no
soldier’s death, but perish like the fox in his den, when the peasants
have set fire to the cover around it.”

“Hateful hag! thou liest!” exclaimed Front-de-Boeuf; “my followers bear
them bravely--my walls are strong and high--my comrades in arms fear
not a whole host of Saxons, were they headed by Hengist and Horsa!--The
war-cry of the Templar and of the Free Companions rises high over the
conflict! And by mine honour, when we kindle the blazing beacon, for joy
of our defence, it shall consume thee, body and bones; and I shall live
to hear thou art gone from earthly fires to those of that hell, which
never sent forth an incarnate fiend more utterly diabolical!”

“Hold thy belief,” replied Ulrica, “till the proof reach thee--But, no!”
 she said, interrupting herself, “thou shalt know, even now, the doom,
which all thy power, strength, and courage, is unable to avoid,
though it is prepared for thee by this feeble band. Markest thou the
smouldering and suffocating vapour which already eddies in sable folds
through the chamber?--Didst thou think it was but the darkening of
thy bursting eyes--the difficulty of thy cumbered breathing?--No!
Front-de-Boeuf, there is another cause--Rememberest thou the magazine of
fuel that is stored beneath these apartments?”

“Woman!” he exclaimed with fury, “thou hast not set fire to it?--By
heaven, thou hast, and the castle is in flames!”

“They are fast rising at least,” said Ulrica, with frightful composure;
“and a signal shall soon wave to warn the besiegers to press hard upon
those who would extinguish them.--Farewell, Front-de-Boeuf!--May Mista,
Skogula, and Zernebock, gods of the ancient Saxons--fiends, as the
priests now call them--supply the place of comforters at your dying bed,
which Ulrica now relinquishes!--But know, if it will give thee comfort
to know it, that Ulrica is bound to the same dark coast with thyself,
the companion of thy punishment as the companion of thy guilt.--And now,
parricide, farewell for ever!--May each stone of this vaulted roof find
a tongue to echo that title into thine ear!”

So saying, she left the apartment; and Front-de-Boeuf could hear the
crash of the ponderous key, as she locked and double-locked the door
behind her, thus cutting off the most slender chance of escape. In the
extremity of agony he shouted upon his servants and allies--“Stephen and
Saint Maur!--Clement and Giles!--I burn here unaided!--To the rescue--to
the rescue, brave Bois-Guilbert, valiant De Bracy!--It is Front-de-Boeuf
who calls!--It is your master, ye traitor squires!--Your ally--your
brother in arms, ye perjured and faithless knights!--all the curses due
to traitors upon your recreant heads, do you abandon me to perish thus
miserably!--They hear me not--they cannot hear me--my voice is lost in
the din of battle.--The smoke rolls thicker and thicker--the fire has
caught upon the floor below--O, for one drought of the air of heaven,
were it to be purchased by instant annihilation!” And in the mad frenzy
of despair, the wretch now shouted with the shouts of the fighters, now
muttered curses on himself, on mankind, and on Heaven itself.--“The red
fire flashes through the thick smoke!” he exclaimed; “the demon marches
against me under the banner of his own element--Foul spirit, avoid!--I
go not with thee without my comrades--all, all are thine, that garrison
these walls--Thinkest thou Front-de-Boeuf will be singled out to go
alone?--No--the infidel Templar--the licentious De Bracy--Ulrica, the
foul murdering strumpet--the men who aided my enterprises--the dog
Saxons and accursed Jews, who are my prisoners--all, all shall attend
me--a goodly fellowship as ever took the downward road--Ha, ha, ha!” and
he laughed in his frenzy till the vaulted roof rang again. “Who laughed
there?” exclaimed Front-de-Boeuf, in altered mood, for the noise of
the conflict did not prevent the echoes of his own mad laughter
from returning upon his ear--“who laughed there?--Ulrica, was it
thou?--Speak, witch, and I forgive thee--for, only thou or the fiend of
hell himself could have laughed at such a moment. Avaunt--avaunt!---”

But it were impious to trace any farther the picture of the blasphemer
and parricide’s deathbed.




CHAPTER XXXI

     Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
     Or, close the wall up with our English dead.
     -------And you, good yeomen,
     Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
     The mettle of your pasture--let us swear
     That you are worth your breeding.
     King Henry V

Cedric, although not greatly confident in Ulrica’s message, omitted not
to communicate her promise to the Black Knight and Locksley. They were
well pleased to find they had a friend within the place, who might, in
the moment of need, be able to facilitate their entrance, and readily
agreed with the Saxon that a storm, under whatever disadvantages, ought
to be attempted, as the only means of liberating the prisoners now in
the hands of the cruel Front-de-Boeuf.

“The royal blood of Alfred is endangered,” said Cedric.

“The honour of a noble lady is in peril,” said the Black Knight.

“And, by the Saint Christopher at my baldric,” said the good yeoman,
“were there no other cause than the safety of that poor faithful knave,
Wamba, I would jeopard a joint ere a hair of his head were hurt.”

“And so would I,” said the Friar; “what, sirs! I trust well that a
fool--I mean, d’ye see me, sirs, a fool that is free of his guild and
master of his craft, and can give as much relish and flavour to a cup of
wine as ever a flitch of bacon can--I say, brethren, such a fool shall
never want a wise clerk to pray for or fight for him at a strait, while
I can say a mass or flourish a partisan.” And with that he made his
heavy halberd to play around his head as a shepherd boy flourishes his
light crook.

“True, Holy Clerk,” said the Black Knight, “true as if Saint Dunstan
himself had said it.--And now, good Locksley, were it not well that
noble Cedric should assume the direction of this assault?”

“Not a jot I,” returned Cedric; “I have never been wont to study either
how to take or how to hold out those abodes of tyrannic power, which
the Normans have erected in this groaning land. I will fight among the
foremost; but my honest neighbours well know I am not a trained soldier
in the discipline of wars, or the attack of strongholds.”

“Since it stands thus with noble Cedric,” said Locksley, “I am most
willing to take on me the direction of the archery; and ye shall hang
me up on my own Trysting-tree, an the defenders be permitted to show
themselves over the walls without being stuck with as many shafts as
there are cloves in a gammon of bacon at Christmas.”

“Well said, stout yeoman,” answered the Black Knight; “and if I be
thought worthy to have a charge in these matters, and can find among
these brave men as many as are willing to follow a true English knight,
for so I may surely call myself, I am ready, with such skill as my
experience has taught me, to lead them to the attack of these walls.”

The parts being thus distributed to the leaders, they commenced the
first assault, of which the reader has already heard the issue.

When the barbican was carried, the Sable Knight sent notice of the
happy event to Locksley, requesting him at the same time, to keep such
a strict observation on the castle as might prevent the defenders from
combining their force for a sudden sally, and recovering the outwork
which they had lost. This the knight was chiefly desirous of avoiding,
conscious that the men whom he led, being hasty and untrained
volunteers, imperfectly armed and unaccustomed to discipline, must, upon
any sudden attack, fight at great disadvantage with the veteran soldiers
of the Norman knights, who were well provided with arms both defensive
and offensive; and who, to match the zeal and high spirit of the
besiegers, had all the confidence which arises from perfect discipline
and the habitual use of weapons.

The knight employed the interval in causing to be constructed a sort of
floating bridge, or long raft, by means of which he hoped to cross the
moat in despite of the resistance of the enemy. This was a work of some
time, which the leaders the less regretted, as it gave Ulrica leisure to
execute her plan of diversion in their favour, whatever that might be.

When the raft was completed, the Black Knight addressed the
besiegers:--“It avails not waiting here longer, my friends; the sun is
descending to the west--and I have that upon my hands which will not
permit me to tarry with you another day. Besides, it will be a marvel if
the horsemen come not upon us from York, unless we speedily accomplish
our purpose. Wherefore, one of ye go to Locksley, and bid him commence a
discharge of arrows on the opposite side of the castle, and move forward
as if about to assault it; and you, true English hearts, stand by me,
and be ready to thrust the raft endlong over the moat whenever the
postern on our side is thrown open. Follow me boldly across, and aid me
to burst yon sallyport in the main wall of the castle. As many of you as
like not this service, or are but ill armed to meet it, do you man the
top of the outwork, draw your bow-strings to your ears, and mind you
quell with your shot whatever shall appear to man the rampart--Noble
Cedric, wilt thou take the direction of those which remain?”

“Not so, by the soul of Hereward!” said the Saxon; “lead I cannot; but
may posterity curse me in my grave, if I follow not with the foremost
wherever thou shalt point the way--The quarrel is mine, and well it
becomes me to be in the van of the battle.”

“Yet, bethink thee, noble Saxon,” said the knight, “thou hast neither
hauberk, nor corslet, nor aught but that light helmet, target, and
sword.”

“The better!” answered Cedric; “I shall be the lighter to climb these
walls. And,--forgive the boast, Sir Knight,--thou shalt this day see
the naked breast of a Saxon as boldly presented to the battle as ever ye
beheld the steel corslet of a Norman.”

“In the name of God, then,” said the knight, “fling open the door, and
launch the floating bridge.”

The portal, which led from the inner-wall of the barbican to the moat,
and which corresponded with a sallyport in the main wall of the castle,
was now suddenly opened; the temporary bridge was then thrust forward,
and soon flashed in the waters, extending its length between the castle
and outwork, and forming a slippery and precarious passage for two men
abreast to cross the moat. Well aware of the importance of taking the
foe by surprise, the Black Knight, closely followed by Cedric, threw
himself upon the bridge, and reached the opposite side. Here he began to
thunder with his axe upon the gate of the castle, protected in part from
the shot and stones cast by the defenders by the ruins of the former
drawbridge, which the Templar had demolished in his retreat from the
barbican, leaving the counterpoise still attached to the upper part of
the portal. The followers of the knight had no such shelter; two were
instantly shot with cross-bow bolts, and two more fell into the moat;
the others retreated back into the barbican.

The situation of Cedric and of the Black Knight was now truly dangerous,
and would have been still more so, but for the constancy of the
archers in the barbican, who ceased not to shower their arrows upon
the battlements, distracting the attention of those by whom they were
manned, and thus affording a respite to their two chiefs from the
storm of missiles which must otherwise have overwhelmed them. But their
situation was eminently perilous, and was becoming more so with every
moment.

“Shame on ye all!” cried De Bracy to the soldiers around him; “do ye
call yourselves cross-bowmen, and let these two dogs keep their station
under the walls of the castle?--Heave over the coping stones from the
battlements, an better may not be--Get pick-axe and levers, and down
with that huge pinnacle!” pointing to a heavy piece of stone carved-work
that projected from the parapet.

At this moment the besiegers caught sight of the red flag upon the angle
of the tower which Ulrica had described to Cedric. The stout yeoman
Locksley was the first who was aware of it, as he was hasting to the
outwork, impatient to see the progress of the assault.

“Saint George!” he cried, “Merry Saint George for England!--To the
charge, bold yeomen!--why leave ye the good knight and noble Cedric to
storm the pass alone?--make in, mad priest, show thou canst fight for
thy rosary,--make in, brave yeomen!--the castle is ours, we have friends
within--See yonder flag, it is the appointed signal--Torquilstone is
ours!--Think of honour, think of spoil--One effort, and the place is
ours!”

With that he bent his good bow, and sent a shaft right through the
breast of one of the men-at-arms, who, under De Bracy’s direction, was
loosening a fragment from one of the battlements to precipitate on the
heads of Cedric and the Black Knight. A second soldier caught from the
hands of the dying man the iron crow, with which he heaved at and
had loosened the stone pinnacle, when, receiving an arrow through his
head-piece, he dropped from the battlements into the moat a dead man.
The men-at-arms were daunted, for no armour seemed proof against the
shot of this tremendous archer.

“Do you give ground, base knaves!” said De Bracy; “‘Mount joye Saint
Dennis!’--Give me the lever!”

And, snatching it up, he again assailed the loosened pinnacle, which was
of weight enough, if thrown down, not only to have destroyed the remnant
of the drawbridge, which sheltered the two foremost assailants, but also
to have sunk the rude float of planks over which they had crossed. All
saw the danger, and the boldest, even the stout Friar himself, avoided
setting foot on the raft. Thrice did Locksley bend his shaft against De
Bracy, and thrice did his arrow bound back from the knight’s armour of
proof.

“Curse on thy Spanish steel-coat!” said Locksley, “had English smith
forged it, these arrows had gone through, an as if it had been silk or
sendal.” He then began to call out, “Comrades! friends! noble Cedric!
bear back, and let the ruin fall.”

His warning voice was unheard, for the din which the knight himself
occasioned by his strokes upon the postern would have drowned twenty
war-trumpets. The faithful Gurth indeed sprung forward on the planked
bridge, to warn Cedric of his impending fate, or to share it with him.
But his warning would have come too late; the massive pinnacle already
tottered, and De Bracy, who still heaved at his task, would have
accomplished it, had not the voice of the Templar sounded close in his
ears:--

“All is lost, De Bracy, the castle burns.”

“Thou art mad to say so!” replied the knight.

“It is all in a light flame on the western side. I have striven in vain
to extinguish it.”

With the stern coolness which formed the basis of his character, Brian
de Bois-Guilbert communicated this hideous intelligence, which was not
so calmly received by his astonished comrade.

“Saints of Paradise!” said De Bracy; “what is to be done? I vow to Saint
Nicholas of Limoges a candlestick of pure gold--”

“Spare thy vow,” said the Templar, “and mark me. Lead thy men down, as
if to a sally; throw the postern-gate open--There are but two men who
occupy the float, fling them into the moat, and push across for the
barbican. I will charge from the main gate, and attack the barbican on
the outside; and if we can regain that post, be assured we shall defend
ourselves until we are relieved, or at least till they grant us fair
quarter.”

“It is well thought upon,” said De Bracy; “I will play my part--Templar,
thou wilt not fail me?”

“Hand and glove, I will not!” said Bois-Guilbert. “But haste thee, in
the name of God!”

De Bracy hastily drew his men together, and rushed down to the
postern-gate, which he caused instantly to be thrown open. But scarce
was this done ere the portentous strength of the Black Knight forced his
way inward in despite of De Bracy and his followers. Two of the foremost
instantly fell, and the rest gave way notwithstanding all their leader’s
efforts to stop them.

“Dogs!” said De Bracy, “will ye let TWO men win our only pass for
safety?”

“He is the devil!” said a veteran man-at-arms, bearing back from the
blows of their sable antagonist.

“And if he be the devil,” replied De Bracy, “would you fly from him into
the mouth of hell?--the castle burns behind us, villains!--let despair
give you courage, or let me forward! I will cope with this champion
myself.”

And well and chivalrous did De Bracy that day maintain the fame he had
acquired in the civil wars of that dreadful period. The vaulted passage
to which the postern gave entrance, and in which these two redoubted
champions were now fighting hand to hand, rung with the furious blows
which they dealt each other, De Bracy with his sword, the Black Knight
with his ponderous axe. At length the Norman received a blow, which,
though its force was partly parried by his shield, for otherwise never
more would De Bracy have again moved limb, descended yet with such
violence on his crest, that he measured his length on the paved floor.

“Yield thee, De Bracy,” said the Black Champion, stooping over him, and
holding against the bars of his helmet the fatal poniard with which the
knights dispatched their enemies, (and which was called the dagger of
mercy,)--“yield thee, Maurice de Bracy, rescue or no rescue, or thou art
but a dead man.”

“I will not yield,” replied De Bracy faintly, “to an unknown conqueror.
Tell me thy name, or work thy pleasure on me--it shall never be said
that Maurice de Bracy was prisoner to a nameless churl.”

The Black Knight whispered something into the ear of the vanquished.

“I yield me to be true prisoner, rescue or no rescue,” answered the
Norman, exchanging his tone of stern and determined obstinacy for one of
deep though sullen submission.

“Go to the barbican,” said the victor, in a tone of authority, “and
there wait my further orders.”

“Yet first, let me say,” said De Bracy, “what it imports thee to know.
Wilfred of Ivanhoe is wounded and a prisoner, and will perish in the
burning castle without present help.”

“Wilfred of Ivanhoe!” exclaimed the Black Knight--“prisoner, and
perish!--The life of every man in the castle shall answer it if a hair
of his head be singed--Show me his chamber!”

“Ascend yonder winding stair,” said De Bracy; “it leads to his
apartment--Wilt thou not accept my guidance?” he added, in a submissive
voice.

“No. To the barbican, and there wait my orders. I trust thee not, De
Bracy.”

During this combat and the brief conversation which ensued, Cedric, at
the head of a body of men, among whom the Friar was conspicuous, had
pushed across the bridge as soon as they saw the postern open, and drove
back the dispirited and despairing followers of De Bracy, of whom some
asked quarter, some offered vain resistance, and the greater part fled
towards the court-yard. De Bracy himself arose from the ground, and cast
a sorrowful glance after his conqueror. “He trusts me not!” he repeated;
“but have I deserved his trust?” He then lifted his sword from the
floor, took off his helmet in token of submission, and, going to the
barbican, gave up his sword to Locksley, whom he met by the way.

As the fire augmented, symptoms of it became soon apparent in the
chamber, where Ivanhoe was watched and tended by the Jewess Rebecca. He
had been awakened from his brief slumber by the noise of the battle; and
his attendant, who had, at his anxious desire, again placed herself at
the window to watch and report to him the fate of the attack, was
for some time prevented from observing either, by the increase of the
smouldering and stifling vapour. At length the volumes of smoke which
rolled into the apartment--the cries for water, which were heard even
above the din of the battle made them sensible of the progress of this
new danger.

“The castle burns,” said Rebecca; “it burns!--What can we do to save
ourselves?”

“Fly, Rebecca, and save thine own life,” said Ivanhoe, “for no human aid
can avail me.”

“I will not fly,” answered Rebecca; “we will be saved or perish
together--And yet, great God!--my father, my father--what will be his
fate!”

At this moment the door of the apartment flew open, and the Templar
presented himself,--a ghastly figure, for his gilded armour was broken
and bloody, and the plume was partly shorn away, partly burnt from his
casque. “I have found thee,” said he to Rebecca; “thou shalt prove I
will keep my word to share weal and woe with thee--There is but one
path to safety, I have cut my way through fifty dangers to point it to
thee--up, and instantly follow me!” [38]

“Alone,” answered Rebecca, “I will not follow thee. If thou wert born of
woman--if thou hast but a touch of human charity in thee--if thy heart
be not hard as thy breastplate--save my aged father--save this wounded
knight!”

“A knight,” answered the Templar, with his characteristic calmness, “a
knight, Rebecca, must encounter his fate, whether it meet him in the
shape of sword or flame--and who recks how or where a Jew meets with
his?”

“Savage warrior,” said Rebecca, “rather will I perish in the flames than
accept safety from thee!”

“Thou shalt not choose, Rebecca--once didst thou foil me, but never
mortal did so twice.”

So saying, he seized on the terrified maiden, who filled the air with
her shrieks, and bore her out of the room in his arms in spite of her
cries, and without regarding the menaces and defiance which Ivanhoe
thundered against him. “Hound of the Temple--stain to thine Order--set
free the damsel! Traitor of Bois-Guilbert, it is Ivanhoe commands
thee!--Villain, I will have thy heart’s blood!”

“I had not found thee, Wilfred,” said the Black Knight, who at that
instant entered the apartment, “but for thy shouts.”

“If thou be’st true knight,” said Wilfred, “think not of me--pursue yon
ravisher--save the Lady Rowena--look to the noble Cedric!”

“In their turn,” answered he of the Fetterlock, “but thine is first.”

And seizing upon Ivanhoe, he bore him off with as much ease as the
Templar had carried off Rebecca, rushed with him to the postern, and
having there delivered his burden to the care of two yeomen, he again
entered the castle to assist in the rescue of the other prisoners.

One turret was now in bright flames, which flashed out furiously from
window and shot-hole. But in other parts, the great thickness of the
walls and the vaulted roofs of the apartments, resisted the progress
of the flames, and there the rage of man still triumphed, as the scarce
more dreadful element held mastery elsewhere; for the besiegers pursued
the defenders of the castle from chamber to chamber, and satiated in
their blood the vengeance which had long animated them against the
soldiers of the tyrant Front-de-Boeuf. Most of the garrison resisted to
the uttermost--few of them asked quarter--none received it. The air was
filled with groans and clashing of arms--the floors were slippery with
the blood of despairing and expiring wretches.

Through this scene of confusion, Cedric rushed in quest of Rowena, while
the faithful Gurth, following him closely through the “melee”, neglected
his own safety while he strove to avert the blows that were aimed at
his master. The noble Saxon was so fortunate as to reach his ward’s
apartment just as she had abandoned all hope of safety, and, with a
crucifix clasped in agony to her bosom, sat in expectation of instant
death. He committed her to the charge of Gurth, to be conducted in
safety to the barbican, the road to which was now cleared of the enemy,
and not yet interrupted by the flames. This accomplished, the loyal
Cedric hastened in quest of his friend Athelstane, determined, at every
risk to himself, to save that last scion of Saxon royalty. But ere
Cedric penetrated as far as the old hall in which he had himself been
a prisoner, the inventive genius of Wamba had procured liberation for
himself and his companion in adversity.

When the noise of the conflict announced that it was at the hottest, the
Jester began to shout, with the utmost power of his lungs, “Saint George
and the dragon!--Bonny Saint George for merry England!--The castle is
won!” And these sounds he rendered yet more fearful, by banging against
each other two or three pieces of rusty armour which lay scattered
around the hall.

A guard, which had been stationed in the outer, or anteroom, and
whose spirits were already in a state of alarm, took fright at Wamba’s
clamour, and, leaving the door open behind them, ran to tell the Templar
that foemen had entered the old hall. Meantime the prisoners found no
difficulty in making their escape into the anteroom, and from thence
into the court of the castle, which was now the last scene of contest.
Here sat the fierce Templar, mounted on horseback, surrounded by several
of the garrison both on horse and foot, who had united their strength
to that of this renowned leader, in order to secure the last chance
of safety and retreat which remained to them. The drawbridge had been
lowered by his orders, but the passage was beset; for the archers, who
had hitherto only annoyed the castle on that side by their missiles, no
sooner saw the flames breaking out, and the bridge lowered, than they
thronged to the entrance, as well to prevent the escape of the garrison,
as to secure their own share of booty ere the castle should be burnt
down. On the other hand, a party of the besiegers who had entered by
the postern were now issuing out into the court-yard, and attacking with
fury the remnant of the defenders who were thus assaulted on both sides
at once.

Animated, however, by despair, and supported by the example of their
indomitable leader, the remaining soldiers of the castle fought with
the utmost valour; and, being well-armed, succeeded more than once in
driving back the assailants, though much inferior in numbers. Rebecca,
placed on horseback before one of the Templar’s Saracen slaves, was in
the midst of the little party; and Bois-Guilbert, notwithstanding the
confusion of the bloody fray, showed every attention to her safety.
Repeatedly he was by her side, and, neglecting his own defence, held
before her the fence of his triangular steel-plated shield; and anon
starting from his position by her, he cried his war-cry, dashed forward,
struck to earth the most forward of the assailants, and was on the same
instant once more at her bridle rein.

Athelstane, who, as the reader knows, was slothful, but not cowardly,
beheld the female form whom the Templar protected thus sedulously, and
doubted not that it was Rowena whom the knight was carrying off, in
despite of all resistance which could be offered.

“By the soul of Saint Edward,” he said, “I will rescue her from yonder
over-proud knight, and he shall die by my hand!”

“Think what you do!” cried Wamba; “hasty hand catches frog for fish--by
my bauble, yonder is none of my Lady Rowena--see but her long dark
locks!--Nay, an ye will not know black from white, ye may be leader, but
I will be no follower--no bones of mine shall be broken unless I know
for whom.--And you without armour too!--Bethink you, silk bonnet never
kept out steel blade.--Nay, then, if wilful will to water, wilful must
drench.--‘Deus vobiscum’, most doughty Athelstane!”--he concluded,
loosening the hold which he had hitherto kept upon the Saxon’s tunic.

To snatch a mace from the pavement, on which it lay beside one whose
dying grasp had just relinquished it--to rush on the Templar’s band, and
to strike in quick succession to the right and left, levelling a warrior
at each blow, was, for Athelstane’s great strength, now animated with
unusual fury, but the work of a single moment; he was soon within two
yards of Bois-Guilbert, whom he defied in his loudest tone.

“Turn, false-hearted Templar! let go her whom thou art unworthy to
touch--turn, limb of a hand of murdering and hypocritical robbers!”

“Dog!” said the Templar, grinding his teeth, “I will teach thee to
blaspheme the holy Order of the Temple of Zion;” and with these words,
half-wheeling his steed, he made a demi-courbette towards the Saxon, and
rising in the stirrups, so as to take full advantage of the descent of
the horse, he discharged a fearful blow upon the head of Athelstane.

Well said Wamba, that silken bonnet keeps out no steel blade. So
trenchant was the Templar’s weapon, that it shore asunder, as it had
been a willow twig, the tough and plaited handle of the mace, which the
ill-fated Saxon reared to parry the blow, and, descending on his head,
levelled him with the earth.

“‘Ha! Beau-seant!’” exclaimed Bois-Guilbert, “thus be it to the
maligners of the Temple-knights!” Taking advantage of the dismay which
was spread by the fall of Athelstane, and calling aloud, “Those who
would save themselves, follow me!” he pushed across the drawbridge,
dispersing the archers who would have intercepted them. He was followed
by his Saracens, and some five or six men-at-arms, who had mounted their
horses. The Templar’s retreat was rendered perilous by the numbers of
arrows shot off at him and his party; but this did not prevent him from
galloping round to the barbican, of which, according to his previous
plan, he supposed it possible De Bracy might have been in possession.

“De Bracy! De Bracy!” he shouted, “art thou there?”

“I am here,” replied De Bracy, “but I am a prisoner.”

“Can I rescue thee?” cried Bois-Guilbert.

“No,” replied De Bracy; “I have rendered me, rescue or no rescue. I will
be true prisoner. Save thyself--there are hawks abroad--put the seas
betwixt you and England--I dare not say more.”

“Well,” answered the Templar, “an thou wilt tarry there, remember I
have redeemed word and glove. Be the hawks where they will, methinks
the walls of the Preceptory of Templestowe will be cover sufficient, and
thither will I, like heron to her haunt.”

Having thus spoken, he galloped off with his followers.

Those of the castle who had not gotten to horse, still continued
to fight desperately with the besiegers, after the departure of the
Templar, but rather in despair of quarter than that they entertained any
hope of escape. The fire was spreading rapidly through all parts of the
castle, when Ulrica, who had first kindled it, appeared on a turret, in
the guise of one of the ancient furies, yelling forth a war-song, such
as was of yore raised on the field of battle by the scalds of the
yet heathen Saxons. Her long dishevelled grey hair flew back from her
uncovered head; the inebriating delight of gratified vengeance contended
in her eyes with the fire of insanity; and she brandished the distaff
which she held in her hand, as if she had been one of the Fatal Sisters,
who spin and abridge the thread of human life. Tradition has preserved
some wild strophes of the barbarous hymn which she chanted wildly amid
that scene of fire and of slaughter:--

     1.
     Whet the bright steel,
     Sons of the White Dragon!
     Kindle the torch,
     Daughter of Hengist!
     The steel glimmers not for the carving of the banquet,
     It is hard, broad, and sharply pointed;
     The torch goeth not to the bridal chamber,
     It steams and glitters blue with sulphur.
     Whet the steel, the raven croaks!
     Light the torch, Zernebock is yelling!
     Whet the steel, sons of the Dragon!
     Kindle the torch, daughter of Hengist!

     2.
     The black cloud is low over the thane’s castle
     The eagle screams--he rides on its bosom.
     Scream not, grey rider of the sable cloud,
     Thy banquet is prepared!
     The maidens of Valhalla look forth,
     The race of Hengist will send them guests.
     Shake your black tresses, maidens of Valhalla!
     And strike your loud timbrels for joy!
     Many a haughty step bends to your halls,
     Many a helmed head.

     3.
     Dark sits the evening upon the thanes castle,
     The black clouds gather round;
     Soon shall they be red as the blood of the valiant!
     The destroyer of forests shall shake his red crest against
     them.
     He, the bright consumer of palaces,
     Broad waves he his blazing banner,
     Red, wide and dusky,
     Over the strife of the valiant:
     His joy is in the clashing swords and broken bucklers;
     He loves to lick the hissing blood as it bursts warm from the
     wound!

     4.
     All must perish!
     The sword cleaveth the helmet;
     The strong armour is pierced by the lance;
     Fire devoureth the dwelling of princes,
     Engines break down the fences of the battle.
     All must perish!
     The race of Hengist is gone--
     The name of Horsa is no more!
     Shrink not then from your doom, sons of the sword!
     Let your blades drink blood like wine;
     Feast ye in the banquet of slaughter,
     By the light of the blazing halls!
     Strong be your swords while your blood is warm,
     And spare neither for pity nor fear,
     For vengeance hath but an hour;
     Strong hate itself shall expire
     I also must perish! [39]

The towering flames had now surmounted every obstruction, and rose to
the evening skies one huge and burning beacon, seen far and wide through
the adjacent country. Tower after tower crashed down, with blazing roof
and rafter; and the combatants were driven from the court-yard. The
vanquished, of whom very few remained, scattered and escaped into the
neighbouring wood. The victors, assembling in large bands, gazed with
wonder, not unmixed with fear, upon the flames, in which their own ranks
and arms glanced dusky red. The maniac figure of the Saxon Ulrica was
for a long time visible on the lofty stand she had chosen, tossing
her arms abroad with wild exultation, as if she reined empress of the
conflagration which she had raised. At length, with a terrific crash,
the whole turret gave way, and she perished in the flames which had
consumed her tyrant. An awful pause of horror silenced each murmur of
the armed spectators, who, for the space of several minutes, stirred not
a finger, save to sign the cross. The voice of Locksley was then heard,
“Shout, yeomen!--the den of tyrants is no more! Let each bring his
spoil to our chosen place of rendezvous at the Trysting-tree in the
Harthill-walk; for there at break of day will we make just partition
among our own bands, together with our worthy allies in this great deed
of vengeance.”




CHAPTER XXXII.

     Trust me each state must have its policies:
     Kingdoms have edicts, cities have their charters;
     Even the wild outlaw, in his forest-walk,
     Keeps yet some touch of civil discipline;
     For not since Adam wore his verdant apron,
     Hath man with man in social union dwelt,
     But laws were made to draw that union closer.
     --Old Play

The daylight had dawned upon the glades of the oak forest. The green
boughs glittered with all their pearls of dew. The hind led her fawn
from the covert of high fern to the more open walks of the greenwood,
and no huntsman was there to watch or intercept the stately hart, as he
paced at the head of the antler’d herd.

The outlaws were all assembled around the Trysting-tree in the
Harthill-walk, where they had spent the night in refreshing themselves
after the fatigues of the siege, some with wine, some with slumber, many
with hearing and recounting the events of the day, and computing the
heaps of plunder which their success had placed at the disposal of their
Chief.

The spoils were indeed very large; for, notwithstanding that much was
consumed, a great deal of plate, rich armour, and splendid clothing,
had been secured by the exertions of the dauntless outlaws, who could be
appalled by no danger when such rewards were in view. Yet so strict were
the laws of their society, that no one ventured to appropriate any
part of the booty, which was brought into one common mass, to be at the
disposal of their leader.

The place of rendezvous was an aged oak; not however the same to which
Locksley had conducted Gurth and Wamba in the earlier part of the story,
but one which was the centre of a silvan amphitheatre, within half a
mile of the demolished castle of Torquilstone. Here Locksley assumed his
seat--a throne of turf erected under the twisted branches of the huge
oak, and the silvan followers were gathered around him. He assigned to
the Black Knight a seat at his right hand, and to Cedric a place upon
his left.

“Pardon my freedom, noble sirs,” he said, “but in these glades I am
monarch--they are my kingdom; and these my wild subjects would reck but
little of my power, were I, within my own dominions, to yield place to
mortal man.--Now, sirs, who hath seen our chaplain? where is our curtal
Friar? A mass amongst Christian men best begins a busy morning.”--No one
had seen the Clerk of Copmanhurst. “Over gods forbode!” said the outlaw
chief, “I trust the jolly priest hath but abidden by the wine-pot a
thought too late. Who saw him since the castle was ta’en?”

“I,” quoth the Miller, “marked him busy about the door of a cellar,
swearing by each saint in the calendar he would taste the smack of
Front-de-Boeuf’s Gascoigne wine.”

“Now, the saints, as many as there be of them,” said the Captain,
“forefend, lest he has drunk too deep of the wine-butts, and perished by
the fall of the castle!--Away, Miller!--take with you enow of men,
seek the place where you last saw him--throw water from the moat on the
scorching ruins--I will have them removed stone by stone ere I lose my
curtal Friar.”

The numbers who hastened to execute this duty, considering that an
interesting division of spoil was about to take place, showed how much
the troop had at heart the safety of their spiritual father.

“Meanwhile, let us proceed,” said Locksley; “for when this bold deed
shall be sounded abroad, the bands of De Bracy, of Malvoisin, and other
allies of Front-de-Boeuf, will be in motion against us, and it were well
for our safety that we retreat from the vicinity.--Noble Cedric,” he
said, turning to the Saxon, “that spoil is divided into two portions; do
thou make choice of that which best suits thee, to recompense thy people
who were partakers with us in this adventure.”

“Good yeoman,” said Cedric, “my heart is oppressed with sadness. The
noble Athelstane of Coningsburgh is no more--the last sprout of
the sainted Confessor! Hopes have perished with him which can never
return!--A sparkle hath been quenched by his blood, which no human
breath can again rekindle! My people, save the few who are now with me,
do but tarry my presence to transport his honoured remains to their last
mansion. The Lady Rowena is desirous to return to Rotherwood, and must
be escorted by a sufficient force. I should, therefore, ere now, have
left this place; and I waited--not to share the booty, for, so help me
God and Saint Withold! as neither I nor any of mine will touch the value
of a liard,--I waited but to render my thanks to thee and to thy bold
yeomen, for the life and honour ye have saved.”

“Nay, but,” said the chief Outlaw, “we did but half the work at
most--take of the spoil what may reward your own neighbours and
followers.”

“I am rich enough to reward them from mine own wealth,” answered Cedric.

“And some,” said Wamba, “have been wise enough to reward themselves;
they do not march off empty-handed altogether. We do not all wear
motley.”

“They are welcome,” said Locksley; “our laws bind none but ourselves.”

“But, thou, my poor knave,” said Cedric, turning about and embracing
his Jester, “how shall I reward thee, who feared not to give thy body
to chains and death instead of mine!--All forsook me, when the poor fool
was faithful!”

A tear stood in the eye of the rough Thane as he spoke--a mark of
feeling which even the death of Athelstane had not extracted; but there
was something in the half-instinctive attachment of his clown, that
waked his nature more keenly than even grief itself.

“Nay,” said the Jester, extricating himself from master’s caress, “if
you pay my service with the water of your eye, the Jester must weep
for company, and then what becomes of his vocation?--But, uncle, if you
would indeed pleasure me, I pray you to pardon my playfellow Gurth, who
stole a week from your service to bestow it on your son.”

“Pardon him!” exclaimed Cedric; “I will both pardon and reward
him.--Kneel down, Gurth.”--The swineherd was in an instant at his
master’s feet--“THEOW and ESNE [40] art thou no longer,” said Cedric
touching him with a wand; “FOLKFREE and SACLESS [41] art thou in town
and from town, in the forest as in the field. A hide of land I give to
thee in my steads of Walbrugham, from me and mine to thee and thine aye
and for ever; and God’s malison on his head who this gainsays!”

No longer a serf, but a freeman and a landholder, Gurth sprung upon his
feet, and twice bounded aloft to almost his own height from the ground.
“A smith and a file,” he cried, “to do away the collar from the neck
of a freeman!--Noble master! doubled is my strength by your gift, and
doubly will I fight for you!--There is a free spirit in my breast--I am
a man changed to myself and all around.--Ha, Fangs!” he continued,--for
that faithful cur, seeing his master thus transported, began to jump
upon him, to express his sympathy,--“knowest thou thy master still?”

“Ay,” said Wamba, “Fangs and I still know thee, Gurth, though we must
needs abide by the collar; it is only thou art likely to forget both us
and thyself.”

“I shall forget myself indeed ere I forget thee, true comrade,” said
Gurth; “and were freedom fit for thee, Wamba, the master would not let
thee want it.”

“Nay,” said Wamba, “never think I envy thee, brother Gurth; the serf
sits by the hall-fire when the freeman must forth to the field of
battle--And what saith Oldhelm of Malmsbury--Better a fool at a feast
than a wise man at a fray.”

The tramp of horses was now heard, and the Lady Rowena appeared,
surrounded by several riders, and a much stronger party of footmen, who
joyfully shook their pikes and clashed their brown-bills for joy of her
freedom. She herself, richly attired, and mounted on a dark chestnut
palfrey, had recovered all the dignity of her manner, and only an
unwonted degree of paleness showed the sufferings she had undergone. Her
lovely brow, though sorrowful, bore on it a cast of reviving hope
for the future, as well as of grateful thankfulness for the past
deliverance--She knew that Ivanhoe was safe, and she knew that
Athelstane was dead. The former assurance filled her with the most
sincere delight; and if she did not absolutely rejoice at the latter,
she might be pardoned for feeling the full advantage of being freed
from further persecution on the only subject in which she had ever been
contradicted by her guardian Cedric.

As Rowena bent her steed towards Locksley’s seat, that bold yeoman, with
all his followers, rose to receive her, as if by a general instinct of
courtesy. The blood rose to her cheeks, as, courteously waving her hand,
and bending so low that her beautiful and loose tresses were for an
instant mixed with the flowing mane of her palfrey, she expressed in
few but apt words her obligations and her gratitude to Locksley and her
other deliverers.--“God bless you, brave men,” she concluded, “God and
Our Lady bless you and requite you for gallantly perilling yourselves
in the cause of the oppressed!--If any of you should hunger, remember
Rowena has food--if you should thirst, she has many a butt of wine and
brown ale--and if the Normans drive ye from these walks, Rowena has
forests of her own, where her gallant deliverers may range at full
freedom, and never ranger ask whose arrow hath struck down the deer.”

“Thanks, gentle lady,” said Locksley; “thanks from my company and
myself. But, to have saved you requites itself. We who walk the
greenwood do many a wild deed, and the Lady Rowena’s deliverance may be
received as an atonement.”

Again bowing from her palfrey, Rowena turned to depart; but pausing a
moment, while Cedric, who was to attend her, was also taking his leave,
she found herself unexpectedly close by the prisoner De Bracy. He stood
under a tree in deep meditation, his arms crossed upon his breast,
and Rowena was in hopes she might pass him unobserved. He looked up,
however, and, when aware of her presence, a deep flush of shame suffused
his handsome countenance. He stood a moment most irresolute; then,
stepping forward, took her palfrey by the rein, and bent his knee before
her.

“Will the Lady Rowena deign to cast an eye--on a captive knight--on a
dishonoured soldier?”

“Sir Knight,” answered Rowena, “in enterprises such as yours, the real
dishonour lies not in failure, but in success.”

“Conquest, lady, should soften the heart,” answered De Bracy; “let me
but know that the Lady Rowena forgives the violence occasioned by an
ill-fated passion, and she shall soon learn that De Bracy knows how to
serve her in nobler ways.”

“I forgive you, Sir Knight,” said Rowena, “as a Christian.”

“That means,” said Wamba, “that she does not forgive him at all.”

“But I can never forgive the misery and desolation your madness has
occasioned,” continued Rowena.

“Unloose your hold on the lady’s rein,” said Cedric, coming up. “By the
bright sun above us, but it were shame, I would pin thee to the earth
with my javelin--but be well assured, thou shalt smart, Maurice de
Bracy, for thy share in this foul deed.”

“He threatens safely who threatens a prisoner,” said De Bracy; “but when
had a Saxon any touch of courtesy?”

Then retiring two steps backward, he permitted the lady to move on.

Cedric, ere they departed, expressed his peculiar gratitude to the Black
Champion, and earnestly entreated him to accompany him to Rotherwood.

“I know,” he said, “that ye errant knights desire to carry your fortunes
on the point of your lance, and reck not of land or goods; but war is
a changeful mistress, and a home is sometimes desirable even to the
champion whose trade is wandering. Thou hast earned one in the halls
of Rotherwood, noble knight. Cedric has wealth enough to repair the
injuries of fortune, and all he has is his deliverer’s--Come, therefore,
to Rotherwood, not as a guest, but as a son or brother.”

“Cedric has already made me rich,” said the Knight,--“he has taught me
the value of Saxon virtue. To Rotherwood will I come, brave Saxon, and
that speedily; but, as now, pressing matters of moment detain me from
your halls. Peradventure when I come hither, I will ask such a boon as
will put even thy generosity to the test.”

“It is granted ere spoken out,” said Cedric, striking his ready hand
into the gauntleted palm of the Black Knight,--“it is granted already,
were it to affect half my fortune.”

“Gage not thy promise so lightly,” said the Knight of the Fetterlock;
“yet well I hope to gain the boon I shall ask. Meanwhile, adieu.”

“I have but to say,” added the Saxon, “that, during the funeral rites
of the noble Athelstane, I shall be an inhabitant of the halls of his
castle of Coningsburgh--They will be open to all who choose to partake
of the funeral banqueting; and, I speak in name of the noble Edith,
mother of the fallen prince, they will never be shut against him who
laboured so bravely, though unsuccessfully, to save Athelstane from
Norman chains and Norman steel.”

“Ay, ay,” said Wamba, who had resumed his attendance on his master,
“rare feeding there will be--pity that the noble Athelstane cannot
banquet at his own funeral.--But he,” continued the Jester, lifting up
his eyes gravely, “is supping in Paradise, and doubtless does honour to
the cheer.”

“Peace, and move on,” said Cedric, his anger at this untimely jest being
checked by the recollection of Wamba’s recent services. Rowena waved a
graceful adieu to him of the Fetterlock--the Saxon bade God speed him,
and on they moved through a wide glade of the forest.

They had scarce departed, ere a sudden procession moved from under the
greenwood branches, swept slowly round the silvan amphitheatre, and
took the same direction with Rowena and her followers. The priests of
a neighbouring convent, in expectation of the ample donation, or
“soul-scat”, which Cedric had propined, attended upon the car in which
the body of Athelstane was laid, and sang hymns as it was sadly
and slowly borne on the shoulders of his vassals to his castle of
Coningsburgh, to be there deposited in the grave of Hengist, from whom
the deceased derived his long descent. Many of his vassals had assembled
at the news of his death, and followed the bier with all the external
marks, at least, of dejection and sorrow. Again the outlaws arose, and
paid the same rude and spontaneous homage to death, which they had
so lately rendered to beauty--the slow chant and mournful step of the
priests brought back to their remembrance such of their comrades as had
fallen in the yesterday’s array. But such recollections dwell not long
with those who lead a life of danger and enterprise, and ere the sound
of the death-hymn had died on the wind, the outlaws were again busied in
the distribution of their spoil.

“Valiant knight,” said Locksley to the Black Champion, “without whose
good heart and mighty arm our enterprise must altogether have failed,
will it please you to take from that mass of spoil whatever may best
serve to pleasure you, and to remind you of this my Trysting-tree?”

“I accept the offer,” said the Knight, “as frankly as it is given; and I
ask permission to dispose of Sir Maurice de Bracy at my own pleasure.”

“He is thine already,” said Locksley, “and well for him! else the
tyrant had graced the highest bough of this oak, with as many of his
Free-Companions as we could gather, hanging thick as acorns around
him.--But he is thy prisoner, and he is safe, though he had slain my
father.”

“De Bracy,” said the Knight, “thou art free--depart. He whose prisoner
thou art scorns to take mean revenge for what is past. But beware of
the future, lest a worse thing befall thee.--Maurice de Bracy, I say
BEWARE!”

De Bracy bowed low and in silence, and was about to withdraw, when the
yeomen burst at once into a shout of execration and derision. The proud
knight instantly stopped, turned back, folded his arms, drew up his form
to its full height, and exclaimed, “Peace, ye yelping curs! who open
upon a cry which ye followed not when the stag was at bay--De Bracy
scorns your censure as he would disdain your applause. To your brakes
and caves, ye outlawed thieves! and be silent when aught knightly or
noble is but spoken within a league of your fox-earths.”

This ill-timed defiance might have procured for De Bracy a volley of
arrows, but for the hasty and imperative interference of the outlaw
Chief. Meanwhile the knight caught a horse by the rein, for several
which had been taken in the stables of Front-de-Boeuf stood accoutred
around, and were a valuable part of the booty. He threw himself upon the
saddle, and galloped off through the wood.

When the bustle occasioned by this incident was somewhat composed, the
chief Outlaw took from his neck the rich horn and baldric which he had
recently gained at the strife of archery near Ashby.

“Noble knight.” he said to him of the Fetterlock, “if you disdain not to
grace by your acceptance a bugle which an English yeoman has once worn,
this I will pray you to keep as a memorial of your gallant bearing--and
if ye have aught to do, and, as happeneth oft to a gallant knight, ye
chance to be hard bested in any forest between Trent and Tees, wind
three mots [42] upon the horn thus, ‘Wa-sa-hoa!’ and it may well chance
ye shall find helpers and rescue.”

He then gave breath to the bugle, and winded once and again the call
which he described, until the knight had caught the notes.

“Gramercy for the gift, bold yeoman,” said the Knight; “and better help
than thine and thy rangers would I never seek, were it at my utmost
need.” And then in his turn he winded the call till all the greenwood
rang.

“Well blown and clearly,” said the yeoman; “beshrew me an thou knowest
not as much of woodcraft as of war!--thou hast been a striker of deer in
thy day, I warrant.--Comrades, mark these three mots--it is the call of
the Knight of the Fetterlock; and he who hears it, and hastens not to
serve him at his need, I will have him scourged out of our band with his
own bowstring.”

