← catalogue

Ivanhoe: A Romance

by Walter Scott · English · Gutenberg #82 · 1,123,030 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ivanhoe: A Romance
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Ivanhoe: A Romance

Author: Walter Scott


        
Release date: June 25, 2008 [eBook #82]
                Most recently updated: June 4, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/82

Credits: John P. Roberts, Jr. and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IVANHOE: A ROMANCE ***

[Illustration]




Ivanhoe

A Romance

by Sir Walter Scott


Contents

 INTRODUCTION TO IVANHOE.
 DEDICATORY EPISTLE

 CHAPTER I.
 CHAPTER II.
 CHAPTER III.
 CHAPTER IV.
 CHAPTER V.
 CHAPTER VI.
 CHAPTER VII.
 CHAPTER VIII.
 CHAPTER IX.
 CHAPTER X.
 CHAPTER XI.
 CHAPTER XII.
 CHAPTER XIII.
 CHAPTER XIV.
 CHAPTER XV.
 CHAPTER XVI.
 CHAPTER XVII.
 CHAPTER XVIII.
 CHAPTER XIX.
 CHAPTER XX.
 CHAPTER XXI.
 CHAPTER XXII.
 CHAPTER XXIII.
 CHAPTER XXIV.
 CHAPTER XXV.
 CHAPTER XXVI.
 CHAPTER XXVII.
 CHAPTER XXVIII.
 CHAPTER XXIX.
 CHAPTER XXX.
 CHAPTER XXXI.
 CHAPTER XXXII.
 CHAPTER XXXIII.
 CHAPTER XXXIV.
 CHAPTER XXXV.
 CHAPTER XXXVI.
 CHAPTER XXXVII.
 CHAPTER XXXVIII.
 CHAPTER XXXIX.
 CHAPTER XL.
 CHAPTER XLI.
 CHAPTER XLII.
 CHAPTER XLIII.
 CHAPTER XLIV.

 NOTE TO CHAPTER I.
 NOTE TO CHAPTER II.
 NOTE TO CHAPTER XVII.
 NOTE TO CHAPTER XXI.
 NOTE TO CHAPTER XXII.
 NOTE TO CHAPTER XXIX.
 NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXI.
 NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXII.
 NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXIII.
 NOTE TO CHAPTER XLI..
 FOOTNOTES

[Illustration]




Now fitted the halter, now traversed the cart,
And often took leave,—but seemed loath to depart! 1
—Prior.




INTRODUCTION TO IVANHOE.


The Author of the Waverley Novels had hitherto proceeded in an unabated
course of popularity, and might, in his peculiar district of
literature, have been termed _L’Enfant Gâté_ of success. It was plain,
however, that frequent publication must finally wear out the public
favour, unless some mode could be devised to give an appearance of
novelty to subsequent productions. Scottish manners, Scottish dialect,
and Scottish characters of note, being those with which the author was
most intimately, and familiarly acquainted, were the groundwork upon
which he had hitherto relied for giving effect to his narrative. It
was, however, obvious, that this kind of interest must in the end
occasion a degree of sameness and repetition, if exclusively resorted
to, and that the reader was likely at length to adopt the language of
Edwin, in Parnell’s Tale:

“‘Reverse the spell,’ he cries,
‘And let it fairly now suffice.
The gambol has been shown.’”


Nothing can be more dangerous for the fame of a professor of the fine
arts, than to permit (if he can possibly prevent it) the character of a
mannerist to be attached to him, or that he should be supposed capable
of success only in a particular and limited style. The public are, in
general, very ready to adopt the opinion, that he who has pleased them
in one peculiar mode of composition, is, by means of that very talent,
rendered incapable of venturing upon other subjects. The effect of this
disinclination, on the part of the public, towards the artificers of
their pleasures, when they attempt to enlarge their means of amusing,
may be seen in the censures usually passed by vulgar criticism upon
actors or artists who venture to change the character of their efforts,
that, in so doing, they may enlarge the scale of their art.

There is some justice in this opinion, as there always is in such as
attain general currency. It may often happen on the stage, that an
actor, by possessing in a preeminent degree the external qualities
necessary to give effect to comedy, may be deprived