“Long live our leader!” shouted the yeomen, “and long live the Black
Knight of the Fetterlock!--May he soon use our service, to prove how
readily it will be paid.”

Locksley now proceeded to the distribution of the spoil, which he
performed with the most laudable impartiality. A tenth part of the whole
was set apart for the church, and for pious uses; a portion was next
allotted to a sort of public treasury; a part was assigned to the widows
and children of those who had fallen, or to be expended in masses for
the souls of such as had left no surviving family. The rest was divided
amongst the outlaws, according to their rank and merit, and the judgment
of the Chief, on all such doubtful questions as occurred, was delivered
with great shrewdness, and received with absolute submission. The
Black Knight was not a little surprised to find that men, in a state so
lawless, were nevertheless among themselves so regularly and equitably
governed, and all that he observed added to his opinion of the justice
and judgment of their leader.

When each had taken his own proportion of the booty, and while the
treasurer, accompanied by four tall yeomen, was transporting that
belonging to the state to some place of concealment or of security, the
portion devoted to the church still remained unappropriated.

“I would,” said the leader, “we could hear tidings of our joyous
chaplain--he was never wont to be absent when meat was to be blessed, or
spoil to be parted; and it is his duty to take care of these the tithes
of our successful enterprise. It may be the office has helped to cover
some of his canonical irregularities. Also, I have a holy brother of his
a prisoner at no great distance, and I would fain have the Friar to help
me to deal with him in due sort--I greatly misdoubt the safety of the
bluff priest.”

“I were right sorry for that,” said the Knight of the Fetterlock, “for I
stand indebted to him for the joyous hospitality of a merry night in his
cell. Let us to the ruins of the castle; it may be we shall there learn
some tidings of him.”

While they thus spoke, a loud shout among the yeomen announced the
arrival of him for whom they feared, as they learned from the stentorian
voice of the Friar himself, long before they saw his burly person.

“Make room, my merry-men!” he exclaimed; “room for your godly father
and his prisoner--Cry welcome once more.--I come, noble leader, like an
eagle with my prey in my clutch.”--And making his way through the ring,
amidst the laughter of all around, he appeared in majestic triumph, his
huge partisan in one hand, and in the other a halter, one end of which
was fastened to the neck of the unfortunate Isaac of York, who, bent
down by sorrow and terror, was dragged on by the victorious priest, who
shouted aloud, “Where is Allan-a-Dale, to chronicle me in a ballad, or
if it were but a lay?--By Saint Hermangild, the jingling crowder is ever
out of the way where there is an apt theme for exalting valour!”

“Curtal Priest,” said the Captain, “thou hast been at a wet mass this
morning, as early as it is. In the name of Saint Nicholas, whom hast
thou got here?”

“A captive to my sword and to my lance, noble Captain,” replied the
Clerk of Copmanhurst; “to my bow and to my halberd, I should rather
say; and yet I have redeemed him by my divinity from a worse captivity.
Speak, Jew--have I not ransomed thee from Sathanas?--have I not taught
thee thy ‘credo’, thy ‘pater’, and thine ‘Ave Maria’?--Did I not spend
the whole night in drinking to thee, and in expounding of mysteries?”

“For the love of God!” ejaculated the poor Jew, “will no one take me out
of the keeping of this mad--I mean this holy man?”

“How’s this, Jew?” said the Friar, with a menacing aspect; “dost thou
recant, Jew?--Bethink thee, if thou dost relapse into thine infidelity,
though thou are not so tender as a suckling pig--I would I had one
to break my fast upon--thou art not too tough to be roasted! Be
conformable, Isaac, and repeat the words after me. ‘Ave Maria’!--”

“Nay, we will have no profanation, mad Priest,” said Locksley; “let us
rather hear where you found this prisoner of thine.”

“By Saint Dunstan,” said the Friar, “I found him where I sought for
better ware! I did step into the cellarage to see what might be rescued
there; for though a cup of burnt wine, with spice, be an evening’s
drought for an emperor, it were waste, methought, to let so much good
liquor be mulled at once; and I had caught up one runlet of sack, and
was coming to call more aid among these lazy knaves, who are ever to
seek when a good deed is to be done, when I was avised of a strong
door--Aha! thought I, here is the choicest juice of all in this secret
crypt; and the knave butler, being disturbed in his vocation, hath left
the key in the door--In therefore I went, and found just nought besides
a commodity of rusted chains and this dog of a Jew, who presently
rendered himself my prisoner, rescue or no rescue. I did but refresh
myself after the fatigue of the action, with the unbeliever, with one
humming cup of sack, and was proceeding to lead forth my captive,
when, crash after crash, as with wild thunder-dint and levin-fire, down
toppled the masonry of an outer tower, (marry beshrew their hands that
built it not the firmer!) and blocked up the passage. The roar of one
falling tower followed another--I gave up thought of life; and deeming
it a dishonour to one of my profession to pass out of this world in
company with a Jew, I heaved up my halberd to beat his brains out; but
I took pity on his grey hairs, and judged it better to lay down the
partisan, and take up my spiritual weapon for his conversion. And truly,
by the blessing of Saint Dunstan, the seed has been sown in good soil;
only that, with speaking to him of mysteries through the whole night,
and being in a manner fasting, (for the few droughts of sack which I
sharpened my wits with were not worth marking,) my head is well-nigh
dizzied, I trow.--But I was clean exhausted.--Gilbert and Wibbald know
in what state they found me--quite and clean exhausted.”

“We can bear witness,” said Gilbert; “for when we had cleared away the
ruin, and by Saint Dunstan’s help lighted upon the dungeon stair, we
found the runlet of sack half empty, the Jew half dead, and the Friar
more than half--exhausted, as he calls it.”

“Ye be knaves! ye lie!” retorted the offended Friar; “it was you and
your gormandizing companions that drank up the sack, and called it your
morning draught--I am a pagan, an I kept it not for the Captain’s own
throat. But what recks it? The Jew is converted, and understands all I
have told him, very nearly, if not altogether, as well as myself.”

“Jew,” said the Captain, “is this true? hast thou renounced thine
unbelief?”

“May I so find mercy in your eyes,” said the Jew, “as I know not one
word which the reverend prelate spake to me all this fearful night.
Alas! I was so distraught with agony, and fear, and grief, that had
our holy father Abraham come to preach to me, he had found but a deaf
listener.”

“Thou liest, Jew, and thou knowest thou dost.” said the Friar; “I will
remind thee of but one word of our conference--thou didst promise to
give all thy substance to our holy Order.”

“So help me the Promise, fair sirs,” said Isaac, even more alarmed than
before, “as no such sounds ever crossed my lips! Alas! I am an aged
beggar’d man--I fear me a childless--have ruth on me, and let me go!”

“Nay,” said the Friar, “if thou dost retract vows made in favour of holy
Church, thou must do penance.”

Accordingly, he raised his halberd, and would have laid the staff of
it lustily on the Jew’s shoulders, had not the Black Knight stopped the
blow, and thereby transferred the Holy Clerk’s resentment to himself.

“By Saint Thomas of Kent,” said he, “an I buckle to my gear, I will
teach thee, sir lazy lover, to mell with thine own matters, maugre thine
iron case there!”

“Nay, be not wroth with me,” said the Knight; “thou knowest I am thy
sworn friend and comrade.”

“I know no such thing,” answered the Friar; “and defy thee for a
meddling coxcomb!”

“Nay, but,” said the Knight, who seemed to take a pleasure in provoking
his quondam host, “hast thou forgotten how, that for my sake (for I say
nothing of the temptation of the flagon and the pasty) thou didst break
thy vow of fast and vigil?”

“Truly, friend,” said the Friar, clenching his huge fist, “I will bestow
a buffet on thee.”

“I accept of no such presents,” said the Knight; “I am content to take
thy cuff [421] as a loan, but I will repay thee with usury as deep as ever thy prisoner
there exacted in his traffic.”

“I will prove that presently,” said the Friar.

“Hola!” cried the Captain, “what art thou after, mad Friar? brawling
beneath our Trysting-tree?”

“No brawling,” said the Knight, “it is but a friendly interchange of
courtesy.--Friar, strike an thou darest--I will stand thy blow, if thou
wilt stand mine.”

“Thou hast the advantage with that iron pot on thy head,” said the
churchman; “but have at thee--Down thou goest, an thou wert Goliath of
Gath in his brazen helmet.”

The Friar bared his brawny arm up to the elbow, and putting his full
strength to the blow, gave the Knight a buffet that might have felled an
ox. But his adversary stood firm as a rock. A loud shout was uttered by
all the yeomen around; for the Clerk’s cuff was proverbial amongst them,
and there were few who, in jest or earnest, had not had the occasion to
know its vigour.

“Now, Priest,” said, the Knight, pulling off his gauntlet, “if I had
vantage on my head, I will have none on my hand--stand fast as a true
man.”

“‘Genam meam dedi vapulatori’--I have given my cheek to the smiter,”
 said the Priest; “an thou canst stir me from the spot, fellow, I will
freely bestow on thee the Jew’s ransom.”

So spoke the burly Priest, assuming, on his part, high defiance. But
who may resist his fate? The buffet of the Knight was given with such
strength and good-will, that the Friar rolled head over heels upon
the plain, to the great amazement of all the spectators. But he arose
neither angry nor crestfallen.

“Brother,” said he to the Knight, “thou shouldst have used thy strength
with more discretion. I had mumbled but a lame mass an thou hadst
broken my jaw, for the piper plays ill that wants the nether chops.
Nevertheless, there is my hand, in friendly witness, that I will
exchange no more cuffs with thee, having been a loser by the barter. End
now all unkindness. Let us put the Jew to ransom, since the leopard will
not change his spots, and a Jew he will continue to be.”

“The Priest,” said Clement, “is not half so confident of the Jew’s
conversion, since he received that buffet on the ear.”

“Go to, knave, what pratest thou of conversions?--what, is there no
respect?--all masters and no men?--I tell thee, fellow, I was somewhat
totty when I received the good knight’s blow, or I had kept my ground
under it. But an thou gibest more of it, thou shalt learn I can give as
well as take.”

“Peace all!” said the Captain. “And thou, Jew, think of thy ransom;
thou needest not to be told that thy race are held to be accursed in all
Christian communities, and trust me that we cannot endure thy presence
among us. Think, therefore, of an offer, while I examine a prisoner of
another cast.”

“Were many of Front-de-Boeuf’s men taken?” demanded the Black Knight.

“None of note enough to be put to ransom,” answered the Captain; “a
set of hilding fellows there were, whom we dismissed to find them a new
master--enough had been done for revenge and profit; the bunch of them
were not worth a cardecu. The prisoner I speak of is better booty--a
jolly monk riding to visit his leman, an I may judge by his horse-gear
and wearing apparel.--Here cometh the worthy prelate, as pert as a
pyet.” And, between two yeomen, was brought before the silvan throne of
the outlaw Chief, our old friend, Prior Aymer of Jorvaulx.




CHAPTER XXXIII

     ---Flower of warriors,
     How is’t with Titus Lartius?
     MARCIUS.--As with a man busied about decrees,
     Condemning some to death and some to exile,
     Ransoming him or pitying, threatening the other.
     --Coriolanus


The captive Abbot’s features and manners exhibited a whimsical mixture
of offended pride, and deranged foppery and bodily terror.

“Why, how now, my masters?” said he, with a voice in which all three
emotions were blended. “What order is this among ye? Be ye Turks
or Christians, that handle a churchman?--Know ye what it is, ‘manus
imponere in servos Domini’? Ye have plundered my mails--torn my cope
of curious cut lace, which might have served a cardinal!--Another in my
place would have been at his ‘excommunicabo vos’; but I am placible,
and if ye order forth my palfreys, release my brethren, and restore
my mails, tell down with all speed an hundred crowns to be expended in
masses at the high altar of Jorvaulx Abbey, and make your vow to eat no
venison until next Pentecost, it may be you shall hear little more of
this mad frolic.”

“Holy Father,” said the chief Outlaw, “it grieves me to think that you
have met with such usage from any of my followers, as calls for your
fatherly reprehension.”

“Usage!” echoed the priest, encouraged by the mild tone of the silvan
leader; “it were usage fit for no hound of good race--much less for a
Christian--far less for a priest--and least of all for the Prior of
the holy community of Jorvaulx. Here is a profane and drunken minstrel,
called Allan-a-Dale--‘nebulo quidam’--who has menaced me with corporal
punishment--nay, with death itself, an I pay not down four hundred
crowns of ransom, to the boot of all the treasure he hath already robbed
me of--gold chains and gymmal rings to an unknown value; besides what
is broken and spoiled among their rude hands, such as my pouncer-box and
silver crisping-tongs.”

“It is impossible that Allan-a-Dale can have thus treated a man of your
reverend bearing,” replied the Captain.

“It is true as the gospel of Saint Nicodemus,” said the Prior; “he
swore, with many a cruel north-country oath, that he would hang me up on
the highest tree in the greenwood.”

“Did he so in very deed? Nay, then, reverend father, I think you had
better comply with his demands--for Allan-a-Dale is the very man to
abide by his word when he has so pledged it.” [43]

“You do but jest with me,” said the astounded Prior, with a forced
laugh; “and I love a good jest with all my heart. But, ha! ha! ha! when
the mirth has lasted the livelong night, it is time to be grave in the
morning.”

“And I am as grave as a father confessor,” replied the Outlaw; “you must
pay a round ransom, Sir Prior, or your convent is likely to be called to
a new election; for your place will know you no more.”

“Are ye Christians,” said the Prior, “and hold this language to a
churchman?”

“Christians! ay, marry are we, and have divinity among us to boot,”
 answered the Outlaw. “Let our buxom chaplain stand forth, and expound to
this reverend father the texts which concern this matter.”

The Friar, half-drunk, half-sober, had huddled a friar’s frock over his
green cassock, and now summoning together whatever scraps of learning
he had acquired by rote in former days, “Holy father,” said he, “‘Deus
faciat salvam benignitatem vestram’--You are welcome to the greenwood.”

“What profane mummery is this?” said the Prior. “Friend, if thou be’st
indeed of the church, it were a better deed to show me how I may escape
from these men’s hands, than to stand ducking and grinning here like a
morris-dancer.”

“Truly, reverend father,” said the Friar, “I know but one mode in which
thou mayst escape. This is Saint Andrew’s day with us, we are taking our
tithes.”

“But not of the church, then, I trust, my good brother?” said the Prior.

“Of church and lay,” said the Friar; “and therefore, Sir Prior ‘facite
vobis amicos de Mammone iniquitatis’--make yourselves friends of the
Mammon of unrighteousness, for no other friendship is like to serve your
turn.”

“I love a jolly woodsman at heart,” said the Prior, softening his tone;
“come, ye must not deal too hard with me--I can well of woodcraft,
and can wind a horn clear and lustily, and hollo till every oak rings
again--Come, ye must not deal too hard with me.”

“Give him a horn,” said the Outlaw; “we will prove the skill he boasts
of.”

The Prior Aymer winded a blast accordingly. The Captain shook his head.

“Sir Prior,” he said, “thou blowest a merry note, but it may not ransom
thee--we cannot afford, as the legend on a good knight’s shield hath it,
to set thee free for a blast. Moreover, I have found thee--thou art
one of those, who, with new French graces and Tra-li-ras, disturb the
ancient English bugle notes.--Prior, that last flourish on the recheat
hath added fifty crowns to thy ransom, for corrupting the true old manly
blasts of venerie.”

“Well, friend,” said the Abbot, peevishly, “thou art ill to please with
thy woodcraft. I pray thee be more conformable in this matter of my
ransom. At a word--since I must needs, for once, hold a candle to the
devil--what ransom am I to pay for walking on Watling-street, without
having fifty men at my back?”

“Were it not well,” said the Lieutenant of the gang apart to the
Captain, “that the Prior should name the Jew’s ransom, and the Jew name
the Prior’s?”

“Thou art a mad knave,” said the Captain, “but thy plan
transcends!--Here, Jew, step forth--Look at that holy Father Aymer,
Prior of the rich Abbey of Jorvaulx, and tell us at what ransom we
should hold him?--Thou knowest the income of his convent, I warrant
thee.”

“O, assuredly,” said Isaac. “I have trafficked with the good fathers,
and bought wheat and barley, and fruits of the earth, and also much
wool. O, it is a rich abbey-stede, and they do live upon the fat, and
drink the sweet wines upon the lees, these good fathers of Jorvaulx. Ah,
if an outcast like me had such a home to go to, and such incomings by
the year and by the month, I would pay much gold and silver to redeem my
captivity.”

“Hound of a Jew!” exclaimed the Prior, “no one knows better than thy own
cursed self, that our holy house of God is indebted for the finishing of
our chancel--”

“And for the storing of your cellars in the last season with the due
allowance of Gascon wine,” interrupted the Jew; “but that--that is small
matters.”

“Hear the infidel dog!” said the churchman; “he jangles as if our holy
community did come under debts for the wines we have a license to
drink, ‘propter necessitatem, et ad frigus depellendum’. The circumcised
villain blasphemeth the holy church, and Christian men listen and rebuke
him not!”

“All this helps nothing,” said the leader.--“Isaac, pronounce what he
may pay, without flaying both hide and hair.”

“An six hundred crowns,” said Isaac, “the good Prior might well pay to
your honoured valours, and never sit less soft in his stall.”

“Six hundred crowns,” said the leader, gravely; “I am contented--thou
hast well spoken, Isaac--six hundred crowns.--It is a sentence, Sir
Prior.”

“A sentence!--a sentence!” exclaimed the band; “Solomon had not done it
better.”

“Thou hearest thy doom, Prior,” said the leader.

“Ye are mad, my masters,” said the Prior; “where am I to find such a
sum? If I sell the very pyx and candlesticks on the altar at Jorvaulx,
I shall scarce raise the half; and it will be necessary for that purpose
that I go to Jorvaulx myself; ye may retain as borrows [44] my two
priests.”

“That will be but blind trust,” said the Outlaw; “we will retain thee,
Prior, and send them to fetch thy ransom. Thou shalt not want a cup of
wine and a collop of venison the while; and if thou lovest woodcraft,
thou shalt see such as your north country never witnessed.”

“Or, if so please you,” said Isaac, willing to curry favour with the
outlaws, “I can send to York for the six hundred crowns, out of certain
monies in my hands, if so be that the most reverend Prior present will
grant me a quittance.”

“He shall grant thee whatever thou dost list, Isaac,” said the Captain;
“and thou shalt lay down the redemption money for Prior Aymer as well as
for thyself.”

“For myself! ah, courageous sirs,” said the Jew, “I am a broken and
impoverished man; a beggar’s staff must be my portion through life,
supposing I were to pay you fifty crowns.”

“The Prior shall judge of that matter,” replied the Captain.--“How say
you, Father Aymer? Can the Jew afford a good ransom?”

“Can he afford a ransom?” answered the Prior “Is he not Isaac of York,
rich enough to redeem the captivity of the ten tribes of Israel, who
were led into Assyrian bondage?--I have seen but little of him myself,
but our cellarer and treasurer have dealt largely with him, and report
says that his house at York is so full of gold and silver as is a shame
in any Christian land. Marvel it is to all living Christian hearts that
such gnawing adders should be suffered to eat into the bowels of the
state, and even of the holy church herself, with foul usuries and
extortions.”

“Hold, father,” said the Jew, “mitigate and assuage your choler. I pray
of your reverence to remember that I force my monies upon no one. But
when churchman and layman, prince and prior, knight and priest, come
knocking to Isaac’s door, they borrow not his shekels with these uncivil
terms. It is then, Friend Isaac, will you pleasure us in this matter,
and our day shall be truly kept, so God sa’ me?--and Kind Isaac, if ever
you served man, show yourself a friend in this need! And when the day
comes, and I ask my own, then what hear I but Damned Jew, and The curse
of Egypt on your tribe, and all that may stir up the rude and uncivil
populace against poor strangers!”

“Prior,” said the Captain, “Jew though he be, he hath in this spoken
well. Do thou, therefore, name his ransom, as he named thine, without
farther rude terms.”

“None but ‘latro famosus’--the interpretation whereof,” said the Prior,
“will I give at some other time and tide--would place a Christian
prelate and an unbaptized Jew upon the same bench. But since ye require
me to put a price upon this caitiff, I tell you openly that ye will
wrong yourselves if you take from him a penny under a thousand crowns.”

“A sentence!--a sentence!” exclaimed the chief Outlaw.

“A sentence!--a sentence!” shouted his assessors; “the Christian has
shown his good nurture, and dealt with us more generously than the Jew.”

“The God of my fathers help me!” said the Jew; “will ye bear to the
ground an impoverished creature?--I am this day childless, and will ye
deprive me of the means of livelihood?”

“Thou wilt have the less to provide for, Jew, if thou art childless,”
 said Aymer.

“Alas! my lord,” said Isaac, “your law permits you not to know how the
child of our bosom is entwined with the strings of our heart--O Rebecca!
laughter of my beloved Rachel! were each leaf on that tree a zecchin,
and each zecchin mine own, all that mass of wealth would I give to know
whether thou art alive, and escaped the hands of the Nazarene!”

“Was not thy daughter dark-haired?” said one of the outlaws; “and wore
she not a veil of twisted sendal, broidered with silver?”

“She did!--she did!” said the old man, trembling with eagerness, as
formerly with fear. “The blessing of Jacob be upon thee! canst thou tell
me aught of her safety?”

“It was she, then,” said the yeoman, “who was carried off by the proud
Templar, when he broke through our ranks on yester-even. I had drawn my
bow to send a shaft after him, but spared him even for the sake of the
damsel, who I feared might take harm from the arrow.”

“Oh!” answered the Jew, “I would to God thou hadst shot, though the
arrow had pierced her bosom!--Better the tomb of her fathers than the
dishonourable couch of the licentious and savage Templar. Ichabod!
Ichabod! the glory hath departed from my house!”

“Friends,” said the Chief, looking round, “the old man is but a Jew,
natheless his grief touches me.--Deal uprightly with us, Isaac--will
paying this ransom of a thousand crowns leave thee altogether
penniless?”

Isaac, recalled to think of his worldly goods, the love of which, by
dint of inveterate habit, contended even with his parental affection,
grew pale, stammered, and could not deny there might be some small
surplus.

“Well--go to--what though there be,” said the Outlaw, “we will not
reckon with thee too closely. Without treasure thou mayst as well hope
to redeem thy child from the clutches of Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, as
to shoot a stag-royal with a headless shaft.--We will take thee at the
same ransom with Prior Aymer, or rather at one hundred crowns lower,
which hundred crowns shall be mine own peculiar loss, and not light upon
this worshipful community; and so we shall avoid the heinous offence of
rating a Jew merchant as high as a Christian prelate, and thou wilt
have six hundred crowns remaining to treat for thy daughter’s ransom.
Templars love the glitter of silver shekels as well as the sparkle
of black eyes.--Hasten to make thy crowns chink in the ear of De
Bois-Guilbert, ere worse comes of it. Thou wilt find him, as our scouts
have brought notice, at the next Preceptory house of his Order.--Said I
well, my merry mates?”

The yeomen expressed their wonted acquiescence in their leader’s
opinion; and Isaac, relieved of one half of his apprehensions, by
learning that his daughter lived, and might possibly be ransomed, threw
himself at the feet of the generous Outlaw, and, rubbing his beard
against his buskins, sought to kiss the hem of his green cassock. The
Captain drew himself back, and extricated himself from the Jew’s grasp,
not without some marks of contempt.

“Nay, beshrew thee, man, up with thee! I am English born, and love no
such Eastern prostrations--Kneel to God, and not to a poor sinner, like
me.”

“Ay, Jew,” said Prior Aymer; “kneel to God, as represented in the
servant of his altar, and who knows, with thy sincere repentance and due
gifts to the shrine of Saint Robert, what grace thou mayst acquire for
thyself and thy daughter Rebecca? I grieve for the maiden, for she is of
fair and comely countenance,--I beheld her in the lists of Ashby. Also
Brian de Bois-Guilbert is one with whom I may do much--bethink thee how
thou mayst deserve my good word with him.”

“Alas! alas!” said the Jew, “on every hand the spoilers arise against
me--I am given as a prey unto the Assyrian, and a prey unto him of
Egypt.”

“And what else should be the lot of thy accursed race?” answered
the Prior; “for what saith holy writ, ‘verbum Domini projecerunt, et
sapientia est nulla in eis’--they have cast forth the word of the
Lord, and there is no wisdom in them; ‘propterea dabo mulieres eorum
exteris’--I will give their women to strangers, that is to the Templar,
as in the present matter; ‘et thesauros eorum haeredibus alienis’,
and their treasures to others--as in the present case to these honest
gentlemen.”

Isaac groaned deeply, and began to wring his hands, and to relapse into
his state of desolation and despair. But the leader of the yeomen led
him aside.

“Advise thee well, Isaac,” said Locksley, “what thou wilt do in this
matter; my counsel to thee is to make a friend of this churchman. He is
vain, Isaac, and he is covetous; at least he needs money to supply his
profusion. Thou canst easily gratify his greed; for think not that I am
blinded by thy pretexts of poverty. I am intimately acquainted, Isaac,
with the very iron chest in which thou dost keep thy money-bags--What!
know I not the great stone beneath the apple-tree, that leads into
the vaulted chamber under thy garden at York?” The Jew grew as pale as
death--“But fear nothing from me,” continued the yeoman, “for we are
of old acquainted. Dost thou not remember the sick yeoman whom thy fair
daughter Rebecca redeemed from the gyves at York, and kept him in
thy house till his health was restored, when thou didst dismiss him
recovered, and with a piece of money?--Usurer as thou art, thou didst
never place coin at better interest than that poor silver mark, for it
has this day saved thee five hundred crowns.”

“And thou art he whom we called Diccon Bend-the-Bow?” said Isaac; “I
thought ever I knew the accent of thy voice.”

“I am Bend-the-Bow,” said the Captain, “and Locksley, and have a good
name besides all these.”

“But thou art mistaken, good Bend-the-Bow, concerning that same
vaulted apartment. So help me Heaven, as there is nought in it but some
merchandises which I will gladly part with to you--one hundred yards
of Lincoln green to make doublets to thy men, and a hundred staves of
Spanish yew to make bows, and a hundred silken bowstrings, tough, round,
and sound--these will I send thee for thy good-will, honest Diccon, an
thou wilt keep silence about the vault, my good Diccon.”

“Silent as a dormouse,” said the Outlaw; “and never trust me but I am
grieved for thy daughter. But I may not help it--The Templars lances are
too strong for my archery in the open field--they would scatter us like
dust. Had I but known it was Rebecca when she was borne off, something
might have been done; but now thou must needs proceed by policy. Come,
shall I treat for thee with the Prior?”

“In God’s name, Diccon, an thou canst, aid me to recover the child of my
bosom!”

“Do not thou interrupt me with thine ill-timed avarice,” said the
Outlaw, “and I will deal with him in thy behalf.”

He then turned from the Jew, who followed him, however, as closely as
his shadow.

“Prior Aymer,” said the Captain, “come apart with me under this tree.
Men say thou dost love wine, and a lady’s smile, better than beseems thy
Order, Sir Priest; but with that I have nought to do. I have heard, too,
thou dost love a brace of good dogs and a fleet horse, and it may well
be that, loving things which are costly to come by, thou hatest not a
purse of gold. But I have never heard that thou didst love oppression or
cruelty.--Now, here is Isaac willing to give thee the means of pleasure
and pastime in a bag containing one hundred marks of silver, if thy
intercession with thine ally the Templar shall avail to procure the
freedom of his daughter.”

“In safety and honour, as when taken from me,” said the Jew, “otherwise
it is no bargain.”

“Peace, Isaac,” said the Outlaw, “or I give up thine interest.--What say
you to this my purpose, Prior Aymer?”

“The matter,” quoth the Prior, “is of a mixed condition; for, if I do a
good deal on the one hand, yet, on the other, it goeth to the vantage
of a Jew, and in so much is against my conscience. Yet, if the Israelite
will advantage the Church by giving me somewhat over to the building
of our dortour, [45] I will take it on my conscience to aid him in the
matter of his daughter.”

“For a score of marks to the dortour,” said the Outlaw,--“Be still, I
say, Isaac!--or for a brace of silver candlesticks to the altar, we will
not stand with you.”

“Nay, but, good Diccon Bend-the-Bow”--said Isaac, endeavouring to
interpose.

“Good Jew--good beast--good earthworm!” said the yeoman, losing
patience; “an thou dost go on to put thy filthy lucre in the balance
with thy daughter’s life and honour, by Heaven, I will strip thee of
every maravedi thou hast in the world, before three days are out!”

Isaac shrunk together, and was silent.

“And what pledge am I to have for all this?” said the Prior.

“When Isaac returns successful through your mediation,” said the Outlaw,
“I swear by Saint Hubert, I will see that he pays thee the money in good
silver, or I will reckon with him for it in such sort, he had better
have paid twenty such sums.”

“Well then, Jew,” said Aymer, “since I must needs meddle in this matter,
let me have the use of thy writing-tablets--though, hold--rather than
use thy pen, I would fast for twenty-four hours, and where shall I find
one?”

“If your holy scruples can dispense with using the Jew’s tablets, for
the pen I can find a remedy,” said the yeoman; and, bending his bow, he
aimed his shaft at a wild-goose which was soaring over their heads, the
advanced-guard of a phalanx of his tribe, which were winging their way
to the distant and solitary fens of Holderness. The bird came fluttering
down, transfixed with the arrow.

“There, Prior,” said the Captain, “are quills enow to supply all the
monks of Jorvaulx for the next hundred years, an they take not to
writing chronicles.”

The Prior sat down, and at great leisure indited an epistle to Brian
de Bois-Guilbert, and having carefully sealed up the tablets, delivered
them to the Jew, saying, “This will be thy safe-conduct to the
Preceptory of Templestowe, and, as I think, is most likely to accomplish
the delivery of thy daughter, if it be well backed with proffers of
advantage and commodity at thine own hand; for, trust me well, the
good Knight Bois-Guilbert is of their confraternity that do nought for
nought.”

“Well, Prior,” said the Outlaw, “I will detain thee no longer here than
to give the Jew a quittance for the six hundred crowns at which thy
ransom is fixed--I accept of him for my pay-master; and if I hear that
ye boggle at allowing him in his accompts the sum so paid by him, Saint
Mary refuse me, an I burn not the abbey over thine head, though I hang
ten years the sooner!”

With a much worse grace than that wherewith he had penned the letter to
Bois-Guilbert, the Prior wrote an acquittance, discharging Isaac of York
of six hundred crowns, advanced to him in his need for acquittal of his
ransom, and faithfully promising to hold true compt with him for that
sum.

“And now,” said Prior Aymer, “I will pray you of restitution of my mules
and palfreys, and the freedom of the reverend brethren attending upon
me, and also of the gymmal rings, jewels, and fair vestures, of which
I have been despoiled, having now satisfied you for my ransom as a true
prisoner.”

“Touching your brethren, Sir Prior,” said Locksley, “they shall have
present freedom, it were unjust to detain them; touching your horses
and mules, they shall also be restored, with such spending-money as may
enable you to reach York, for it were cruel to deprive you of the means
of journeying.--But as concerning rings, jewels, chains, and what else,
you must understand that we are men of tender consciences, and will
not yield to a venerable man like yourself, who should be dead to the
vanities of this life, the strong temptation to break the rule of his
foundation, by wearing rings, chains, or other vain gauds.”

“Think what you do, my masters,” said the Prior, “ere you put your hand
on the Church’s patrimony--These things are ‘inter res sacras’, and
I wot not what judgment might ensue were they to be handled by laical
hands.”

“I will take care of that, reverend Prior,” said the Hermit of
Copmanhurst; “for I will wear them myself.”

“Friend, or brother,” said the Prior, in answer to this solution of his
doubts, “if thou hast really taken religious orders, I pray thee to look
how thou wilt answer to thine official for the share thou hast taken in
this day’s work.”

“Friend Prior,” returned the Hermit, “you are to know that I belong to
a little diocese, where I am my own diocesan, and care as little for the
Bishop of York as I do for the Abbot of Jorvaulx, the Prior, and all the
convent.”

“Thou art utterly irregular,” said the Prior; “one of those disorderly
men, who, taking on them the sacred character without due cause, profane
the holy rites, and endanger the souls of those who take counsel at
their hands; ‘lapides pro pane condonantes iis’, giving them stones
instead of bread as the Vulgate hath it.”

“Nay,” said the Friar, “an my brain-pan could have been broken by Latin,
it had not held so long together.--I say, that easing a world of such
misproud priests as thou art of their jewels and their gimcracks, is a
lawful spoiling of the Egyptians.”

“Thou be’st a hedge-priest,” [46] said the Prior, in great wrath,
“‘excommunicabo vos’.”

“Thou be’st thyself more like a thief and a heretic,” said the
Friar, equally indignant; “I will pouch up no such affront before my
parishioners, as thou thinkest it not shame to put upon me, although I
be a reverend brother to thee. ‘Ossa ejus perfringam’, I will break your
bones, as the Vulgate hath it.”

“Hola!” cried the Captain, “come the reverend brethren to such
terms?--Keep thine assurance of peace, Friar.--Prior, an thou hast not
made thy peace perfect with God, provoke the Friar no further.--Hermit,
let the reverend father depart in peace, as a ransomed man.”

The yeomen separated the incensed priests, who continued to raise their
voices, vituperating each other in bad Latin, which the Prior delivered
the more fluently, and the Hermit with the greater vehemence. The Prior
at length recollected himself sufficiently to be aware that he was
compromising his dignity, by squabbling with such a hedge-priest as the
Outlaw’s chaplain, and being joined by his attendants, rode off with
considerably less pomp, and in a much more apostolical condition, so
far as worldly matters were concerned, than he had exhibited before this
rencounter.

It remained that the Jew should produce some security for the ransom
which he was to pay on the Prior’s account, as well as upon his own. He
gave, accordingly, an order sealed with his signet, to a brother of his
tribe at York, requiring him to pay to the bearer the sum of a thousand
crowns, and to deliver certain merchandises specified in the note.

“My brother Sheva,” he said, groaning deeply, “hath the key of my
warehouses.”

“And of the vaulted chamber,” whispered Locksley.

“No, no--may Heaven forefend!” said Isaac; “evil is the hour that let
any one whomsoever into that secret!”

“It is safe with me,” said the Outlaw, “so be that this thy scroll
produce the sum therein nominated and set down.--But what now, Isaac?
art dead? art stupefied? hath the payment of a thousand crowns put thy
daughter’s peril out of thy mind?”

The Jew started to his feet--“No, Diccon, no--I will presently set
forth.--Farewell, thou whom I may not call good, and dare not and will
not call evil.”

Yet ere Isaac departed, the Outlaw Chief bestowed on him this parting
advice:--“Be liberal of thine offers, Isaac, and spare not thy purse for
thy daughter’s safety. Credit me, that the gold thou shalt spare in
her cause, will hereafter give thee as much agony as if it were poured
molten down thy throat.”

Isaac acquiesced with a deep groan, and set forth on his journey,
accompanied by two tall foresters, who were to be his guides, and at the
same time his guards, through the wood.

The Black Knight, who had seen with no small interest these various
proceedings, now took his leave of the Outlaw in turn; nor could he
avoid expressing his surprise at having witnessed so much of civil
policy amongst persons cast out from all the ordinary protection and
influence of the laws.

“Good fruit, Sir Knight,” said the yeoman, “will sometimes grow on a
sorry tree; and evil times are not always productive of evil alone and
unmixed. Amongst those who are drawn into this lawless state, there
are, doubtless, numbers who wish to exercise its license with some
moderation, and some who regret, it may be, that they are obliged to
follow such a trade at all.”

“And to one of those,” said the Knight, “I am now, I presume, speaking?”

“Sir Knight,” said the Outlaw, “we have each our secret. You are welcome
to form your judgment of me, and I may use my conjectures touching you,
though neither of our shafts may hit the mark they are shot at. But as
I do not pray to be admitted into your mystery, be not offended that I
preserve my own.”

“I crave pardon, brave Outlaw,” said the Knight, “your reproof is just.
But it may be we shall meet hereafter with less of concealment on either
side.--Meanwhile we part friends, do we not?”

“There is my hand upon it,” said Locksley; “and I will call it the hand
of a true Englishman, though an outlaw for the present.”

“And there is mine in return,” said the Knight, “and I hold it honoured
by being clasped with yours. For he that does good, having the unlimited
power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good which he
performs, but for the evil which he forbears. Fare thee well, gallant
Outlaw!” Thus parted that fair fellowship; and He of the Fetterlock,
mounting upon his strong war-horse, rode off through the forest.




CHAPTER XXXIV


     KING JOHN.--I’ll tell thee what, my friend,
     He is a very serpent in my way;
     And wheresoe’er this foot of mine doth tread,
     He lies before me.--Dost thou understand me?
     --King John

There was brave feasting in the Castle of York, to which Prince John
had invited those nobles, prelates, and leaders, by whose assistance he
hoped to carry through his ambitious projects upon his brother’s throne.
Waldemar Fitzurse, his able and politic agent, was at secret work among
them, tempering all to that pitch of courage which was necessary in
making an open declaration of their purpose. But their enterprise was
delayed by the absence of more than one main limb of the confederacy.
The stubborn and daring, though brutal courage of Front-de-Boeuf; the
buoyant spirits and bold bearing of De Bracy; the sagacity, martial
experience, and renowned valour of Brian de Bois-Guilbert, were
important to the success of their conspiracy; and, while cursing in
secret their unnecessary and unmeaning absence, neither John nor his
adviser dared to proceed without them. Isaac the Jew also seemed to have
vanished, and with him the hope of certain sums of money, making up the
subsidy for which Prince John had contracted with that Israelite and his
brethren. This deficiency was likely to prove perilous in an emergency
so critical.

It was on the morning after the fall of Torquilstone, that a confused
report began to spread abroad in the city of York, that De Bracy and
Bois-Guilbert, with their confederate Front-de-Boeuf, had been taken or
slain. Waldemar brought the rumour to Prince John, announcing, that he
feared its truth the more that they had set out with a small attendance,
for the purpose of committing an assault on the Saxon Cedric and his
attendants. At another time the Prince would have treated this deed of
violence as a good jest; but now, that it interfered with and impeded
his own plans, he exclaimed against the perpetrators, and spoke of
the broken laws, and the infringement of public order and of private
property, in a tone which might have become King Alfred.

“The unprincipled marauders,” he said--“were I ever to become monarch of
England, I would hang such transgressors over the drawbridges of their
own castles.”

“But to become monarch of England,” said his Ahithophel coolly, “it is
necessary not only that your Grace should endure the transgressions
of these unprincipled marauders, but that you should afford them your
protection, notwithstanding your laudable zeal for the laws they are in
the habit of infringing. We shall be finely helped, if the churl
Saxons should have realized your Grace’s vision, of converting feudal
drawbridges into gibbets; and yonder bold-spirited Cedric seemeth one to
whom such an imagination might occur. Your Grace is well aware, it will
be dangerous to stir without Front-de-Boeuf, De Bracy, and the Templar;
and yet we have gone too far to recede with safety.”

Prince John struck his forehead with impatience, and then began to
stride up and down the apartment.

“The villains,” he said, “the base treacherous villains, to desert me at
this pinch!”

“Nay, say rather the feather-pated giddy madmen,” said Waldemar, “who
must be toying with follies when such business was in hand.”

“What is to be done?” said the Prince, stopping short before Waldemar.

“I know nothing which can be done,” answered his counsellor, “save that
which I have already taken order for.--I came not to bewail this evil
chance with your Grace, until I had done my best to remedy it.”

“Thou art ever my better angel, Waldemar,” said the Prince; “and when
I have such a chancellor to advise withal, the reign of John will be
renowned in our annals.--What hast thou commanded?”

“I have ordered Louis Winkelbrand, De Bracy’s lieutenant, to cause his
trumpet sound to horse, and to display his banner, and to set presently
forth towards the castle of Front-de-Boeuf, to do what yet may be done
for the succour of our friends.”

Prince John’s face flushed with the pride of a spoilt child, who has
undergone what it conceives to be an insult. “By the face of God!”
 he said, “Waldemar Fitzurse, much hast thou taken upon thee! and over
malapert thou wert to cause trumpet to blow, or banner to be raised, in
a town where ourselves were in presence, without our express command.”

“I crave your Grace’s pardon,” said Fitzurse, internally cursing the
idle vanity of his patron; “but when time pressed, and even the loss of
minutes might be fatal, I judged it best to take this much burden upon
me, in a matter of such importance to your Grace’s interest.”

“Thou art pardoned, Fitzurse,” said the prince, gravely; “thy purpose
hath atoned for thy hasty rashness.--But whom have we here?--De Bracy
himself, by the rood!--and in strange guise doth he come before us.”

It was indeed De Bracy--“bloody with spurring, fiery red with speed.”
 His armour bore all the marks of the late obstinate fray, being broken,
defaced, and stained with blood in many places, and covered with clay
and dust from the crest to the spur. Undoing his helmet, he placed it
on the table, and stood a moment as if to collect himself before he told
his news.

“De Bracy,” said Prince John, “what means this?--Speak, I charge
thee!--Are the Saxons in rebellion?”

“Speak, De Bracy,” said Fitzurse, almost in the same moment with his
master, “thou wert wont to be a man--Where is the Templar?--where
Front-de-Boeuf?”

“The Templar is fled,” said De Bracy; “Front-de-Boeuf you will never
see more. He has found a red grave among the blazing rafters of his own
castle and I alone am escaped to tell you.”

“Cold news,” said Waldemar, “to us, though you speak of fire and
conflagration.”

“The worst news is not yet said,” answered De Bracy; and, coming up
to Prince John, he uttered in a low and emphatic tone--“Richard is in
England--I have seen and spoken with him.”

Prince John turned pale, tottered, and caught at the back of an oaken
bench to support himself--much like to a man who receives an arrow in
his bosom.

“Thou ravest, De Bracy,” said Fitzurse, “it cannot be.”

“It is as true as truth itself,” said De Bracy; “I was his prisoner, and
spoke with him.”

“With Richard Plantagenet, sayest thou?” continued Fitzurse.

“With Richard Plantagenet,” replied De Bracy, “with Richard
Coeur-de-Lion--with Richard of England.”

“And thou wert his prisoner?” said Waldemar; “he is then at the head of
a power?”

“No--only a few outlawed yeomen were around him, and to these his person
is unknown. I heard him say he was about to depart from them. He joined
them only to assist at the storming of Torquilstone.”

“Ay,” said Fitzurse, “such is indeed the fashion of Richard--a true
knight-errant he, and will wander in wild adventure, trusting the
prowess of his single arm, like any Sir Guy or Sir Bevis, while
the weighty affairs of his kingdom slumber, and his own safety is
endangered.--What dost thou propose to do De Bracy?”

“I?--I offered Richard the service of my Free Lances, and he refused
them--I will lead them to Hull, seize on shipping, and embark for
Flanders; thanks to the bustling times, a man of action will always find
employment. And thou, Waldemar, wilt thou take lance and shield, and lay
down thy policies, and wend along with me, and share the fate which God
sends us?”

“I am too old, Maurice, and I have a daughter,” answered Waldemar.

“Give her to me, Fitzurse, and I will maintain her as fits her rank,
with the help of lance and stirrup,” said De Bracy.

“Not so,” answered Fitzurse; “I will take sanctuary in this church of
Saint Peter--the Archbishop is my sworn brother.”

During this discourse, Prince John had gradually awakened from the
stupor into which he had been thrown by the unexpected intelligence,
and had been attentive to the conversation which passed betwixt his
followers. “They fall off from me,” he said to himself, “they hold no
more by me than a withered leaf by the bough when a breeze blows on
it!--Hell and fiends! can I shape no means for myself when I am deserted
by these cravens?”--He paused, and there was an expression of diabolical
passion in the constrained laugh with which he at length broke in on
their conversation.

“Ha, ha, ha! my good lords, by the light of Our Lady’s brow, I held ye
sage men, bold men, ready-witted men; yet ye throw down wealth, honour,
pleasure, all that our noble game promised you, at the moment it might
be won by one bold cast!”

“I understand you not,” said De Bracy. “As soon as Richard’s return is
blown abroad, he will be at the head of an army, and all is then over
with us. I would counsel you, my lord, either to fly to France or take
the protection of the Queen Mother.”

“I seek no safety for myself,” said Prince John, haughtily; “that I
could secure by a word spoken to my brother. But although you, De Bracy,
and you, Waldemar Fitzurse, are so ready to abandon me, I should not
greatly delight to see your heads blackening on Clifford’s gate yonder.
Thinkest thou, Waldemar, that the wily Archbishop will not suffer thee
to be taken from the very horns of the altar, would it make his
peace with King Richard? And forgettest thou, De Bracy, that Robert
Estoteville lies betwixt thee and Hull with all his forces, and that the
Earl of Essex is gathering his followers? If we had reason to fear these
levies even before Richard’s return, trowest thou there is any doubt
now which party their leaders will take? Trust me, Estoteville alone has
strength enough to drive all thy Free Lances into the Humber.”--Waldemar
Fitzurse and De Bracy looked in each other’s faces with blank
dismay.--“There is but one road to safety,” continued the Prince, and
his brow grew black as midnight; “this object of our terror journeys
alone--He must be met withal.”

“Not by me,” said De Bracy, hastily; “I was his prisoner, and he took me
to mercy. I will not harm a feather in his crest.”

“Who spoke of harming him?” said Prince John, with a hardened laugh;
“the knave will say next that I meant he should slay him!--No--a prison
were better; and whether in Britain or Austria, what matters it?--Things
will be but as they were when we commenced our enterprise--It was
founded on the hope that Richard would remain a captive in Germany--Our
uncle Robert lived and died in the castle of Cardiffe.”

“Ay, but,” said Waldemar, “your sire Henry sate more firm in his seat
than your Grace can. I say the best prison is that which is made by the
sexton--no dungeon like a church-vault! I have said my say.”

“Prison or tomb,” said De Bracy, “I wash my hands of the whole matter.”

“Villain!” said Prince John, “thou wouldst not bewray our counsel?”

“Counsel was never bewrayed by me,” said De Bracy, haughtily, “nor must
the name of villain be coupled with mine!”

“Peace, Sir Knight!” said Waldemar; “and you, good my lord, forgive the
scruples of valiant De Bracy; I trust I shall soon remove them.”

“That passes your eloquence, Fitzurse,” replied the Knight.

“Why, good Sir Maurice,” rejoined the wily politician, “start not aside
like a scared steed, without, at least, considering the object of your
terror.--This Richard--but a day since, and it would have been thy
dearest wish to have met him hand to hand in the ranks of battle--a
hundred times I have heard thee wish it.”

“Ay,” said De Bracy, “but that was as thou sayest, hand to hand, and
in the ranks of battle! Thou never heardest me breathe a thought of
assaulting him alone, and in a forest.”

“Thou art no good knight if thou dost scruple at it,” said Waldemar.
“Was it in battle that Lancelot de Lac and Sir Tristram won renown? or
was it not by encountering gigantic knights under the shade of deep and
unknown forests?”

“Ay, but I promise you,” said De Bracy, “that neither Tristram nor
Lancelot would have been match, hand to hand, for Richard Plantagenet,
and I think it was not their wont to take odds against a single man.”

“Thou art mad, De Bracy--what is it we propose to thee, a hired and
retained captain of Free Companions, whose swords are purchased for
Prince John’s service? Thou art apprized of our enemy, and then thou
scruplest, though thy patron’s fortunes, those of thy comrades, thine
own, and the life and honour of every one amongst us, be at stake!”

“I tell you,” said De Bracy, sullenly, “that he gave me my life. True,
he sent me from his presence, and refused my homage--so far I owe him
neither favour nor allegiance--but I will not lift hand against him.”

“It needs not--send Louis Winkelbrand and a score of thy lances.”

“Ye have sufficient ruffians of your own,” said De Bracy; “not one of
mine shall budge on such an errand.”

“Art thou so obstinate, De Bracy?” said Prince John; “and wilt thou
forsake me, after so many protestations of zeal for my service?”

“I mean it not,” said De Bracy; “I will abide by you in aught that
becomes a knight, whether in the lists or in the camp; but this highway
practice comes not within my vow.”

“Come hither, Waldemar,” said Prince John. “An unhappy prince am I. My
father, King Henry, had faithful servants--He had but to say that he was
plagued with a factious priest, and the blood of Thomas-a-Becket, saint
though he was, stained the steps of his own altar.--Tracy, Morville,
Brito [47] loyal and daring subjects, your names, your spirit, are
extinct! and although Reginald Fitzurse hath left a son, he hath fallen
off from his father’s fidelity and courage.”

“He has fallen off from neither,” said Waldemar Fitzurse; “and since
it may not better be, I will take on me the conduct of this perilous
enterprise. Dearly, however, did my father purchase the praise of a
zealous friend; and yet did his proof of loyalty to Henry fall far short
of what I am about to afford; for rather would I assail a whole calendar
of saints, than put spear in rest against Coeur-de-Lion.--De Bracy, to
thee I must trust to keep up the spirits of the doubtful, and to guard
Prince John’s person. If you receive such news as I trust to send you,
our enterprise will no longer wear a doubtful aspect.--Page,” he said,
“hie to my lodgings, and tell my armourer to be there in readiness; and
bid Stephen Wetheral, Broad Thoresby, and the Three Spears of Spyinghow,
come to me instantly; and let the scout-master, Hugh Bardon, attend me
also.--Adieu, my Prince, till better times.” Thus speaking, he left the
apartment. “He goes to make my brother prisoner,” said Prince John to De
Bracy, “with as little touch of compunction, as if it but concerned the
liberty of a Saxon franklin. I trust he will observe our orders, and use
our dear Richard’s person with all due respect.”

De Bracy only answered by a smile.

“By the light of Our Lady’s brow,” said Prince John, “our orders to
him were most precise--though it may be you heard them not, as we stood
together in the oriel window--Most clear and positive was our charge
that Richard’s safety should be cared for, and woe to Waldemar’s head if
he transgress it!”

“I had better pass to his lodgings,” said De Bracy, “and make him fully
aware of your Grace’s pleasure; for, as it quite escaped my ear, it may
not perchance have reached that of Waldemar.”

“Nay, nay,” said Prince John, impatiently, “I promise thee he heard me;
and, besides, I have farther occupation for thee. Maurice, come hither;
let me lean on thy shoulder.”

They walked a turn through the hall in this familiar posture, and Prince
John, with an air of the most confidential intimacy, proceeded to say,
“What thinkest thou of this Waldemar Fitzurse, my De Bracy?--He trusts
to be our Chancellor. Surely we will pause ere we give an office so high
to one who shows evidently how little he reverences our blood, by his so
readily undertaking this enterprise against Richard. Thou dost think,
I warrant, that thou hast lost somewhat of our regard, by thy boldly
declining this unpleasing task--But no, Maurice! I rather honour thee
for thy virtuous constancy. There are things most necessary to be done,
the perpetrator of which we neither love nor honour; and there may be
refusals to serve us, which shall rather exalt in our estimation those
who deny our request. The arrest of my unfortunate brother forms no
such good title to the high office of Chancellor, as thy chivalrous and
courageous denial establishes in thee to the truncheon of High Marshal.
Think of this, De Bracy, and begone to thy charge.”

“Fickle tyrant!” muttered De Bracy, as he left the presence of the
Prince; “evil luck have they who trust thee. Thy Chancellor, indeed!--He
who hath the keeping of thy conscience shall have an easy charge, I
trow. But High Marshal of England! that,” he said, extending his arm, as
if to grasp the baton of office, and assuming a loftier stride along the
antechamber, “that is indeed a prize worth playing for!”

De Bracy had no sooner left the apartment than Prince John summoned an
attendant.

“Bid Hugh Bardon, our scout-master, come hither, as soon as he shall
have spoken with Waldemar Fitzurse.”

The scout-master arrived after a brief delay, during which John
traversed the apartment with, unequal and disordered steps.

“Bardon,” said he, “what did Waldemar desire of thee?”

“Two resolute men, well acquainted with these northern wilds, and
skilful in tracking the tread of man and horse.”

“And thou hast fitted him?”

“Let your grace never trust me else,” answered the master of the spies.
“One is from Hexamshire; he is wont to trace the Tynedale and Teviotdale
thieves, as a bloodhound follows the slot of a hurt deer. The other
is Yorkshire bred, and has twanged his bowstring right oft in merry
Sherwood; he knows each glade and dingle, copse and high-wood, betwixt
this and Richmond.”

“‘Tis well,” said the Prince.--“Goes Waldemar forth with them?”

“Instantly,” said Bardon.

“With what attendance?” asked John, carelessly.

“Broad Thoresby goes with him, and Wetheral, whom they call, for his
cruelty, Stephen Steel-heart; and three northern men-at-arms that
belonged to Ralph Middleton’s gang--they are called the Spears of
Spyinghow.”

“‘Tis well,” said Prince John; then added, after a moment’s pause,
“Bardon, it imports our service that thou keep a strict watch on Maurice
De Bracy--so that he shall not observe it, however--And let us know
of his motions from time to time--with whom he converses, what he
proposeth. Fail not in this, as thou wilt be answerable.”

Hugh Bardon bowed, and retired.

“If Maurice betrays me,” said Prince John--“if he betrays me, as his
bearing leads me to fear, I will have his head, were Richard thundering
at the gates of York.”




CHAPTER XXXV

     Arouse the tiger of Hyrcanian deserts,
     Strive with the half-starved lion for his prey;
     Lesser the risk, than rouse the slumbering fire
     Of wild Fanaticism.
     --Anonymus

Our tale now returns to Isaac of York.--Mounted upon a mule, the gift of
the Outlaw, with two tall yeomen to act as his guard and guides, the
Jew had set out for the Preceptory of Templestowe, for the purpose of
negotiating his daughter’s redemption. The Preceptory was but a day’s
journey from the demolished castle of Torquilstone, and the Jew had
hoped to reach it before nightfall; accordingly, having dismissed his
guides at the verge of the forest, and rewarded them with a piece of
silver, he began to press on with such speed as his weariness permitted
him to exert. But his strength failed him totally ere he had reached
within four miles of the Temple-Court; racking pains shot along his back
and through his limbs, and the excessive anguish which he felt at heart
being now augmented by bodily suffering, he was rendered altogether
incapable of proceeding farther than a small market-town, were dwelt
a Jewish Rabbi of his tribe, eminent in the medical profession, and
to whom Isaac was well known. Nathan Ben Israel received his suffering
countryman with that kindness which the law prescribed, and which the
Jews practised to each other. He insisted on his betaking himself to
repose, and used such remedies as were then in most repute to check the
progress of the fever, which terror, fatigue, ill usage, and sorrow, had
brought upon the poor old Jew.

On the morrow, when Isaac proposed to arise and pursue his journey,
Nathan remonstrated against his purpose, both as his host and as his
physician. It might cost him, he said, his life. But Isaac replied,
that more than life and death depended upon his going that morning to
Templestowe.

“To Templestowe!” said his host with surprise again felt his pulse,
and then muttered to himself, “His fever is abated, yet seems his mind
somewhat alienated and disturbed.”

“And why not to Templestowe?” answered his patient. “I grant thee,
Nathan, that it is a dwelling of those to whom the despised Children of
the Promise are a stumbling-block and an abomination; yet thou knowest
that pressing affairs of traffic sometimes carry us among these
bloodthirsty Nazarene soldiers, and that we visit the Preceptories of
the Templars, as well as the Commanderies of the Knights Hospitallers,
as they are called.” [48]

“I know it well,” said Nathan; “but wottest thou that Lucas de
Beaumanoir, the chief of their Order, and whom they term Grand Master,
is now himself at Templestowe?”

“I know it not,” said Isaac; “our last letters from our brethren at
Paris advised us that he was at that city, beseeching Philip for aid
against the Sultan Saladine.”

“He hath since come to England, unexpected by his brethren,” said Ben
Israel; “and he cometh among them with a strong and outstretched arm to
correct and to punish. His countenance is kindled in anger against those
who have departed from the vow which they have made, and great is the
fear of those sons of Belial. Thou must have heard of his name?”

“It is well known unto me,” said Isaac; “the Gentiles deliver this Lucas
Beaumanoir as a man zealous to slaying for every point of the Nazarene
law; and our brethren have termed him a fierce destroyer of the
Saracens, and a cruel tyrant to the Children of the Promise.”

“And truly have they termed him,” said Nathan the physician. “Other
Templars may be moved from the purpose of their heart by pleasure, or
bribed by promise of gold and silver; but Beaumanoir is of a different
stamp--hating sensuality, despising treasure, and pressing forward to
that which they call the crown of martyrdom--The God of Jacob speedily
send it unto him, and unto them all! Specially hath this proud man
extended his glove over the children of Judah, as holy David over Edom,
holding the murder of a Jew to be an offering of as sweet savour as the
death of a Saracen. Impious and false things has he said even of the
virtues of our medicines, as if they were the devices of Satan--The Lord
rebuke him!”

“Nevertheless,” said Isaac, “I must present myself at Templestowe,
though he hath made his face like unto a fiery furnace seven times
heated.”

He then explained to Nathan the pressing cause of his journey. The Rabbi
listened with interest, and testified his sympathy after the fashion of
his people, rending his clothes, and saying, “Ah, my daughter!--ah, my
daughter!--Alas! for the beauty of Zion!--Alas! for the captivity of
Israel!”

“Thou seest,” said Isaac, “how it stands with me, and that I may not
tarry. Peradventure, the presence of this Lucas Beaumanoir, being the
chief man over them, may turn Brian de Bois-Guilbert from the ill which
he doth meditate, and that he may deliver to me my beloved daughter
Rebecca.”

“Go thou,” said Nathan Ben Israel, “and be wise, for wisdom availed
Daniel in the den of lions into which he was cast; and may it go well
with thee, even as thine heart wisheth. Yet, if thou canst, keep thee
from the presence of the Grand Master, for to do foul scorn to our
people is his morning and evening delight. It may be if thou couldst
speak with Bois-Guilbert in private, thou shalt the better prevail with
him; for men say that these accursed Nazarenes are not of one mind in
the Preceptory--May their counsels be confounded and brought to shame!
But do thou, brother, return to me as if it were to the house of thy
father, and bring me word how it has sped with thee; and well do I hope
thou wilt bring with thee Rebecca, even the scholar of the wise Miriam,
whose cures the Gentiles slandered as if they had been wrought by
necromancy.”

Isaac accordingly bade his friend farewell, and about an hour’s riding
brought him before the Preceptory of Templestowe.

This establishment of the Templars was seated amidst fair meadows and
pastures, which the devotion of the former Preceptor had bestowed upon
their Order. It was strong and well fortified, a point never neglected
by these knights, and which the disordered state of England rendered
peculiarly necessary. Two halberdiers, clad in black, guarded the
drawbridge, and others, in the same sad livery, glided to and fro upon
the walls with a funereal pace, resembling spectres more than soldiers.
The inferior officers of the Order were thus dressed, ever since their
use of white garments, similar to those of the knights and esquires, had
given rise to a combination of certain false brethren in the mountains
of Palestine, terming themselves Templars, and bringing great dishonour
on the Order. A knight was now and then seen to cross the court in his
long white cloak, his head depressed on his breast, and his arms folded.
They passed each other, if they chanced to meet, with a slow, solemn,
and mute greeting; for such was the rule of their Order, quoting
thereupon the holy texts, “In many words thou shalt not avoid sin,” and
“Life and death are in the power of the tongue.” In a word, the
stern ascetic rigour of the Temple discipline, which had been so long
exchanged for prodigal and licentious indulgence, seemed at once to have
revived at Templestowe under the severe eye of Lucas Beaumanoir.

Isaac paused at the gate, to consider how he might seek entrance in the
manner most likely to bespeak favour; for he was well aware, that to his
unhappy race the reviving fanaticism of the Order was not less dangerous
than their unprincipled licentiousness; and that his religion would be
the object of hate and persecution in the one case, as his wealth
would have exposed him in the other to the extortions of unrelenting
oppression.

Meantime Lucas Beaumanoir walked in a small garden belonging to the
Preceptory, included within the precincts of its exterior fortification,
and held sad and confidential communication with a brother of his Order,
who had come in his company from Palestine.

The Grand Master was a man advanced in age, as was testified by his long
grey beard, and the shaggy grey eyebrows overhanging eyes, of which,
however, years had been unable to quench the fire. A formidable warrior,
his thin and severe features retained the soldier’s fierceness of
expression; an ascetic bigot, they were no less marked by the emaciation
of abstinence, and the spiritual pride of the self-satisfied devotee.
Yet with these severer traits of physiognomy, there was mixed somewhat
striking and noble, arising, doubtless, from the great part which his
high office called upon him to act among monarchs and princes, and
from the habitual exercise of supreme authority over the valiant and
high-born knights, who were united by the rules of the Order. His
stature was tall, and his gait, undepressed by age and toil, was
erect and stately. His white mantle was shaped with severe regularity,
according to the rule of Saint Bernard himself, being composed of what
was then called Burrel cloth, exactly fitted to the size of the wearer,
and bearing on the left shoulder the octangular cross peculiar to the
Order, formed of red cloth. No vair or ermine decked this garment; but
in respect of his age, the Grand Master, as permitted by the rules, wore
his doublet lined and trimmed with the softest lambskin, dressed with
the wool outwards, which was the nearest approach he could regularly
make to the use of fur, then the greatest luxury of dress. In his hand
he bore that singular “abacus”, or staff of office, with which Templars
are usually represented, having at the upper end a round plate, on which
was engraved the cross of the Order, inscribed within a circle or orle,
as heralds term it. His companion, who attended on this great personage,
had nearly the same dress in all respects, but his extreme deference
towards his Superior showed that no other equality subsisted between
them. The Preceptor, for such he was in rank, walked not in a line with
the Grand Master, but just so far behind that Beaumanoir could speak to
him without turning round his head.

“Conrade,” said the Grand Master, “dear companion of my battles and my
toils, to thy faithful bosom alone I can confide my sorrows. To thee
alone can I tell how oft, since I came to this kingdom, I have desired
to be dissolved and to be with the just. Not one object in England hath
met mine eye which it could rest upon with pleasure, save the tombs of
our brethren, beneath the massive roof of our Temple Church in yonder
proud capital. O, valiant Robert de Ros! did I exclaim internally, as I
gazed upon these good soldiers of the cross, where they lie sculptured
on their sepulchres,--O, worthy William de Mareschal! open your marble
cells, and take to your repose a weary brother, who would rather strive
with a hundred thousand pagans than witness the decay of our Holy
Order!”

“It is but true,” answered Conrade Mont-Fitchet; “it is but too true;
and the irregularities of our brethren in England are even more gross
than those in France.”

“Because they are more wealthy,” answered the Grand Master. “Bear with
me, brother, although I should something vaunt myself. Thou knowest the
life I have led, keeping each point of my Order, striving with devils
embodied and disembodied, striking down the roaring lion, who goeth
about seeking whom he may devour, like a good knight and devout
priest, wheresoever I met with him--even as blessed Saint Bernard hath
prescribed to us in the forty-fifth capital of our rule, ‘Ut Leo semper
feriatur’. [49]

“But by the Holy Temple! the zeal which hath devoured my substance and
my life, yea, the very nerves and marrow of my bones; by that very Holy
Temple I swear to thee, that save thyself and some few that still retain
the ancient severity of our Order, I look upon no brethren whom I can
bring my soul to embrace under that holy name. What say our statutes,
and how do our brethren observe them? They should wear no vain or
worldly ornament, no crest upon their helmet, no gold upon stirrup or
bridle-bit; yet who now go pranked out so proudly and so gaily as the
poor soldiers of the Temple? They are forbidden by our statutes to take
one bird by means of another, to shoot beasts with bow or arblast, to
halloo to a hunting-horn, or to spur the horse after game. But now,
at hunting and hawking, and each idle sport of wood and river, who so
prompt as the Templars in all these fond vanities? They are forbidden
to read, save what their Superior permitted, or listen to what is
read, save such holy things as may be recited aloud during the hours of
refaction; but lo! their ears are at the command of idle minstrels, and
their eyes study empty romaunts. They were commanded to extirpate magic
and heresy. Lo! they are charged with studying the accursed cabalistical
secrets of the Jews, and the magic of the Paynim Saracens. Simpleness
of diet was prescribed to them, roots, pottage, gruels, eating flesh
but thrice a-week, because the accustomed feeding on flesh is a
dishonourable corruption of the body; and behold, their tables groan
under delicate fare! Their drink was to be water, and now, to drink like
a Templar, is the boast of each jolly boon companion! This very garden,
filled as it is with curious herbs and trees sent from the Eastern
climes, better becomes the harem of an unbelieving Emir, than the
plot which Christian Monks should devote to raise their homely
pot-herbs.--And O, Conrade! well it were that the relaxation of
discipline stopped even here!--Well thou knowest that we were forbidden
to receive those devout women, who at the beginning were associated
as sisters of our Order, because, saith the forty-sixth chapter, the
Ancient Enemy hath, by female society, withdrawn many from the right
path to paradise. Nay, in the last capital, being, as it were, the
cope-stone which our blessed founder placed on the pure and undefiled
doctrine which he had enjoined, we are prohibited from offering, even to
our sisters and our mothers, the kiss of affection--‘ut omnium
mulierum fugiantur oscula’.--I shame to speak--I shame to think--of the
corruptions which have rushed in upon us even like a flood. The souls
of our pure founders, the spirits of Hugh de Payen and Godfrey de Saint
Omer, and of the blessed Seven who first joined in dedicating their
lives to the service of the Temple, are disturbed even in the enjoyment
of paradise itself. I have seen them, Conrade, in the visions of the
night--their sainted eyes shed tears for the sins and follies of their
brethren, and for the foul and shameful luxury in which they wallow.
Beaumanoir, they say, thou slumberest--awake! There is a stain in the
fabric of the Temple, deep and foul as that left by the streaks of
leprosy on the walls of the infected houses of old. [50]

“The soldiers of the Cross, who should shun the glance of a woman as the
eye of a basilisk, live in open sin, not with the females of their own
race only, but with the daughters of the accursed heathen, and more
accursed Jew. Beaumanoir, thou sleepest; up, and avenge our cause!--Slay
the sinners, male and female!--Take to thee the brand of Phineas!--The
vision fled, Conrade, but as I awaked I could still hear the clank of
their mail, and see the waving of their white mantles.--And I will do
according to their word, I WILL purify the fabric of the Temple! and the
unclean stones in which the plague is, I will remove and cast out of the
building.”

“Yet bethink thee, reverend father,” said Mont-Fitchet, “the stain
hath become engrained by time and consuetude; let thy reformation be
cautious, as it is just and wise.”

“No, Mont-Fitchet,” answered the stern old man--“it must be sharp
and sudden--the Order is on the crisis of its fate. The sobriety,
self-devotion, and piety of our predecessors, made us powerful
friends--our presumption, our wealth, our luxury, have raised up
against us mighty enemies.--We must cast away these riches, which are
a temptation to princes--we must lay down that presumption, which is
an offence to them--we must reform that license of manners, which is a
scandal to the whole Christian world! Or--mark my words--the Order of
the Temple will be utterly demolished--and the Place thereof shall no
more be known among the nations.”

“Now may God avert such a calamity!” said the Preceptor.

“Amen,” said the Grand Master, with solemnity, “but we must deserve his
aid. I tell thee, Conrade, that neither the powers in Heaven, nor
the powers on earth, will longer endure the wickedness of this
generation--My intelligence is sure--the ground on which our fabric is
reared is already undermined, and each addition we make to the structure
of our greatness will only sink it the sooner in the abyss. We must
retrace our steps, and show ourselves the faithful Champions of
the Cross, sacrificing to our calling, not alone our blood and our
lives--not alone our lusts and our vices--but our ease, our comforts,
and our natural affections, and act as men convinced that many a
pleasure which may be lawful to others, is forbidden to the vowed
soldier of the Temple.”

At this moment a squire, clothed in a threadbare vestment, (for the
aspirants after this holy Order wore during their noviciate the cast-off
garments of the knights,) entered the garden, and, bowing profoundly
before the Grand Master, stood silent, awaiting his permission ere he
presumed to tell his errand.

“Is it not more seemly,” said the Grand Master, “to see this Damian,
clothed in the garments of Christian humility, thus appear with reverend
silence before his Superior, than but two days since, when the fond fool
was decked in a painted coat, and jangling as pert and as proud as any
popinjay?--Speak, Damian, we permit thee--What is thine errand?”

“A Jew stands without the gate, noble and reverend father,” said the
Squire, “who prays to speak with brother Brian de Bois-Guilbert.”

“Thou wert right to give me knowledge of it,” said the Grand Master; “in
our presence a Preceptor is but as a common compeer of our Order, who
may not walk according to his own will, but to that of his Master--even
according to the text, ‘In the hearing of the ear he hath obeyed
me.’--It imports us especially to know of this Bois-Guilbert’s
proceedings,” said he, turning to his companion.

“Report speaks him brave and valiant,” said Conrade.

“And truly is he so spoken of,” said the Grand Master; “in our valour
only we are not degenerated from our predecessors, the heroes of the
Cross. But brother Brian came into our Order a moody and disappointed
man, stirred, I doubt me, to take our vows and to renounce the world,
not in sincerity of soul, but as one whom some touch of light discontent
had driven into penitence. Since then, he hath become an active and
earnest agitator, a murmurer, and a machinator, and a leader amongst
those who impugn our authority; not considering that the rule is given
to the Master even by the symbol of the staff and the rod--the staff to
support the infirmities of the weak--the rod to correct the faults of
delinquents.--Damian,” he continued, “lead the Jew to our presence.”

The squire departed with a profound reverence, and in a few minutes
returned, marshalling in Isaac of York. No naked slave, ushered into the
presence of some mighty prince, could approach his judgment-seat with
more profound reverence and terror than that with which the Jew drew
near to the presence of the Grand Master. When he had approached within
the distance of three yards, Beaumanoir made a sign with his staff that
he should come no farther. The Jew kneeled down on the earth which he
kissed in token of reverence; then rising, stood before the Templars,
his hands folded on his bosom, his head bowed on his breast, in all the
submission of Oriental slavery.

“Damian,” said the Grand Master, “retire, and have a guard ready to
await our sudden call; and suffer no one to enter the garden until we
shall leave it.”--The squire bowed and retreated.--“Jew,” continued the
haughty old man, “mark me. It suits not our condition to hold with
thee long communication, nor do we waste words or time upon any one.
Wherefore be brief in thy answers to what questions I shall ask thee,
and let thy words be of truth; for if thy tongue doubles with me, I will
have it torn from thy misbelieving jaws.”

The Jew was about to reply, but the Grand Master went on.

“Peace, unbeliever!--not a word in our presence, save in answer to
our questions.--What is thy business with our brother Brian de
Bois-Guilbert?”

Isaac gasped with terror and uncertainty. To tell his tale might be
interpreted into scandalizing the Order; yet, unless he told it, what
hope could he have of achieving his daughter’s deliverance? Beaumanoir
saw his mortal apprehension, and condescended to give him some
assurance.

“Fear nothing,” he said, “for thy wretched person, Jew, so thou dealest
uprightly in this matter. I demand again to know from thee thy business
with Brian de Bois-Guilbert?”

“I am bearer of a letter,” stammered out the Jew, “so please your
reverend valour, to that good knight, from Prior Aymer of the Abbey of
Jorvaulx.”

“Said I not these were evil times, Conrade?” said the Master. “A
Cistertian Prior sends a letter to a soldier of the Temple, and can find
no more fitting messenger than an unbelieving Jew.--Give me the letter.”

The Jew, with trembling hands, undid the folds of his Armenian cap, in
which he had deposited the Prior’s tablets for the greater security, and
was about to approach, with hand extended and body crouched, to place it
within the reach of his grim interrogator.

“Back, dog!” said the Grand Master; “I touch not misbelievers, save with
the sword.--Conrade, take thou the letter from the Jew, and give it to
me.”

Beaumanoir, being thus possessed of the tablets, inspected the outside
carefully, and then proceeded to undo the packthread which secured its
folds. “Reverend father,” said Conrade, interposing, though with much
deference, “wilt thou break the seal?”

“And will I not?” said Beaumanoir, with a frown. “Is it not written in
the forty-second capital, ‘De Lectione Literarum’ that a Templar shall
not receive a letter, no not from his father, without communicating the
same to the Grand Master, and reading it in his presence?”

He then perused the letter in haste, with an expression of surprise and
horror; read it over again more slowly; then holding it out to Conrade
with one hand, and slightly striking it with the other, exclaimed--“Here
is goodly stuff for one Christian man to write to another, and both
members, and no inconsiderable members, of religious professions! When,”
 said he solemnly, and looking upward, “wilt thou come with thy fanners
to purge the thrashing-floor?”

Mont-Fitchet took the letter from his Superior, and was about to peruse
it.

“Read it aloud, Conrade,” said the Grand Master,--“and do thou”
 (to Isaac) “attend to the purport of it, for we will question thee
concerning it.”

Conrade read the letter, which was in these words: “Aymer, by divine
grace, Prior of the Cistertian house of Saint Mary’s of Jorvaulx, to
Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a Knight of the holy Order of the Temple,
wisheth health, with the bounties of King Bacchus and of my Lady Venus.
Touching our present condition, dear Brother, we are a captive in the
hands of certain lawless and godless men, who have not feared to detain
our person, and put us to ransom; whereby we have also learned of
Front-de-Boeuf’s misfortune, and that thou hast escaped with that fair
Jewish sorceress, whose black eyes have bewitched thee. We are heartily
rejoiced of thy safety; nevertheless, we pray thee to be on thy guard in
the matter of this second Witch of Endor; for we are privately assured
that your Great Master, who careth not a bean for cherry cheeks and
black eyes, comes from Normandy to diminish your mirth, and amend your
misdoings. Wherefore we pray you heartily to beware, and to be found
watching, even as the Holy Text hath it, ‘Invenientur vigilantes’. And
the wealthy Jew her father, Isaac of York, having prayed of me letters
in his behalf, I gave him these, earnestly advising, and in a sort
entreating, that you do hold the damsel to ransom, seeing he will pay
you from his bags as much as may find fifty damsels upon safer terms,
whereof I trust to have my part when we make merry together, as true
brothers, not forgetting the wine-cup. For what saith the text, ‘Vinum
laetificat cor hominis’; and again, ‘Rex delectabitur pulchritudine
tua’.

“Till which merry meeting, we wish you farewell. Given from this den of
thieves, about the hour of matins,

“Aymer Pr. S. M. Jorvolciencis.

“‘Postscriptum.’ Truly your golden chain hath not long abidden with me,
and will now sustain, around the neck of an outlaw deer-stealer, the
whistle wherewith he calleth on his hounds.”

“What sayest thou to this, Conrade?” said the Grand Master--“Den of
thieves! and a fit residence is a den of thieves for such a Prior. No
wonder that the hand of God is upon us, and that in the Holy Land we
lose place by place, foot by foot, before the infidels, when we have
such churchmen as this Aymer.--And what meaneth he, I trow, by this
second Witch of Endor?” said he to his confident, something apart.
Conrade was better acquainted (perhaps by practice) with the jargon of
gallantry, than was his Superior; and he expounded the passage which
embarrassed the Grand Master, to be a sort of language used by worldly
men towards those whom they loved ‘par amours’; but the explanation did
not satisfy the bigoted Beaumanoir.

“There is more in it than thou dost guess, Conrade; thy simplicity is
no match for this deep abyss of wickedness. This Rebecca of York was a
pupil of that Miriam of whom thou hast heard. Thou shalt hear the Jew
own it even now.” Then turning to Isaac, he said aloud, “Thy daughter,
then, is prisoner with Brian de Bois-Guilbert?”

“Ay, reverend valorous sir,” stammered poor Isaac, “and whatsoever
ransom a poor man may pay for her deliverance---”

“Peace!” said the Grand Master. “This thy daughter hath practised the
art of healing, hath she not?”

“Ay, gracious sir,” answered the Jew, with more confidence; “and knight
and yeoman, squire and vassal, may bless the goodly gift which Heaven
hath assigned to her. Many a one can testify that she hath recovered
them by her art, when every other human aid hath proved vain; but the
blessing of the God of Jacob was upon her.”

Beaumanoir turned to Mont-Fitchet with a grim smile. “See, brother,”
 he said, “the deceptions of the devouring Enemy! Behold the baits
with which he fishes for souls, giving a poor space of earthly life in
exchange for eternal happiness hereafter. Well said our blessed
rule, ‘Semper percutiatur leo vorans’.--Up on the lion! Down with the
destroyer!” said he, shaking aloft his mystic abacus, as if in defiance
of the powers of darkness--“Thy daughter worketh the cures, I doubt
not,” thus he went on to address the Jew, “by words and sighs, and
periapts, and other cabalistical mysteries.”

“Nay, reverend and brave Knight,” answered Isaac, “but in chief measure
by a balsam of marvellous virtue.”

“Where had she that secret?” said Beaumanoir.

“It was delivered to her,” answered Isaac, reluctantly, “by Miriam, a
sage matron of our tribe.”

“Ah, false Jew!” said the Grand Master; “was it not from that same
witch Miriam, the abomination of whose enchantments have been heard of
throughout every Christian land?” exclaimed the Grand Master, crossing
himself. “Her body was burnt at a stake, and her ashes were scattered to
the four winds; and so be it with me and mine Order, if I do not as
much to her pupil, and more also! I will teach her to throw spell and
incantation over the soldiers of the blessed Temple.--There, Damian,
spurn this Jew from the gate--shoot him dead if he oppose or turn again.
With his daughter we will deal as the Christian law and our own high
office warrant.”

Poor Isaac was hurried off accordingly, and expelled from the
preceptory; all his entreaties, and even his offers, unheard and
disregarded. He could do not better than return to the house of the
Rabbi, and endeavour, through his means, to learn how his daughter was
to be disposed of. He had hitherto feared for her honour, he was now
to tremble for her life. Meanwhile, the Grand Master ordered to his
presence the Preceptor of Templestowe.




CHAPTER XXXVI

     Say not my art is fraud--all live by seeming.
     The beggar begs with it, and the gay courtier
     Gains land and title, rank and rule, by seeming;
     The clergy scorn it not, and the bold soldier
     Will eke with it his service.--All admit it,
     All practise it; and he who is content
     With showing what he is, shall have small credit
     In church, or camp, or state--So wags the world.
     --Old Play

Albert Malvoisin, President, or, in the language of the Order, Preceptor
of the establishment of Templestowe, was brother to that Philip
Malvoisin who has been already occasionally mentioned in this history,
and was, like that baron, in close league with Brian de Bois-Guilbert.

Amongst dissolute and unprincipled men, of whom the Temple Order
included but too many, Albert of Templestowe might be distinguished; but
with this difference from the audacious Bois-Guilbert, that he knew how
to throw over his vices and his ambition the veil of hypocrisy, and to
assume in his exterior the fanaticism which he internally despised.
Had not the arrival of the Grand Master been so unexpectedly sudden,
he would have seen nothing at Templestowe which might have appeared to
argue any relaxation of discipline. And, even although surprised, and,
to a certain extent, detected, Albert Malvoisin listened with such
respect and apparent contrition to the rebuke of his Superior, and made
such haste to reform the particulars he censured,--succeeded, in fine,
so well in giving an air of ascetic devotion to a family which had been
lately devoted to license and pleasure, that Lucas Beaumanoir began to
entertain a higher opinion of the Preceptor’s morals, than the first
appearance of the establishment had inclined him to adopt.

But these favourable sentiments on the part of the Grand Master were
greatly shaken by the intelligence that Albert had received within a
house of religion the Jewish captive, and, as was to be feared, the
paramour of a brother of the Order; and when Albert appeared before him,
he was regarded with unwonted sternness.

“There is in this mansion, dedicated to the purposes of the holy Order
of the Temple,” said the Grand Master, in a severe tone, “a Jewish
woman, brought hither by a brother of religion, by your connivance, Sir
Preceptor.”

Albert Malvoisin was overwhelmed with confusion; for the unfortunate
Rebecca had been confined in a remote and secret part of the building,
and every precaution used to prevent her residence there from being
known. He read in the looks of Beaumanoir ruin to Bois-Guilbert and to
himself, unless he should be able to avert the impending storm.

“Why are you mute?” continued the Grand Master.

“Is it permitted to me to reply?” answered the Preceptor, in a tone of
the deepest humility, although by the question he only meant to gain an
instant’s space for arranging his ideas.

“Speak, you are permitted,” said the Grand Master--“speak, and say,
knowest thou the capital of our holy rule,--‘De commilitonibus Templi
in sancta civitate, qui cum miserrimis mulieribus versantur, propter
oblectationem carnis?’” [51]

“Surely, most reverend father,” answered the Preceptor, “I have not
risen to this office in the Order, being ignorant of one of its most
important prohibitions.”

“How comes it, then, I demand of thee once more, that thou hast suffered
a brother to bring a paramour, and that paramour a Jewish sorceress,
into this holy place, to the stain and pollution thereof?”

“A Jewish sorceress!” echoed Albert Malvoisin; “good angels guard us!”

“Ay, brother, a Jewish sorceress!” said the Grand Master, sternly. “I
have said it. Darest thou deny that this Rebecca, the daughter of that
wretched usurer Isaac of York, and the pupil of the foul witch
Miriam, is now--shame to be thought or spoken!--lodged within this thy
Preceptory?”

“Your wisdom, reverend father,” answered the Preceptor, “hath rolled
away the darkness from my understanding. Much did I wonder that so good
a knight as Brian de Bois-Guilbert seemed so fondly besotted on the
charms of this female, whom I received into this house merely to place a
bar betwixt their growing intimacy, which else might have been cemented
at the expense of the fall of our valiant and religious brother.”

“Hath nothing, then, as yet passed betwixt them in breach of his vow?”
 demanded the Grand Master.

“What! under this roof?” said the Preceptor, crossing himself; “Saint
Magdalene and the ten thousand virgins forbid!--No! if I have sinned in
receiving her here, it was in the erring thought that I might thus break
off our brother’s besotted devotion to this Jewess, which seemed to me
so wild and unnatural, that I could not but ascribe it to some touch of
insanity, more to be cured by pity than reproof. But since your reverend
wisdom hath discovered this Jewish queen to be a sorceress, perchance it
may account fully for his enamoured folly.”

“It doth!--it doth!” said Beaumanoir. “See, brother Conrade, the peril
of yielding to the first devices and blandishments of Satan! We look
upon woman only to gratify the lust of the eye, and to take pleasure
in what men call her beauty; and the Ancient Enemy, the devouring Lion,
obtains power over us, to complete, by talisman and spell, a work
which was begun by idleness and folly. It may be that our brother
Bois-Guilbert does in this matter deserve rather pity than severe
chastisement; rather the support of the staff, than the strokes of the
rod; and that our admonitions and prayers may turn him from his folly,
and restore him to his brethren.”

“It were deep pity,” said Conrade Mont-Fitchet, “to lose to the Order
one of its best lances, when the Holy Community most requires the aid of
its sons. Three hundred Saracens hath this Brian de Bois-Guilbert slain
with his own hand.”

“The blood of these accursed dogs,” said the Grand Master, “shall be a
sweet and acceptable offering to the saints and angels whom they despise
and blaspheme; and with their aid will we counteract the spells and
charms with which our brother is entwined as in a net. He shall burst
the bands of this Delilah, as Sampson burst the two new cords with which
the Philistines had bound him, and shall slaughter the infidels, even
heaps upon heaps. But concerning this foul witch, who hath flung her
enchantments over a brother of the Holy Temple, assuredly she shall die
the death.”

“But the laws of England,”--said the Preceptor, who, though delighted
that the Grand Master’s resentment, thus fortunately averted from
himself and Bois-Guilbert, had taken another direction, began now to
fear he was carrying it too far.

“The laws of England,” interrupted Beaumanoir, “permit and enjoin each
judge to execute justice within his own jurisdiction. The most petty
baron may arrest, try, and condemn a witch found within his own domain.
And shall that power be denied to the Grand Master of the Temple within
a preceptory of his Order?--No!--we will judge and condemn. The witch
shall be taken out of the land, and the wickedness thereof shall be
forgiven. Prepare the Castle-hall for the trial of the sorceress.”

Albert Malvoisin bowed and retired,--not to give directions for
preparing the hall, but to seek out Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and
communicate to him how matters were likely to terminate. It was not
long ere he found him, foaming with indignation at a repulse he had
anew sustained from the fair Jewess. “The unthinking,” he said, “the
ungrateful, to scorn him who, amidst blood and flames, would have saved
her life at the risk of his own! By Heaven, Malvoisin! I abode until
roof and rafters crackled and crashed around me. I was the butt of a
hundred arrows; they rattled on mine armour like hailstones against
a latticed casement, and the only use I made of my shield was for her
protection. This did I endure for her; and now the self-willed girl
upbraids me that I did not leave her to perish, and refuses me not only
the slightest proof of gratitude, but even the most distant hope that
ever she will be brought to grant any. The devil, that possessed her
race with obstinacy, has concentrated its full force in her single
person!”

“The devil,” said the Preceptor, “I think, possessed you both. How oft
have I preached to you caution, if not continence? Did I not tell you
that there were enough willing Christian damsels to be met with, who
would think it sin to refuse so brave a knight ‘le don d’amoureux
merci’, and you must needs anchor your affection on a wilful, obstinate
Jewess! By the mass, I think old Lucas Beaumanoir guesses right, when he
maintains she hath cast a spell over you.”

“Lucas Beaumanoir!”--said Bois-Guilbert reproachfully--“Are these your
precautions, Malvoisin? Hast thou suffered the dotard to learn that
Rebecca is in the Preceptory?”

“How could I help it?” said the Preceptor. “I neglected nothing that
could keep secret your mystery; but it is betrayed, and whether by the
devil or no, the devil only can tell. But I have turned the matter as I
could; you are safe if you renounce Rebecca. You are pitied--the victim
of magical delusion. She is a sorceress, and must suffer as such.”

“She shall not, by Heaven!” said Bois-Guilbert.

“By Heaven, she must and will!” said Malvoisin. “Neither you nor any
one else can save her. Lucas Beaumanoir hath settled that the death of
a Jewess will be a sin-offering sufficient to atone for all the amorous
indulgences of the Knights Templars; and thou knowest he hath both the
power and will to execute so reasonable and pious a purpose.”

“Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!” said
Bois-Guilbert, striding up and down the apartment.

“What they may believe, I know not,” said Malvoisin, calmly; “but I know
well, that in this our day, clergy and laymen, take ninety-nine to the
hundred, will cry ‘amen’ to the Grand Master’s sentence.”

“I have it,” said Bois-Guilbert. “Albert, thou art my friend. Thou must
connive at her escape, Malvoisin, and I will transport her to some place
of greater security and secrecy.”

“I cannot, if I would,” replied the Preceptor; “the mansion is filled
with the attendants of the Grand Master, and others who are devoted to
him. And, to be frank with you, brother, I would not embark with you
in this matter, even if I could hope to bring my bark to haven. I have
risked enough already for your sake. I have no mind to encounter a
sentence of degradation, or even to lose my Preceptory, for the sake
of a painted piece of Jewish flesh and blood. And you, if you will be
guided by my counsel, will give up this wild-goose chase, and fly your
hawk at some other game. Think, Bois-Guilbert,--thy present rank, thy
future honours, all depend on thy place in the Order. Shouldst thou
adhere perversely to thy passion for this Rebecca, thou wilt give
Beaumanoir the power of expelling thee, and he will not neglect it. He
is jealous of the truncheon which he holds in his trembling gripe, and
he knows thou stretchest thy bold hand towards it. Doubt not he will
ruin thee, if thou affordest him a pretext so fair as thy protection of
a Jewish sorceress. Give him his scope in this matter, for thou canst
not control him. When the staff is in thine own firm grasp, thou mayest
caress the daughters of Judah, or burn them, as may best suit thine own
humour.”

“Malvoisin,” said Bois-Guilbert, “thou art a cold-blooded--”

“Friend,” said the Preceptor, hastening to fill up the blank, in which
Bois-Guilbert would probably have placed a worse word,--“a cold-blooded
friend I am, and therefore more fit to give thee advice. I tell thee
once more, that thou canst not save Rebecca. I tell thee once more,
thou canst but perish with her. Go hie thee to the Grand Master--throw
thyself at his feet and tell him--”

“Not at his feet, by Heaven! but to the dotard’s very beard will I
say--”

“Say to him, then, to his beard,” continued Malvoisin, coolly, “that you
love this captive Jewess to distraction; and the more thou dost enlarge
on thy passion, the greater will be his haste to end it by the death of
the fair enchantress; while thou, taken in flagrant delict by the avowal
of a crime contrary to thine oath, canst hope no aid of thy brethren,
and must exchange all thy brilliant visions of ambition and power, to
lift perhaps a mercenary spear in some of the petty quarrels between
Flanders and Burgundy.”

“Thou speakest the truth, Malvoisin,” said Brian de Bois-Guilbert, after
a moment’s reflection. “I will give the hoary bigot no advantage over
me; and for Rebecca, she hath not merited at my hand that I should
expose rank and honour for her sake. I will cast her off--yes, I will
leave her to her fate, unless--”

“Qualify not thy wise and necessary resolution,” said Malvoisin; “women
are but the toys which amuse our lighter hours--ambition is the serious
business of life. Perish a thousand such frail baubles as this Jewess,
before thy manly step pause in the brilliant career that lies stretched
before thee! For the present we part, nor must we be seen to hold close
conversation--I must order the hall for his judgment-seat.”

“What!” said Bois-Guilbert, “so soon?”

“Ay,” replied the Preceptor, “trial moves rapidly on when the judge has
determined the sentence beforehand.”

“Rebecca,” said Bois-Guilbert, when he was left alone, “thou art like
to cost me dear--Why cannot I abandon thee to thy fate, as this calm
hypocrite recommends?--One effort will I make to save thee--but beware
of ingratitude! for if I am again repulsed, my vengeance shall equal my
love. The life and honour of Bois-Guilbert must not be hazarded, where
contempt and reproaches are his only reward.”

The Preceptor had hardly given the necessary orders, when he was joined
by Conrade Mont-Fitchet, who acquainted him with the Grand Master’s
resolution to bring the Jewess to instant trial for sorcery.

“It is surely a dream,” said the Preceptor; “we have many Jewish
physicians, and we call them not wizards though they work wonderful
cures.”

“The Grand Master thinks otherwise,” said Mont-Fitchet; “and, Albert,
I will be upright with thee--wizard or not, it were better that this
miserable damsel die, than that Brian de Bois-Guilbert should be lost to
the Order, or the Order divided by internal dissension. Thou knowest his
high rank, his fame in arms--thou knowest the zeal with which many of
our brethren regard him--but all this will not avail him with our Grand
Master, should he consider Brian as the accomplice, not the victim, of
this Jewess. Were the souls of the twelve tribes in her single body, it
were better she suffered alone, than that Bois-Guilbert were partner in
her destruction.”

“I have been working him even now to abandon her,” said Malvoisin;
“but still, are there grounds enough to condemn this Rebecca for
sorcery?--Will not the Grand Master change his mind when he sees that
the proofs are so weak?”

“They must be strengthened, Albert,” replied Mont-Fitchet, “they must be
strengthened. Dost thou understand me?”

“I do,” said the Preceptor, “nor do I scruple to do aught for
advancement of the Order--but there is little time to find engines
fitting.”

“Malvoisin, they MUST be found,” said Conrade; “well will it advantage
both the Order and thee. This Templestowe is a poor Preceptory--that of
Maison-Dieu is worth double its value--thou knowest my interest with our
old Chief--find those who can carry this matter through, and thou art
Preceptor of Maison-Dieu in the fertile Kent--How sayst thou?”

“There is,” replied Malvoisin, “among those who came hither with
Bois-Guilbert, two fellows whom I well know; servants they were to my
brother Philip de Malvoisin, and passed from his service to that of
Front-de-Boeuf--It may be they know something of the witcheries of this
woman.”

“Away, seek them out instantly--and hark thee, if a byzant or two will
sharpen their memory, let them not be wanting.”

“They would swear the mother that bore them a sorceress for a zecchin,”
 said the Preceptor.

“Away, then,” said Mont-Fitchet; “at noon the affair will proceed. I
have not seen our senior in such earnest preparation since he condemned
to the stake Hamet Alfagi, a convert who relapsed to the Moslem faith.”

The ponderous castle-bell had tolled the point of noon, when Rebecca
heard a trampling of feet upon the private stair which led to her place
of confinement. The noise announced the arrival of several persons, and
the circumstance rather gave her joy; for she was more afraid of the
solitary visits of the fierce and passionate Bois-Guilbert than of
any evil that could befall her besides. The door of the chamber was
unlocked, and Conrade and the Preceptor Malvoisin entered, attended by
four warders clothed in black, and bearing halberds.

“Daughter of an accursed race!” said the Preceptor, “arise and follow
us.”

“Whither,” said Rebecca, “and for what purpose?”

“Damsel,” answered Conrade, “it is not for thee to question, but to
obey. Nevertheless, be it known to thee, that thou art to be brought
before the tribunal of the Grand Master of our holy Order, there to
answer for thine offences.”

“May the God of Abraham be praised!” said Rebecca, folding her hands
devoutly; “the name of a judge, though an enemy to my people, is to me
as the name of a protector. Most willingly do I follow thee--permit me
only to wrap my veil around my head.”

They descended the stair with slow and solemn step, traversed a long
gallery, and, by a pair of folding doors placed at the end, entered the
great hall in which the Grand Master had for the time established his
court of justice.

The lower part of this ample apartment was filled with squires and
yeomen, who made way not without some difficulty for Rebecca, attended
by the Preceptor and Mont-Fitchet, and followed by the guard of
halberdiers, to move forward to the seat appointed for her. As she
passed through the crowd, her arms folded and her head depressed, a
scrap of paper was thrust into her hand, which she received almost
unconsciously, and continued to hold without examining its contents. The
assurance that she possessed some friend in this awful assembly gave
her courage to look around, and to mark into whose presence she had
been conducted. She gazed, accordingly, upon the scene, which we shall
endeavour to describe in the next chapter.




CHAPTER XXXVII

     Stern was the law which bade its vot’ries leave
     At human woes with human hearts to grieve;
     Stern was the law, which at the winning wile
     Of frank and harmless mirth forbade to smile;
     But sterner still, when high the iron-rod
     Of tyrant power she shook, and call’d that power of God.
     --The Middle Ages

The Tribunal, erected for the trial of the innocent and unhappy Rebecca,
occupied the dais or elevated part of the upper end of the great hall--a
platform, which we have already described as the place of honour,
destined to be occupied by the most distinguished inhabitants or guests
of an ancient mansion.

On an elevated seat, directly before the accused, sat the Grand Master
of the Temple, in full and ample robes of flowing white, holding in his
hand the mystic staff, which bore the symbol of the Order. At his feet
was placed a table, occupied by two scribes, chaplains of the Order,
whose duty it was to reduce to formal record the proceedings of the day.
The black dresses, bare scalps, and demure looks of these church-men,
formed a strong contrast to the warlike appearance of the knights who
attended, either as residing in the Preceptory, or as come thither to
attend upon their Grand Master. The Preceptors, of whom there were four
present, occupied seats lower in height, and somewhat drawn back behind
that of their superior; and the knights, who enjoyed no such rank in
the Order, were placed on benches still lower, and preserving the same
distance from the Preceptors as these from the Grand Master. Behind
them, but still upon the dais or elevated portion of the hall, stood the
esquires of the Order, in white dresses of an inferior quality.

The whole assembly wore an aspect of the most profound gravity; and in
the faces of the knights might be perceived traces of military daring,
united with the solemn carriage becoming men of a religious profession,
and which, in the presence of their Grand Master, failed not to sit upon
every brow.

The remaining and lower part of the hall was filled with guards, holding
partisans, and with other attendants whom curiosity had drawn thither,
to see at once a Grand Master and a Jewish sorceress. By far the greater
part of those inferior persons were, in one rank or other, connected
with the Order, and were accordingly distinguished by their black
dresses. But peasants from the neighbouring country were not refused
admittance; for it was the pride of Beaumanoir to render the edifying
spectacle of the justice which he administered as public as possible.
His large blue eyes seemed to expand as he gazed around the assembly,
and his countenance appeared elated by the conscious dignity, and
imaginary merit, of the part which he was about to perform. A psalm,
which he himself accompanied with a deep mellow voice, which age had not
deprived of its powers, commenced the proceedings of the day; and the
solemn sounds, “Venite exultemus Domino”, so often sung by the Templars
before engaging with earthly adversaries, was judged by Lucas most
appropriate to introduce the approaching triumph, for such he deemed
it, over the powers of darkness. The deep prolonged notes, raised by
a hundred masculine voices accustomed to combine in the choral chant,
arose to the vaulted roof of the hall, and rolled on amongst its arches
with the pleasing yet solemn sound of the rushing of mighty waters.

When the sounds ceased, the Grand Master glanced his eye slowly around
the circle, and observed that the seat of one of the Preceptors was
vacant. Brian de Bois-Guilbert, by whom it had been occupied, had left
his place, and was now standing near the extreme corner of one of the
benches occupied by the Knights Companions of the Temple, one hand
extending his long mantle, so as in some degree to hide his face;
while the other held his cross-handled sword, with the point of which,
sheathed as it was, he was slowly drawing lines upon the oaken floor.

“Unhappy man!” said the Grand Master, after favouring him with a glance
of compassion. “Thou seest, Conrade, how this holy work distresses him.
To this can the light look of woman, aided by the Prince of the Powers
of this world, bring a valiant and worthy knight!--Seest thou he cannot
look upon us; he cannot look upon her; and who knows by what impulse
from his tormentor his hand forms these cabalistic lines upon the
floor?--It may be our life and safety are thus aimed at; but we spit at
and defy the foul enemy. ‘Semper Leo percutiatur!’”

This was communicated apart to his confidential follower, Conrade
Mont-Fitchet. The Grand Master then raised his voice, and addressed the
assembly.

“Reverend and valiant men, Knights, Preceptors, and Companions of this
Holy Order, my brethren and my children!--you also, well-born and pious
Esquires, who aspire to wear this holy Cross!--and you also, Christian
brethren, of every degree!--Be it known to you, that it is not defect of
power in us which hath occasioned the assembling of this congregation;
for, however unworthy in our person, yet to us is committed, with this
batoon, full power to judge and to try all that regards the weal of
this our Holy Order. Holy Saint Bernard, in the rule of our knightly and
religious profession, hath said, in the fifty-ninth capital, [53] that
he would not that brethren be called together in council, save at the
will and command of the Master; leaving it free to us, as to those more
worthy fathers who have preceded us in this our office, to judge, as
well of the occasion as of the time and place in which a chapter of the
whole Order, or of any part thereof, may be convoked. Also, in all such
chapters, it is our duty to hear the advice of our brethren, and to
proceed according to our own pleasure. But when the raging wolf hath
made an inroad upon the flock, and carried off one member thereof, it is
the duty of the kind shepherd to call his comrades together, that with
bows and slings they may quell the invader, according to our well-known
rule, that the lion is ever to be beaten down. We have therefore
summoned to our presence a Jewish woman, by name Rebecca, daughter
of Isaac of York--a woman infamous for sortileges and for witcheries;
whereby she hath maddened the blood, and besotted the brain, not of a
churl, but of a Knight--not of a secular Knight, but of one devoted
to the service of the Holy Temple--not of a Knight Companion, but of a
Preceptor of our Order, first in honour as in place. Our brother, Brian
de Bois-Guilbert, is well known to ourselves, and to all degrees who now
hear me, as a true and zealous champion of the Cross, by whose arm many
deeds of valour have been wrought in the Holy Land, and the holy places
purified from pollution by the blood of those infidels who defiled them.
Neither have our brother’s sagacity and prudence been less in repute
among his brethren than his valour and discipline; in so much, that
knights, both in eastern and western lands, have named De Bois-Guilbert
as one who may well be put in nomination as successor to this batoon,
when it shall please Heaven to release us from the toil of bearing
it. If we were told that such a man, so honoured, and so honourable,
suddenly casting away regard for his character, his vows, his brethren,
and his prospects, had associated to himself a Jewish damsel, wandered
in this lewd company, through solitary places, defended her person in
preference to his own, and, finally, was so utterly blinded and besotted
by his folly, as to bring her even to one of our own Preceptories,
what should we say but that the noble knight was possessed by some
evil demon, or influenced by some wicked spell?--If we could suppose
it otherwise, think not rank, valour, high repute, or any earthly
consideration, should prevent us from visiting him with punishment, that
the evil thing might be removed, even according to the text, ‘Auferte
malum ex vobis’. For various and heinous are the acts of transgression
against the rule of our blessed Order in this lamentable history.--1st,
He hath walked according to his proper will, contrary to capital 33,
‘Quod nullus juxta propriam voluntatem incedat’.--2d, He hath held
communication with an excommunicated person, capital 57, ‘Ut fratres
non participent cum excommunicatis’, and therefore hath a portion
in ‘Anathema Maranatha’.--3d, He hath conversed with strange women,
contrary to the capital, ‘Ut fratres non conversantur cum extraneis
mulieribus’.--4th, He hath not avoided, nay, he hath, it is to be
feared, solicited the kiss of woman; by which, saith the last rule of
our renowned Order, ‘Ut fugiantur oscula’, the soldiers of the Cross are
brought into a snare. For which heinous and multiplied guilt, Brian de
Bois-Guilbert should be cut off and cast out from our congregation, were
he the right hand and right eye thereof.”

He paused. A low murmur went through the assembly. Some of the younger
part, who had been inclined to smile at the statute ‘De osculis
fugiendis’, became now grave enough, and anxiously waited what the Grand
Master was next to propose.

“Such,” he said, “and so great should indeed be the punishment of a
Knight Templar, who wilfully offended against the rules of his Order in
such weighty points. But if, by means of charms and of spells, Satan had
obtained dominion over the Knight, perchance because he cast his eyes
too lightly upon a damsel’s beauty, we are then rather to lament than
chastise his backsliding; and, imposing on him only such penance as
may purify him from his iniquity, we are to turn the full edge of
our indignation upon the accursed instrument, which had so well-nigh
occasioned his utter falling away.--Stand forth, therefore, and bear
witness, ye who have witnessed these unhappy doings, that we may judge
of the sum and bearing thereof; and judge whether our justice may be
satisfied with the punishment of this infidel woman, or if we must
go on, with a bleeding heart, to the further proceeding against our
brother.”

Several witnesses were called upon to prove the risks to which
Bois-Guilbert exposed himself in endeavouring to save Rebecca from the
blazing castle, and his neglect of his personal defence in attending to
her safety. The men gave these details with the exaggerations common to
vulgar minds which have been strongly excited by any remarkable event,
and their natural disposition to the marvellous was greatly increased
by the satisfaction which their evidence seemed to afford to the eminent
person for whose information it had been delivered. Thus the dangers
which Bois-Guilbert surmounted, in themselves sufficiently great, became
portentous in their narrative. The devotion of the Knight to Rebecca’s
defence was exaggerated beyond the bounds, not only of discretion, but
even of the most frantic excess of chivalrous zeal; and his deference
to what she said, even although her language was often severe and
upbraiding, was painted as carried to an excess, which, in a man of his
haughty temper, seemed almost preternatural.

The Preceptor of Templestowe was then called on to describe the manner
in which Bois-Guilbert and the Jewess arrived at the Preceptory. The
evidence of Malvoisin was skilfully guarded. But while he apparently
studied to spare the feelings of Bois-Guilbert, he threw in, from time
to time, such hints, as seemed to infer that he laboured under some
temporary alienation of mind, so deeply did he appear to be enamoured of
the damsel whom he brought along with him. With sighs of penitence, the
Preceptor avowed his own contrition for having admitted Rebecca and
her lover within the walls of the Preceptory--“But my defence,” he
concluded, “has been made in my confession to our most reverend father
the Grand Master; he knows my motives were not evil, though my conduct
may have been irregular. Joyfully will I submit to any penance he shall
assign me.”

“Thou hast spoken well, Brother Albert,” said Beaumanoir; “thy motives
were good, since thou didst judge it right to arrest thine erring
brother in his career of precipitate folly. But thy conduct was wrong;
as he that would stop a runaway steed, and seizing by the stirrup
instead of the bridle, receiveth injury himself, instead of
accomplishing his purpose. Thirteen paternosters are assigned by our
pious founder for matins, and nine for vespers; be those services
doubled by thee. Thrice a-week are Templars permitted the use of flesh;
but do thou keep fast for all the seven days. This do for six weeks to
come, and thy penance is accomplished.”

With a hypocritical look of the deepest submission, the Preceptor of
Templestowe bowed to the ground before his Superior, and resumed his
seat.

“Were it not well, brethren,” said the Grand Master, “that we examine
something into the former life and conversation of this woman, specially
that we may discover whether she be one likely to use magical charms
and spells, since the truths which we have heard may well incline us to
suppose, that in this unhappy course our erring brother has been acted
upon by some infernal enticement and delusion?”

Herman of Goodalricke was the Fourth Preceptor present; the other
three were Conrade, Malvoisin, and Bois-Guilbert himself. Herman was an
ancient warrior, whose face was marked with scars inflicted by the
sabre of the Moslemah, and had great rank and consideration among his
brethren. He arose and bowed to the Grand Master, who instantly granted
him license of speech. “I would crave to know, most Reverend Father,
of our valiant brother, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, what he says to these
wondrous accusations, and with what eye he himself now regards his
unhappy intercourse with this Jewish maiden?”

“Brian de Bois-Guilbert,” said the Grand Master, “thou hearest the
question which our Brother of Goodalricke desirest thou shouldst answer.
I command thee to reply to him.”

Bois-Guilbert turned his head towards the Grand Master when thus
addressed, and remained silent.

“He is possessed by a dumb devil,” said the Grand Master. “Avoid thee,
Sathanus!--Speak, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, I conjure thee, by this symbol
of our Holy Order.”

Bois-Guilbert made an effort to suppress his rising scorn and
indignation, the expression of which, he was well aware, would have
little availed him. “Brian de Bois-Guilbert,” he answered, “replies not,
most Reverend Father, to such wild and vague charges. If his honour be
impeached, he will defend it with his body, and with that sword which
has often fought for Christendom.”

“We forgive thee, Brother Brian,” said the Grand Master; “though that
thou hast boasted thy warlike achievements before us, is a glorifying of
thine own deeds, and cometh of the Enemy, who tempteth us to exalt our
own worship. But thou hast our pardon, judging thou speakest less of
thine own suggestion than from the impulse of him whom by Heaven’s
leave, we will quell and drive forth from our assembly.” A glance of
disdain flashed from the dark fierce eyes of Bois-Guilbert, but he made
no reply.--“And now,” pursued the Grand Master, “since our Brother of
Goodalricke’s question has been thus imperfectly answered, pursue we our
quest, brethren, and with our patron’s assistance, we will search to the
bottom this mystery of iniquity.--Let those who have aught to witness of
the life and conversation of this Jewish woman, stand forth before us.”
 There was a bustle in the lower part of the hall, and when the Grand
Master enquired the reason, it was replied, there was in the crowd a
bedridden man, whom the prisoner had restored to the perfect use of his
limbs, by a miraculous balsam.

The poor peasant, a Saxon by birth, was dragged forward to the bar,
terrified at the penal consequences which he might have incurred by the
guilt of having been cured of the palsy by a Jewish damsel. Perfectly
cured he certainly was not, for he supported himself forward on crutches
to give evidence. Most unwilling was his testimony, and given with many
tears; but he admitted that two years since, when residing at York, he
was suddenly afflicted with a sore disease, while labouring for Isaac
the rich Jew, in his vocation of a joiner; that he had been unable to
stir from his bed until the remedies applied by Rebecca’s directions,
and especially a warming and spicy-smelling balsam, had in some degree
restored him to the use of his limbs. Moreover, he said, she had given
him a pot of that precious ointment, and furnished him with a piece of
money withal, to return to the house of his father, near to Templestowe.
“And may it please your gracious Reverence,” said the man, “I cannot
think the damsel meant harm by me, though she hath the ill hap to be a
Jewess; for even when I used her remedy, I said the Pater and the Creed,
and it never operated a whit less kindly--”

“Peace, slave,” said the Grand Master, “and begone! It well suits brutes
like thee to be tampering and trinketing with hellish cures, and to be
giving your labour to the sons of mischief. I tell thee, the fiend can
impose diseases for the very purpose of removing them, in order to bring
into credit some diabolical fashion of cure. Hast thou that unguent of
which thou speakest?”

The peasant, fumbling in his bosom with a trembling hand, produced a
small box, bearing some Hebrew characters on the lid, which was, with
most of the audience, a sure proof that the devil had stood apothecary.
Beaumanoir, after crossing himself, took the box into his hand, and,
learned in most of the Eastern tongues, read with ease the motto on the
lid,--“The Lion of the tribe of Judah hath conquered.”

“Strange powers of Sathanas.” said he, “which can convert Scripture into
blasphemy, mingling poison with our necessary food!--Is there no leech
here who can tell us the ingredients of this mystic unguent?”

Two mediciners, as they called themselves, the one a monk, the other
a barber, appeared, and avouched they knew nothing of the materials,
excepting that they savoured of myrrh and camphire, which they took to
be Oriental herbs. But with the true professional hatred to a successful
practitioner of their art, they insinuated that, since the medicine was
beyond their own knowledge, it must necessarily have been compounded
from an unlawful and magical pharmacopeia; since they themselves, though
no conjurors, fully understood every branch of their art, so far as it
might be exercised with the good faith of a Christian. When this medical
research was ended, the Saxon peasant desired humbly to have back the
medicine which he had found so salutary; but the Grand Master frowned
severely at the request. “What is thy name, fellow?” said he to the
cripple.

“Higg, the son of Snell,” answered the peasant.

“Then Higg, son of Snell,” said the Grand Master, “I tell thee it is
better to be bedridden, than to accept the benefit of unbelievers’
medicine that thou mayest arise and walk; better to despoil infidels
of their treasure by the strong hand, than to accept of them benevolent
gifts, or do them service for wages. Go thou, and do as I have said.”

“Alack,” said the peasant, “an it shall not displease your Reverence,
the lesson comes too late for me, for I am but a maimed man; but I will
tell my two brethren, who serve the rich Rabbi Nathan Ben Samuel, that
your mastership says it is more lawful to rob him than to render him
faithful service.”

“Out with the prating villain!” said Beaumanoir, who was not prepared to
refute this practical application of his general maxim.

Higg, the son of Snell, withdrew into the crowd, but, interested in the
fate of his benefactress, lingered until he should learn her doom, even
at the risk of again encountering the frown of that severe judge, the
terror of which withered his very heart within him.

At this period of the trial, the Grand Master commanded Rebecca to
unveil herself. Opening her lips for the first time, she replied
patiently, but with dignity,--“That it was not the wont of the daughters
of her people to uncover their faces when alone in an assembly of
strangers.” The sweet tones of her voice, and the softness of her
reply, impressed on the audience a sentiment of pity and sympathy. But
Beaumanoir, in whose mind the suppression of each feeling of humanity
which could interfere with his imagined duty, was a virtue of itself,
repeated his commands that his victim should be unveiled. The guards
were about to remove her veil accordingly, when she stood up before
the Grand Master and said, “Nay, but for the love of your own
daughters--Alas,” she said, recollecting herself, “ye have no
daughters!--yet for the remembrance of your mothers--for the love of
your sisters, and of female decency, let me not be thus handled in your
presence; it suits not a maiden to be disrobed by such rude grooms. I
will obey you,” she added, with an expression of patient sorrow in her
voice, which had almost melted the heart of Beaumanoir himself; “ye are
elders among your people, and at your command I will show the features
of an ill-fated maiden.”

She withdrew her veil, and looked on them with a countenance in which
bashfulness contended with dignity. Her exceeding beauty excited a
murmur of surprise, and the younger knights told each other with their
eyes, in silent correspondence, that Brian’s best apology was in the
power of her real charms, rather than of her imaginary witchcraft. But
Higg, the son of Snell, felt most deeply the effect produced by the
sight of the countenance of his benefactress.

“Let me go forth,” he said to the warders at the door of the hall,--“let
me go forth!--To look at her again will kill me, for I have had a share
in murdering her.”

“Peace, poor man,” said Rebecca, when she heard his exclamation; “thou
hast done me no harm by speaking the truth--thou canst not aid me by
thy complaints or lamentations. Peace, I pray thee--go home and save
thyself.”

Higg was about to be thrust out by the compassion of the warders,
who were apprehensive lest his clamorous grief should draw upon them
reprehension, and upon himself punishment. But he promised to be silent,
and was permitted to remain. The two men-at-arms, with whom Albert
Malvoisin had not failed to communicate upon the import of their
testimony, were now called forward. Though both were hardened and
inflexible villains, the sight of the captive maiden, as well as her
excelling beauty, at first appeared to stagger them; but an expressive
glance from the Preceptor of Templestowe restored them to their dogged
composure; and they delivered, with a precision which would have seemed
suspicious to more impartial judges, circumstances either altogether
fictitious or trivial, and natural in themselves, but rendered pregnant
with suspicion by the exaggerated manner in which they were told, and
the sinister commentary which the witnesses added to the facts. The
circumstances of their evidence would have been, in modern days, divided
into two classes--those which were immaterial, and those which were
actually and physically impossible. But both were, in those ignorant
and superstitions times, easily credited as proofs of guilt.--The first
class set forth, that Rebecca was heard to mutter to herself in an
unknown tongue--that the songs she sung by fits were of a strangely
sweet sound, which made the ears of the hearer tingle, and his heart
throb--that she spoke at times to herself, and seemed to look upward
for a reply--that her garments were of a strange and mystic form,
unlike those of women of good repute--that she had rings impressed with
cabalistical devices, and that strange characters were broidered on her
veil.

All these circumstances, so natural and so trivial, were gravely
listened to as proofs, or, at least, as affording strong suspicions that
Rebecca had unlawful correspondence with mystical powers.

But there was less equivocal testimony, which the credulity of
the assembly, or of the greater part, greedily swallowed, however
incredible. One of the soldiers had seen her work a cure upon a wounded
man, brought with them to the castle of Torquilstone. She did, he said,
make certain signs upon the wound, and repeated certain mysterious
words, which he blessed God he understood not, when the iron head of a
square cross-bow bolt disengaged itself from the wound, the bleeding was
stanched, the wound was closed, and the dying man was, within a quarter
of an hour, walking upon the ramparts, and assisting the witness in
managing a mangonel, or machine for hurling stones. This legend was
probably founded upon the fact, that Rebecca had attended on the
wounded Ivanhoe when in the castle of Torquilstone. But it was the
more difficult to dispute the accuracy of the witness, as, in order to
produce real evidence in support of his verbal testimony, he drew from
his pouch the very bolt-head, which, according to his story, had been
miraculously extracted from the wound; and as the iron weighed a full
ounce, it completely confirmed the tale, however marvellous.

His comrade had been a witness from a neighbouring battlement of the
scene betwixt Rebecca and Bois-Guilbert, when she was upon the point of
precipitating herself from the top of the tower. Not to be behind his
companion, this fellow stated, that he had seen Rebecca perch herself
upon the parapet of the turret, and there take the form of a milk-white
swan, under which appearance she flitted three times round the castle of
Torquilstone; then again settle on the turret, and once more assume the
female form.

Less than one half of this weighty evidence would have been sufficient
to convict any old woman, poor and ugly, even though she had not been a
Jewess. United with that fatal circumstance, the body of proof was too
weighty for Rebecca’s youth, though combined with the most exquisite
beauty.

The Grand Master had collected the suffrages, and now in a solemn
tone demanded of Rebecca what she had to say against the sentence of
condemnation, which he was about to pronounce.

“To invoke your pity,” said the lovely Jewess, with a voice somewhat
tremulous with emotion, “would, I am aware, be as useless as I should
hold it mean. To state that to relieve the sick and wounded of another
religion, cannot be displeasing to the acknowledged Founder of both our
faiths, were also unavailing; to plead that many things which these men
(whom may Heaven pardon!) have spoken against me are impossible, would
avail me but little, since you believe in their possibility; and still
less would it advantage me to explain, that the peculiarities of my
dress, language, and manners, are those of my people--I had well-nigh
said of my country, but alas! we have no country. Nor will I even
vindicate myself at the expense of my oppressor, who stands there
listening to the fictions and surmises which seem to convert the tyrant
into the victim.--God be judge between him and me! but rather would I
submit to ten such deaths as your pleasure may denounce against me,
than listen to the suit which that man of Belial has urged upon
me--friendless, defenceless, and his prisoner. But he is of your own
faith, and his lightest affirmance would weigh down the most solemn
protestations of the distressed Jewess. I will not therefore return to
himself the charge brought against me--but to himself--Yes, Brian de
Bois-Guilbert, to thyself I appeal, whether these accusations are not
false? as monstrous and calumnious as they are deadly?”

There was a pause; all eyes turned to Brain de Bois-Guilbert. He was
silent.

“Speak,” she said, “if thou art a man--if thou art a Christian,
speak!--I conjure thee, by the habit which thou dost wear, by the name
thou dost inherit--by the knighthood thou dost vaunt--by the honour of
thy mother--by the tomb and the bones of thy father--I conjure thee to
say, are these things true?”

“Answer her, brother,” said the Grand Master, “if the Enemy with whom
thou dost wrestle will give thee power.”

In fact, Bois-Guilbert seemed agitated by contending passions, which
almost convulsed his features, and it was with a constrained voice that
at last he replied, looking to Rebecca,--“The scroll!--the scroll!”

“Ay,” said Beaumanoir, “this is indeed testimony! The victim of her
witcheries can only name the fatal scroll, the spell inscribed on which
is, doubtless, the cause of his silence.”

But Rebecca put another interpretation on the words extorted as it were
from Bois-Guilbert, and glancing her eye upon the slip of parchment
which she continued to hold in her hand, she read written thereupon in
the Arabian character, “Demand a Champion!” The murmuring commentary
which ran through the assembly at the strange reply of Bois-Guilbert,
gave Rebecca leisure to examine and instantly to destroy the scroll
unobserved. When the whisper had ceased, the Grand Master spoke.

“Rebecca, thou canst derive no benefit from the evidence of this unhappy
knight, for whom, as we well perceive, the Enemy is yet too powerful.
Hast thou aught else to say?”

“There is yet one chance of life left to me,” said Rebecca, “even by
your own fierce laws. Life has been miserable--miserable, at least, of
late--but I will not cast away the gift of God, while he affords me the
means of defending it. I deny this charge--I maintain my innocence, and
I declare the falsehood of this accusation--I challenge the privilege of
trial by combat, and will appear by my champion.”

“And who, Rebecca,” replied the Grand Master, “will lay lance in rest
for a sorceress? who will be the champion of a Jewess?”

“God will raise me up a champion,” said Rebecca--“It cannot be that in
merry England--the hospitable, the generous, the free, where so many are
ready to peril their lives for honour, there will not be found one
to fight for justice. But it is enough that I challenge the trial by
combat--there lies my gage.”

She took her embroidered glove from her hand, and flung it down before
the Grand Master with an air of mingled simplicity and dignity, which
excited universal surprise and admiration.




CHAPTER XXXVIII

     ---There I throw my gage,
     To prove it on thee to the extremest point
     Of martial daring.
     --Richard II

Even Lucas Beaumanoir himself was affected by the mien and appearance
of Rebecca. He was not originally a cruel or even a severe man; but
with passions by nature cold, and with a high, though mistaken, sense of
duty, his heart had been gradually hardened by the ascetic life which he
pursued, the supreme power which he enjoyed, and the supposed necessity
of subduing infidelity and eradicating heresy, which he conceived
peculiarly incumbent on him. His features relaxed in their usual
severity as he gazed upon the beautiful creature before him, alone,
unfriended, and defending herself with so much spirit and courage. He
crossed himself twice, as doubting whence arose the unwonted softening
of a heart, which on such occasions used to resemble in hardness the
steel of his sword. At length he spoke.

“Damsel,” he said, “if the pity I feel for thee arise from any practice
thine evil arts have made on me, great is thy guilt. But I rather judge
it the kinder feelings of nature, which grieves that so goodly a form
should be a vessel of perdition. Repent, my daughter--confess thy
witchcrafts--turn thee from thine evil faith--embrace this holy
emblem, and all shall yet be well with thee here and hereafter. In some
sisterhood of the strictest order, shalt thou have time for prayer and
fitting penance, and that repentance not to be repented of. This do and
live--what has the law of Moses done for thee that thou shouldest die
for it?”

“It was the law of my fathers,” said Rebecca; “it was delivered in
thunders and in storms upon the mountain of Sinai, in cloud and in fire.
This, if ye are Christians, ye believe--it is, you say, recalled; but so
my teachers have not taught me.”

“Let our chaplain,” said Beaumanoir, “stand forth, and tell this
obstinate infidel--”

“Forgive the interruption,” said Rebecca, meekly; “I am a maiden,
unskilled to dispute for my religion, but I can die for it, if it be
God’s will.--Let me pray your answer to my demand of a champion.”

“Give me her glove,” said Beaumanoir. “This is indeed,” he continued, as
he looked at the flimsy texture and slender fingers, “a slight and frail
gage for a purpose so deadly!--Seest thou, Rebecca, as this thin and
light glove of thine is to one of our heavy steel gauntlets, so is
thy cause to that of the Temple, for it is our Order which thou hast
defied.”

“Cast my innocence into the scale,” answered Rebecca, “and the glove of
silk shall outweigh the glove of iron.”

“Then thou dost persist in thy refusal to confess thy guilt, and in that
bold challenge which thou hast made?”

“I do persist, noble sir,” answered Rebecca.

“So be it then, in the name of Heaven,” said the Grand Master; “and may
God show the right!”

“Amen,” replied the Preceptors around him, and the word was deeply
echoed by the whole assembly.

“Brethren,” said Beaumanoir, “you are aware that we might well have
refused to this woman the benefit of the trial by combat--but though a
Jewess and an unbeliever, she is also a stranger and defenceless, and
God forbid that she should ask the benefit of our mild laws, and that it
should be refused to her. Moreover, we are knights and soldiers as well
as men of religion, and shame it were to us upon any pretence, to
refuse proffered combat. Thus, therefore, stands the case. Rebecca,
the daughter of Isaac of York, is, by many frequent and suspicious
circumstances, defamed of sorcery practised on the person of a noble
knight of our holy Order, and hath challenged the combat in proof of her
innocence. To whom, reverend brethren, is it your opinion that we should
deliver the gage of battle, naming him, at the same time, to be our
champion on the field?”

“To Brian de Bois-Guilbert, whom it chiefly concerns,” said the
Preceptor of Goodalricke, “and who, moreover, best knows how the truth
stands in this matter.”

“But if,” said the Grand Master, “our brother Brian be under the
influence of a charm or a spell--we speak but for the sake of
precaution, for to the arm of none of our holy Order would we more
willingly confide this or a more weighty cause.”

“Reverend father,” answered the Preceptor of Goodalricke, “no spell can
effect the champion who comes forward to fight for the judgment of God.”

“Thou sayest right, brother,” said the Grand Master. “Albert Malvoisin,
give this gage of battle to Brian de Bois-Guilbert.--It is our charge to
thee, brother,” he continued, addressing himself to Bois-Guilbert, “that
thou do thy battle manfully, nothing doubting that the good cause shall
triumph.--And do thou, Rebecca, attend, that we assign thee the third
day from the present to find a champion.”

“That is but brief space,” answered Rebecca, “for a stranger, who is
also of another faith, to find one who will do battle, wagering life
and honour for her cause, against a knight who is called an approved
soldier.”

“We may not extend it,” answered the Grand Master; “the field must be
foughten in our own presence, and divers weighty causes call us on the
fourth day from hence.”

“God’s will be done!” said Rebecca; “I put my trust in Him, to whom an
instant is as effectual to save as a whole age.”

“Thou hast spoken well, damsel,” said the Grand Master; “but well know
we who can array himself like an angel of light. It remains but to name
a fitting place of combat, and, if it so hap, also of execution.--Where
is the Preceptor of this house?”

Albert Malvoisin, still holding Rebecca’s glove in his hand, was
speaking to Bois-Guilbert very earnestly, but in a low voice.

“How!” said the Grand Master, “will he not receive the gage?”

“He will--he doth, most Reverend Father,” said Malvoisin, slipping the
glove under his own mantle. “And for the place of combat, I hold the
fittest to be the lists of Saint George belonging to this Preceptory,
and used by us for military exercise.”

“It is well,” said the Grand Master.--“Rebecca, in those lists shalt
thou produce thy champion; and if thou failest to do so, or if thy
champion shall be discomfited by the judgment of God, thou shalt then
die the death of a sorceress, according to doom.--Let this our judgment
be recorded, and the record read aloud, that no one may pretend
ignorance.”

One of the chaplains, who acted as clerks to the chapter, immediately
engrossed the order in a huge volume, which contained the proceedings of
the Templar Knights when solemnly assembled on such occasions; and when
he had finished writing, the other read aloud the sentence of the Grand
Master, which, when translated from the Norman-French in which it was
couched, was expressed as follows.--

“Rebecca, a Jewess, daughter of Isaac of York, being attainted of
sorcery, seduction, and other damnable practices, practised on a Knight
of the most Holy Order of the Temple of Zion, doth deny the same; and
saith, that the testimony delivered against her this day is false,
wicked, and disloyal; and that by lawful ‘essoine’ [54] of her body as
being unable to combat in her own behalf, she doth offer, by a champion
instead thereof, to avouch her case, he performing his loyal ‘devoir’ in
all knightly sort, with such arms as to gage of battle do fully
appertain, and that at her peril and cost. And therewith she proffered
her gage. And the gage having been delivered to the noble Lord and
Knight, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, of the Holy Order of the Temple of Zion,
he was appointed to do this battle, in behalf of his Order and himself,
as injured and impaired by the practices of the appellant. Wherefore the
most reverend Father and puissant Lord, Lucas Marquis of Beaumanoir, did
allow of the said challenge, and of the said ‘essoine’ of the
appellant’s body, and assigned the third day for the said combat, the
place being the enclosure called the lists of Saint George, near to the
Preceptory of Templestowe. And the Grand Master appoints the appellant
to appear there by her champion, on pain of doom, as a person convicted
of sorcery or seduction; and also the defendant so to appear, under the
penalty of being held and adjudged recreant in case of default; and the
noble Lord and most reverend Father aforesaid appointed the battle to be
done in his own presence, and according to all that is commendable and
profitable in such a case. And may God aid the just cause!”

“Amen!” said the Grand Master; and the word was echoed by all around.
Rebecca spoke not, but she looked up to heaven, and, folding her hands,
remained for a minute without change of attitude. She then modestly
reminded the Grand Master, that she ought to be permitted some
opportunity of free communication with her friends, for the purpose of
making her condition known to them, and procuring, if possible, some
champion to fight in her behalf.

“It is just and lawful,” said the Grand Master; “choose what messenger
thou shalt trust, and he shall have free communication with thee in thy
prison-chamber.”

“Is there,” said Rebecca, “any one here, who, either for love of a good
cause, or for ample hire, will do the errand of a distressed being?”

All were silent; for none thought it safe, in the presence of the Grand
Master, to avow any interest in the calumniated prisoner, lest he
should be suspected of leaning towards Judaism. Not even the prospect of
reward, far less any feelings of compassion alone, could surmount this
apprehension.

Rebecca stood for a few moments in indescribable anxiety, and then
exclaimed, “Is it really thus?--And, in English land, am I to be
deprived of the poor chance of safety which remains to me, for want of
an act of charity which would not be refused to the worst criminal?”

Higg, the son of Snell, at length replied, “I am but a maimed man,
but that I can at all stir or move was owing to her charitable
assistance.--I will do thine errand,” he added, addressing Rebecca, “as
well as a crippled object can, and happy were my limbs fleet enough
to repair the mischief done by my tongue. Alas! when I boasted of thy
charity, I little thought I was leading thee into danger!”

“God,” said Rebecca, “is the disposer of all. He can turn back the
captivity of Judah, even by the weakest instrument. To execute his
message the snail is as sure a messenger as the falcon. Seek out Isaac
of York--here is that will pay for horse and man--let him have this
scroll.--I know not if it be of Heaven the spirit which inspires me,
but most truly do I judge that I am not to die this death, and that a
champion will be raised up for me. Farewell!--Life and death are in thy
haste.”

The peasant took the scroll, which contained only a few lines in Hebrew.
Many of the crowd would have dissuaded him from touching a document so
suspicious; but Higg was resolute in the service of his benefactress.
She had saved his body, he said, and he was confident she did not mean
to peril his soul.

“I will get me,” he said, “my neighbour Buthan’s good capul, [55] and I
will be at York within as brief space as man and beast may.”

But as it fortuned, he had no occasion to go so far, for within a
quarter of a mile from the gate of the Preceptory he met with two
riders, whom, by their dress and their huge yellow caps, he knew to be
Jews; and, on approaching more nearly, discovered that one of them was
his ancient employer, Isaac of York. The other was the Rabbi Ben Samuel;
and both had approached as near to the Preceptory as they dared, on
hearing that the Grand Master had summoned a chapter for the trial of a
sorceress.

“Brother Ben Samuel,” said Isaac, “my soul is disquieted, and I wot not
why. This charge of necromancy is right often used for cloaking evil
practices on our people.”

“Be of good comfort, brother,” said the physician; “thou canst deal with
the Nazarenes as one possessing the mammon of unrighteousness, and canst
therefore purchase immunity at their hands--it rules the savage minds of
those ungodly men, even as the signet of the mighty Solomon was said
to command the evil genii.--But what poor wretch comes hither upon his
crutches, desiring, as I think, some speech of me?--Friend,” continued
the physician, addressing Higg, the son of Snell, “I refuse thee not the
aid of mine art, but I relieve not with one asper those who beg for alms
upon the highway. Out upon thee!--Hast thou the palsy in thy legs? then
let thy hands work for thy livelihood; for, albeit thou be’st unfit for
a speedy post, or for a careful shepherd, or for the warfare, or for the
service of a hasty master, yet there be occupations--How now, brother?”
 said he, interrupting his harangue to look towards Isaac, who had but
glanced at the scroll which Higg offered, when, uttering a deep groan,
he fell from his mule like a dying man, and lay for a minute insensible.

The Rabbi now dismounted in great alarm, and hastily applied the
remedies which his art suggested for the recovery of his companion. He
had even taken from his pocket a cupping apparatus, and was about
to proceed to phlebotomy, when the object of his anxious solicitude
suddenly revived; but it was to dash his cap from his head, and to throw
dust on his grey hairs. The physician was at first inclined to ascribe
this sudden and violent emotion to the effects of insanity; and,
adhering to his original purpose, began once again to handle his
implements. But Isaac soon convinced him of his error.

“Child of my sorrow,” he said, “well shouldst thou be called Benoni,
instead of Rebecca! Why should thy death bring down my grey hairs to the
grave, till, in the bitterness of my heart, I curse God and die!”

“Brother,” said the Rabbi, in great surprise, “art thou a father in
Israel, and dost thou utter words like unto these?--I trust that the
child of thy house yet liveth?”

“She liveth,” answered Isaac; “but it is as Daniel, who was called
Beltheshazzar, even when within the den of the lions. She is captive
unto those men of Belial, and they will wreak their cruelty upon her,
sparing neither for her youth nor her comely favour. O! she was as a
crown of green palms to my grey locks; and she must wither in a night,
like the gourd of Jonah!--Child of my love!--child of my old age!--oh,
Rebecca, daughter of Rachel! the darkness of the shadow of death hath
encompassed thee.”

“Yet read the scroll,” said the Rabbi; “peradventure it may be that we
may yet find out a way of deliverance.”

“Do thou read, brother,” answered Isaac, “for mine eyes are as a
fountain of water.”

The physician read, but in their native language, the following words:--

“To Isaac, the son of Adonikam, whom the Gentiles call Isaac of York,
peace and the blessing of the promise be multiplied unto thee!--My
father, I am as one doomed to die for that which my soul knoweth
not--even for the crime of witchcraft. My father, if a strong man can be
found to do battle for my cause with sword and spear, according to the
custom of the Nazarenes, and that within the lists of Templestowe, on
the third day from this time, peradventure our fathers’ God will give
him strength to defend the innocent, and her who hath none to help her.
But if this may not be, let the virgins of our people mourn for me as
for one cast off, and for the hart that is stricken by the hunter, and
for the flower which is cut down by the scythe of the mower. Wherefore
look now what thou doest, and whether there be any rescue. One Nazarene
warrior might indeed bear arms in my behalf, even Wilfred, son of
Cedric, whom the Gentiles call Ivanhoe. But he may not yet endure
the weight of his armour. Nevertheless, send the tidings unto him, my
father; for he hath favour among the strong men of his people, and as
he was our companion in the house of bondage, he may find some one to do
battle for my sake. And say unto him, even unto him, even unto Wilfred,
the son of Cedric, that if Rebecca live, or if Rebecca die, she liveth
or dieth wholly free of the guilt she is charged withal. And if it be
the will of God that thou shalt be deprived of thy daughter, do not
thou tarry, old man, in this land of bloodshed and cruelty; but betake
thyself to Cordova, where thy brother liveth in safety, under the shadow
of the throne, even of the throne of Boabdil the Saracen; for less
cruel are the cruelties of the Moors unto the race of Jacob, than the
cruelties of the Nazarenes of England.”

Isaac listened with tolerable composure while Ben Samuel read the
letter, and then again resumed the gestures and exclamations of Oriental
sorrow, tearing his garments, besprinkling his head with dust, and
ejaculating, “My daughter! my daughter! flesh of my flesh, and bone of
my bone!”

“Yet,” said the Rabbi, “take courage, for this grief availeth nothing.
Gird up thy loins, and seek out this Wilfred, the son of Cedric. It may
be he will help thee with counsel or with strength; for the youth hath
favour in the eyes of Richard, called of the Nazarenes Coeur-de-Lion,
and the tidings that he hath returned are constant in the land. It may
be that he may obtain his letter, and his signet, commanding these men
of blood, who take their name from the Temple to the dishonour thereof,
that they proceed not in their purposed wickedness.”

“I will seek him out,” said Isaac, “for he is a good youth, and hath
compassion for the exile of Jacob. But he cannot bear his armour, and
what other Christian shall do battle for the oppressed of Zion?”

“Nay, but,” said the Rabbi, “thou speakest as one that knoweth not the
Gentiles. With gold shalt thou buy their valour, even as with gold thou
buyest thine own safety. Be of good courage, and do thou set forward to
find out this Wilfred of Ivanhoe. I will also up and be doing, for great
sin it were to leave thee in thy calamity. I will hie me to the city of
York, where many warriors and strong men are assembled, and doubt not I
will find among them some one who will do battle for thy daughter; for
gold is their god, and for riches will they pawn their lives as well as
their lands.--Thou wilt fulfil, my brother, such promise as I may make
unto them in thy name?”

“Assuredly, brother,” said Isaac, “and Heaven be praised that raised me
up a comforter in my misery. Howbeit, grant them not their full demand
at once, for thou shalt find it the quality of this accursed people that
they will ask pounds, and peradventure accept of ounces--Nevertheless,
be it as thou willest, for I am distracted in this thing, and what would
my gold avail me if the child of my love should perish!”

“Farewell,” said the physician, “and may it be to thee as thy heart
desireth.”

They embraced accordingly, and departed on their several roads. The
crippled peasant remained for some time looking after them.

“These dog-Jews!” said he; “to take no more notice of a free
guild-brother, than if I were a bond slave or a Turk, or a circumcised
Hebrew like themselves! They might have flung me a mancus or two,
however. I was not obliged to bring their unhallowed scrawls, and run
the risk of being bewitched, as more folks than one told me. And what
care I for the bit of gold that the wench gave me, if I am to come to
harm from the priest next Easter at confession, and be obliged to give
him twice as much to make it up with him, and be called the Jew’s
flying post all my life, as it may hap, into the bargain? I think I was
bewitched in earnest when I was beside that girl!--But it was always so
with Jew or Gentile, whosoever came near her--none could stay when she
had an errand to go--and still, whenever I think of her, I would give
shop and tools to save her life.”




CHAPTER XXXIX

     O maid, unrelenting and cold as thou art,
     My bosom is proud as thine own.
     --Seward

It was in the twilight of the day when her trial, if it could be
called such, had taken place, that a low knock was heard at the door
of Rebecca’s prison-chamber. It disturbed not the inmate, who was then
engaged in the evening prayer recommended by her religion, and which
concluded with a hymn we have ventured thus to translate into English.

     When Israel, of the Lord beloved,
     Out of the land of bondage came,
     Her father’s God before her moved,
     An awful guide, in smoke and flame.
     By day, along the astonish’d lands
     The cloudy pillar glided slow;
     By night, Arabia’s crimson’d sands
     Return’d the fiery column’s glow.

     There rose the choral hymn of praise,
     And trump and timbrel answer’d keen,
     And Zion’s daughters pour’d their lays,
     With priest’s and warrior’s voice between.
     No portents now our foes amaze,
     Forsaken Israel wanders lone;
     Our fathers would not know THY ways,
     And THOU hast left them to their own.

     But, present still, though now unseen;
     When brightly shines the prosperous day,
     Be thoughts of THEE a cloudy screen
     To temper the deceitful ray.
     And oh, when stoops on Judah’s path
     In shade and storm the frequent night,
     Be THOU, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
     A burning, and a shining light!

     Our harps we left by Babel’s streams,
     The tyrant’s jest, the Gentile’s scorn;
     No censer round our altar beams,
     And mute our timbrel, trump, and horn.
     But THOU hast said, the blood of goat,
     The flesh of rams, I will not prize;
     A contrite heart, and humble thought,
     Are mine accepted sacrifice.

When the sounds of Rebecca’s devotional hymn had died away in silence,
the low knock at the door was again renewed. “Enter,” she said, “if
thou art a friend; and if a foe, I have not the means of refusing thy
entrance.”

“I am,” said Brian de Bois-Guilbert, entering the apartment, “friend or
foe, Rebecca, as the event of this interview shall make me.”

Alarmed at the sight of this man, whose licentious passion she
considered as the root of her misfortunes, Rebecca drew backward with
a cautious and alarmed, yet not a timorous demeanour, into the farthest
corner of the apartment, as if determined to retreat as far as she
could, but to stand her ground when retreat became no longer possible.
She drew herself into an attitude not of defiance, but of resolution,
as one that would avoid provoking assault, yet was resolute to repel it,
being offered, to the utmost of her power.

“You have no reason to fear me, Rebecca,” said the Templar; “or if I
must so qualify my speech, you have at least NOW no reason to fear me.”

“I fear you not, Sir Knight,” replied Rebecca, although her short-drawn
breath seemed to belie the heroism of her accents; “my trust is strong,
and I fear thee not.”

“You have no cause,” answered Bois-Guilbert, gravely; “my former frantic
attempts you have not now to dread. Within your call are guards, over
whom I have no authority. They are designed to conduct you to death,
Rebecca, yet would not suffer you to be insulted by any one, even by me,
were my frenzy--for frenzy it is--to urge me so far.”

“May Heaven be praised!” said the Jewess; “death is the least of my
apprehensions in this den of evil.”

“Ay,” replied the Templar, “the idea of death is easily received by the
courageous mind, when the road to it is sudden and open. A thrust with a
lance, a stroke with a sword, were to me little--To you, a spring from
a dizzy battlement, a stroke with a sharp poniard, has no terrors,
compared with what either thinks disgrace. Mark me--I say this--perhaps
mine own sentiments of honour are not less fantastic, Rebecca, than
thine are; but we know alike how to die for them.”

“Unhappy man,” said the Jewess; “and art thou condemned to expose thy
life for principles, of which thy sober judgment does not acknowledge
the solidity? Surely this is a parting with your treasure for that which
is not bread--but deem not so of me. Thy resolution may fluctuate on the
wild and changeful billows of human opinion, but mine is anchored on the
Rock of Ages.”

“Silence, maiden,” answered the Templar; “such discourse now avails but
little. Thou art condemned to die not a sudden and easy death, such as
misery chooses, and despair welcomes, but a slow, wretched, protracted
course of torture, suited to what the diabolical bigotry of these men
calls thy crime.”

“And to whom--if such my fate--to whom do I owe this?” said Rebecca
“surely only to him, who, for a most selfish and brutal cause, dragged
me hither, and who now, for some unknown purpose of his own, strives to
exaggerate the wretched fate to which he exposed me.”

“Think not,” said the Templar, “that I have so exposed thee; I would
have bucklered thee against such danger with my own bosom, as freely as
ever I exposed it to the shafts which had otherwise reached thy life.”

“Had thy purpose been the honourable protection of the innocent,” said
Rebecca, “I had thanked thee for thy care--as it is, thou hast claimed
merit for it so often, that I tell thee life is worth nothing to me,
preserved at the price which thou wouldst exact for it.”

“Truce with thine upbraidings, Rebecca,” said the Templar; “I have my
own cause of grief, and brook not that thy reproaches should add to it.”

“What is thy purpose, then, Sir Knight?” said the Jewess; “speak it
briefly.--If thou hast aught to do, save to witness the misery thou
hast caused, let me know it; and then, if so it please you, leave me to
myself--the step between time and eternity is short but terrible, and I
have few moments to prepare for it.”

“I perceive, Rebecca,” said Bois-Guilbert, “that thou dost continue to
burden me with the charge of distresses, which most fain would I have
prevented.”

“Sir Knight,” said Rebecca, “I would avoid reproaches--But what is more
certain than that I owe my death to thine unbridled passion?”

“You err--you err,”--said the Templar, hastily, “if you impute what
I could neither foresee nor prevent to my purpose or agency.--Could I
guess the unexpected arrival of yon dotard, whom some flashes of frantic
valour, and the praises yielded by fools to the stupid self-torments
of an ascetic, have raised for the present above his own merits, above
common sense, above me, and above the hundreds of our Order, who think
and feel as men free from such silly and fantastic prejudices as are the
grounds of his opinions and actions?”

“Yet,” said Rebecca, “you sate a judge upon me, innocent--most
innocent--as you knew me to be--you concurred in my condemnation, and,
if I aright understood, are yourself to appear in arms to assert my
guilt, and assure my punishment.”

“Thy patience, maiden,” replied the Templar. “No race knows so well as
thine own tribes how to submit to the time, and so to trim their bark as
to make advantage even of an adverse wind.”

“Lamented be the hour,” said Rebecca, “that has taught such art to
the House of Israel! but adversity bends the heart as fire bends the
stubborn steel, and those who are no longer their own governors, and
the denizens of their own free independent state, must crouch before
strangers. It is our curse, Sir Knight, deserved, doubtless, by our own
misdeeds and those of our fathers; but you--you who boast your freedom
as your birthright, how much deeper is your disgrace when you stoop to
soothe the prejudices of others, and that against your own conviction?”

“Your words are bitter, Rebecca,” said Bois-Guilbert, pacing the
apartment with impatience, “but I came not hither to bandy reproaches
with you.--Know that Bois-Guilbert yields not to created man, although
circumstances may for a time induce him to alter his plan. His will is
the mountain stream, which may indeed be turned for a little space aside
by the rock, but fails not to find its course to the ocean. That scroll
which warned thee to demand a champion, from whom couldst thou think it
came, if not from Bois-Guilbert? In whom else couldst thou have excited
such interest?”

“A brief respite from instant death,” said Rebecca, “which will little
avail me--was this all thou couldst do for one, on whose head thou hast
heaped sorrow, and whom thou hast brought near even to the verge of the
tomb?”

“No maiden,” said Bois-Guilbert, “this was NOT all that I purposed. Had
it not been for the accursed interference of yon fanatical dotard, and
the fool of Goodalricke, who, being a Templar, affects to think and
judge according to the ordinary rules of humanity, the office of the
Champion Defender had devolved, not on a Preceptor, but on a Companion
of the Order. Then I myself--such was my purpose--had, on the sounding
of the trumpet, appeared in the lists as thy champion, disguised indeed
in the fashion of a roving knight, who seeks adventures to prove his
shield and spear; and then, let Beaumanoir have chosen not one, but two
or three of the brethren here assembled, I had not doubted to cast them
out of the saddle with my single lance. Thus, Rebecca, should thine
innocence have been avouched, and to thine own gratitude would I have
trusted for the reward of my victory.”

“This, Sir Knight,” said Rebecca, “is but idle boasting--a brag of what
you would have done had you not found it convenient to do otherwise. You
received my glove, and my champion, if a creature so desolate can find
one, must encounter your lance in the lists--yet you would assume the
air of my friend and protector!”

“Thy friend and protector,” said the Templar, gravely, “I will yet
be--but mark at what risk, or rather at what certainty, of dishonour;
and then blame me not if I make my stipulations, before I offer up all
that I have hitherto held dear, to save the life of a Jewish maiden.”

“Speak,” said Rebecca; “I understand thee not.”

“Well, then,” said Bois-Guilbert, “I will speak as freely as ever
did doting penitent to his ghostly father, when placed in the tricky
confessional.--Rebecca, if I appear not in these lists I lose fame and
rank--lose that which is the breath of my nostrils, the esteem, I mean,
in which I am held by my brethren, and the hopes I have of succeeding to
that mighty authority, which is now wielded by the bigoted dotard Lucas
de Beaumanoir, but of which I should make a different use. Such is my
certain doom, except I appear in arms against thy cause. Accursed be he
of Goodalricke, who baited this trap for me! and doubly accursed Albert
de Malvoisin, who withheld me from the resolution I had formed,
of hurling back the glove at the face of the superstitious and
superannuated fool, who listened to a charge so absurd, and against a
creature so high in mind, and so lovely in form as thou art!”

“And what now avails rant or flattery?” answered Rebecca. “Thou hast
made thy choice between causing to be shed the blood of an innocent
woman, or of endangering thine own earthly state and earthly hopes--What
avails it to reckon together?--thy choice is made.”

“No, Rebecca,” said the knight, in a softer tone, and drawing nearer
towards her; “my choice is NOT made--nay, mark, it is thine to make the
election. If I appear in the lists, I must maintain my name in arms;
and if I do so, championed or unchampioned, thou diest by the stake and
faggot, for there lives not the knight who hath coped with me in arms on
equal issue, or on terms of vantage, save Richard Coeur-de-Lion, and his
minion of Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe, as thou well knowest, is unable to bear
his corslet, and Richard is in a foreign prison. If I appear, then thou
diest, even although thy charms should instigate some hot-headed youth
to enter the lists in thy defence.”

“And what avails repeating this so often?” said Rebecca.

“Much,” replied the Templar; “for thou must learn to look at thy fate on
every side.”

“Well, then, turn the tapestry,” said the Jewess, “and let me see the
other side.”

“If I appear,” said Bois-Guilbert, “in the fatal lists, thou diest by a
slow and cruel death, in pain such as they say is destined to the guilty
hereafter. But if I appear not, then am I a degraded and dishonoured
knight, accused of witchcraft and of communion with infidels--the
illustrious name which has grown yet more so under my wearing, becomes a
hissing and a reproach. I lose fame, I lose honour, I lose the prospect
of such greatness as scarce emperors attain to--I sacrifice mighty
ambition, I destroy schemes built as high as the mountains with which
heathens say their heaven was once nearly scaled--and yet, Rebecca,” he
added, throwing himself at her feet, “this greatness will I sacrifice,
this fame will I renounce, this power will I forego, even now when it
is half within my grasp, if thou wilt say, Bois-Guilbert, I receive thee
for my lover.”

“Think not of such foolishness, Sir Knight,” answered Rebecca, “but
hasten to the Regent, the Queen Mother, and to Prince John--they cannot,
in honour to the English crown, allow of the proceedings of your Grand
Master. So shall you give me protection without sacrifice on your part,
or the pretext of requiring any requital from me.”

“With these I deal not,” he continued, holding the train of her
robe--“it is thee only I address; and what can counterbalance thy
choice? Bethink thee, were I a fiend, yet death is a worse, and it is
death who is my rival.”

“I weigh not these evils,” said Rebecca, afraid to provoke the wild
knight, yet equally determined neither to endure his passion, nor even
feign to endure it. “Be a man, be a Christian! If indeed thy faith
recommends that mercy which rather your tongues than your actions
pretend, save me from this dreadful death, without seeking a requital
which would change thy magnanimity into base barter.”

“No, damsel!” said the proud Templar, springing up, “thou shalt not thus
impose on me--if I renounce present fame and future ambition, I renounce
it for thy sake, and we will escape in company. Listen to me, Rebecca,”
 he said, again softening his tone; “England,--Europe,--is not the
world. There are spheres in which we may act, ample enough even for my
ambition. We will go to Palestine, where Conrade, Marquis of Montserrat,
is my friend--a friend free as myself from the doting scruples which
fetter our free-born reason--rather with Saladin will we league
ourselves, than endure the scorn of the bigots whom we contemn.--I will
form new paths to greatness,” he continued, again traversing the room
with hasty strides--“Europe shall hear the loud step of him she has
driven from her sons!--Not the millions whom her crusaders send to
slaughter, can do so much to defend Palestine--not the sabres of the
thousands and ten thousands of Saracens can hew their way so deep into
that land for which nations are striving, as the strength and policy of
me and those brethren, who, in despite of yonder old bigot, will adhere
to me in good and evil. Thou shalt be a queen, Rebecca--on Mount Carmel
shall we pitch the throne which my valour will gain for you, and I will
exchange my long-desired batoon for a sceptre!”

“A dream,” said Rebecca; “an empty vision of the night, which, were it
a waking reality, affects me not. Enough, that the power which thou
mightest acquire, I will never share; nor hold I so light of country or
religious faith, as to esteem him who is willing to barter these ties,
and cast away the bonds of the Order of which he is a sworn member,
in order to gratify an unruly passion for the daughter of another
people.--Put not a price on my deliverance, Sir Knight--sell not a deed
of generosity--protect the oppressed for the sake of charity, and not
for a selfish advantage--Go to the throne of England; Richard will
listen to my appeal from these cruel men.”

“Never, Rebecca!” said the Templar, fiercely. “If I renounce my Order,
for thee alone will I renounce it--Ambition shall remain mine, if thou
refuse my love; I will not be fooled on all hands.--Stoop my crest to
Richard?--ask a boon of that heart of pride?--Never, Rebecca, will I
place the Order of the Temple at his feet in my person. I may forsake
the Order, I never will degrade or betray it.”

“Now God be gracious to me,” said Rebecca, “for the succour of man is
well-nigh hopeless!”

“It is indeed,” said the Templar; “for, proud as thou art, thou hast in
me found thy match. If I enter the lists with my spear in rest, think
not any human consideration shall prevent my putting forth my strength;
and think then upon thine own fate--to die the dreadful death of the
worst of criminals--to be consumed upon a blazing pile--dispersed to the
elements of which our strange forms are so mystically composed--not a
relic left of that graceful frame, from which we could say this lived
and moved!--Rebecca, it is not in woman to sustain this prospect--thou
wilt yield to my suit.”

“Bois-Guilbert,” answered the Jewess, “thou knowest not the heart
of woman, or hast only conversed with those who are lost to her best
feelings. I tell thee, proud Templar, that not in thy fiercest battles
hast thou displayed more of thy vaunted courage, than has been shown
by woman when called upon to suffer by affection or duty. I am myself a
woman, tenderly nurtured, naturally fearful of danger, and impatient
of pain--yet, when we enter those fatal lists, thou to fight and I to
suffer, I feel the strong assurance within me, that my courage shall
mount higher than thine. Farewell--I waste no more words on thee; the
time that remains on earth to the daughter of Jacob must be otherwise
spent--she must seek the Comforter, who may hide his face from his
people, but who ever opens his ear to the cry of those who seek him in
sincerity and in truth.”

“We part then thus?” said the Templar, after a short pause; “would to
Heaven that we had never met, or that thou hadst been noble in birth and
Christian in faith!--Nay, by Heaven! when I gaze on thee, and think when
and how we are next to meet, I could even wish myself one of thine own
degraded nation; my hand conversant with ingots and shekels, instead of
spear and shield; my head bent down before each petty noble, and my look
only terrible to the shivering and bankrupt debtor--this could I wish,
Rebecca, to be near to thee in life, and to escape the fearful share I
must have in thy death.”

“Thou hast spoken the Jew,” said Rebecca, “as the persecution of such
as thou art has made him. Heaven in ire has driven him from his country,
but industry has opened to him the only road to power and to influence,
which oppression has left unbarred. Read the ancient history of the
people of God, and tell me if those, by whom Jehovah wrought such
marvels among the nations, were then a people of misers and of
usurers!--And know, proud knight, we number names amongst us to which
your boasted northern nobility is as the gourd compared with the
cedar--names that ascend far back to those high times when the Divine
Presence shook the mercy-seat between the cherubim, and which derive
their splendour from no earthly prince, but from the awful Voice, which
bade their fathers be nearest of the congregation to the Vision--Such
were the princes of the House of Jacob.”

Rebecca’s colour rose as she boasted the ancient glories of her race,
but faded as she added, with at sigh, “Such WERE the princes of Judah,
now such no more!--They are trampled down like the shorn grass, and
mixed with the mire of the ways. Yet are there those among them who
shame not such high descent, and of such shall be the daughter of Isaac
the son of Adonikam! Farewell!--I envy not thy blood-won honours--I envy
not thy barbarous descent from northern heathens--I envy thee not thy
faith, which is ever in thy mouth, but never in thy heart nor in thy
practice.”

“There is a spell on me, by Heaven!” said Bois-Guilbert. “I almost think
yon besotted skeleton spoke truth, and that the reluctance with which
I part from thee hath something in it more than is natural.--Fair
creature!” he said, approaching near her, but with great respect,--“so
young, so beautiful, so fearless of death! and yet doomed to die, and
with infamy and agony. Who would not weep for thee?--The tear, that has
been a stranger to these eyelids for twenty years, moistens them as I
gaze on thee. But it must be--nothing may now save thy life. Thou and
I are but the blind instruments of some irresistible fatality, that
hurries us along, like goodly vessels driving before the storm, which
are dashed against each other, and so perish. Forgive me, then, and let
us part, at least, as friends part. I have assailed thy resolution in
vain, and mine own is fixed as the adamantine decrees of fate.”

“Thus,” said Rebecca, “do men throw on fate the issue of their own wild
passions. But I do forgive thee, Bois-Guilbert, though the author of my
early death. There are noble things which cross over thy powerful mind;
but it is the garden of the sluggard, and the weeds have rushed up, and
conspired to choke the fair and wholesome blossom.”

“Yes,” said the Templar, “I am, Rebecca, as thou hast spoken me,
untaught, untamed--and proud, that, amidst a shoal of empty fools and
crafty bigots, I have retained the preeminent fortitude that places me
above them. I have been a child of battle from my youth upward, high
in my views, steady and inflexible in pursuing them. Such must I
remain--proud, inflexible, and unchanging; and of this the world shall
have proof.--But thou forgivest me, Rebecca?”

“As freely as ever victim forgave her executioner.”

“Farewell, then,” said the Templar, and left the apartment.

The Preceptor Albert waited impatiently in an adjacent chamber the
return of Bois-Guilbert.

“Thou hast tarried long,” he said; “I have been as if stretched on
red-hot iron with very impatience. What if the Grand Master, or his spy
Conrade, had come hither? I had paid dear for my complaisance.--But what
ails thee, brother?--Thy step totters, thy brow is as black as night.
Art thou well, Bois-Guilbert?”

“Ay,” answered the Templar, “as well as the wretch who is doomed to die
within an hour.--Nay, by the rood, not half so well--for there be those
in such state, who can lay down life like a cast-off garment. By Heaven,
Malvoisin, yonder girl hath well-nigh unmanned me. I am half resolved to
go to the Grand Master, abjure the Order to his very teeth, and refuse
to act the brutality which his tyranny has imposed on me.”

“Thou art mad,” answered Malvoisin; “thou mayst thus indeed utterly ruin
thyself, but canst not even find a chance thereby to save the life of
this Jewess, which seems so precious in thine eyes. Beaumanoir will
name another of the Order to defend his judgment in thy place, and the
accused will as assuredly perish as if thou hadst taken the duty imposed
on thee.”

“‘Tis false--I will myself take arms in her behalf,” answered the
Templar, haughtily; “and, should I do so, I think, Malvoisin, that thou
knowest not one of the Order, who will keep his saddle before the point
of my lance.”

“Ay, but thou forgettest,” said the wily adviser, “thou wilt have
neither leisure nor opportunity to execute this mad project. Go to Lucas
Beaumanoir, and say thou hast renounced thy vow of obedience, and see
how long the despotic old man will leave thee in personal freedom.
The words shall scarce have left thy lips, ere thou wilt either be an
hundred feet under ground, in the dungeon of the Preceptory, to abide
trial as a recreant knight; or, if his opinion holds concerning thy
possession, thou wilt be enjoying straw, darkness, and chains, in some
distant convent cell, stunned with exorcisms, and drenched with holy
water, to expel the foul fiend which hath obtained dominion over thee.
Thou must to the lists, Brian, or thou art a lost and dishonoured man.”

“I will break forth and fly,” said Bois-Guilbert--“fly to some distant
land, to which folly and fanaticism have not yet found their way. No
drop of the blood of this most excellent creature shall be spilled by my
sanction.”

“Thou canst not fly,” said the Preceptor; “thy ravings have excited
suspicion, and thou wilt not be permitted to leave the Preceptory. Go
and make the essay--present thyself before the gate, and command the
bridge to be lowered, and mark what answer thou shalt receive.--Thou are
surprised and offended; but is it not the better for thee? Wert thou
to fly, what would ensue but the reversal of thy arms, the dishonour of
thine ancestry, the degradation of thy rank?--Think on it. Where
shall thine old companions in arms hide their heads when Brian de
Bois-Guilbert, the best lance of the Templars, is proclaimed recreant,
amid the hisses of the assembled people? What grief will be at the Court
of France! With what joy will the haughty Richard hear the news, that
the knight that set him hard in Palestine, and well-nigh darkened his
renown, has lost fame and honour for a Jewish girl, whom he could not
even save by so costly a sacrifice!”

“Malvoisin,” said the Knight, “I thank thee--thou hast touched the
string at which my heart most readily thrills!--Come of it what may,
recreant shall never be added to the name of Bois-Guilbert. Would to
God, Richard, or any of his vaunting minions of England, would appear in
these lists! But they will be empty--no one will risk to break a lance
for the innocent, the forlorn.”

“The better for thee, if it prove so,” said the Preceptor; “if no
champion appears, it is not by thy means that this unlucky damsel shall
die, but by the doom of the Grand Master, with whom rests all the blame,
and who will count that blame for praise and commendation.”

“True,” said Bois-Guilbert; “if no champion appears, I am but a part
of the pageant, sitting indeed on horseback in the lists, but having no
part in what is to follow.”

“None whatever,” said Malvoisin; “no more than the armed image of Saint
George when it makes part of a procession.”

“Well, I will resume my resolution,” replied the haughty Templar. “She
has despised me--repulsed me--reviled me--And wherefore should I offer
up for her whatever of estimation I have in the opinion of others?
Malvoisin, I will appear in the lists.”

He left the apartment hastily as he uttered these words, and the
Preceptor followed, to watch and confirm him in his resolution; for in
Bois-Guilbert’s fame he had himself a strong interest, expecting much
advantage from his being one day at the head of the Order, not to
mention the preferment of which Mont-Fitchet had given him hopes, on
condition he would forward the condemnation of the unfortunate Rebecca.
Yet although, in combating his friend’s better feelings, he possessed
all the advantage which a wily, composed, selfish disposition has over
a man agitated by strong and contending passions, it required all
Malvoisin’s art to keep Bois-Guilbert steady to the purpose he had
prevailed on him to adopt. He was obliged to watch him closely
to prevent his resuming his purpose of flight, to intercept his
communication with the Grand Master, lest he should come to an open
rupture with his Superior, and to renew, from time to time, the various
arguments by which he endeavoured to show, that, in appearing as
champion on this occasion, Bois-Guilbert, without either accelerating or
ensuring the fate of Rebecca, would follow the only course by which he
could save himself from degradation and disgrace.




CHAPTER XL

     Shadows avaunt!--Richard’s himself again.
     Richard III

When the Black Knight--for it becomes necessary to resume the train of
his adventures--left the Trysting-tree of the generous Outlaw, he held
his way straight to a neighbouring religious house, of small extent
and revenue, called the Priory of Saint Botolph, to which the wounded
Ivanhoe had been removed when the castle was taken, under the guidance
of the faithful Gurth, and the magnanimous Wamba. It is unnecessary at
present to mention what took place in the interim betwixt Wilfred
and his deliverer; suffice it to say, that after long and grave
communication, messengers were dispatched by the Prior in several
directions, and that on the succeeding morning the Black Knight was
about to set forth on his journey, accompanied by the jester Wamba, who
attended as his guide.

“We will meet,” he said to Ivanhoe, “at Coningsburgh, the castle of the
deceased Athelstane, since there thy father Cedric holds the funeral
feast for his noble relation. I would see your Saxon kindred together,
Sir Wilfred, and become better acquainted with them than heretofore.
Thou also wilt meet me; and it shall be my task to reconcile thee to thy
father.”

So saying, he took an affectionate farewell of Ivanhoe, who expressed an
anxious desire to attend upon his deliverer. But the Black Knight would
not listen to the proposal.

“Rest this day; thou wilt have scarce strength enough to travel on the
next. I will have no guide with me but honest Wamba, who can play priest
or fool as I shall be most in the humour.”

“And I,” said Wamba, “will attend you with all my heart. I would fain
see the feasting at the funeral of Athelstane; for, if it be not full
and frequent, he will rise from the dead to rebuke cook, sewer, and
cupbearer; and that were a sight worth seeing. Always, Sir Knight, I
will trust your valour with making my excuse to my master Cedric, in
case mine own wit should fail.”

“And how should my poor valour succeed, Sir Jester, when thy light wit
halts?--resolve me that.”

“Wit, Sir Knight,” replied the Jester, “may do much. He is a quick,
apprehensive knave, who sees his neighbours blind side, and knows how
to keep the lee-gage when his passions are blowing high. But valour is a
sturdy fellow, that makes all split. He rows against both wind and tide,
and makes way notwithstanding; and, therefore, good Sir Knight, while I
take advantage of the fair weather in our noble master’s temper, I will
expect you to bestir yourself when it grows rough.”

“Sir Knight of the Fetterlock, since it is your pleasure so to be
distinguished,” said Ivanhoe, “I fear me you have chosen a talkative and
a troublesome fool to be your guide. But he knows every path and alley
in the woods as well as e’er a hunter who frequents them; and the poor
knave, as thou hast partly seen, is as faithful as steel.”

“Nay,” said the Knight, “an he have the gift of showing my road, I shall
not grumble with him that he desires to make it pleasant.--Fare
thee well, kind Wilfred--I charge thee not to attempt to travel till
to-morrow at earliest.”

So saying, he extended his hand to Ivanhoe, who pressed it to his lips,
took leave of the Prior, mounted his horse, and departed, with Wamba for
his companion. Ivanhoe followed them with his eyes, until they were
lost in the shades of the surrounding forest, and then returned into the
convent.

But shortly after matin-song, he requested to see the Prior. The old man
came in haste, and enquired anxiously after the state of his health.

“It is better,” he said, “than my fondest hope could have anticipated;
either my wound has been slighter than the effusion of blood led me to
suppose, or this balsam hath wrought a wonderful cure upon it. I feel
already as if I could bear my corslet; and so much the better, for
thoughts pass in my mind which render me unwilling to remain here longer
in inactivity.”

“Now, the saints forbid,” said the Prior, “that the son of the Saxon
Cedric should leave our convent ere his wounds were healed! It were
shame to our profession were we to suffer it.”

“Nor would I desire to leave your hospitable roof, venerable father,”
 said Ivanhoe, “did I not feel myself able to endure the journey, and
compelled to undertake it.”

“And what can have urged you to so sudden a departure?” said the Prior.

“Have you never, holy father,” answered the Knight, “felt an
apprehension of approaching evil, for which you in vain attempted to
assign a cause?--Have you never found your mind darkened, like the sunny
landscape, by the sudden cloud, which augurs a coming tempest?--And
thinkest thou not that such impulses are deserving of attention, as
being the hints of our guardian spirits, that danger is impending?”

“I may not deny,” said the Prior, crossing himself, “that such things
have been, and have been of Heaven; but then such communications have
had a visibly useful scope and tendency. But thou, wounded as thou art,
what avails it thou shouldst follow the steps of him whom thou couldst
not aid, were he to be assaulted?”

“Prior,” said Ivanhoe, “thou dost mistake--I am stout enough to exchange
buffets with any who will challenge me to such a traffic--But were it
otherwise, may I not aid him were he in danger, by other means than by
force of arms? It is but too well known that the Saxons love not the
Norman race, and who knows what may be the issue, if he break in upon
them when their hearts are irritated by the death of Athelstane,
and their heads heated by the carousal in which they will indulge
themselves? I hold his entrance among them at such a moment most
perilous, and I am resolved to share or avert the danger; which, that I
may the better do, I would crave of thee the use of some palfrey whose
pace may be softer than that of my ‘destrier’.” [56]

“Surely,” said the worthy churchman; “you shall have mine own ambling
jennet, and I would it ambled as easy for your sake as that of the Abbot
of Saint Albans. Yet this will I say for Malkin, for so I call her, that
unless you were to borrow a ride on the juggler’s steed that paces a
hornpipe amongst the eggs, you could not go a journey on a creature so
gentle and smooth-paced. I have composed many a homily on her back, to
the edification of my brethren of the convent, and many poor Christian
souls.”

“I pray you, reverend father,” said Ivanhoe, “let Malkin be got ready
instantly, and bid Gurth attend me with mine arms.”

“Nay, but fair sir,” said the Prior, “I pray you to remember that Malkin
hath as little skill in arms as her master, and that I warrant not her
enduring the sight or weight of your full panoply. O, Malkin, I
promise you, is a beast of judgment, and will contend against any undue
weight--I did but borrow the ‘Fructus Temporum’ from the priest of Saint
Bees, and I promise you she would not stir from the gate until I had
exchanged the huge volume for my little breviary.”

“Trust me, holy father,” said Ivanhoe, “I will not distress her with too
much weight; and if she calls a combat with me, it is odds but she has
the worst.”

This reply was made while Gurth was buckling on the Knight’s heels a
pair of large gilded spurs, capable of convincing any restive horse that
his best safety lay in being conformable to the will of his rider.

The deep and sharp rowels with which Ivanhoe’s heels were now
armed, began to make the worthy Prior repent of his courtesy, and
ejaculate,--“Nay, but fair sir, now I bethink me, my Malkin abideth not
the spur--Better it were that you tarry for the mare of our manciple
down at the Grange, which may be had in little more than an hour, and
cannot but be tractable, in respect that she draweth much of our winter
fire-wood, and eateth no corn.”

“I thank you, reverend father, but will abide by your first offer, as
I see Malkin is already led forth to the gate. Gurth shall carry mine
armour; and for the rest, rely on it, that as I will not overload
Malkin’s back, she shall not overcome my patience. And now, farewell!”

Ivanhoe now descended the stairs more hastily and easily than his
wound promised, and threw himself upon the jennet, eager to escape the
importunity of the Prior, who stuck as closely to his side as his
age and fatness would permit, now singing the praises of Malkin, now
recommending caution to the Knight in managing her.

“She is at the most dangerous period for maidens as well as mares,” said
the old man, laughing at his own jest, “being barely in her fifteenth
year.”

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.”

So the Prior of Saint Botolph’s hobbled back again into the refectory,
to preside over the stockfish and ale, which was just serving out for
the friars’ breakfast. Busy and important, he sat him down at the table,
and many a dark word he threw out, of benefits to be expected to the
convent, and high deeds of service done by himself, which, at another
season, would have attracted observation. But as the stockfish was
highly salted, and the ale reasonably powerful, the jaws of the brethren
were too anxiously employed to admit of their making much use of their
ears; nor do we read of any of the fraternity, who was tempted to
speculate upon the mysterious hints of their Superior, except Father
Diggory, who was severely afflicted by the toothache, so that he could
only eat on one side of his jaws.

In the meantime, the Black Champion and his guide were pacing at their
leisure through the recesses of the forest; the good Knight whiles
humming to himself the lay of some enamoured troubadour, sometimes
encouraging by questions the prating disposition of his attendant, so
that their dialogue formed a whimsical mixture of song and jest, of
which we would fain give our readers some idea. You are then to imagine
this Knight, such as we have already described him, strong of person,
tall, broad-shouldered, and large of bone, mounted on his mighty black
charger, which seemed made on purpose to bear his weight, so easily he
paced forward under it, having the visor of his helmet raised, in order
to admit freedom of breath, yet keeping the beaver, or under part,
closed, so that his features could be but imperfectly distinguished. But
his ruddy embrowned cheek-bones could be plainly seen, and the large and
bright blue eyes, that flashed from under the dark shade of the raised
visor; and the whole gesture and look of the champion expressed careless
gaiety and fearless confidence--a mind which was unapt to apprehend
danger, and prompt to defy it when most imminent--yet with whom danger
was a familiar thought, as with one whose trade was war and adventure.

The Jester wore his usual fantastic habit, but late accidents had led
him to adopt a good cutting falchion, instead of his wooden sword, with
a targe to match it; of both which weapons he had, notwithstanding
his profession, shown himself a skilful master during the storming of
Torquilstone. Indeed, the infirmity of Wamba’s brain consisted chiefly
in a kind of impatient irritability, which suffered him not long to
remain quiet in any posture, or adhere to any certain train of ideas,
although he was for a few minutes alert enough in performing any
immediate task, or in apprehending any immediate topic. On horseback,
therefore, he was perpetually swinging himself backwards and forwards,
now on the horse’s ears, then anon on the very rump of the animal,--now
hanging both his legs on one side, and now sitting with his face to the
tail, moping, mowing, and making a thousand apish gestures, until his
palfrey took his freaks so much to heart, as fairly to lay him at his
length on the green grass--an incident which greatly amused the Knight,
but compelled his companion to ride more steadily thereafter.

At the point of their journey at which we take them up, this joyous pair
were engaged in singing a virelai, as it was called, in which the clown
bore a mellow burden, to the better instructed Knight of the Fetterlock.
And thus run the ditty:--

     Anna-Marie, love, up is the sun,
     Anna-Marie, love, morn is begun,
     Mists are dispersing, love, birds singing free,
     Up in the morning, love, Anna-Marie.
     Anna-Marie, love, up in the morn,
     The hunter is winding blithe sounds on his horn,
     The echo rings merry from rock and from tree,
     ‘Tis time to arouse thee, love, Anna-Marie.

Wamba.

     O Tybalt, love, Tybalt, awake me not yet,
     Around my soft pillow while softer dreams flit,
     For what are the joys that in waking we prove,
     Compared with these visions, O, Tybalt, my love?
     Let the birds to the rise of the mist carol shrill,
     Let the hunter blow out his loud horn on the hill,
     Softer sounds, softer pleasures, in slumber I prove,--
     But think not I dreamt of thee, Tybalt, my love.

“A dainty song,” said Wamba, when they had finished their carol, “and I
swear by my bauble, a pretty moral!--I used to sing it with Gurth, once
my playfellow, and now, by the grace of God and his master, no less than
a freemen; and we once came by the cudgel for being so entranced by the
melody, that we lay in bed two hours after sunrise, singing the ditty
betwixt sleeping and waking--my bones ache at thinking of the tune ever
since. Nevertheless, I have played the part of Anna-Marie, to please
you, fair sir.”

The Jester next struck into another carol, a sort of comic ditty, to
which the Knight, catching up the tune, replied in the like manner.

Knight and Wamba.

     There came three merry men from south, west, and north,
     Ever more sing the roundelay;
     To win the Widow of Wycombe forth,
     And where was the widow might say them nay?

     The first was a knight, and from Tynedale he came,
     Ever more sing the roundelay;
     And his fathers, God save us, were men of great fame,
     And where was the widow might say him nay?

     Of his father the laird, of his uncle the squire,
     He boasted in rhyme and in roundelay;
     She bade him go bask by his sea-coal fire,
     For she was the widow would say him nay.

Wamba.

     The next that came forth, swore by blood and by nails,
     Merrily sing the roundelay;
     Hur’s a gentleman, God wot, and hur’s lineage was of Wales,
     And where was the widow might say him nay?

     Sir David ap Morgan ap Griffith ap Hugh
     Ap Tudor ap Rhice, quoth his roundelay
     She said that one widow for so many was too few,
     And she bade the Welshman wend his way.

     But then next came a yeoman, a yeoman of Kent,
     Jollily singing his roundelay;
     He spoke to the widow of living and rent,
     And where was the widow could say him nay?

Both.

     So the knight and the squire were both left in the mire,
     There for to sing their roundelay;
     For a yeoman of Kent, with his yearly rent,
     There never was a widow could say him nay.

“I would, Wamba,” said the knight, “that our host of the Trysting-tree,
or the jolly Friar, his chaplain, heard this thy ditty in praise of our
bluff yeoman.”

“So would not I,” said Wamba--“but for the horn that hangs at your
baldric.”

“Ay,” said the Knight,--“this is a pledge of Locksley’s goodwill, though
I am not like to need it. Three mots on this bugle will, I am assured,
bring round, at our need, a jolly band of yonder honest yeomen.”

“I would say, Heaven forefend,” said the Jester, “were it not that that
fair gift is a pledge they would let us pass peaceably.”

“Why, what meanest thou?” said the Knight; “thinkest thou that but for
this pledge of fellowship they would assault us?”

“Nay, for me I say nothing,” said Wamba; “for green trees have ears as
well as stone walls. But canst thou construe me this, Sir Knight--When
is thy wine-pitcher and thy purse better empty than full?”

“Why, never, I think,” replied the Knight.

“Thou never deservest to have a full one in thy hand, for so simple an
answer! Thou hadst best empty thy pitcher ere thou pass it to a Saxon,
and leave thy money at home ere thou walk in the greenwood.”

“You hold our friends for robbers, then?” said the Knight of the
Fetterlock.

“You hear me not say so, fair sir,” said Wamba; “it may relieve a man’s
steed to take of his mail when he hath a long journey to make; and,
certes, it may do good to the rider’s soul to ease him of that which is
the root of evil; therefore will I give no hard names to those who do
such services. Only I would wish my mail at home, and my purse in my
chamber, when I meet with these good fellows, because it might save them
some trouble.”

“WE are bound to pray for them, my friend, notwithstanding the fair
character thou dost afford them.”

“Pray for them with all my heart,” said Wamba; “but in the town, not
in the greenwood, like the Abbot of Saint Bees, whom they caused to say
mass with an old hollow oak-tree for his stall.”

“Say as thou list, Wamba,” replied the Knight, “these yeomen did thy
master Cedric yeomanly service at Torquilstone.”

“Ay, truly,” answered Wamba; “but that was in the fashion of their trade
with Heaven.”

“Their trade, Wamba! how mean you by that?” replied his companion.

“Marry, thus,” said the Jester. “They make up a balanced account with
Heaven, as our old cellarer used to call his ciphering, as fair as Isaac
the Jew keeps with his debtors, and, like him, give out a very little,
and take large credit for doing so; reckoning, doubtless, on their own
behalf the seven-fold usury which the blessed text hath promised to
charitable loans.”

“Give me an example of your meaning, Wamba,--I know nothing of ciphers
or rates of usage,” answered the Knight.

“Why,” said Wamba, “an your valour be so dull, you will please to learn
that those honest fellows balance a good deed with one not quite so
laudable; as a crown given to a begging friar with an hundred byzants
taken from a fat abbot, or a wench kissed in the greenwood with the
relief of a poor widow.”

“Which of these was the good deed, which was the felony?” interrupted
the Knight.

“A good gibe! a good gibe!” said Wamba; “keeping witty company
sharpeneth the apprehension. You said nothing so well, Sir Knight, I
will be sworn, when you held drunken vespers with the bluff Hermit.--But
to go on. The merry-men of the forest set off the building of a cottage
with the burning of a castle,--the thatching of a choir against the
robbing of a church,--the setting free a poor prisoner against the
murder of a proud sheriff; or, to come nearer to our point, the
deliverance of a Saxon franklin against the burning alive of a Norman
baron. Gentle thieves they are, in short, and courteous robbers; but it
is ever the luckiest to meet with them when they are at the worst.”

“How so, Wamba?” said the Knight.

“Why, then they have some compunction, and are for making up matters
with Heaven. But when they have struck an even balance, Heaven help them
with whom they next open the account! The travellers who first met
them after their good service at Torquilstone would have a woeful
flaying.--And yet,” said Wamba, coming close up to the Knight’s side,
“there be companions who are far more dangerous for travellers to meet
than yonder outlaws.”

“And who may they be, for you have neither bears nor wolves, I trow?”
 said the Knight.

“Marry, sir, but we have Malvoisin’s men-at-arms,” said Wamba; “and let
me tell you, that, in time of civil war, a halfscore of these is worth
a band of wolves at any time. They are now expecting their harvest,
and are reinforced with the soldiers that escaped from Torquilstone.
So that, should we meet with a band of them, we are like to pay for our
feats of arms.--Now, I pray you, Sir Knight, what would you do if we met
two of them?”

“Pin the villains to the earth with my lance, Wamba, if they offered us
any impediment.”

“But what if there were four of them?”

“They should drink of the same cup,” answered the Knight.

“What if six,” continued Wamba, “and we as we now are, barely two--would
you not remember Locksley’s horn?”

“What! sound for aid,” exclaimed the Knight, “against a score of such
‘rascaille’ as these, whom one good knight could drive before him, as
the wind drives the withered leaves?”

“Nay, then,” said Wamba, “I will pray you for a close sight of that same
horn that hath so powerful a breath.”

The Knight undid the clasp of the baldric, and indulged his
fellow-traveller, who immediately hung the bugle round his own neck.

“Tra-lira-la,” said he, whistling the notes; “nay, I know my gamut as
well as another.”

“How mean you, knave?” said the Knight; “restore me the bugle.”

“Content you, Sir Knight, it is in safe keeping. When Valour and Folly
travel, Folly should bear the horn, because she can blow the best.”

“Nay but, rogue,” said the Black Knight, “this exceedeth thy
license--Beware ye tamper not with my patience.”

“Urge me not with violence, Sir Knight,” said the Jester, keeping at a
distance from the impatient champion, “or Folly will show a clean pair
of heels, and leave Valour to find out his way through the wood as best
he may.”

“Nay, thou hast hit me there,” said the Knight; “and, sooth to say, I
have little time to jangle with thee. Keep the horn an thou wilt, but
let us proceed on our journey.”

“You will not harm me, then?” said Wamba.

“I tell thee no, thou knave!”

“Ay, but pledge me your knightly word for it,” continued Wamba, as he
approached with great caution.

“My knightly word I pledge; only come on with thy foolish self.”

“Nay, then, Valour and Folly are once more boon companions,” said the
Jester, coming up frankly to the Knight’s side; “but, in truth, I love
not such buffets as that you bestowed on the burly Friar, when his
holiness rolled on the green like a king of the nine-pins. And now that
Folly wears the horn, let Valour rouse himself, and shake his mane;
for, if I mistake not, there are company in yonder brake that are on the
look-out for us.”

“What makes thee judge so?” said the Knight.

“Because I have twice or thrice noticed the glance of a motion from
amongst the green leaves. Had they been honest men, they had kept the
path. But yonder thicket is a choice chapel for the Clerks of Saint
Nicholas.”

“By my faith,” said the Knight, closing his visor, “I think thou be’st
in the right on’t.”

And in good time did he close it, for three arrows, flew at the same
instant from the suspected spot against his head and breast, one of
which would have penetrated to the brain, had it not been turned aside
by the steel visor. The other two were averted by the gorget, and by the
shield which hung around his neck.

“Thanks, trusty armourers,” said the Knight.--“Wamba, let us close with
them,”--and he rode straight to the thicket. He was met by six or seven
men-at-arms, who ran against him with their lances at full career. Three
of the weapons struck against him, and splintered with as little effect
as if they had been driven against a tower of steel. The Black Knight’s
eyes seemed to flash fire even through the aperture of his visor. He
raised himself in his stirrups with an air of inexpressible dignity, and
exclaimed, “What means this, my masters!”--The men made no other reply
than by drawing their swords and attacking him on every side, crying,
“Die, tyrant!”

“Ha! Saint Edward! Ha! Saint George!” said the Black Knight, striking
down a man at every invocation; “have we traitors here?”

His opponents, desperate as they were, bore back from an arm which
carried death in every blow, and it seemed as if the terror of his
single strength was about to gain the battle against such odds, when a
knight, in blue armour, who had hitherto kept himself behind the other
assailants, spurred forward with his lance, and taking aim, not at the
rider but at the steed, wounded the noble animal mortally.

“That was a felon stroke!” exclaimed the Black Knight, as the steed fell
to the earth, bearing his rider along with him.

And at this moment, Wamba winded the bugle, for the whole had passed so
speedily, that he had not time to do so sooner. The sudden sound made
the murderers bear back once more, and Wamba, though so imperfectly
weaponed, did not hesitate to rush in and assist the Black Knight to
rise.

“Shame on ye, false cowards!” exclaimed he in the blue harness, who
seemed to lead the assailants, “do ye fly from the empty blast of a horn
blown by a Jester?”

Animated by his words, they attacked the Black Knight anew, whose best
refuge was now to place his back against an oak, and defend himself with
his sword. The felon knight, who had taken another spear, watching the
moment when his formidable antagonist was most closely pressed, galloped
against him in hopes to nail him with his lance against the tree, when
his purpose was again intercepted by Wamba. The Jester, making up by
agility the want of strength, and little noticed by the men-at-arms, who
were busied in their more important object, hovered on the skirts of the
fight, and effectually checked the fatal career of the Blue Knight, by
hamstringing his horse with a stroke of his sword. Horse and man went to
the ground; yet the situation of the Knight of the Fetterlock continued
very precarious, as he was pressed close by several men completely
armed, and began to be fatigued by the violent exertions necessary
to defend himself on so many points at nearly the same moment, when
a grey-goose shaft suddenly stretched on the earth one of the most
formidable of his assailants, and a band of yeomen broke forth from the
glade, headed by Locksley and the jovial Friar, who, taking ready and
effectual part in the fray, soon disposed of the ruffians, all of whom
lay on the spot dead or mortally wounded. The Black Knight thanked his
deliverers with a dignity they had not observed in his former bearing,
which hitherto had seemed rather that of a blunt bold soldier, than of a
person of exalted rank.

“It concerns me much,” he said, “even before I express my full gratitude
to my ready friends, to discover, if I may, who have been my unprovoked
enemies.--Open the visor of that Blue Knight, Wamba, who seems the chief
of these villains.”

The Jester instantly made up to the leader of the assassins, who,
bruised by his fall, and entangled under the wounded steed, lay
incapable either of flight or resistance.

“Come, valiant sir,” said Wamba, “I must be your armourer as well as
your equerry--I have dismounted you, and now I will unhelm you.”

So saying, with no very gentle hand he undid the helmet of the Blue
Knight, which, rolling to a distance on the grass, displayed to the
Knight of the Fetterlock grizzled locks, and a countenance he did not
expect to have seen under such circumstances.

“Waldemar Fitzurse!” he said in astonishment; “what could urge one of
thy rank and seeming worth to so foul an undertaking?”

“Richard,” said the captive Knight, looking up to him, “thou knowest
little of mankind, if thou knowest not to what ambition and revenge can
lead every child of Adam.”

“Revenge?” answered the Black Knight; “I never wronged thee--On me thou
hast nought to revenge.”

“My daughter, Richard, whose alliance thou didst scorn--was that no
injury to a Norman, whose blood is noble as thine own?”

“Thy daughter?” replied the Black Knight; “a proper cause of enmity, and
followed up to a bloody issue!--Stand back, my masters, I would speak
to him alone.--And now, Waldemar Fitzurse, say me the truth--confess who
set thee on this traitorous deed.”

“Thy father’s son,” answered Waldemar, “who, in so doing, did but avenge
on thee thy disobedience to thy father.”

Richard’s eyes sparkled with indignation, but his better nature overcame
it. He pressed his hand against his brow, and remained an instant gazing
on the face of the humbled baron, in whose features pride was contending
with shame.

“Thou dost not ask thy life, Waldemar,” said the King.

“He that is in the lion’s clutch,” answered Fitzurse, “knows it were
needless.”

“Take it, then, unasked,” said Richard; “the lion preys not on prostrate
carcasses.--Take thy life, but with this condition, that in three days
thou shalt leave England, and go to hide thine infamy in thy Norman
castle, and that thou wilt never mention the name of John of Anjou as
connected with thy felony. If thou art found on English ground after the
space I have allotted thee, thou diest--or if thou breathest aught
that can attaint the honour of my house, by Saint George! not the altar
itself shall be a sanctuary. I will hang thee out to feed the ravens,
from the very pinnacle of thine own castle.--Let this knight have a
steed, Locksley, for I see your yeomen have caught those which were
running loose, and let him depart unharmed.”

“But that I judge I listen to a voice whose behests must not be
disputed,” answered the yeoman, “I would send a shaft after the skulking
villain that should spare him the labour of a long journey.”

“Thou bearest an English heart, Locksley,” said the Black Knight, “and
well dost judge thou art the more bound to obey my behest--I am Richard
of England!”

At these words, pronounced in a tone of majesty suited to the high rank,
and no less distinguished character of Coeur-de-Lion, the yeomen at once
kneeled down before him, and at the same time tendered their allegiance,
and implored pardon for their offences.

“Rise, my friends,” said Richard, in a gracious tone, looking on
them with a countenance in which his habitual good-humour had already
conquered the blaze of hasty resentment, and whose features retained no
mark of the late desperate conflict, excepting the flush arising from
exertion,--“Arise,” he said, “my friends!--Your misdemeanours, whether
in forest or field, have been atoned by the loyal services you rendered
my distressed subjects before the walls of Torquilstone, and the rescue
you have this day afforded to your sovereign. Arise, my liegemen, and be
good subjects in future.--And thou, brave Locksley--”

“Call me no longer Locksley, my Liege, but know me under the name,
which, I fear, fame hath blown too widely not to have reached even your
royal ears--I am Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest.” [561]

“King of Outlaws, and Prince of good fellows!” said the King, “who
hath not heard a name that has been borne as far as Palestine? But be
assured, brave Outlaw, that no deed done in our absence, and in the
turbulent times to which it hath given rise, shall be remembered to thy
disadvantage.”

“True says the proverb,” said Wamba, interposing his word, but with some
abatement of his usual petulance,--

“‘When the cat is away, The mice will play.’”

“What, Wamba, art thou there?” said Richard; “I have been so long of
hearing thy voice, I thought thou hadst taken flight.”

“I take flight!” said Wamba; “when do you ever find Folly separated from
Valour? There lies the trophy of my sword, that good grey gelding, whom
I heartily wish upon his legs again, conditioning his master lay there
houghed in his place. It is true, I gave a little ground at first, for
a motley jacket does not brook lance-heads, as a steel doublet will. But
if I fought not at sword’s point, you will grant me that I sounded the
onset.”

“And to good purpose, honest Wamba,” replied the King. “Thy good service
shall not be forgotten.”

“‘Confiteor! Confiteor!’”--exclaimed, in a submissive tone, a voice near
the King’s side--“my Latin will carry me no farther--but I confess my
deadly treason, and pray leave to have absolution before I am led to
execution!”

Richard looked around, and beheld the jovial Friar on his knees, telling
his rosary, while his quarter-staff, which had not been idle during the
skirmish, lay on the grass beside him. His countenance was gathered so
as he thought might best express the most profound contrition, his
eyes being turned up, and the corners of his mouth drawn down, as Wamba
expressed it, like the tassels at the mouth of a purse. Yet this demure
affectation of extreme penitence was whimsically belied by a ludicrous
meaning which lurked in his huge features, and seemed to pronounce his
fear and repentance alike hypocritical.

“For what art thou cast down, mad Priest?” said Richard; “art thou
afraid thy diocesan should learn how truly thou dost serve Our Lady and
Saint Dunstan?--Tush, man! fear it not; Richard of England betrays no
secrets that pass over the flagon.”

“Nay, most gracious sovereign,” answered the Hermit, (well known to the
curious in penny-histories of Robin Hood, by the name of Friar
Tuck,) “it is not the crosier I fear, but the sceptre.--Alas! that my
sacrilegious fist should ever have been applied to the ear of the Lord’s
anointed!”

“Ha! ha!” said Richard, “sits the wind there?--In truth I had forgotten
the buffet, though mine ear sung after it for a whole day. But if the
cuff was fairly given, I will be judged by the good men around, if it
was not as well repaid--or, if thou thinkest I still owe thee aught, and
will stand forth for another counterbuff--”

“By no means,” replied Friar Tuck, “I had mine own returned, and with
usury--may your Majesty ever pay your debts as fully!”

“If I could do so with cuffs,” said the King, “my creditors should have
little reason to complain of an empty exchequer.”

“And yet,” said the Friar, resuming his demure hypocritical countenance,
“I know not what penance I ought to perform for that most sacrilegious
blow!---”

“Speak no more of it, brother,” said the King; “after having stood
so many cuffs from Paynims and misbelievers, I were void of reason to
quarrel with the buffet of a clerk so holy as he of Copmanhurst. Yet,
mine honest Friar, I think it would be best both for the church and
thyself, that I should procure a license to unfrock thee, and retain
thee as a yeoman of our guard, serving in care of our person, as
formerly in attendance upon the altar of Saint Dunstan.”

“My Liege,” said the Friar, “I humbly crave your pardon; and you would
readily grant my excuse, did you but know how the sin of laziness has
beset me. Saint Dunstan--may he be gracious to us!--stands quiet in his
niche, though I should forget my orisons in killing a fat buck--I stay
out of my cell sometimes a night, doing I wot not what--Saint Dunstan
never complains--a quiet master he is, and a peaceful, as ever was made
of wood.--But to be a yeoman in attendance on my sovereign the King--the
honour is great, doubtless--yet, if I were but to step aside to comfort
a widow in one corner, or to kill a deer in another, it would be, ‘where
is the dog Priest?’ says one. ‘Who has seen the accursed Tuck?’ says
another. ‘The unfrocked villain destroys more venison than half the
country besides,’ says one keeper; ‘And is hunting after every shy doe
in the country!’ quoth a second.--In fine, good my Liege, I pray you
to leave me as you found me; or, if in aught you desire to extend your
benevolence to me, that I may be considered as the poor Clerk of Saint
Dunstan’s cell in Copmanhurst, to whom any small donation will be most
thankfully acceptable.”

“I understand thee,” said the King, “and the Holy Clerk shall have a
grant of vert and venison in my woods of Warncliffe. Mark, however, I
will but assign thee three bucks every season; but if that do not prove
an apology for thy slaying thirty, I am no Christian knight nor true
king.”

“Your Grace may be well assured,” said the Friar, “that, with the
grace of Saint Dunstan, I shall find the way of multiplying your most
bounteous gift.”

“I nothing doubt it, good brother,” said the King; “and as venison is
but dry food, our cellarer shall have orders to deliver to thee a butt
of sack, a runlet of Malvoisie, and three hogsheads of ale of the first
strike, yearly--If that will not quench thy thirst, thou must come to
court, and become acquainted with my butler.”

“But for Saint Dunstan?” said the Friar--

“A cope, a stole, and an altar-cloth shalt thou also have,” continued
the King, crossing himself--“But we may not turn our game into earnest,
lest God punish us for thinking more on our follies than on his honour
and worship.”

“I will answer for my patron,” said the Priest, joyously.

“Answer for thyself, Friar,” said King Richard, something sternly; but
immediately stretching out his hand to the Hermit, the latter, somewhat
abashed, bent his knee, and saluted it. “Thou dost less honour to my
extended palm than to my clenched fist,” said the Monarch; “thou didst
only kneel to the one, and to the other didst prostrate thyself.”

But the Friar, afraid perhaps of again giving offence by continuing
the conversation in too jocose a style--a false step to be particularly
guarded against by those who converse with monarchs--bowed profoundly,
and fell into the rear.

At the same time, two additional personages appeared on the scene.




CHAPTER XLI

     All hail to the lordlings of high degree,
     Who live not more happy, though greater than we!
     Our pastimes to see,
     Under every green tree,
     In all the gay woodland, right welcome ye be.
     Macdonald

The new comers were Wilfred of Ivanhoe, on the Prior of Botolph’s
palfrey, and Gurth, who attended him, on the Knight’s own war-horse.
The astonishment of Ivanhoe was beyond bounds, when he saw his master
besprinkled with blood, and six or seven dead bodies lying around in
the little glade in which the battle had taken place. Nor was he less
surprised to see Richard surrounded by so many silvan attendants, the
outlaws, as they seemed to be, of the forest, and a perilous retinue
therefore for a prince. He hesitated whether to address the King as the
Black Knight-errant, or in what other manner to demean himself towards
him. Richard saw his embarrassment.

“Fear not, Wilfred,” he said, “to address Richard Plantagenet as
himself, since thou seest him in the company of true English hearts,
although it may be they have been urged a few steps aside by warm
English blood.”

“Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe,” said the gallant Outlaw, stepping forward, “my
assurances can add nothing to those of our sovereign; yet, let me say
somewhat proudly, that of men who have suffered much, he hath not truer
subjects than those who now stand around him.”

“I cannot doubt it, brave man,” said Wilfred, “since thou art of the
number--But what mean these marks of death and danger? these slain men,
and the bloody armour of my Prince?”

“Treason hath been with us, Ivanhoe,” said the King; “but, thanks to
these brave men, treason hath met its meed--But, now I bethink me, thou
too art a traitor,” said Richard, smiling; “a most disobedient traitor;
for were not our orders positive, that thou shouldst repose thyself at
Saint Botolph’s until thy wound was healed?”

“It is healed,” said Ivanhoe; “it is not of more consequence than the
scratch of a bodkin. But why, oh why, noble Prince, will you thus vex
the hearts of your faithful servants, and expose your life by lonely
journeys and rash adventures, as if it were of no more value than that
of a mere knight-errant, who has no interest on earth but what lance and
sword may procure him?”

“And Richard Plantagenet,” said the King, “desires no more fame than his
good lance and sword may acquire him--and Richard Plantagenet is prouder
of achieving an adventure, with only his good sword, and his good arm
to speed, than if he led to battle a host of an hundred thousand armed
men.”

“But your kingdom, my Liege,” said Ivanhoe, “your kingdom is threatened
with dissolution and civil war--your subjects menaced with every species
of evil, if deprived of their sovereign in some of those dangers which
it is your daily pleasure to incur, and from which you have but this
moment narrowly escaped.”

“Ho! ho! my kingdom and my subjects?” answered Richard, impatiently; “I
tell thee, Sir Wilfred, the best of them are most willing to repay
my follies in kind--For example, my very faithful servant, Wilfred of
Ivanhoe, will not obey my positive commands, and yet reads his king a
homily, because he does not walk exactly by his advice. Which of us has
most reason to upbraid the other?--Yet forgive me, my faithful Wilfred.
The time I have spent, and am yet to spend in concealment, is, as I
explained to thee at Saint Botolph’s, necessary to give my friends
and faithful nobles time to assemble their forces, that when Richard’s
return is announced, he should be at the head of such a force as enemies
shall tremble to face, and thus subdue the meditated treason, without
even unsheathing a sword. Estoteville and Bohun will not be strong
enough to move forward to York for twenty-four hours. I must have news
of Salisbury from the south; and of Beauchamp, in Warwickshire; and of
Multon and Percy in the north. The Chancellor must make sure of London.
Too sudden an appearance would subject me to dangers, other than
my lance and sword, though backed by the bow of bold Robin, or the
quarter-staff of Friar Tuck, and the horn of the sage Wamba, may be able
to rescue me from.”

Wilfred bowed in submission, well knowing how vain it was to contend
with the wild spirit of chivalry which so often impelled his master
upon dangers which he might easily have avoided, or rather, which it
was unpardonable in him to have sought out. The young knight sighed,
therefore, and held his peace; while Richard, rejoiced at having
silenced his counsellor, though his heart acknowledged the justice of
the charge he had brought against him, went on in conversation with
Robin Hood.--“King of Outlaws,” he said, “have you no refreshment to
offer to your brother sovereign? for these dead knaves have found me
both in exercise and appetite.”

“In troth,” replied the Outlaw, “for I scorn to lie to your Grace,
our larder is chiefly supplied with--” He stopped, and was somewhat
embarrassed.

“With venison, I suppose?” said Richard, gaily; “better food at need
there can be none--and truly, if a king will not remain at home and
slay his own game, methinks he should not brawl too loud if he finds it
killed to his hand.”

“If your Grace, then,” said Robin, “will again honour with your presence
one of Robin Hood’s places of rendezvous, the venison shall not be
lacking; and a stoup of ale, and it may be a cup of reasonably good
wine, to relish it withal.”

The Outlaw accordingly led the way, followed by the buxom Monarch,
more happy, probably, in this chance meeting with Robin Hood and his
foresters, than he would have been in again assuming his royal state,
and presiding over a splendid circle of peers and nobles. Novelty in
society and adventure were the zest of life to Richard Coeur-de-Lion,
and it had its highest relish when enhanced by dangers encountered
and surmounted. In the lion-hearted King, the brilliant, but useless
character, of a knight of romance, was in a great measure realized and
revived; and the personal glory which he acquired by his own deeds of
arms, was far more dear to his excited imagination, than that which a
course of policy and wisdom would have spread around his government.
Accordingly, his reign was like the course of a brilliant and rapid
meteor, which shoots along the face of Heaven, shedding around an
unnecessary and portentous light, which is instantly swallowed up by
universal darkness; his feats of chivalry furnishing themes for bards
and minstrels, but affording none of those solid benefits to his country
on which history loves to pause, and hold up as an example to posterity.
But in his present company Richard showed to the greatest imaginable
advantage. He was gay, good-humoured, and fond of manhood in every rank
of life.

Beneath a huge oak-tree the silvan repast was hastily prepared for the
King of England, surrounded by men outlaws to his government, but who
now formed his court and his guard. As the flagon went round, the rough
foresters soon lost their awe for the presence of Majesty. The song
and the jest were exchanged--the stories of former deeds were told
with advantage; and at length, and while boasting of their successful
infraction of the laws, no one recollected they were speaking in
presence of their natural guardian. The merry King, nothing heeding his
dignity any more than his company, laughed, quaffed, and jested among
the jolly band. The natural and rough sense of Robin Hood led him to be
desirous that the scene should be closed ere any thing should occur to
disturb its harmony, the more especially that he observed Ivanhoe’s brow
clouded with anxiety. “We are honoured,” he said to Ivanhoe, apart, “by
the presence of our gallant Sovereign; yet I would not that he dallied
with time, which the circumstances of his kingdom may render precious.”

“It is well and wisely spoken, brave Robin Hood,” said Wilfred, apart;
“and know, moreover, that they who jest with Majesty even in its gayest
mood are but toying with the lion’s whelp, which, on slight provocation,
uses both fangs and claws.”

“You have touched the very cause of my fear,” said the Outlaw; “my
men are rough by practice and nature, the King is hasty as well as
good-humoured; nor know I how soon cause of offence may arise, or how
warmly it may be received--it is time this revel were broken off.”

“It must be by your management then, gallant yeoman,” said Ivanhoe;
“for each hint I have essayed to give him serves only to induce him to
prolong it.”

“Must I so soon risk the pardon and favour of my Sovereign?” said Robin
Hood, pausing for all instant; “but by Saint Christopher, it shall be
so. I were undeserving his grace did I not peril it for his good.--Here,
Scathlock, get thee behind yonder thicket, and wind me a Norman blast on
thy bugle, and without an instant’s delay on peril of your life.”

Scathlock obeyed his captain, and in less than five minutes the
revellers were startled by the sound of his horn.

“It is the bugle of Malvoisin,” said the Miller, starting to his feet,
and seizing his bow. The Friar dropped the flagon, and grasped his
quarter-staff. Wamba stopt short in the midst of a jest, and betook
himself to sword and target. All the others stood to their weapons.

Men of their precarious course of life change readily from the banquet
to the battle; and, to Richard, the exchange seemed but a succession of
pleasure. He called for his helmet and the most cumbrous parts of his
armour, which he had laid aside; and while Gurth was putting them on,
he laid his strict injunctions on Wilfred, under pain of his highest
displeasure, not to engage in the skirmish which he supposed was
approaching.

“Thou hast fought for me an hundred times, Wilfred,--and I have seen
it. Thou shalt this day look on, and see how Richard will fight for his
friend and liegeman.”

In the meantime, Robin Hood had sent off several of his followers in
different directions, as if to reconnoitre the enemy; and when he saw
the company effectually broken up, he approached Richard, who was now
completely armed, and, kneeling down on one knee, craved pardon of his
Sovereign.

“For what, good yeoman?” said Richard, somewhat impatiently. “Have we
not already granted thee a full pardon for all transgressions? Thinkest
thou our word is a feather, to be blown backward and forward between us?
Thou canst not have had time to commit any new offence since that time?”

“Ay, but I have though,” answered the yeoman, “if it be an offence to
deceive my prince for his own advantage. The bugle you have heard
was none of Malvoisin’s, but blown by my direction, to break off the
banquet, lest it trenched upon hours of dearer import than to be thus
dallied with.”

He then rose from his knee, folded his arm on his bosom, and in a manner
rather respectful than submissive, awaited the answer of the King,--like
one who is conscious he may have given offence, yet is confident in the
rectitude of his motive. The blood rushed in anger to the countenance
of Richard; but it was the first transient emotion, and his sense of
justice instantly subdued it.

“The King of Sherwood,” he said, “grudges his venison and his wine-flask
to the King of England? It is well, bold Robin!--but when you come to
see me in merry London, I trust to be a less niggard host. Thou art
right, however, good fellow. Let us therefore to horse and away--Wilfred
has been impatient this hour. Tell me, bold Robin, hast thou never a
friend in thy band, who, not content with advising, will needs direct
thy motions, and look miserable when thou dost presume to act for
thyself?”

“Such a one,” said Robin, “is my Lieutenant, Little John, who is even
now absent on an expedition as far as the borders of Scotland; and I
will own to your Majesty, that I am sometimes displeased by the freedom
of his councils--but, when I think twice, I cannot be long angry with
one who can have no motive for his anxiety save zeal for his master’s
service.”

“Thou art right, good yeoman,” answered Richard; “and if I had Ivanhoe,
on the one hand, to give grave advice, and recommend it by the sad
gravity of his brow, and thee, on the other, to trick me into what thou
thinkest my own good, I should have as little the freedom of mine own
will as any king in Christendom or Heathenesse.--But come, sirs, let us
merrily on to Coningsburgh, and think no more on’t.”

Robin Hood assured them that he had detached a party in the direction of
the road they were to pass, who would not fail to discover and apprize
them of any secret ambuscade; and that he had little doubt they would
find the ways secure, or, if otherwise, would receive such timely notice
of the danger as would enable them to fall back on a strong troop of
archers, with which he himself proposed to follow on the same route.

The wise and attentive precautions adopted for his safety touched
Richard’s feelings, and removed any slight grudge which he might retain
on account of the deception the Outlaw Captain had practised upon him.
He once more extended his hand to Robin Hood, assured him of his full
pardon and future favour, as well as his firm resolution to restrain the
tyrannical exercise of the forest rights and other oppressive laws, by
which so many English yeomen were driven into a state of rebellion. But
Richard’s good intentions towards the bold Outlaw were frustrated by the
King’s untimely death; and the Charter of the Forest was extorted
from the unwilling hands of King John when he succeeded to his heroic
brother. As for the rest of Robin Hood’s career, as well as the tale
of his treacherous death, they are to be found in those black-letter
garlands, once sold at the low and easy rate of one halfpenny.

“Now cheaply purchased at their weight in gold.”

The Outlaw’s opinion proved true; and the King, attended by Ivanhoe,
Gurth, and Wamba, arrived, without any interruption, within view of the
Castle of Coningsburgh, while the sun was yet in the horizon.

There are few more beautiful or striking scenes in England, than are
presented by the vicinity of this ancient Saxon fortress. The soft and
gentle river Don sweeps through an amphitheatre, in which cultivation is
richly blended with woodland, and on a mount, ascending from the river,
well defended by walls and ditches, rises this ancient edifice, which,
as its Saxon name implies, was, previous to the Conquest, a royal
residence of the kings of England. The outer walls have probably been
added by the Normans, but the inner keep bears token of very great
antiquity. It is situated on a mount at one angle of the inner court,
and forms a complete circle of perhaps twenty-five feet in diameter.
The wall is of immense thickness, and is propped or defended by six huge
external buttresses which project from the circle, and rise up against
the sides of the tower as if to strengthen or to support it. These
massive buttresses are solid when they arise from the foundation, and a
good way higher up; but are hollowed out towards the top, and terminate
in a sort of turrets communicating with the interior of the keep itself.
The distant appearance of this huge building, with these singular
accompaniments, is as interesting to the lovers of the picturesque, as
the interior of the castle is to the eager antiquary, whose imagination
it carries back to the days of the Heptarchy. A barrow, in the vicinity
of the castle, is pointed out as the tomb of the memorable Hengist; and
various monuments, of great antiquity and curiosity, are shown in the
neighbouring churchyard. [57]

When Coeur-de-Lion and his retinue approached this rude yet
stately building, it was not, as at present, surrounded by external
fortifications. The Saxon architect had exhausted his art in rendering
the main keep defensible, and there was no other circumvallation than a
rude barrier of palisades.

A huge black banner, which floated from the top of the tower, announced
that the obsequies of the late owner were still in the act of being
solemnized. It bore no emblem of the deceased’s birth or quality,
for armorial bearings were then a novelty among the Norman chivalry
themselves and, were totally unknown to the Saxons. But above the
gate was another banner, on which the figure of a white horse,
rudely painted, indicated the nation and rank of the deceased, by the
well-known symbol of Hengist and his Saxon warriors.

All around the castle was a scene of busy commotion; for such funeral
banquets were times of general and profuse hospitality, which not only
every one who could claim the most distant connexion with the deceased,
but all passengers whatsoever, were invited to partake. The wealth and
consequence of the deceased Athelstane, occasioned this custom to be
observed in the fullest extent.

Numerous parties, therefore, were seen ascending and descending the hill
on which the castle was situated; and when the King and his attendants
entered the open and unguarded gates of the external barrier, the space
within presented a scene not easily reconciled with the cause of the
assemblage. In one place cooks were toiling to roast huge oxen, and fat
sheep; in another, hogsheads of ale were set abroach, to be drained at
the freedom of all comers. Groups of every description were to be seen
devouring the food and swallowing the liquor thus abandoned to
their discretion. The naked Saxon serf was drowning the sense of
his half-year’s hunger and thirst, in one day of gluttony and
drunkenness--the more pampered burgess and guild-brother was eating his
morsel with gust, or curiously criticising the quantity of the malt and
the skill of the brewer. Some few of the poorer Norman gentry might also
be seen, distinguished by their shaven chins and short cloaks, and not
less so by their keeping together, and looking with great scorn on the
whole solemnity, even while condescending to avail themselves of the
good cheer which was so liberally supplied.

Mendicants were of course assembled by the score, together with
strolling soldiers returned from Palestine, (according to their own
account at least,) pedlars were displaying their wares, travelling
mechanics were enquiring after employment, and wandering palmers,
hedge-priests, Saxon minstrels, and Welsh bards, were muttering prayers,
and extracting mistuned dirges from their harps, crowds, and rotes. [58]

One sent forth the praises of Athelstane in a doleful panegyric;
another, in a Saxon genealogical poem, rehearsed the uncouth and harsh
names of his noble ancestry. Jesters and jugglers were not awanting,
nor was the occasion of the assembly supposed to render the exercise of
their profession indecorous or improper. Indeed the ideas of the Saxons
on these occasions were as natural as they were rude. If sorrow was
thirsty, there was drink--if hungry, there was food--if it sunk down
upon and saddened the heart, here were the means supplied of mirth, or
at least of amusement. Nor did the assistants scorn to avail themselves
of those means of consolation, although, every now and then, as if
suddenly recollecting the cause which had brought them together, the men
groaned in unison, while the females, of whom many were present, raised
up their voices and shrieked for very woe.

Such was the scene in the castle-yard at Coningsburgh when it was
entered by Richard and his followers. The seneschal or steward deigned
not to take notice of the groups of inferior guests who were perpetually
entering and withdrawing, unless so far as was necessary to preserve
order; nevertheless he was struck by the good mien of the Monarch and
Ivanhoe, more especially as he imagined the features of the latter were
familiar to him. Besides, the approach of two knights, for such their
dress bespoke them, was a rare event at a Saxon solemnity, and could not
but be regarded as a sort of honour to the deceased and his family. And
in his sable dress, and holding in his hand his white wand of office,
this important personage made way through the miscellaneous assemblage
of guests, thus conducting Richard and Ivanhoe to the entrance of the
tower. Gurth and Wamba speedily found acquaintances in the court-yard,
nor presumed to intrude themselves any farther until their presence
should be required.




CHAPTER XLII

     I found them winding of Marcello’s corpse.
     And there was such a solemn melody,
     ‘Twixt doleful songs, tears, and sad elegies,--
     Such as old grandames, watching by the dead,
     Are wont to outwear the night with.
     --Old Play

The mode of entering the great tower of Coningsburgh Castle is very
peculiar, and partakes of the rude simplicity of the early times in
which it was erected. A flight of steps, so deep and narrow as to be
almost precipitous, leads up to a low portal in the south side of the
tower, by which the adventurous antiquary may still, or at least could
a few years since, gain access to a small stair within the thickness
of the main wall of the tower, which leads up to the third story of the
building,--the two lower being dungeons or vaults, which neither receive
air nor light, save by a square hole in the third story, with which
they seem to have communicated by a ladder. The access to the upper
apartments in the tower which consist in all of four stories, is given
by stairs which are carried up through the external buttresses.

By this difficult and complicated entrance, the good King Richard,
followed by his faithful Ivanhoe, was ushered into the round apartment
which occupies the whole of the third story from the ground. Wilfred,
by the difficulties of the ascent, gained time to muffle his face in his
mantle, as it had been held expedient that he should not present himself
to his father until the King should give him the signal.

There were assembled in this apartment, around a large oaken table,
about a dozen of the most distinguished representatives of the Saxon
families in the adjacent counties. They were all old, or, at least,
elderly men; for the younger race, to the great displeasure of the
seniors, had, like Ivanhoe, broken down many of the barriers which
separated for half a century the Norman victors from the vanquished
Saxons. The downcast and sorrowful looks of these venerable men, their
silence and their mournful posture, formed a strong contrast to the
levity of the revellers on the outside of the castle. Their grey locks
and long full beards, together with their antique tunics and loose black
mantles, suited well with the singular and rude apartment in which they
were seated, and gave the appearance of a band of ancient worshippers of
Woden, recalled to life to mourn over the decay of their national glory.

Cedric, seated in equal rank among his countrymen, seemed yet, by common
consent, to act as chief of the assembly. Upon the entrance of Richard
(only known to him as the valorous Knight of the Fetterlock) he arose
gravely, and gave him welcome by the ordinary salutation, “Waes hael”,
raising at the same time a goblet to his head. The King, no stranger
to the customs of his English subjects, returned the greeting with the
appropriate words, “Drinc hael”, and partook of a cup which was handed
to him by the sewer. The same courtesy was offered to Ivanhoe, who
pledged his father in silence, supplying the usual speech by an
inclination of his head, lest his voice should have been recognised.

When this introductory ceremony was performed, Cedric arose, and,
extending his hand to Richard, conducted him into a small and very rude
chapel, which was excavated, as it were, out of one of the external
buttresses. As there was no opening, saving a little narrow loop-hole,
the place would have been nearly quite dark but for two flambeaux or
torches, which showed, by a red and smoky light, the arched roof and
naked walls, the rude altar of stone, and the crucifix of the same
material.

Before this altar was placed a bier, and on each side of this bier
kneeled three priests, who told their beads, and muttered their prayers,
with the greatest signs of external devotion. For this service a
splendid “soul-scat” was paid to the convent of Saint Edmund’s by the
mother of the deceased; and, that it might be fully deserved, the whole
brethren, saving the lame Sacristan, had transferred themselves to
Coningsburgh, where, while six of their number were constantly on guard
in the performance of divine rites by the bier of Athelstane, the others
failed not to take their share of the refreshments and amusements which
went on at the castle. In maintaining this pious watch and ward, the
good monks were particularly careful not to interrupt their hymns for
an instant, lest Zernebock, the ancient Saxon Apollyon, should lay
his clutches on the departed Athelstane. Nor were they less careful to
prevent any unhallowed layman from touching the pall, which, having been
that used at the funeral of Saint Edmund, was liable to be desecrated,
if handled by the profane. If, in truth, these attentions could be of
any use to the deceased, he had some right to expect them at the hands
of the brethren of Saint Edmund’s, since, besides a hundred mancuses
of gold paid down as the soul-ransom, the mother of Athelstane had
announced her intention of endowing that foundation with the better part
of the lands of the deceased, in order to maintain perpetual prayers for
his soul, and that of her departed husband. Richard and Wilfred followed
the Saxon Cedric into the apartment of death, where, as their guide
pointed with solemn air to the untimely bier of Athelstane, they
followed his example in devoutly crossing themselves, and muttering a
brief prayer for the weal of the departed soul.

This act of pious charity performed, Cedric again motioned them to
follow him, gliding over the stone floor with a noiseless tread; and,
after ascending a few steps, opened with great caution the door of a
small oratory, which adjoined to the chapel. It was about eight feet
square, hollowed, like the chapel itself, out of the thickness of the
wall; and the loop-hole, which enlightened it, being to the west, and
widening considerably as it sloped inward, a beam of the setting sun
found its way into its dark recess, and showed a female of a dignified
mien, and whose countenance retained the marked remains of majestic
beauty. Her long mourning robes and her flowing wimple of black cypress,
enhanced the whiteness of her skin, and the beauty of her light-coloured
and flowing tresses, which time had neither thinned nor mingled with
silver. Her countenance expressed the deepest sorrow that is consistent
with resignation. On the stone table before her stood a crucifix
of ivory, beside which was laid a missal, having its pages richly
illuminated, and its boards adorned with clasps of gold, and bosses of
the same precious metal.

“Noble Edith,” said Cedric, after having stood a moment silent, as if
to give Richard and Wilfred time to look upon the lady of the mansion,
“these are worthy strangers, come to take a part in thy sorrows. And
this, in especial, is the valiant Knight who fought so bravely for the
deliverance of him for whom we this day mourn.”

“His bravery has my thanks,” returned the lady; “although it be the
will of Heaven that it should be displayed in vain. I thank, too, his
courtesy, and that of his companion, which hath brought them hither to
behold the widow of Adeling, the mother of Athelstane, in her deep hour
of sorrow and lamentation. To your care, kind kinsman, I intrust them,
satisfied that they will want no hospitality which these sad walls can
yet afford.”

The guests bowed deeply to the mourning parent, and withdrew from their
hospitable guide.

Another winding stair conducted them to an apartment of the same size
with that which they had first entered, occupying indeed the story
immediately above. From this room, ere yet the door was opened,
proceeded a low and melancholy strain of vocal music. When they entered,
they found themselves in the presence of about twenty matrons and
maidens of distinguished Saxon lineage. Four maidens, Rowena leading the
choir, raised a hymn for the soul of the deceased, of which we have only
been able to decipher two or three stanzas:--

     Dust unto dust,
     To this all must;
     The tenant hath resign’d
     The faded form
     To waste and worm--
     Corruption claims her kind.

     Through paths unknown
     Thy soul hath flown,
     To seek the realms of woe,
     Where fiery pain
     Shall purge the stain
     Of actions done below.

     In that sad place,
     By Mary’s grace,
     Brief may thy dwelling be
     Till prayers and alms,
     And holy psalms,
     Shall set the captive free.

While this dirge was sung, in a low and melancholy tone, by the female
choristers, the others were divided into two bands, of which one was
engaged in bedecking, with such embroidery as their skill and taste
could compass, a large silken pall, destined to cover the bier of
Athelstane, while the others busied themselves in selecting, from
baskets of flowers placed before them, garlands, which they intended for
the same mournful purpose. The behaviour of the maidens was decorous, if
not marked with deep affliction; but now and then a whisper or a smile
called forth the rebuke of the severer matrons, and here and there might
be seen a damsel more interested in endeavouring to find out how her
mourning-robe became her, than in the dismal ceremony for which they
were preparing. Neither was this propensity (if we must needs confess
the truth) at all diminished by the appearance of two strange knights,
which occasioned some looking up, peeping, and whispering. Rowena alone,
too proud to be vain, paid her greeting to her deliverer with a graceful
courtesy. Her demeanour was serious, but not dejected; and it may be
doubted whether thoughts of Ivanhoe, and of the uncertainty of his
fate, did not claim as great a share in her gravity as the death of her
kinsman.

To Cedric, however, who, as we have observed, was not remarkably
clear-sighted on such occasions, the sorrow of his ward seemed so
much deeper than any of the other maidens, that he deemed it proper
to whisper the explanation--“She was the affianced bride of the noble
Athelstane.”--It may be doubted whether this communication went a far
way to increase Wilfred’s disposition to sympathize with the mourners of
Coningsburgh.

Having thus formally introduced the guests to the different chambers in
which the obsequies of Athelstane were celebrated under different forms,
Cedric conducted them into a small room, destined, as he informed them,
for the exclusive accomodation of honourable guests, whose more slight
connexion with the deceased might render them unwilling to join those
who were immediately effected by the unhappy event. He assured them of
every accommodation, and was about to withdraw when the Black Knight
took his hand.

“I crave to remind you, noble Thane,” he said, “that when we last
parted, you promised, for the service I had the fortune to render you,
to grant me a boon.”

“It is granted ere named, noble Knight,” said Cedric; “yet, at this sad
moment---”

“Of that also,” said the King, “I have bethought me--but my time is
brief--neither does it seem to me unfit, that, when closing the grave on
the noble Athelstane, we should deposit therein certain prejudices and
hasty opinions.”

“Sir Knight of the Fetterlock,” said Cedric, colouring, and interrupting
the King in his turn, “I trust your boon regards yourself and no other;
for in that which concerns the honour of my house, it is scarce fitting
that a stranger should mingle.”

“Nor do I wish to mingle,” said the King, mildly, “unless in so far as
you will admit me to have an interest. As yet you have known me but as
the Black Knight of the Fetterlock--Know me now as Richard Plantagenet.”

“Richard of Anjou!” exclaimed Cedric, stepping backward with the utmost
astonishment.

“No, noble Cedric--Richard of England!--whose deepest interest--whose
deepest wish, is to see her sons united with each other.--And, how now,
worthy Thane! hast thou no knee for thy prince?”

“To Norman blood,” said Cedric, “it hath never bended.”

“Reserve thine homage then,” said the Monarch, “until I shall prove my
right to it by my equal protection of Normans and English.”

“Prince,” answered Cedric, “I have ever done justice to thy bravery
and thy worth--Nor am I ignorant of thy claim to the crown through thy
descent from Matilda, niece to Edgar Atheling, and daughter to Malcolm
of Scotland. But Matilda, though of the royal Saxon blood, was not the
heir to the monarchy.”

“I will not dispute my title with thee, noble Thane,” said Richard,
calmly; “but I will bid thee look around thee, and see where thou wilt
find another to be put into the scale against it.”

“And hast thou wandered hither, Prince, to tell me so?” said Cedric--“To
upbraid me with the ruin of my race, ere the grave has closed o’er
the last scion of Saxon royalty?”--His countenance darkened as he
spoke.--“It was boldly--it was rashly done!”

“Not so, by the holy rood!” replied the King; “it was done in the frank
confidence which one brave man may repose in another, without a shadow
of danger.”

“Thou sayest well, Sir King--for King I own thou art, and wilt be,
despite of my feeble opposition.--I dare not take the only mode to
prevent it, though thou hast placed the strong temptation within my
reach!”

“And now to my boon,” said the King, “which I ask not with one jot
the less confidence, that thou hast refused to acknowledge my lawful
sovereignty. I require of thee, as a man of thy word, on pain of being
held faithless, man-sworn, and ‘nidering’, [581] to forgive and receive
to thy paternal affection the good knight, Wilfred of Ivanhoe. In this
reconciliation thou wilt own I have an interest--the happiness of my
friend, and the quelling of dissension among my faithful people.”

“And this is Wilfred!” said Cedric, pointing to his son.

“My father!--my father!” said Ivanhoe, prostrating himself at Cedric’s
feet, “grant me thy forgiveness!”

“Thou hast it, my son,” said Cedric, raising him up. “The son of
Hereward knows how to keep his word, even when it has been passed to
a Norman. But let me see thee use the dress and costume of thy English
ancestry--no short cloaks, no gay bonnets, no fantastic plumage in my
decent household. He that would be the son of Cedric, must show himself
of English ancestry.--Thou art about to speak,” he added, sternly, “and
I guess the topic. The Lady Rowena must complete two years’ mourning, as
for a betrothed husband--all our Saxon ancestors would disown us were
we to treat of a new union for her ere the grave of him she should
have wedded--him, so much the most worthy of her hand by birth and
ancestry--is yet closed. The ghost of Athelstane himself would burst
his bloody cerements and stand before us to forbid such dishonour to his
memory.”

It seemed as if Cedric’s words had raised a spectre; for, scarce had
he uttered them ere the door flew open, and Athelstane, arrayed in
the garments of the grave, stood before them, pale, haggard, and like
something arisen from the dead! [59]

The effect of this apparition on the persons present was utterly
appalling. Cedric started back as far as the wall of the apartment would
permit, and, leaning against it as one unable to support himself, gazed
on the figure of his friend with eyes that seemed fixed, and a mouth
which he appeared incapable of shutting. Ivanhoe crossed himself,
repeating prayers in Saxon, Latin, or Norman-French, as they occurred
to his memory, while Richard alternately said, “Benedicite”, and swore,
“Mort de ma vie!”

In the meantime, a horrible noise was heard below stairs, some crying,
“Secure the treacherous monks!”--others, “Down with them into the
dungeon!”--others, “Pitch them from the highest battlements!”

“In the name of God!” said Cedric, addressing what seemed the spectre of
his departed friend, “if thou art mortal, speak!--if a departed spirit,
say for what cause thou dost revisit us, or if I can do aught that can
set thy spirit at repose.--Living or dead, noble Athelstane, speak to
Cedric!”

“I will,” said the spectre, very composedly, “when I have collected
breath, and when you give me time--Alive, saidst thou?--I am as much
alive as he can be who has fed on bread and water for three days, which
seem three ages--Yes, bread and water, Father Cedric! By Heaven, and all
saints in it, better food hath not passed my weasand for three livelong
days, and by God’s providence it is that I am now here to tell it.”

“Why, noble Athelstane,” said the Black Knight, “I myself saw you struck
down by the fierce Templar towards the end of the storm at Torquilstone,
and as I thought, and Wamba reported, your skull was cloven through the
teeth.”

“You thought amiss, Sir Knight,” said Athelstane, “and Wamba lied. My
teeth are in good order, and that my supper shall presently find--No
thanks to the Templar though, whose sword turned in his hand, so that
the blade struck me flatlings, being averted by the handle of the good
mace with which I warded the blow; had my steel-cap been on, I had not
valued it a rush, and had dealt him such a counter-buff as would have
spoilt his retreat. But as it was, down I went, stunned, indeed, but
unwounded. Others, of both sides, were beaten down and slaughtered
above me, so that I never recovered my senses until I found myself in
a coffin--(an open one, by good luck)--placed before the altar of the
church of Saint Edmund’s. I sneezed repeatedly--groaned--awakened and
would have arisen, when the Sacristan and Abbot, full of terror, came
running at the noise, surprised, doubtless, and no way pleased to find
the man alive, whose heirs they had proposed themselves to be. I asked
for wine--they gave me some, but it must have been highly medicated, for
I slept yet more deeply than before, and wakened not for many hours. I
found my arms swathed down--my feet tied so fast that mine ankles ache
at the very remembrance--the place was utterly dark--the oubliette, as
I suppose, of their accursed convent, and from the close, stifled,
damp smell, I conceive it is also used for a place of sepulture. I had
strange thoughts of what had befallen me, when the door of my dungeon
creaked, and two villain monks entered. They would have persuaded me I
was in purgatory, but I knew too well the pursy short-breathed voice of
the Father Abbot.--Saint Jeremy! how different from that tone with which
he used to ask me for another slice of the haunch!--the dog has feasted
with me from Christmas to Twelfth-night.”

“Have patience, noble Athelstane,” said the King, “take breath--tell
your story at leisure--beshrew me but such a tale is as well worth
listening to as a romance.”

“Ay but, by the rood of Bromeholm, there was no romance in the matter!”
 said Athelstane.--“A barley loaf and a pitcher of water--that THEY gave
me, the niggardly traitors, whom my father, and I myself, had enriched,
when their best resources were the flitches of bacon and measures of
corn, out of which they wheedled poor serfs and bondsmen, in exchange
for their prayers--the nest of foul ungrateful vipers--barley bread and
ditch water to such a patron as I had been! I will smoke them out of
their nest, though I be excommunicated!”

“But, in the name of Our Lady, noble Athelstane,” said Cedric, grasping
the hand of his friend, “how didst thou escape this imminent danger--did
their hearts relent?”

“Did their hearts relent!” echoed Athelstane.--“Do rocks melt with the
sun? I should have been there still, had not some stir in the Convent,
which I find was their procession hitherward to eat my funeral feast,
when they well knew how and where I had been buried alive, summoned the
swarm out of their hive. I heard them droning out their death-psalms,
little judging they were sung in respect for my soul by those who
were thus famishing my body. They went, however, and I waited long for
food--no wonder--the gouty Sacristan was even too busy with his own
provender to mind mine. At length down he came, with an unstable step
and a strong flavour of wine and spices about his person. Good cheer had
opened his heart, for he left me a nook of pasty and a flask of wine,
instead of my former fare. I ate, drank, and was invigorated; when, to
add to my good luck, the Sacristan, too totty to discharge his duty of
turnkey fitly, locked the door beside the staple, so that it fell ajar.
The light, the food, the wine, set my invention to work. The staple to
which my chains were fixed, was more rusted than I or the villain Abbot
had supposed. Even iron could not remain without consuming in the damps
of that infernal dungeon.”

“Take breath, noble Athelstane,” said Richard, “and partake of some
refreshment, ere you proceed with a tale so dreadful.”

“Partake!” quoth Athelstane; “I have been partaking five times
to-day--and yet a morsel of that savoury ham were not altogether foreign
to the matter; and I pray you, fair sir, to do me reason in a cup of
wine.”

The guests, though still agape with astonishment, pledged their
resuscitated landlord, who thus proceeded in his story:--He had indeed
now many more auditors than those to whom it was commenced, for Edith,
having given certain necessary orders for arranging matters within
the Castle, had followed the dead-alive up to the stranger’s apartment
attended by as many of the guests, male and female, as could squeeze
into the small room, while others, crowding the staircase, caught up
an erroneous edition of the story, and transmitted it still more
inaccurately to those beneath, who again sent it forth to the vulgar
without, in a fashion totally irreconcilable to the real fact.
Athelstane, however, went on as follows, with the history of his
escape:--

“Finding myself freed from the staple, I dragged myself up stairs as
well as a man loaded with shackles, and emaciated with fasting, might;
and after much groping about, I was at length directed, by the sound of
a jolly roundelay, to the apartment where the worthy Sacristan, an it
so please ye, was holding a devil’s mass with a huge beetle-browed,
broad-shouldered brother of the grey-frock and cowl, who looked much
more like a thief than a clergyman. I burst in upon them, and the
fashion of my grave-clothes, as well as the clanking of my chains, made
me more resemble an inhabitant of the other world than of this. Both
stood aghast; but when I knocked down the Sacristan with my fist,
the other fellow, his pot-companion, fetched a blow at me with a huge
quarter-staff.”

“This must be our Friar Tuck, for a count’s ransom,” said Richard,
looking at Ivanhoe.

“He may be the devil, an he will,” said Athelstane. “Fortunately he
missed the aim; and on my approaching to grapple with him, took to his
heels and ran for it. I failed not to set my own heels at liberty by
means of the fetter-key, which hung amongst others at the sexton’s belt;
and I had thoughts of beating out the knave’s brains with the bunch of
keys, but gratitude for the nook of pasty and the flask of wine which
the rascal had imparted to my captivity, came over my heart; so, with a
brace of hearty kicks, I left him on the floor, pouched some baked meat,
and a leathern bottle of wine, with which the two venerable brethren had
been regaling, went to the stable, and found in a private stall mine own
best palfrey, which, doubtless, had been set apart for the holy Father
Abbot’s particular use. Hither I came with all the speed the beast could
compass--man and mother’s son flying before me wherever I came,
taking me for a spectre, the more especially as, to prevent my being
recognised, I drew the corpse-hood over my face. I had not gained
admittance into my own castle, had I not been supposed to be the
attendant of a juggler who is making the people in the castle-yard
very merry, considering they are assembled to celebrate their lord’s
funeral--I say the sewer thought I was dressed to bear a part in the
tregetour’s mummery, and so I got admission, and did but disclose myself
to my mother, and eat a hasty morsel, ere I came in quest of you, my
noble friend.”

“And you have found me,” said Cedric, “ready to resume our brave
projects of honour and liberty. I tell thee, never will dawn a morrow so
auspicious as the next, for the deliverance of the noble Saxon race.”

“Talk not to me of delivering any one,” said Athelstane; “it is well I
am delivered myself. I am more intent on punishing that villain Abbot.
He shall hang on the top of this Castle of Coningsburgh, in his cope and
stole; and if the stairs be too strait to admit his fat carcass, I will
have him craned up from without.”

“But, my son,” said Edith, “consider his sacred office.”

“Consider my three days’ fast,” replied Athelstane; “I will have their
blood every one of them. Front-de-Boeuf was burnt alive for a less
matter, for he kept a good table for his prisoners, only put too much
garlic in his last dish of pottage. But these hypocritical, ungrateful
slaves, so often the self-invited flatterers at my board, who gave
me neither pottage nor garlic, more or less, they die, by the soul of
Hengist!”

“But the Pope, my noble friend,”--said Cedric--

“But the devil, my noble friend,”--answered Athelstane; “they die, and
no more of them. Were they the best monks upon earth, the world would go
on without them.”

“For shame, noble Athelstane,” said Cedric; “forget such wretches in the
career of glory which lies open before thee. Tell this Norman prince,
Richard of Anjou, that, lion-hearted as he is, he shall not hold
undisputed the throne of Alfred, while a male descendant of the Holy
Confessor lives to dispute it.”

“How!” said Athelstane, “is this the noble King Richard?”

“It is Richard Plantagenet himself,” said Cedric; “yet I need not remind
thee that, coming hither a guest of free-will, he may neither be injured
nor detained prisoner--thou well knowest thy duty to him as his host.”

“Ay, by my faith!” said Athelstane; “and my duty as a subject besides,
for I here tender him my allegiance, heart and hand.”

“My son,” said Edith, “think on thy royal rights!”

“Think on the freedom of England, degenerate Prince!” said Cedric.

“Mother and friend,” said Athelstane, “a truce to your
upbraidings--bread and water and a dungeon are marvellous mortifiers of
ambition, and I rise from the tomb a wiser man than I descended into
it. One half of those vain follies were puffed into mine ear by that
perfidious Abbot Wolfram, and you may now judge if he is a counsellor to
be trusted. Since these plots were set in agitation, I have had nothing
but hurried journeys, indigestions, blows and bruises, imprisonments
and starvation; besides that they can only end in the murder of some
thousands of quiet folk. I tell you, I will be king in my own domains,
and nowhere else; and my first act of dominion shall be to hang the
Abbot.”

“And my ward Rowena,” said Cedric--“I trust you intend not to desert
her?”

“Father Cedric,” said Athelstane, “be reasonable. The Lady Rowena cares
not for me--she loves the little finger of my kinsman Wilfred’s glove
better than my whole person. There she stands to avouch it--Nay, blush
not, kinswoman, there is no shame in loving a courtly knight better than
a country franklin--and do not laugh neither, Rowena, for grave-clothes
and a thin visage are, God knows, no matter of merriment--Nay, an thou
wilt needs laugh, I will find thee a better jest--Give me thy hand, or
rather lend it me, for I but ask it in the way of friendship.--Here,
cousin Wilfred of Ivanhoe, in thy favour I renounce and abjure---Hey!
by Saint Dunstan, our cousin Wilfred hath vanished!--Yet, unless my eyes
are still dazzled with the fasting I have undergone, I saw him stand
there but even now.”

All now looked around and enquired for Ivanhoe, but he had vanished.
It was at length discovered that a Jew had been to seek him; and that,
after very brief conference, he had called for Gurth and his armour, and
had left the castle.

“Fair cousin,” said Athelstane to Rowena, “could I think that this
sudden disappearance of Ivanhoe was occasioned by other than the
weightiest reason, I would myself resume--”

But he had no sooner let go her hand, on first observing that Ivanhoe
had disappeared, than Rowena, who had found her situation extremely
embarrassing, had taken the first opportunity to escape from the
apartment.

“Certainly,” quoth Athelstane, “women are the least to be trusted of all
animals, monks and abbots excepted. I am an infidel, if I expected not
thanks from her, and perhaps a kiss to boot--These cursed grave-clothes
have surely a spell on them, every one flies from me.--To you I
turn, noble King Richard, with the vows of allegiance, which, as a
liege-subject--”

But King Richard was gone also, and no one knew whither. At length it
was learned that he had hastened to the court-yard, summoned to his
presence the Jew who had spoken with Ivanhoe, and after a moment’s
speech with him, had called vehemently to horse, thrown himself upon a
steed, compelled the Jew to mount another, and set off at a rate, which,
according to Wamba, rendered the old Jew’s neck not worth a penny’s
purchase.

“By my halidome!” said Athelstane, “it is certain that Zernebock
hath possessed himself of my castle in my absence. I return in my
grave-clothes, a pledge restored from the very sepulchre, and every one
I speak to vanishes as soon as they hear my voice!--But it skills not
talking of it. Come, my friends--such of you as are left, follow me to
the banquet-hall, lest any more of us disappear--it is, I trust, as yet
tolerably furnished, as becomes the obsequies of an ancient Saxon noble;
and should we tarry any longer, who knows but the devil may fly off with
the supper?”




CHAPTER XLIII

     Be Mowbray’s sins so heavy in his bosom,
     That they may break his foaming courser’s back,
     And throw the rider headlong in the lists,
     A caitiff recreant!
     --Richard II

Our scene now returns to the exterior of the Castle, or Preceptory, of
Templestowe, about the hour when the bloody die was to be cast for the
life or death of Rebecca. It was a scene of bustle and life, as if the
whole vicinity had poured forth its inhabitants to a village wake, or
rural feast. But the earnest desire to look on blood and death, is not
peculiar to those dark ages; though in the gladiatorial exercise of
single combat and general tourney, they were habituated to the bloody
spectacle of brave men falling by each other’s hands. Even in our own
days, when morals are better understood, an execution, a bruising match,
a riot, or a meeting of radical reformers, collects, at considerable
hazard to themselves, immense crowds of spectators, otherwise little
interested, except to see how matters are to be conducted, or whether
the heroes of the day are, in the heroic language of insurgent tailors,
flints or dunghills.

The eyes, therefore, of a very considerable multitude, were bent on the
gate of the Preceptory of Templestowe, with the purpose of witnessing
the procession; while still greater numbers had already surrounded the
tiltyard belonging to that establishment. This enclosure was formed on
a piece of level ground adjoining to the Preceptory, which had been
levelled with care, for the exercise of military and chivalrous sports.
It occupied the brow of a soft and gentle eminence, was carefully
palisaded around, and, as the Templars willingly invited spectators to
be witnesses of their skill in feats of chivalry, was amply supplied
with galleries and benches for their use.

On the present occasion, a throne was erected for the Grand Master at
the east end, surrounded with seats of distinction for the Preceptors
and Knights of the Order. Over these floated the sacred standard, called
“Le Beau-seant”, which was the ensign, as its name was the battle-cry,
of the Templars.

At the opposite end of the lists was a pile of faggots, so arranged
around a stake, deeply fixed in the ground, as to leave a space for the
victim whom they were destined to consume, to enter within the fatal
circle, in order to be chained to the stake by the fetters which hung
ready for that purpose. Beside this deadly apparatus stood four black
slaves, whose colour and African features, then so little known in
England, appalled the multitude, who gazed on them as on demons employed
about their own diabolical exercises. These men stirred not, excepting
now and then, under the direction of one who seemed their chief, to
shift and replace the ready fuel. They looked not on the multitude. In
fact, they seemed insensible of their presence, and of every thing save
the discharge of their own horrible duty.

And when, in speech with each other, they expanded their blubber lips,
and showed their white fangs, as if they grinned at the thoughts of the
expected tragedy, the startled commons could scarcely help believing
that they were actually the familiar spirits with whom the witch had
communed, and who, her time being out, stood ready to assist in her
dreadful punishment. They whispered to each other, and communicated all
the feats which Satan had performed during that busy and unhappy period,
not failing, of course, to give the devil rather more than his due.

“Have you not heard, Father Dennet,” quoth one boor to another advanced
in years, “that the devil has carried away bodily the great Saxon Thane,
Athelstane of Coningsburgh?”

“Ay, but he brought him back though, by the blessing of God and Saint
Dunstan.”

“How’s that?” said a brisk young fellow, dressed in a green cassock
embroidered with gold, and having at his heels a stout lad bearing a
harp upon his back, which betrayed his vocation. The Minstrel seemed
of no vulgar rank; for, besides the splendour of his gaily braidered
doublet, he wore around his neck a silver chain, by which hung the
“wrest”, or key, with which he tuned his harp. On his right arm was a
silver plate, which, instead of bearing, as usual, the cognizance or
badge of the baron to whose family he belonged, had barely the word
SHERWOOD engraved upon it.--“How mean you by that?” said the gay
Minstrel, mingling in the conversation of the peasants; “I came to seek
one subject for my rhyme, and, by’r Lady, I were glad to find two.”

“It is well avouched,” said the elder peasant, “that after Athelstane of
Coningsburgh had been dead four weeks--”

“That is impossible,” said the Minstrel; “I saw him in life at the
Passage of Arms at Ashby-de-la-Zouche.”

“Dead, however, he was, or else translated,” said the younger peasant;
“for I heard the Monks of Saint Edmund’s singing the death’s hymn for
him; and, moreover, there was a rich death-meal and dole at the Castle
of Coningsburgh, as right was; and thither had I gone, but for Mabel
Parkins, who--”

“Ay, dead was Athelstane,” said the old man, shaking his head, “and the
more pity it was, for the old Saxon blood--”

“But, your story, my masters--your story,” said the Minstrel, somewhat
impatiently.

“Ay, ay--construe us the story,” said a burly Friar, who stood beside
them, leaning on a pole that exhibited an appearance between a pilgrim’s
staff and a quarter-staff, and probably acted as either when occasion
served,--“Your story,” said the stalwart churchman; “burn not daylight
about it--we have short time to spare.”

“An please your reverence,” said Dennet, “a drunken priest came to visit
the Sacristan at Saint Edmund’s---”

“It does not please my reverence,” answered the churchman, “that there
should be such an animal as a drunken priest, or, if there were, that
a layman should so speak him. Be mannerly, my friend, and conclude the
holy man only wrapt in meditation, which makes the head dizzy and foot
unsteady, as if the stomach were filled with new wine--I have felt it
myself.”

“Well, then,” answered Father Dennet, “a holy brother came to visit the
Sacristan at Saint Edmund’s--a sort of hedge-priest is the visitor,
and kills half the deer that are stolen in the forest, who loves the
tinkling of a pint-pot better than the sacring-bell, and deems a flitch
of bacon worth ten of his breviary; for the rest, a good fellow and
a merry, who will flourish a quarter-staff, draw a bow, and dance a
Cheshire round, with e’er a man in Yorkshire.”

“That last part of thy speech, Dennet,” said the Minstrel, “has saved
thee a rib or twain.”

“Tush, man, I fear him not,” said Dennet; “I am somewhat old and stiff,
but when I fought for the bell and ram at Doncaster--”

“But the story--the story, my friend,” again said the Minstrel.

“Why, the tale is but this--Athelstane of Coningsburgh was buried at
Saint Edmund’s.”

“That’s a lie, and a loud one,” said the Friar, “for I saw him borne to
his own Castle of Coningsburgh.”

“Nay, then, e’en tell the story yourself, my masters,” said Dennet,
turning sulky at these repeated contradictions; and it was with some
difficulty that the boor could be prevailed on, by the request of
his comrade and the Minstrel, to renew his tale.--“These two ‘sober’
friars,” said he at length, “since this reverend man will needs have
them such, had continued drinking good ale, and wine, and what not,
for the best part for a summer’s day, when they were aroused by a
deep groan, and a clanking of chains, and the figure of the deceased
Athelstane entered the apartment, saying, ‘Ye evil shep-herds!--’”

“It is false,” said the Friar, hastily, “he never spoke a word.”

“So ho! Friar Tuck,” said the Minstrel, drawing him apart from the
rustics; “we have started a new hare, I find.”

“I tell thee, Allan-a-Dale,” said the Hermit, “I saw Athelstane of
Coningsburgh as much as bodily eyes ever saw a living man. He had his
shroud on, and all about him smelt of the sepulchre--A butt of sack will
not wash it out of my memory.”

“Pshaw!” answered the Minstrel; “thou dost but jest with me!”

“Never believe me,” said the Friar, “an I fetched not a knock at him
with my quarter-staff that would have felled an ox, and it glided
through his body as it might through a pillar of smoke!”

“By Saint Hubert,” said the Minstrel, “but it is a wondrous tale, and
fit to be put in metre to the ancient tune, ‘Sorrow came to the old
Friar.’”

“Laugh, if ye list,” said Friar Tuck; “but an ye catch me singing
on such a theme, may the next ghost or devil carry me off with him
headlong! No, no--I instantly formed the purpose of assisting at some
good work, such as the burning of a witch, a judicial combat, or the
like matter of godly service, and therefore am I here.”

As they thus conversed, the heavy bell of the church of Saint Michael of
Templestowe, a venerable building, situated in a hamlet at some distance
from the Preceptory, broke short their argument. One by one the sullen
sounds fell successively on the ear, leaving but sufficient space
for each to die away in distant echo, ere the air was again filled
by repetition of the iron knell. These sounds, the signal of the
approaching ceremony, chilled with awe the hearts of the assembled
multitude, whose eyes were now turned to the Preceptory, expecting the
approach of the Grand Master, the champion, and the criminal.

At length the drawbridge fell, the gates opened, and a knight, bearing
the great standard of the Order, sallied from the castle, preceded by
six trumpets, and followed by the Knights Preceptors, two and two, the
Grand Master coming last, mounted on a stately horse, whose furniture
was of the simplest kind. Behind him came Brian de Bois-Guilbert, armed
cap-a-pie in bright armour, but without his lance, shield, and sword,
which were borne by his two esquires behind him. His face, though partly
hidden by a long plume which floated down from his barrel-cap, bore
a strong and mingled expression of passion, in which pride seemed to
contend with irresolution. He looked ghastly pale, as if he had not
slept for several nights, yet reined his pawing war-horse with the
habitual ease and grace proper to the best lance of the Order of the
Temple. His general appearance was grand and commanding; but, looking at
him with attention, men read that in his dark features, from which they
willingly withdrew their eyes.

On either side rode Conrade of Mont-Fitchet, and Albert de Malvoisin,
who acted as godfathers to the champion. They were in their robes
of peace, the white dress of the Order. Behind them followed other
Companions of the Temple, with a long train of esquires and pages clad
in black, aspirants to the honour of being one day Knights of the Order.
After these neophytes came a guard of warders on foot, in the same
sable livery, amidst whose partisans might be seen the pale form of the
accused, moving with a slow but undismayed step towards the scene of her
fate. She was stript of all her ornaments, lest perchance there should
be among them some of those amulets which Satan was supposed to bestow
upon his victims, to deprive them of the power of confession even when
under the torture. A coarse white dress, of the simplest form, had been
substituted for her Oriental garments; yet there was such an exquisite
mixture of courage and resignation in her look, that even in this garb,
and with no other ornament than her long black tresses, each eye wept
that looked upon her, and the most hardened bigot regretted the fate
that had converted a creature so goodly into a vessel of wrath, and a
waged slave of the devil.

A crowd of inferior personages belonging to the Preceptory followed the
victim, all moving with the utmost order, with arms folded, and looks
bent upon the ground.

This slow procession moved up the gentle eminence, on the summit of
which was the tiltyard, and, entering the lists, marched once around
them from right to left, and when they had completed the circle, made a
halt. There was then a momentary bustle, while the Grand Master and all
his attendants, excepting the champion and his godfathers, dismounted
from their horses, which were immediately removed out of the lists by
the esquires, who were in attendance for that purpose.

The unfortunate Rebecca was conducted to the black chair placed near the
pile. On her first glance at the terrible spot where preparations were
making for a death alike dismaying to the mind and painful to the
body, she was observed to shudder and shut her eyes, praying internally
doubtless, for her lips moved though no speech was heard. In the space
of a minute she opened her eyes, looked fixedly on the pile as if to
familiarize her mind with the object, and then slowly and naturally
turned away her head.

Meanwhile, the Grand Master had assumed his seat; and when the chivalry
of his order was placed around and behind him, each in his due rank,
a loud and long flourish of the trumpets announced that the Court
were seated for judgment. Malvoisin, then, acting as godfather of the
champion, stepped forward, and laid the glove of the Jewess, which was
the pledge of battle, at the feet of the Grand Master.

“Valorous Lord, and reverend Father,” said he, “here standeth the good
Knight, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, Knight Preceptor of the Order of the
Temple, who, by accepting the pledge of battle which I now lay at your
reverence’s feet, hath become bound to do his devoir in combat this
day, to maintain that this Jewish maiden, by name Rebecca, hath justly
deserved the doom passed upon her in a Chapter of this most Holy Order
of the Temple of Zion, condemning her to die as a sorceress;--here, I
say, he standeth, such battle to do, knightly and honourable, if such be
your noble and sanctified pleasure.”

“Hath he made oath,” said the Grand Master, “that his quarrel is just
and honourable? Bring forward the Crucifix and the ‘Te igitur’.”

“Sir, and most reverend father,” answered Malvoisin, readily, “our
brother here present hath already sworn to the truth of his accusation
in the hand of the good Knight Conrade de Mont-Fitchet; and otherwise he
ought not to be sworn, seeing that his adversary is an unbeliever, and
may take no oath.”

This explanation was satisfactory, to Albert’s great joy; for the wily
knight had foreseen the great difficulty, or rather impossibility, of
prevailing upon Brian de Bois-Guilbert to take such an oath before the
assembly, and had invented this excuse to escape the necessity of his
doing so.

The Grand Master, having allowed the apology of Albert Malvoisin,
commanded the herald to stand forth and do his devoir. The trumpets
then again flourished, and a herald, stepping forward, proclaimed
aloud,--“Oyez, oyez, oyez.--Here standeth the good Knight, Sir Brian
de Bois-Guilbert, ready to do battle with any knight of free blood, who
will sustain the quarrel allowed and allotted to the Jewess Rebecca, to
try by champion, in respect of lawful essoine of her own body; and to
such champion the reverend and valorous Grand Master here present allows
a fair field, and equal partition of sun and wind, and whatever else
appertains to a fair combat.” The trumpets again sounded, and there was
a dead pause of many minutes.

“No champion appears for the appellant,” said the Grand Master. “Go,
herald, and ask her whether she expects any one to do battle for her
in this her cause.” The herald went to the chair in which Rebecca was
seated, and Bois-Guilbert suddenly turning his horse’s head toward that
end of the lists, in spite of hints on either side from Malvoisin and
Mont-Fitchet, was by the side of Rebecca’s chair as soon as the herald.

“Is this regular, and according to the law of combat?” said Malvoisin,
looking to the Grand Master.

“Albert de Malvoisin, it is,” answered Beaumanoir; “for in this appeal
to the judgment of God, we may not prohibit parties from having that
communication with each other, which may best tend to bring forth the
truth of the quarrel.”

In the meantime, the herald spoke to Rebecca in these terms:--“Damsel,
the Honourable and Reverend the Grand Master demands of thee, if thou
art prepared with a champion to do battle this day in thy behalf, or if
thou dost yield thee as one justly condemned to a deserved doom?”

“Say to the Grand Master,” replied Rebecca, “that I maintain my
innocence, and do not yield me as justly condemned, lest I become guilty
of mine own blood. Say to him, that I challenge such delay as his forms
will permit, to see if God, whose opportunity is in man’s extremity,
will raise me up a deliverer; and when such uttermost space is passed,
may His holy will be done!” The herald retired to carry this answer to
the Grand Master.

“God forbid,” said Lucas Beaumanoir, “that Jew or Pagan should impeach
us of injustice!--Until the shadows be cast from the west to the
eastward, will we wait to see if a champion shall appear for this
unfortunate woman. When the day is so far passed, let her prepare for
death.”

The herald communicated the words of the Grand Master to Rebecca, who
bowed her head submissively, folded her arms, and, looking up towards
heaven, seemed to expect that aid from above which she could scarce
promise herself from man. During this awful pause, the voice of
Bois-Guilbert broke upon her ear--it was but a whisper, yet it startled
her more than the summons of the herald had appeared to do.

“Rebecca,” said the Templar, “dost thou hear me?”

“I have no portion in thee, cruel, hard-hearted man,” said the
unfortunate maiden.

“Ay, but dost thou understand my words?” said the Templar; “for the
sound of my voice is frightful in mine own ears. I scarce know on what
ground we stand, or for what purpose they have brought us hither.--This
listed space--that chair--these faggots--I know their purpose, and yet
it appears to me like something unreal--the fearful picture of a vision,
which appals my sense with hideous fantasies, but convinces not my
reason.”

“My mind and senses keep touch and time,” answered Rebecca, “and tell
me alike that these faggots are destined to consume my earthly body, and
open a painful but a brief passage to a better world.”

“Dreams, Rebecca,--dreams,” answered the Templar; “idle visions,
rejected by the wisdom of your own wiser Sadducees. Hear me, Rebecca,”
 he said, proceeding with animation; “a better chance hast thou for life
and liberty than yonder knaves and dotard dream of. Mount thee behind me
on my steed--on Zamor, the gallant horse that never failed his rider.
I won him in single fight from the Soldan of Trebizond--mount, I say,
behind me--in one short hour is pursuit and enquiry far behind--a new
world of pleasure opens to thee--to me a new career of fame. Let them
speak the doom which I despise, and erase the name of Bois-Guilbert from
their list of monastic slaves! I will wash out with blood whatever blot
they may dare to cast on my scutcheon.”

“Tempter,” said Rebecca, “begone!--Not in this last extremity canst thou
move me one hair’s-breadth from my resting place--surrounded as I am by
foes, I hold thee as my worst and most deadly enemy--avoid thee, in the
name of God!”

Albert Malvoisin, alarmed and impatient at the duration of their
conference, now advanced to interrupt it.

“Hath the maiden acknowledged her guilt?” he demanded of Bois-Guilbert;
“or is she resolute in her denial?”

“She is indeed resolute,” said Bois-Guilbert.

“Then,” said Malvoisin, “must thou, noble brother, resume thy place
to attend the issue--The shades are changing on the circle of the
dial--Come, brave Bois-Guilbert--come, thou hope of our holy Order, and
soon to be its head.”

As he spoke in this soothing tone, he laid his hand on the knight’s
bridle, as if to lead him back to his station.

“False villain! what meanest thou by thy hand on my rein?” said Sir
Brian, angrily. And shaking off his companion’s grasp, he rode back to
the upper end of the lists.

“There is yet spirit in him,” said Malvoisin apart to Mont-Fitchet,
“were it well directed--but, like the Greek fire, it burns whatever
approaches it.”

The Judges had now been two hours in the lists, awaiting in vain the
appearance of a champion.

“And reason good,” said Friar Tuck, “seeing she is a Jewess--and yet,
by mine Order, it is hard that so young and beautiful a creature should
perish without one blow being struck in her behalf! Were she ten times
a witch, provided she were but the least bit of a Christian, my
quarter-staff should ring noon on the steel cap of yonder fierce
Templar, ere he carried the matter off thus.”

It was, however, the general belief that no one could or would appear
for a Jewess, accused of sorcery; and the knights, instigated by
Malvoisin, whispered to each other, that it was time to declare the
pledge of Rebecca forfeited. At this instant a knight, urging his horse
to speed, appeared on the plain advancing towards the lists. A
hundred voices exclaimed, “A champion! a champion!” And despite the
prepossessions and prejudices of the multitude, they shouted unanimously
as the knight rode into the tiltyard. The second glance, however, served
to destroy the hope that his timely arrival had excited. His horse,
urged for many miles to its utmost speed, appeared to reel from fatigue,
and the rider, however undauntedly he presented himself in the lists,
either from weakness, weariness, or both, seemed scarce able to support
himself in the saddle.

To the summons of the herald, who demanded his rank, his name, and
purpose, the stranger knight answered readily and boldly, “I am a good
knight and noble, come hither to sustain with lance and sword the just
and lawful quarrel of this damsel, Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York;
to uphold the doom pronounced against her to be false and truthless, and
to defy Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, as a traitor, murderer, and liar; as
I will prove in this field with my body against his, by the aid of God,
of Our Lady, and of Monseigneur Saint George, the good knight.”

“The stranger must first show,” said Malvoisin, “that he is good knight,
and of honourable lineage. The Temple sendeth not forth her champions
against nameless men.”

“My name,” said the Knight, raising his helmet, “is better known, my
lineage more pure, Malvoisin, than thine own. I am Wilfred of Ivanhoe.”

“I will not fight with thee at present,” said the Templar, in a changed
and hollow voice. “Get thy wounds healed, purvey thee a better horse,
and it may be I will hold it worth my while to scourge out of thee this
boyish spirit of bravado.”

“Ha! proud Templar,” said Ivanhoe, “hast thou forgotten that twice didst
thou fall before this lance? Remember the lists at Acre--remember the
Passage of Arms at Ashby--remember thy proud vaunt in the halls of
Rotherwood, and the gage of your gold chain against my reliquary, that
thou wouldst do battle with Wilfred of Ivanhoe, and recover the honour
thou hadst lost! By that reliquary and the holy relic it contains, I
will proclaim thee, Templar, a coward in every court in Europe--in every
Preceptory of thine Order--unless thou do battle without farther delay.”

Bois-Guilbert turned his countenance irresolutely towards Rebecca, and
then exclaimed, looking fiercely at Ivanhoe, “Dog of a Saxon! take thy
lance, and prepare for the death thou hast drawn upon thee!”

“Does the Grand Master allow me the combat?” said Ivanhoe.

“I may not deny what thou hast challenged,” said the Grand Master,
“provided the maiden accepts thee as her champion. Yet I would thou
wert in better plight to do battle. An enemy of our Order hast thou ever
been, yet would I have thee honourably met with.”

“Thus--thus as I am, and not otherwise,” said Ivanhoe; “it is the
judgment of God--to his keeping I commend myself.--Rebecca,” said he,
riding up to the fatal chair, “dost thou accept of me for thy champion?”

“I do,” she said--“I do,” fluttered by an emotion which the fear of
death had been unable to produce, “I do accept thee as the champion whom
Heaven hath sent me. Yet, no--no--thy wounds are uncured--Meet not that
proud man--why shouldst thou perish also?”

But Ivanhoe was already at his post, and had closed his visor, and
assumed his lance. Bois-Guilbert did the same; and his esquire remarked,
as he clasped his visor, that his face, which had, notwithstanding the
variety of emotions by which he had been agitated, continued during the
whole morning of an ashy paleness, was now become suddenly very much
flushed.

The herald, then, seeing each champion in his place, uplifted his voice,
repeating thrice--“Faites vos devoirs, preux chevaliers!” After the
third cry, he withdrew to one side of the lists, and again proclaimed,
that none, on peril of instant death, should dare, by word, cry, or
action, to interfere with or disturb this fair field of combat. The
Grand Master, who held in his hand the gage of battle, Rebecca’s glove,
now threw it into the lists, and pronounced the fatal signal words,
“Laissez aller”.

The trumpets sounded, and the knights charged each other in full career.
The wearied horse of Ivanhoe, and its no less exhausted rider, went
down, as all had expected, before the well-aimed lance and vigorous
steed of the Templar. This issue of the combat all had foreseen; but
although the spear of Ivanhoe did but, in comparison, touch the shield
of Bois-Guilbert, that champion, to the astonishment of all who beheld
it reeled in his saddle, lost his stirrups, and fell in the lists.

Ivanhoe, extricating himself from his fallen horse, was soon on foot,
hastening to mend his fortune with his sword; but his antagonist arose
not. Wilfred, placing his foot on his breast, and the sword’s point
to his throat, commanded him to yield him, or die on the spot.
Bois-Guilbert returned no answer.

“Slay him not, Sir Knight,” cried the Grand Master, “unshriven and
unabsolved--kill not body and soul! We allow him vanquished.”

He descended into the lists, and commanded them to unhelm the conquered
champion. His eyes were closed--the dark red flush was still on his
brow. As they looked on him in astonishment, the eyes opened--but they
were fixed and glazed. The flush passed from his brow, and gave way to
the pallid hue of death. Unscathed by the lance of his enemy, he had
died a victim to the violence of his own contending passions.

“This is indeed the judgment of God,” said the Grand Master, looking
upwards--“‘Fiat voluntas tua!’”




CHAPTER XLIV

     So! now ‘tis ended, like an old wife’s story.
     Webster

When the first moments of surprise were over, Wilfred of Ivanhoe
demanded of the Grand Master, as judge of the field, if he had manfully
and rightfully done his duty in the combat? “Manfully and rightfully hath
it been done,” said the Grand Master. “I pronounce the maiden free and
guiltless--The arms and the body of the deceased knight are at the will
of the victor.”

“I will not despoil him of his weapons,” said the Knight of Ivanhoe,
“nor condemn his corpse to shame--he hath fought for Christendom--God’s
arm, no human hand, hath this day struck him down. But let his
obsequies be private, as becomes those of a man who died in an unjust
quarrel.--And for the maiden--”

He was interrupted by a clattering of horses’ feet, advancing in such
numbers, and so rapidly, as to shake the ground before them; and the
Black Knight galloped into the lists. He was followed by a numerous band
of men-at-arms, and several knights in complete armour.

“I am too late,” he said, looking around him. “I had doomed
Bois-Guilbert for mine own property.--Ivanhoe, was this well, to take on
thee such a venture, and thou scarce able to keep thy saddle?”

“Heaven, my Liege,” answered Ivanhoe, “hath taken this proud man for its
victim. He was not to be honoured in dying as your will had designed.”

“Peace be with him,” said Richard, looking steadfastly on the corpse,
“if it may be so--he was a gallant knight, and has died in his steel
harness full knightly. But we must waste no time--Bohun, do thine
office!”

A Knight stepped forward from the King’s attendants, and, laying his
hand on the shoulder of Albert de Malvoisin, said, “I arrest thee of
High Treason.”

The Grand Master had hitherto stood astonished at the appearance of so
many warriors.--He now spoke.

“Who dares to arrest a Knight of the Temple of Zion, within the girth
of his own Preceptory, and in the presence of the Grand Master? and by
whose authority is this bold outrage offered?”

“I make the arrest,” replied the Knight--“I, Henry Bohun, Earl of Essex,
Lord High Constable of England.”

“And he arrests Malvoisin,” said the King, raising his visor, “by the
order of Richard Plantagenet, here present.--Conrade Mont-Fitchet, it
is well for thee thou art born no subject of mine.--But for thee,
Malvoisin, thou diest with thy brother Philip, ere the world be a week
older.”

“I will resist thy doom,” said the Grand Master.

“Proud Templar,” said the King, “thou canst not--look up, and behold the
Royal Standard of England floats over thy towers instead of thy Temple
banner!--Be wise, Beaumanoir, and make no bootless opposition--Thy hand
is in the lion’s mouth.”

“I will appeal to Rome against thee,” said the Grand Master, “for
usurpation on the immunities and privileges of our Order.”

“Be it so,” said the King; “but for thine own sake tax me not with
usurpation now. Dissolve thy Chapter, and depart with thy followers to
thy next Preceptory, (if thou canst find one), which has not been made
the scene of treasonable conspiracy against the King of England--Or, if
thou wilt, remain, to share our hospitality, and behold our justice.”

“To be a guest in the house where I should command?” said the
Templar; “never!--Chaplains, raise the Psalm, ‘Quare fremuerunt
Gentes?’--Knights, squires, and followers of the Holy Temple, prepare to
follow the banner of ‘Beau-seant!’”

The Grand Master spoke with a dignity which confronted even that of
England’s king himself, and inspired courage into his surprised and
dismayed followers. They gathered around him like the sheep around the
watch-dog, when they hear the baying of the wolf. But they evinced not
the timidity of the scared flock--there were dark brows of defiance, and
looks which menaced the hostility they dared not to proffer in words.
They drew together in a dark line of spears, from which the white cloaks
of the knights were visible among the dusky garments of their retainers,
like the lighter-coloured edges of a sable cloud. The multitude, who had
raised a clamorous shout of reprobation, paused and gazed in silence
on the formidable and experienced body to which they had unwarily bade
defiance, and shrunk back from their front.

The Earl of Essex, when he beheld them pause in their assembled force,
dashed the rowels into his charger’s sides, and galloped backwards and
forwards to array his followers, in opposition to a band so formidable.
Richard alone, as if he loved the danger his presence had provoked,
rode slowly along the front of the Templars, calling aloud, “What, sirs!
Among so many gallant knights, will none dare splinter a spear with
Richard?--Sirs of the Temple! your ladies are but sun-burned, if they
are not worth the shiver of a broken lance?”

“The Brethren of the Temple,” said the Grand Master, riding forward in
advance of their body, “fight not on such idle and profane quarrel--and
not with thee, Richard of England, shall a Templar cross lance in my
presence. The Pope and Princes of Europe shall judge our quarrel, and
whether a Christian prince has done well in bucklering the cause which
thou hast to-day adopted. If unassailed, we depart assailing no one. To
thine honour we refer the armour and household goods of the Order which
we leave behind us, and on thy conscience we lay the scandal and offence
thou hast this day given to Christendom.”

With these words, and without waiting a reply, the Grand Master gave the
signal of departure. Their trumpets sounded a wild march, of an Oriental
character, which formed the usual signal for the Templars to advance.
They changed their array from a line to a column of march, and moved off
as slowly as their horses could step, as if to show it was only the will
of their Grand Master, and no fear of the opposing and superior force,
which compelled them to withdraw.

“By the splendour of Our Lady’s brow!” said King Richard, “it is pity
of their lives that these Templars are not so trusty as they are
disciplined and valiant.”

The multitude, like a timid cur which waits to bark till the object of
its challenge has turned his back, raised a feeble shout as the rear of
the squadron left the ground.

During the tumult which attended the retreat of the Templars, Rebecca
saw and heard nothing--she was locked in the arms of her aged father,
giddy, and almost senseless, with the rapid change of circumstances
around her. But one word from Isaac at length recalled her scattered
feelings.

“Let us go,” he said, “my dear daughter, my recovered treasure--let us
go to throw ourselves at the feet of the good youth.”

“Not so,” said Rebecca, “O no--no--no--I must not at this moment dare
to speak to him--Alas! I should say more than--No, my father, let us
instantly leave this evil place.”

“But, my daughter,” said Isaac, “to leave him who hath come forth like a
strong man with his spear and shield, holding his life as nothing, so
he might redeem thy captivity; and thou, too, the daughter of a
people strange unto him and his--this is service to be thankfully
acknowledged.”

“It is--it is--most thankfully--most devoutly acknowledged,” said
Rebecca--“it shall be still more so--but not now--for the sake of thy
beloved Rachel, father, grant my request--not now!”

“Nay, but,” said Isaac, insisting, “they will deem us more thankless
than mere dogs!”

“But thou seest, my dear father, that King Richard is in presence, and
that---”

“True, my best--my wisest Rebecca!--Let us hence--let us hence!--Money
he will lack, for he has just returned from Palestine, and, as they say,
from prison--and pretext for exacting it, should he need any, may arise
out of my simple traffic with his brother John. Away, away, let us
hence!”

And hurrying his daughter in his turn, he conducted her from the lists,
and by means of conveyance which he had provided, transported her safely
to the house of the Rabbi Nathan.

The Jewess, whose fortunes had formed the principal interest of the
day, having now retired unobserved, the attention of the populace was
transferred to the Black Knight. They now filled the air with “Long life
to Richard with the Lion’s Heart, and down with the usurping Templars!”

“Notwithstanding all this lip-loyalty,” said Ivanhoe to the Earl of
Essex, “it was well the King took the precaution to bring thee with him,
noble Earl, and so many of thy trusty followers.”

The Earl smiled and shook his head.

“Gallant Ivanhoe,” said Essex, “dost thou know our Master so well, and
yet suspect him of taking so wise a precaution! I was drawing towards
York having heard that Prince John was making head there, when I met
King Richard, like a true knight-errant, galloping hither to achieve in
his own person this adventure of the Templar and the Jewess, with
his own single arm. I accompanied him with my band, almost maugre his
consent.”

“And what news from York, brave Earl?” said Ivanhoe; “will the rebels
bide us there?”

“No more than December’s snow will bide July’s sun,” said the Earl;
“they are dispersing; and who should come posting to bring us the news,
but John himself!”

“The traitor! the ungrateful insolent traitor!” said Ivanhoe; “did not
Richard order him into confinement?”

“O! he received him,” answered the Earl, “as if they had met after a
hunting party; and, pointing to me and our men-at-arms, said, ‘Thou
seest, brother, I have some angry men with me--thou wert best go to our
mother, carry her my duteous affection, and abide with her until men’s
minds are pacified.’”

“And this was all he said?” enquired Ivanhoe; “would not any one say
that this Prince invites men to treason by his clemency?”

“Just,” replied the Earl, “as the man may be said to invite death, who
undertakes to fight a combat, having a dangerous wound unhealed.”

“I forgive thee the jest, Lord Earl,” said Ivanhoe; “but, remember, I
hazarded but my own life--Richard, the welfare of his kingdom.”

“Those,” replied Essex, “who are specially careless of their own
welfare, are seldom remarkably attentive to that of others--But let
us haste to the castle, for Richard meditates punishing some of the
subordinate members of the conspiracy, though he has pardoned their
principal.”

From the judicial investigations which followed on this occasion, and
which are given at length in the Wardour Manuscript, it appears that
Maurice de Bracy escaped beyond seas, and went into the service of
Philip of France; while Philip de Malvoisin, and his brother Albert, the
Preceptor of Templestowe, were executed, although Waldemar Fitzurse, the
soul of the conspiracy, escaped with banishment; and Prince John,
for whose behoof it was undertaken, was not even censured by his
good-natured brother. No one, however, pitied the fate of the two
Malvoisins, who only suffered the death which they had both well
deserved, by many acts of falsehood, cruelty, and oppression.

Briefly after the judicial combat, Cedric the Saxon was summoned to the
court of Richard, which, for the purpose of quieting the counties that
had been disturbed by the ambition of his brother, was then held at
York. Cedric tushed and pshawed more than once at the message--but he
refused not obedience. In fact, the return of Richard had quenched every
hope that he had entertained of restoring a Saxon dynasty in England;
for, whatever head the Saxons might have made in the event of a civil
war, it was plain that nothing could be done under the undisputed
dominion of Richard, popular as he was by his personal good qualities
and military fame, although his administration was wilfully careless,
now too indulgent, and now allied to despotism.

But, moreover, it could not escape even Cedric’s reluctant observation,
that his project for an absolute union among the Saxons, by the marriage
of Rowena and Athelstane, was now completely at an end, by the mutual
dissent of both parties concerned. This was, indeed, an event which, in
his ardour for the Saxon cause, he could not have anticipated, and even
when the disinclination of both was broadly and plainly manifested, he
could scarce bring himself to believe that two Saxons of royal descent
should scruple, on personal grounds, at an alliance so necessary for the
public weal of the nation. But it was not the less certain: Rowena had
always expressed her repugnance to Athelstane, and now Athelstane was
no less plain and positive in proclaiming his resolution never to pursue
his addresses to the Lady Rowena. Even the natural obstinacy of Cedric
sunk beneath these obstacles, where he, remaining on the point of
junction, had the task of dragging a reluctant pair up to it, one with
each hand. He made, however, a last vigorous attack on Athelstane, and
he found that resuscitated sprout of Saxon royalty engaged, like country
squires of our own day, in a furious war with the clergy.

It seems that, after all his deadly menaces against the Abbot of Saint
Edmund’s, Athelstane’s spirit of revenge, what between the natural
indolent kindness of his own disposition, what through the prayers of
his mother Edith, attached, like most ladies, (of the period,) to the
clerical order, had terminated in his keeping the Abbot and his monks in
the dungeons of Coningsburgh for three days on a meagre diet. For this
atrocity the Abbot menaced him with excommunication, and made out a
dreadful list of complaints in the bowels and stomach, suffered by
himself and his monks, in consequence of the tyrannical and unjust
imprisonment they had sustained. With this controversy, and with the
means he had adopted to counteract this clerical persecution, Cedric
found the mind of his friend Athelstane so fully occupied, that it had
no room for another idea. And when Rowena’s name was mentioned the noble
Athelstane prayed leave to quaff a full goblet to her health, and that
she might soon be the bride of his kinsman Wilfred. It was a desperate
case therefore. There was obviously no more to be made of Athelstane;
or, as Wamba expressed it, in a phrase which has descended from Saxon
times to ours, he was a cock that would not fight.

There remained betwixt Cedric and the determination which the lovers
desired to come to, only two obstacles--his own obstinacy, and his
dislike of the Norman dynasty. The former feeling gradually gave way
before the endearments of his ward, and the pride which he could not
help nourishing in the fame of his son. Besides, he was not insensible
to the honour of allying his own line to that of Alfred, when the
superior claims of the descendant of Edward the Confessor were abandoned
for ever. Cedric’s aversion to the Norman race of kings was also much
undermined,--first, by consideration of the impossibility of ridding
England of the new dynasty, a feeling which goes far to create loyalty
in the subject to the king “de facto”; and, secondly, by the personal
attention of King Richard, who delighted in the blunt humour of Cedric,
and, to use the language of the Wardour Manuscript, so dealt with the
noble Saxon, that, ere he had been a guest at court for seven days, he
had given his consent to the marriage of his ward Rowena and his son
Wilfred of Ivanhoe.

The nuptials of our hero, thus formally approved by his father, were
celebrated in the most august of temples, the noble Minster of York.
The King himself attended, and from the countenance which he afforded on
this and other occasions to the distressed and hitherto degraded Saxons,
gave them a safer and more certain prospect of attaining their just
rights, than they could reasonably hope from the precarious chance of
a civil war. The Church gave her full solemnities, graced with all
the splendour which she of Rome knows how to apply with such brilliant
effect.

Gurth, gallantly apparelled, attended as esquire upon his young master
whom he had served so faithfully, and the magnanimous Wamba, decorated
with a new cap and a most gorgeous set of silver bells. Sharers of
Wilfred’s dangers and adversity, they remained, as they had a right to
expect, the partakers of his more prosperous career.

But besides this domestic retinue, these distinguished nuptials were
celebrated by the attendance of the high-born Normans, as well as
Saxons, joined with the universal jubilee of the lower orders, that
marked the marriage of two individuals as a pledge of the future peace
and harmony betwixt two races, which, since that period, have been so
completely mingled, that the distinction has become wholly invisible.
Cedric lived to see this union approximate towards its completion; for
as the two nations mixed in society and formed intermarriages with each
other, the Normans abated their scorn, and the Saxons were refined from
their rusticity. But it was not until the reign of Edward the Third
that the mixed language, now termed English, was spoken at the court
of London, and that the hostile distinction of Norman and Saxon seems
entirely to have disappeared.

It was upon the second morning after this happy bridal, that the Lady
Rowena was made acquainted by her handmaid Elgitha, that a damsel
desired admission to her presence, and solicited that their parley might
be without witness. Rowena wondered, hesitated, became curious, and
ended by commanding the damsel to be admitted, and her attendants to
withdraw.

She entered--a noble and commanding figure, the long white veil,
in which she was shrouded, overshadowing rather than concealing the
elegance and majesty of her shape. Her demeanour was that of respect,
unmingled by the least shade either of fear, or of a wish to propitiate
favour. Rowena was ever ready to acknowledge the claims, and attend to
the feelings, of others. She arose, and would have conducted her
lovely visitor to a seat; but the stranger looked at Elgitha, and again
intimated a wish to discourse with the Lady Rowena alone. Elgitha had no
sooner retired with unwilling steps, than, to the surprise of the Lady
of Ivanhoe, her fair visitant kneeled on one knee, pressed her hands to
her forehead, and bending her head to the ground, in spite of Rowena’s
resistance, kissed the embroidered hem of her tunic.

“What means this, lady?” said the surprised bride; “or why do you offer
to me a deference so unusual?”

“Because to you, Lady of Ivanhoe,” said Rebecca, rising up and resuming
the usual quiet dignity of her manner, “I may lawfully, and without
rebuke, pay the debt of gratitude which I owe to Wilfred of Ivanhoe.
I am--forgive the boldness which has offered to you the homage of my
country--I am the unhappy Jewess, for whom your husband hazarded his
life against such fearful odds in the tiltyard of Templestowe.”

“Damsel,” said Rowena, “Wilfred of Ivanhoe on that day rendered back but
in slight measure your unceasing charity towards him in his wounds and
misfortunes. Speak, is there aught remains in which he or I can serve
thee?”

“Nothing,” said Rebecca, calmly, “unless you will transmit to him my
grateful farewell.”

“You leave England then?” said Rowena, scarce recovering the surprise of
this extraordinary visit.

“I leave it, lady, ere this moon again changes. My father had a brother
high in favour with Mohammed Boabdil, King of Grenada--thither we go,
secure of peace and protection, for the payment of such ransom as the
Moslem exact from our people.”

“And are you not then as well protected in England?” said Rowena.
“My husband has favour with the King--the King himself is just and
generous.”

“Lady,” said Rebecca, “I doubt it not--but the people of England are a
fierce race, quarrelling ever with their neighbours or among themselves,
and ready to plunge the sword into the bowels of each other. Such is
no safe abode for the children of my people. Ephraim is an heartless
dove--Issachar an over-laboured drudge, which stoops between two
burdens. Not in a land of war and blood, surrounded by hostile
neighbours, and distracted by internal factions, can Israel hope to rest
during her wanderings.”

“But you, maiden,” said Rowena--“you surely can have nothing to fear.
She who nursed the sick-bed of Ivanhoe,” she continued, rising with
enthusiasm--“she can have nothing to fear in England, where Saxon and
Norman will contend who shall most do her honour.”

“Thy speech is fair, lady,” said Rebecca, “and thy purpose fairer; but
it may not be--there is a gulf betwixt us. Our breeding, our faith,
alike forbid either to pass over it. Farewell--yet, ere I go indulge me
one request. The bridal-veil hangs over thy face; deign to raise it, and
let me see the features of which fame speaks so highly.”

“They are scarce worthy of being looked upon,” said Rowena; “but,
expecting the same from my visitant, I remove the veil.”

She took it off accordingly; and, partly from the consciousness of
beauty, partly from bashfulness, she blushed so intensely, that cheek,
brow, neck, and bosom, were suffused with crimson. Rebecca blushed also,
but it was a momentary feeling; and, mastered by higher emotions, past
slowly from her features like the crimson cloud, which changes colour
when the sun sinks beneath the horizon.

“Lady,” she said, “the countenance you have deigned to show me will long
dwell in my remembrance. There reigns in it gentleness and goodness; and
if a tinge of the world’s pride or vanities may mix with an expression
so lovely, how should we chide that which is of earth for bearing some
colour of its original? Long, long will I remember your features, and
bless God that I leave my noble deliverer united with--”

She stopped short--her eyes filled with tears. She hastily wiped them,
and answered to the anxious enquiries of Rowena--“I am well, lady--well.
But my heart swells when I think of Torquilstone and the lists of
Templestowe.--Farewell. One, the most trifling part of my duty, remains
undischarged. Accept this casket--startle not at its contents.”

Rowena opened the small silver-chased casket, and perceived a carcanet,
or neck lace, with ear-jewels, of diamonds, which were obviously of
immense value.

“It is impossible,” she said, tendering back the casket. “I dare not
accept a gift of such consequence.”

“Yet keep it, lady,” returned Rebecca.--“You have power, rank, command,
influence; we have wealth, the source both of our strength and weakness;
the value of these toys, ten times multiplied, would not influence half
so much as your slightest wish. To you, therefore, the gift is of little
value,--and to me, what I part with is of much less. Let me not think
you deem so wretchedly ill of my nation as your commons believe. Think
ye that I prize these sparkling fragments of stone above my liberty?
or that my father values them in comparison to the honour of his only
child? Accept them, lady--to me they are valueless. I will never wear
jewels more.”

“You are then unhappy!” said Rowena, struck with the manner in which
Rebecca uttered the last words. “O, remain with us--the counsel of holy
men will wean you from your erring law, and I will be a sister to you.”

“No, lady,” answered Rebecca, the same calm melancholy reigning in her
soft voice and beautiful features--“that--may not be. I may not change
the faith of my fathers like a garment unsuited to the climate in
which I seek to dwell, and unhappy, lady, I will not be. He, to whom I
dedicate my future life, will be my comforter, if I do His will.”

“Have you then convents, to one of which you mean to retire?” asked
Rowena.

“No, lady,” said the Jewess; “but among our people, since the time of
Abraham downwards, have been women who have devoted their thoughts to
Heaven, and their actions to works of kindness to men, tending the
sick, feeding the hungry, and relieving the distressed. Among these will
Rebecca be numbered. Say this to thy lord, should he chance to enquire
after the fate of her whose life he saved.”

There was an involuntary tremour on Rebecca’s voice, and a tenderness
of accent, which perhaps betrayed more than she would willingly have
expressed. She hastened to bid Rowena adieu.

“Farewell,” she said. “May He, who made both Jew and Christian, shower
down on you his choicest blessings! The bark that waits us hence will be
under weigh ere we can reach the port.”

She glided from the apartment, leaving Rowena surprised as if a vision
had passed before her. The fair Saxon related the singular conference to
her husband, on whose mind it made a deep impression. He lived long and
happily with Rowena, for they were attached to each other by the
bonds of early affection, and they loved each other the more, from the
recollection of the obstacles which had impeded their union. Yet it
would be enquiring too curiously to ask, whether the recollection
of Rebecca’s beauty and magnanimity did not recur to his mind more
frequently than the fair descendant of Alfred might altogether have
approved.

Ivanhoe distinguished himself in the service of Richard, and was graced
with farther marks of the royal favour. He might have risen still
higher, but for the premature death of the heroic Coeur-de-Lion, before
the Castle of Chaluz, near Limoges. With the life of a generous, but
rash and romantic monarch, perished all the projects which his ambition
and his generosity had formed; to whom may be applied, with a slight
alteration, the lines composed by Johnson for Charles of Sweden--

     His fate was destined to a foreign strand,
     A petty fortress and an “humble” hand;
     He left the name at which the world grew pale,
     To point a moral, or adorn a TALE.






NOTE TO CHAPTER I.

Note A.--The Ranger or the Forest, that cuts the foreclaws off our dogs.

A most sensible grievance of those aggrieved times were the Forest Laws.
These oppressive enactments were the produce of the Norman Conquest,
for the Saxon laws of the chase were mild and humane; while those of
William, enthusiastically attached to the exercise and its rights, were
to the last degree tyrannical. The formation of the New Forest, bears
evidence to his passion for hunting, where he reduced many a happy
village to the condition of that one commemorated by my friend, Mr
William Stewart Rose:

     “Amongst the ruins of the church
     The midnight raven found a perch,
     A melancholy place;
     The ruthless Conqueror cast down,
     Woe worth the deed, that little town,
     To lengthen out his chase.”

The disabling dogs, which might be necessary for keeping flocks and
herds, from running at the deer, was called “lawing”, and was in general
use. The Charter of the Forest designed to lessen those evils, declares
that inquisition, or view, for lawing dogs, shall be made every third
year, and shall be then done by the view and testimony of lawful men,
not otherwise; and they whose dogs shall be then found unlawed, shall
give three shillings for mercy, and for the future no man’s ox shall be
taken for lawing. Such lawing also shall be done by the assize commonly
used, and which is, that three claws shall be cut off without the ball
of the right foot. See on this subject the Historical Essay on the Magna
Charta of King John, (a most beautiful volume), by Richard Thomson.




NOTE TO CHAPTER II.

Note B.--Negro Slaves.

The severe accuracy of some critics has objected to the complexion of
the slaves of Brian de Bois-Guilbert, as being totally out of costume
and propriety. I remember the same objection being made to a set of
sable functionaries, whom my friend, Mat Lewis, introduced as the
guards and mischief-doing satellites of the wicked Baron, in his Castle
Spectre. Mat treated the objection with great contempt, and averred
in reply, that he made the slaves black in order to obtain a striking
effect of contrast, and that, could he have derived a similar advantage
from making his heroine blue, blue she should have been.

I do not pretend to plead the immunities of my order so highly as this;
but neither will I allow that the author of a modern antique romance
is obliged to confine himself to the introduction of those manners
only which can be proved to have absolutely existed in the times he
is depicting, so that he restrain himself to such as are plausible and
natural, and contain no obvious anachronism. In this point of view,
what can be more natural, than that the Templars, who, we know, copied
closely the luxuries of the Asiatic warriors with whom they fought,
should use the service of the enslaved Africans, whom the fate of war
transferred to new masters? I am sure, if there are no precise proofs
of their having done so, there is nothing, on the other hand, that can
entitle us positively to conclude that they never did. Besides, there is
an instance in romance.

John of Rampayne, an excellent juggler and minstrel, undertook to effect
the escape of one Audulf de Bracy, by presenting himself in disguise
at the court of the king, where he was confined. For this purpose, “he
stained his hair and his whole body entirely as black as jet, so that
nothing was white but his teeth,” and succeeded in imposing himself
on the king, as an Ethiopian minstrel. He effected, by stratagem, the
escape of the prisoner. Negroes, therefore, must have been known in
England in the dark ages. [60]




NOTE TO CHAPTER XVII.

Note C.--Minstrelsy.

The realm of France, it is well known, was divided betwixt the Norman
and Teutonic race, who spoke the language in which the word Yes is
pronounced as “oui”, and the inhabitants of the southern regions, whose
speech bearing some affinity to the Italian, pronounced the same word
“oc”. The poets of the former race were called “Minstrels”, and their
poems “Lays”: those of the latter were termed “Troubadours”, and their
compositions called “sirventes”, and other names. Richard, a professed
admirer of the joyous science in all its branches, could imitate either
the minstrel or troubadour. It is less likely that he should have been
able to compose or sing an English ballad; yet so much do we wish to
assimilate Him of the Lion Heart to the band of warriors whom he led,
that the anachronism, if there be one may readily be forgiven.




NOTE TO CHAPTER XXI.

Note D.--Battle of Stamford.

A great topographical blunder occurred here in former editions. The
bloody battle alluded to in the text, fought and won by King Harold,
over his brother the rebellious Tosti, and an auxiliary force of Danes
or Norsemen, was said, in the text, and a corresponding note, to have
taken place at Stamford, in Leicestershire, and upon the river Welland.
This is a mistake, into which the author has been led by trusting to his
memory, and so confounding two places of the same name. The Stamford,
Strangford, or Staneford, at which the battle really was fought, is a
ford upon the river Derwent, at the distance of about seven miles from
York, and situated in that large and opulent county. A long wooden
bridge over the Derwent, the site of which, with one remaining buttress,
is still shown to the curious traveller, was furiously contested. One
Norwegian long defended it by his single arm, and was at length pierced
with a spear thrust through the planks of the bridge from a boat
beneath.

The neighbourhood of Stamford, on the Derwent, contains some memorials
of the battle. Horseshoes, swords, and the heads of halberds, or bills,
are often found there; one place is called the “Danes’ well,” another
the “Battle flats.” From a tradition that the weapon with which the
Norwegian champion was slain, resembled a pear, or, as others say, that
the trough or boat in which the soldier floated under the bridge to
strike the blow, had such a shape, the country people usually begin a
great market, which is held at Stamford, with an entertainment called
the Pear-pie feast, which after all may be a corruption of the Spear-pie
feast. For more particulars, Drake’s History of York may be referred
to. The author’s mistake was pointed out to him, in the most obliging
manner, by Robert Belt, Esq. of Bossal House. The battle was fought in
1066.




NOTE TO CHAPTER XXII.

Note E.--The range of iron bars above that glowing charcoal.

This horrid species of torture may remind the reader of that to which
the Spaniards subjected Guatimozin, in order to extort a discovery of
his concealed wealth. But, in fact, an instance of similar barbarity is
to be found nearer home, and occurs in the annals of Queen Mary’s
time, containing so many other examples of atrocity. Every reader
must recollect, that after the fall of the Catholic Church, and the
Presbyterian Church Government had been established by law, the rank,
and especially the wealth, of the Bishops, Abbots, Priors, and so forth,
were no longer vested in ecclesiastics, but in lay impropriators of the
church revenues, or, as the Scottish lawyers called them, titulars
of the temporalities of the benefice, though having no claim to the
spiritual character of their predecessors in office.

Of these laymen, who were thus invested with ecclesiastical revenues,
some were men of high birth and rank, like the famous Lord James
Stewart, the Prior of St Andrews, who did not fail to keep for their own
use the rents, lands, and revenues of the church. But if, on the
other hand, the titulars were men of inferior importance, who had been
inducted into the office by the interest of some powerful person, it was
generally understood that the new Abbot should grant for his patron’s
benefit such leases and conveyances of the church lands and tithes as
might afford their protector the lion’s share of the booty. This was the
origin of those who were wittily termed Tulchan [61]

Bishops, being a sort of imaginary prelate, whose image was set up to
enable his patron and principal to plunder the benefice under his name.

There were other cases, however, in which men who had got grants of
these secularised benefices, were desirous of retaining them for their
own use, without having the influence sufficient to establish their
purpose; and these became frequently unable to protect themselves,
however unwilling to submit to the exactions of the feudal tyrant of the
district.

Bannatyne, secretary to John Knox, recounts a singular course of
oppression practised on one of those titulars abbots, by the Earl of
Cassilis in Ayrshire, whose extent of feudal influence was so wide that
he was usually termed the King of Carrick. We give the fact as it occurs
in Bannatyne’s Journal, only premising that the Journalist held his
master’s opinions, both with respect to the Earl of Cassilis as an
opposer of the king’s party, and as being a detester of the practice of
granting church revenues to titulars, instead of their being devoted to
pious uses, such as the support of the clergy, expense of schools, and
the relief of the national poor. He mingles in the narrative, therefore,
a well deserved feeling of execration against the tyrant who employed
the torture, which a tone of ridicule towards the patient, as if, after
all, it had not been ill bestowed on such an equivocal and amphibious
character as a titular abbot. He entitles his narrative,

THE EARL OF CASSILIS’ TYRANNY AGAINST A QUICK (i.e. LIVING) MAN.

“Master Allan Stewart, friend to Captain James Stewart of Cardonall, by
means of the Queen’s corrupted court, obtained the Abbey of Crossraguel.
The said Earl thinking himself greater than any king in those quarters,
determined to have that whole benefice (as he hath divers others) to
pay at his pleasure; and because he could not find sic security as his
insatiable appetite required, this shift was devised. The said Mr Allan
being in company with the Laird of Bargany, (also a Kennedy,) was, by
the Earl and his friends, enticed to leave the safeguard which he had
with the Laird, and come to make good cheer with the said Earl. The
simplicity of the imprudent man was suddenly abused; and so he passed
his time with them certain days, which he did in Maybole with Thomas
Kennedie, uncle to the said Earl; after which the said Mr Allan passed,
with quiet company, to visit the place and bounds of Crossraguel, [his
abbacy,] of which the said Earl being surely advertised, determined to
put in practice the tyranny which long before he had conceived. And so,
as king of the country, apprehended the said Mr Allan, and carried him
to the house of Denure, where for a season he was honourably treated,
(if a prisoner can think any entertainment pleasing;) but after that
certain days were spent, and that the Earl could not obtain the feus of
Crossraguel according to his own appetite, he determined to prove if a
collation could work that which neither dinner nor supper could do for
a long time. And so the said Mr Allan was carried to a secret chamber:
with him passed the honourable Earl, his worshipful brother, and such as
were appointed to be servants at that banquet. In the chamber there was
a grit iron chimlay, under it a fire; other grit provision was not seen.
The first course was,--‘My Lord Abbot,’ (said the Earl,) ‘it will please
you confess here, that with your own consent you remain in my company,
because ye durst not commit yourself to the hands of others.’ The Abbot
answered, ‘Would you, my lord, that I should make a manifest lie for
your pleasure? The truth is, my lord, it is against my will that I am
here; neither yet have I any pleasure in your company.’ ‘But ye shall
remain with me, nevertheless, at this time,’ said the Earl. ‘I am not
able to resist your will and pleasure,’ said the Abbot, ‘in this place.’
‘Ye must then obey me,’ said the Earl,--and with that were presented
unto him certain letters to subscribe, amongst which there was a five
years’ tack, and a nineteen years’ tack, and a charter of feu of all the
lands (of Crossraguel), with all the clauses necessary for the Earl to
haste him to hell. For if adultery, sacrilege, oppression, barbarous
cruelty, and theft heaped upon theft, deserve hell, the great King
of Carrick can no more escape hell for ever, than the imprudent Abbot
escaped the fire for a season as follows.

“After that the Earl spied repugnance, and saw that he could not come
to his purpose by fair means, he commanded his cooks to prepare the
banquet: and so first they flayed the sheep, that is, they took off
the Abbot’s cloathes even to his skin, and next they bound him to the
chimney--his legs to the one end, and his arms to the other; and so they
began to beet [i.e. feed] the fire sometimes to his buttocks, sometimes
to his legs, sometimes to his shoulders and arms; and that the roast
might not burn, but that it might rest in soppe, they spared not
flambing with oil, (basting as a cook bastes roasted meat); Lord, look
thou to sic cruelty! And that the crying of the miserable man should not
be heard, they dosed his mouth that the voice might be stopped. It may
be suspected that some partisan of the King’s [Darnley’s] murder was
there. In that torment they held the poor man, till that often he cried
for God’s sake to dispatch him; for he had as meikle gold in his awin
purse as would buy powder enough to shorten his pain. The famous King of
Carrick and his cooks perceiving the roast to be aneuch, commanded it
to be tane fra the fire, and the Earl himself began the grace in this
manner:--‘Benedicite, Jesus Maria, you are the most obstinate man that
ever I saw; gif I had known that ye had been so stubborn, I would not
for a thousand crowns have handled you so; I never did so to man before
you.’ And yet he returned to the same practice within two days, and
ceased not till that he obtained his formost purpose, that is, that
he had got all his pieces subscryvit alsweill as ane half-roasted hand
could do it. The Earl thinking himself sure enough so long as he had
the half-roasted Abbot in his own keeping, and yet being ashamed of his
presence by reason of his former cruelty, left the place of Denure in
the hands of certain of his servants, and the half-roasted Abbot to be
kept there as prisoner. The Laird of Bargany, out of whose company the
said Abbot had been enticed, understanding, (not the extremity,) but
the retaining of the man, sent to the court, and raised letters of
deliverance of the person of the man according to the order, which being
disobeyed, the said Earl for his contempt was denounced rebel, and put
to the horne. But yet hope was there none, neither to the afflicted
to be delivered, neither yet to the purchaser [i.e. procurer] of
the letters to obtain any comfort thereby; for in that time God was
despised, and the lawful authority was contemned in Scotland, in hope
of the sudden return and regiment of that cruel murderer of her awin
husband, of whose lords the said Earl was called one; and yet, oftener
than once, he was solemnly sworn to the King and to his Regent.”

The Journalist then recites the complaint of the injured Allan Stewart,
Commendator of Crossraguel, to the Regent and Privy Council, averring
his having been carried, partly by flattery, partly by force, to the
black vault of Denure, a strong fortalice, built on a rock overhanging
the Irish channel, where to execute leases and conveyances of the whole
churches and parsonages belonging to the Abbey of Crossraguel, which he
utterly refused as an unreasonable demand, and the more so that he had
already conveyed them to John Stewart of Cardonah, by whose interest he
had been made Commendator. The complainant proceeds to state, that he
was, after many menaces, stript, bound, and his limbs exposed to fire
in the manner already described, till, compelled by excess of agony, he
subscribed the charter and leases presented to him, of the contents
of which he was totally ignorant. A few days afterwards, being again
required to execute a ratification of these deeds before a notary and
witnesses, and refusing to do so, he was once more subjected to the same
torture, until his agony was so excessive that he exclaimed, “Fye on
you, why do you not strike your whingers into me, or blow me up with a
barrel of powder, rather than torture me thus unmercifully?” upon which
the Earl commanded Alexander Richard, one of his attendants, to stop the
patient’s mouth with a napkin, which was done accordingly. Thus he was
once more compelled to submit to their tyranny. The petition concluded
with stating, that the Earl, under pretence of the deeds thus
iniquitously obtained, had taken possession of the whole place and
living of Crossraguel, and enjoyed the profits thereof for three years.

The doom of the Regent and Council shows singularly the total
interruption of justice at this calamitous period, even in the most
clamant cases of oppression. The Council declined interference with
the course of the ordinary justice of the county, (which was completely
under the said Earl of Cassilis’ control,) and only enacted, that he
should forbear molestation of the unfortunate Comendator, under the
surety of two thousand pounds Scots. The Earl was appointed also to keep
the peace towards the celebrated George Buchanan, who had a pension out
of the same Abbacy, to a similar extent, and under the like penalty.

The consequences are thus described by the Journalist already quoted.--

“The said Laird of Bargany perceiving that the ordiner justice could
neither help the oppressed, nor yet the afflicted, applied his mind
to the next remedy, and in the end, by his servants, took the house
of Denure, where the poor Abbot was kept prisoner. The bruit flew fra
Carrick to Galloway, and so suddenly assembled herd and hyre-man that
pertained to the band of the Kennedies; and so within a few hours was
the house of Denure environed again. The master of Cassilis was the
frackast [i.e. the readiest or boldest] and would not stay, but in his
heat would lay fire to the dungeon, with no small boasting that all
enemies within the house should die.

“He was required and admonished by those that were within to be more
moderate, and not to hazard himself so foolishly. But no admonition
would help, till that the wind of an hacquebute blasted his shoulder,
and then ceased he from further pursuit in fury. The Laird of Bargany
had before purchest [obtained] of the authorities, letters, charging
all faithfull subjects to the King’s Majesty, to assist him against that
cruel tyrant and mansworn traitor, the Earl of Cassilis; which
letters, with his private writings, he published, and shortly found
sic concurrence of Kyle and Cunynghame with his other friends, that the
Carrick company drew back fra the house: and so the other approached,
furnished the house with more men, delivered the said Mr Allan, and
carried him to Ayr, where, publicly at the market cross of the said
town, he declared how cruelly he was entreated, and how the murdered
King suffered not sic torment as he did, excepting only he escaped the
death: and, therefore, publickly did revoke all things that were done
in that extremity, and especially revoked the subscription of the three
writings, to wit, of a fyve yeir tack and nineteen year tack, and of a
charter of feu. And so the house remained, and remains (till this day,
the 7th of February, 1571,) in the custody of the said Laird of Bargany
and of his servants. And so cruelty was disappointed of proffeit
present, and shall be eternallie punished, unless he earnestly repent.
And this far for the cruelty committed, to give occasion unto others,
and to such as hate the monstrous dealing of degenerate nobility, to
look more diligently upon their behaviuours, and to paint them forth
unto the world, that they themselves may be ashamed of their own
beastliness, and that the world may be advertised and admonished to
abhor, detest, and avoid the company of all sic tyrants, who are not
worthy of the society of men, but ought to be sent suddenly to the
devil, with whom they must burn without end, for their contempt of
God, and cruelty committed against his creatures. Let Cassilis and his
brother be the first to be the example unto others. Amen. Amen.” [62]

This extract has been somewhat amended or modernized in orthography, to
render it more intelligible to the general reader. I have to add, that
the Kennedies of Bargany, who interfered in behalf of the oppressed
Abbot, were themselves a younger branch of the Cassilis family, but
held different politics, and were powerful enough in this, and other
instances, to bid them defiance.

The ultimate issue of this affair does not appear; but as the house of
Cassilis are still in possession of the greater part of the feus and
leases which belonged to Crossraguel Abbey, it is probable the talons
of the King of Carrick were strong enough, in those disorderly times, to
retain the prey which they had so mercilessly fixed upon.

I may also add, that it appears by some papers in my possession, that
the officers or Country Keepers on the border, were accustomed to
torment their prisoners by binding them to the iron bars of their
chimneys, to extort confession.




NOTE TO CHAPTER XXIX

Note F.--Heraldry

The author has been here upbraided with false heraldry, as having
charged metal upon metal. It should be remembered, however, that
heraldry had only its first rude origin during the crusades, and that
all the minutiae of its fantastic science were the work of time, and
introduced at a much later period. Those who think otherwise must
suppose that the Goddess of “Armoirers”, like the Goddess of Arms,
sprung into the world completely equipped in all the gaudy trappings of
the department she presides over.

Additional Note

In corroboration of said note, it may be observed, that the arms, which
were assumed by Godfrey of Boulogne himself, after the conquest of
Jerusalem, was a cross counter patent cantoned with four little crosses
or, upon a field azure, displaying thus metal upon metal. The heralds
have tried to explain this undeniable fact in different modes--but Ferne
gallantly contends, that a prince of Godfrey’s qualities should not be
bound by the ordinary rules. The Scottish Nisbet, and the same Ferne,
insist that the chiefs of the Crusade must have assigned to Godfrey this
extraordinary and unwonted coat-of-arms, in order to induce those who
should behold them to make enquiries; and hence give them the name of
“arma inquirenda”. But with reverence to these grave authorities, it
seems unlikely that the assembled princes of Europe should have adjudged
to Godfrey a coat armorial so much contrary to the general rule, if such
rule had then existed; at any rate, it proves that metal upon metal, now
accounted a solecism in heraldry, was admitted in other cases similar to
that in the text. See Ferne’s “Blazon of Gentrie” p. 238. Edition 1586.
Nisbet’s “Heraldry”, vol. i. p. 113. Second Edition.




NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXI

Note G.--Ulrica’s Death song.

It will readily occur to the antiquary, that these verses are intended
to imitate the antique poetry of the Scalds--the minstrels of the old
Scandinavians--the race, as the Laureate so happily terms them,

     “Stern to inflict, and stubborn to endure,
     Who smiled in death.”

The poetry of the Anglo-Saxons, after their civilisation and conversion,
was of a different and softer character; but in the circumstances
of Ulrica, she may be not unnaturally supposed to return to the wild
strains which animated her forefathers during the time of Paganism and
untamed ferocity.




NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXII

Note H.--Richard Coeur-de-Lion.

The interchange of a cuff with the jolly priest is not entirely out
of character with Richard I., if romances read him aright. In the very
curious romance on the subject of his adventures in the Holy Land, and
his return from thence, it is recorded how he exchanged a pugilistic
favour of this nature, while a prisoner in Germany. His opponent was
the son of his principal warder, and was so imprudent as to give the
challenge to this barter of buffets. The King stood forth like a true
man, and received a blow which staggered him. In requital, having
previously waxed his hand, a practice unknown, I believe, to the
gentlemen of the modern fancy, he returned the box on the ear with
such interest as to kill his antagonist on the spot.--See, in Ellis’s
Specimens of English Romance, that of Coeur-de-Lion.




NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXIII

Note I.--Hedge-Priests.

It is curious to observe, that in every state of society, some sort of
ghostly consolation is provided for the members of the community, though
assembled for purposes diametrically opposite to religion. A gang of
beggars have their Patrico, and the banditti of the Apennines have among
them persons acting as monks and priests, by whom they are confessed,
and who perform mass before them. Unquestionably, such reverend persons,
in such a society, must accommodate their manners and their morals to
the community in which they live; and if they can occasionally obtain
a degree of reverence for their supposed spiritual gifts, are, on most
occasions, loaded with unmerciful ridicule, as possessing a character
inconsistent with all around them.

Hence the fighting parson in the old play of Sir John Oldcastle, and the
famous friar of Robin Hood’s band. Nor were such characters ideal. There
exists a monition of the Bishop of Durham against irregular churchmen
of this class, who associated themselves with Border robbers, and
desecrated the holiest offices of the priestly function, by celebrating
them for the benefit of thieves, robbers, and murderers, amongst ruins
and in caverns of the earth, without regard to canonical form, and with
torn and dirty attire, and maimed rites, altogether improper for the
occasion.




NOTE TO CHAPTER XLI.

Note J.--Castle of Coningsburgh.

When I last saw this interesting ruin of ancient days, one of the very
few remaining examples of Saxon fortification, I was strongly impressed
with the desire of tracing out a sort of theory on the subject, which,
from some recent acquaintance with the architecture of the ancient
Scandinavians, seemed to me peculiarly interesting. I was, however,
obliged by circumstances to proceed on my journey, without leisure to
take more than a transient view of Coningsburgh. Yet the idea dwells so
strongly in my mind, that I feel considerably tempted to write a page or
two in detailing at least the outline of my hypothesis, leaving better
antiquaries to correct or refute conclusions which are perhaps too
hastily drawn.

Those who have visited the Zetland Islands, are familiar with the
description of castles called by the inhabitants Burghs; and by the
Highlanders--for they are also to be found both in the Western Isles
and on the mainland--Duns. Pennant has engraved a view of the famous
Dun-Dornadilla in Glenelg; and there are many others, all of them built
after a peculiar mode of architecture, which argues a people in the most
primitive state of society. The most perfect specimen is that upon the
island of Mousa, near to the mainland of Zetland, which is probably in
the same state as when inhabited.

It is a single round tower, the wall curving in slightly, and then
turning outward again in the form of a dice-box, so that the defenders
on the top might the better protect the base. It is formed of rough
stones, selected with care, and laid in courses or circles, with much
compactness, but without cement of any kind. The tower has never, to
appearance, had roofing of any sort; a fire was made in the centre of
the space which it encloses, and originally the building was probably
little more than a wall drawn as a sort of screen around the great
council fire of the tribe. But, although the means or ingenuity of the
builders did not extend so far as to provide a roof, they supplied the
want by constructing apartments in the interior of the walls of the
tower itself. The circumvallation formed a double enclosure, the inner
side of which was, in fact, two feet or three feet distant from the
other, and connected by a concentric range of long flat stones, thus
forming a series of concentric rings or stories of various heights,
rising to the top of the tower. Each of these stories or galleries has
four windows, facing directly to the points of the compass, and rising
of course regularly above each other. These four perpendicular ranges
of windows admitted air, and, the fire being kindled, heat, or smoke at
least, to each of the galleries. The access from gallery to gallery is
equally primitive. A path, on the principle of an inclined plane, turns
round and round the building like a screw, and gives access to the
different stories, intersecting each of them in its turn, and thus
gradually rising to the top of the wall of the tower. On the outside
there are no windows; and I may add, that an enclosure of a square, or
sometimes a round form, gave the inhabitants of the Burgh an opportunity
to secure any sheep or cattle which they might possess.

Such is the general architecture of that very early period when the
Northmen swept the seas, and brought to their rude houses, such as I
have described them, the plunder of polished nations. In Zetland there
are several scores of these Burghs, occupying in every case, capes,
headlands, islets, and similar places of advantage singularly well
chosen. I remember the remains of one upon an island in a small lake
near Lerwick, which at high tide communicates with the sea, the access
to which is very ingenious, by means of a causeway or dike, about three
or four inches under the surface of the water. This causeway makes a
sharp angle in its approach to the Burgh. The inhabitants, doubtless,
were well acquainted with this, but strangers, who might approach in a
hostile manner, and were ignorant of the curve of the causeway, would
probably plunge into the lake, which is six or seven feet in depth at
the least. This must have been the device of some Vauban or Cohorn of
those early times.

The style of these buildings evinces that the architect possessed
neither the art of using lime or cement of any kind, nor the skill to
throw an arch, construct a roof, or erect a stair; and yet, with all
this ignorance, showed great ingenuity in selecting the situation of
Burghs, and regulating the access to them, as well as neatness and
regularity in the erection, since the buildings themselves show a style
of advance in the arts scarcely consistent with the ignorance of so many
of the principal branches of architectural knowledge.

I have always thought, that one of the most curious and valuable objects
of antiquaries has been to trace the progress of society, by the efforts
made in early ages to improve the rudeness of their first expedients,
until they either approach excellence, or, as is more frequently the
case, are supplied by new and fundamental discoveries, which supersede
both the earlier and ruder system, and the improvements which have been
ingrafted upon it. For example, if we conceive the recent discovery of
gas to be so much improved and adapted to domestic use, as to supersede
all other modes of producing domestic light; we can already suppose,
some centuries afterwards, the heads of a whole Society of Antiquaries
half turned by the discovery of a pair of patent snuffers, and by the
learned theories which would be brought forward to account for the form
and purpose of so singular an implement.

Following some such principle, I am inclined to regard the singular
Castle of Coningsburgh--I mean the Saxon part of it--as a step in
advance from the rude architecture, if it deserves the name, which must
have been common to the Saxons as to other Northmen. The builders had
attained the art of using cement, and of roofing a building,--great
improvements on the original Burgh. But in the round keep, a shape
only seen in the most ancient castles--the chambers excavated in the
thickness of the walls and buttresses--the difficulty by which access is
gained from one story to those above it, Coningsburgh still retains the
simplicity of its origin, and shows by what slow degrees man proceeded
from occupying such rude and inconvenient lodgings, as were afforded
by the galleries of the Castle of Mousa, to the more splendid
accommodations of the Norman castles, with all their stern and Gothic
graces.

I am ignorant if these remarks are new, or if they will be confirmed
by closer examination; but I think, that, on a hasty observation,
Coningsburgh offers means of curious study to those who may wish to
trace the history of architecture back to the times preceding the Norman
Conquest.

It would be highly desirable that a cork model should be taken of the
Castle of Mousa, as it cannot be well understood by a plan.

The Castle of Coningsburgh is thus described:--

“The castle is large, the outer walls standing on a pleasant ascent from
the river, but much overtopt by a high hill, on which the town stands,
situated at the head of a rich and magnificent vale, formed by an
amphitheatre of woody hills, in which flows the gentle Don. Near the
castle is a barrow, said to be Hengist’s tomb. The entrance is flanked
to the left by a round tower, with a sloping base, and there are several
similar in the outer wall the entrance has piers of a gate, and on the
east side the ditch and bank are double and very steep. On the top of
the churchyard wall is a tombstone, on which are cut in high relief, two
ravens, or such-like birds. On the south side of the churchyard lies
an ancient stone, ridged like a coffin, on which is carved a man on
horseback; and another man with a shield encountering a vast winged
serpent, and a man bearing a shield behind him. It was probably one
of the rude crosses not uncommon in churchyards in this county. See it
engraved on the plate of crosses for this volume, plate 14. fig. 1. The
name of Coningsburgh, by which this castle goes in the old editions of
the Britannia, would lead one to suppose it the residence of the Saxon
kings. It afterwards belonged to King Harold. The Conqueror bestowed it
on William de Warren, with all its privileges and jurisdiction, which
are said to have extended over twenty-eight towns. At the corner of the
area, which is of an irregular form, stands the great tower, or keep,
placed on a small hill of its own dimensions, on which lies six vast
projecting buttresses, ascending in a steep direction to prop and
support the building, and continued upwards up the side as turrets. The
tower within forms a complete circle, twenty-one feet in diameter, the
walls fourteen feet thick. The ascent into the tower is by an exceeding
deep flight of steep steps, four feet and a half wide, on the south side
leading to a low doorway, over which is a circular arch crossed by a
great transom stone. Within this door is the staircase which ascends
straight through the thickness of the wall, not communicating with the
room on the first floor, in whose centre is the opening to the dungeon.
Neither of these lower rooms is lighted except from a hole in the floor
of the third story; the room in which, as well as in that above it, is
finished with compact smooth stonework, both having chimney-pieces,
with an arch resting on triple clustered pillars. In the third story,
or guard-chamber, is a small recess with a loop-hole, probably a
bedchamber, and in that floor above a niche for a saint or holy-water
pot. Mr. King imagines this a Saxon castle of the first ages of the
Heptarchy. Mr. Watson thus describes it. From the first floor to the
second story, (third from the ground,) is a way by a stair in the wall
five feet wide. The next staircase is approached by a ladder, and ends
at the fourth story from the ground. Two yards from the door, at the
head of this stair, is an opening nearly east, accessible by treading
on the ledge of the wall, which diminishes eight inches each story; and
this last opening leads into a room or chapel ten feet by twelve, and
fifteen or sixteen high, arched with free-stone, and supported by small
circular columns of the same, the capitals and arches Saxon. It has
an east window, and on each side in the wall, about four feet from the
ground, a stone basin with a hole and iron pipe to convey the water into
or through the wall. This chapel is one of the buttresses, but no sign
of it without, for even the window, though large within, is only a long
narrow loop-hole, scarcely to be seen without. On the left side of this
chapel is a small oratory, eight by six in the thickness of the wall,
with a niche in the wall, and enlightened by a like loop-hole. The
fourth stair from the ground, ten feet west from the chapel door, leads
to the top of the tower through the thickness of the wall, which at top
is but three yards. Each story is about fifteen feet high, so that the
tower will be seventy-five feet from the ground. The inside forms a
circle, whose diameter may be about twelve feet. The well at the bottom
of the dungeon is piled with stones.”--Gough’s “Edition Of Camden’s
Britannia”. Second Edition, vol. iii. p. 267.


************ FOOTNOTES ******************

]

[Footnote 1: The motto alludes to the Author returning to the stage repeatedly
after having taken leave.]

[Footnote 2: This very curious poem, long a desideratum in Scottish literature,
and given up as irrecoverably lost, was lately brought to light by
the researches of Dr Irvine of the Advocates’ Library, and has been
reprinted by Mr David Laing, Edinburgh.]

[Footnote 3: Vol. ii. p. 167.]

[Footnote 4: Like the Hermit, the Shepherd makes havock amongst the King’s game;
but by means of a sling, not of a bow; like the Hermit, too, he has
his peculiar phrases of compotation, the sign and countersign being
Passelodion and Berafriend. One can scarce conceive what humour our
ancestors found in this species of gibberish; but “I warrant it proved
an excuse for the glass.”]

[Footnote 5: The author had revised this posthumous work of Mr Strutt. See
General Preface to the present edition, Vol I. p. 65.]

[Footnote 6: This anticipation proved but too true, as my learned correspondent
did not receive my letter until a twelvemonth after it was written. I
mention this circumstance, that a gentleman attached to the cause of
learning, who now holds the principal control of the post-office, may
consider whether by some mitigation of the present enormous rates,
some favour might not be shown to the correspondents of the principal
Literary and Antiquarian Societies. I understand, indeed, that this
experiment was once tried, but that the mail-coach having broke down
under the weight of packages addressed to members of the Society of
Antiquaries, it was relinquished as a hazardous experiment. Surely,
however it would be possible to build these vehicles in a form more
substantial, stronger in the perch, and broader in the wheels, so as
to support the weight of Antiquarian learning; when, if they should be
found to travel more slowly, they would be not the less agreeable to
quiet travellers like myself.--L. T.]

[Footnote 7: Mr Skene of Rubislaw is here intimated, to whose taste and skill
the author is indebted for a series of etchings, exhibiting the various
localities alluded to in these novels.]

[Footnote 8: Note A. The Ranger of the Forest, that cuts the fore-claws off our
dogs.]

[Footnote 9: Note B. Negro Slaves.]

[Footnote 11: The original has “Cnichts”, by which the Saxons seem to have
designated a class of military attendants, sometimes free, sometimes
bondsmen, but always ranking above an ordinary domestic, whether in the
royal household or in those of the aldermen and thanes. But the term
cnicht, now spelt knight, having been received into the English language
as equivalent to the Norman word chevalier, I have avoided using it in
its more ancient sense, to prevent confusion. L. T.]

[Footnote 12: Pillage.]

[Footnote 13: These were drinks used by the Saxons, as we are informed by Mr
Turner: Morat was made of honey flavoured with the juice of mulberries;
Pigment was a sweet and rich liquor, composed of wine highly spiced, and
sweetened also with honey; the other liquors need no explanation. L. T.]

[Footnote 14: There was no language which the Normans more formally separated
from that of common life than the terms of the chase. The objects of
their pursuit, whether bird or animal, changed their name each year, and
there were a hundred conventional terms, to be ignorant of which was to
be without one of the distinguishing marks of a gentleman. The reader
may consult Dame Juliana Berners’ book on the subject. The origin of
this science was imputed to the celebrated Sir Tristrem, famous for his
tragic intrigue with the beautiful Ysolte. As the Normans reserved the
amusement of hunting strictly to themselves, the terms of this formal
jargon were all taken from the French language.]

[Footnote 15: In those days the Jews were subjected to an Exchequer, specially
dedicated to that purpose, and which laid them under the most exorbitant
impositions.--L. T.]

[Footnote 16: This sort of masquerade is supposed to have occasioned the
introduction of supporters into the science of heraldry.]

[Footnote 17: These lines are part of an unpublished poem, by Coleridge, whose
Muse so often tantalizes with fragments which indicate her powers, while
the manner in which she flings them from her betrays her caprice,
yet whose unfinished sketches display more talent than the laboured
masterpieces of others.]

[Footnote 18: This term of chivalry, transferred to the law, gives the phrase of
being attainted of treason.]

[Footnote 19: Presumption, insolence.]

[Footnote 20: “Beau-seant” was the name of the Templars’ banner, which was half
black, half white, to intimate, it is said, that they were candid and
fair towards Christians, but black and terrible towards infidels.]

[Footnote 21: There was nothing accounted so ignominious among the Saxons as to
merit this disgraceful epithet. Even William the Conqueror, hated as he
was by them, continued to draw a considerable army of Anglo-Saxons to
his standard, by threatening to stigmatize those who staid at home, as
nidering. Bartholinus, I think, mentions a similar phrase which had like
influence on the Danes. L. T.]

[Footnote 22: The Jolly Hermit.--All readers, however slightly acquainted with
black letter, must recognise in the Clerk of Copmanhurst, Friar Tuck,
the buxom Confessor of Robin Hood’s gang, the Curtal Friar of Fountain’s
Abbey.]

[Footnote 23: Note C. Minstrelsy.]

[Footnote 24: It may be proper to remind the reader, that the chorus of “derry
down” is supposed to be as ancient, not only as the times of the
Heptarchy, but as those of the Druids, and to have furnished the chorus
to the hymns of those venerable persons when they went to the wood to
gather mistletoe.]

[Footnote 25: A rere-supper was a night-meal, and sometimes signified a
collation, which was given at a late hour, after the regular supper had
made its appearance. L. T.]

[Footnote 26: Note D. Battle of Stamford.]

[Footnote 27: “Nota Bene.”--We by no means warrant the accuracy of this piece of
natural history, which we give on the authority of the Wardour MS. L. T.]

[Footnote 28: Note E. The range of iron bars above that glowing charcoal]

[Footnote 29: Henry’s Hist. edit. 1805, vol. vii. p..146.]

[Footnote 30: I wish the Prior had also informed them when Niobe was sainted.
Probably during that enlightened period when “Pan to Moses lent his
pagan horn.” L. T.]

[Footnote 31: “Surquedy” and “outrecuidance”--insolence and presumption]

[Footnote 32: Mantelets were temporary and movable defences formed of planks,
under cover of which the assailants advanced to the attack of fortified
places of old. Pavisses were a species of large shields covering the
whole person, employed on the same occasions.]


[Footnote 33: The bolt was the arrow peculiarly fitted to the cross-bow, as that
of the long-bow was called a shaft. Hence the English proverb--“I will
either make a shaft or bolt of it,” signifying a determination to make
one use or other of the thing spoken of.]

[Footnote 34: The arblast was a cross-bow, the windlace the machine used in
bending that weapon, and the quarrell, so called from its square or
diamond-shaped head, was the bolt adapted to it.]

[Footnote 35: Note F. Heraldry]

[Footnote 36: Every Gothic castle and city had, beyond the outer-walls, a
fortification composed of palisades, called the barriers, which were
often the scene of severe skirmishes, as these must necessarily be
carried before the walls themselves could be approached. Many of those
valiant feats of arms which adorn the chivalrous pages of Froissart took
place at the barriers of besieged places.]

[Footnote 37: “Derring-do”--desperate courage.]

[Footnote 38: The author has some idea that this passage is imitated from the
appearance of Philidaspes, before the divine Mandane, when the city of
Babylon is on fire, and he proposes to carry her from the flames. But
the theft, if there be one, would be rather too severely punished by the
penance of searching for the original passage through the interminable
volumes of the Grand Cyrus.]

[Footnote 39: Note G. Ulrica’s Death Song]

[Footnote 40: Thrall and bondsman.]

[Footnote 41: A lawful freeman.]

[Footnote 42: The notes upon the bugle were anciently called mots, and
are distinguished in the old treatises on hunting, not by musical
characters, but by written words.]

[Footnote 421: Note H. Richard Coeur-de-Lion.]

[Footnote 43: A commissary is said to have received similar consolation from a
certain Commander-in-chief, to whom he complained that a general officer
had used some such threat towards him as that in the text.]

[Footnote 44: Borghs, or borrows, signifies pledges. Hence our word to borrow,
because we pledge ourselves to restore what is lent.]

[Footnote 45: “Dortour”, or dormitory.]

[Footnote 46: Note I. Hedge-Priests.]

[Footnote 47: Reginald Fitzurse, William de Tracy, Hugh de Morville, and
Richard Brito, were the gentlemen of Henry the Second’s household, who,
instigated by some passionate expressions of their sovereign, slew the
celebrated Thomas-a-Becket.]

[Footnote 48: The establishments of the Knight Templars were called Preceptories,
and the title of those who presided in the Order was Preceptor; as the
principal Knights of Saint John were termed Commanders, and their
houses Commanderies. But these terms were sometimes, it would seem, used
indiscriminately.]

[Footnote 49: In the ordinances of the Knights of the Temple, this phrase is
repeated in a variety of forms, and occurs in almost every chapter, as
if it were the signal-word of the Order; which may account for its being
so frequently put in the Grand Master’s mouth.]

[Footnote 50: See the 13th chapter of Leviticus.]

[Footnote 51: The edict which he quotes, is against communion with women of light
character.]

[Footnote 53: The reader is again referred to the Rules of the Poor Military
Brotherhood of the Temple, which occur in the Works of St Bernard. L. T.]

[Footnote 54: “Essoine” signifies excuse, and here relates to the appellant’s
privilege of appearing by her champion, in excuse of her own person on
account of her sex.]

[Footnote 55: “Capul”, i.e. horse; in a more limited sense, work-horse.]

[Footnote 56: “Destrier”--war-horse.]

[Footnote 561: From the ballads of Robin Hood, we learn that this * celebrated
outlaw, when in disguise, sometimes assumed * the name of Locksley, from
a village where he was born, * but where situated we are not distinctly
told.]

[Footnote 57: Note J. Castle of Coningsburgh.]

[Footnote 58: The crowth, or crowd, was a species of violin. The rote a sort of
guitar, or rather hurdy-gurdy, the strings of which were managed by a
wheel, from which the instrument took its name.]

[Footnote 581: Infamous.]

[Footnote 59: The resuscitation of Athelstane has been much criticised, as too
violent a breach of probability, even for a work of such fantastic
character. It was a “tour-de-force”, to which the author was compelled
to have recourse, by the vehement entreaties of his friend and printer,
who was inconsolable on the Saxon being conveyed to the tomb.]

[Footnote 60: Dissertation on Romance and Minstrelsy, prefixed to Ritson’s
Ancient Metrical Romances, p. clxxxvii.]

[Footnote 61: A “Tulchan” is a calf’s skin stuffed, and placed before a cow
who has lost its calf, to induce the animal to part with her milk. The
resemblance between such a Tulchan and a Bishop named to transmit
the temporalities of a benefice to some powerful patron, is easily
understood.]

[Footnote 62: Bannatyne’s Journal.]
Ivanhoe - Part 2
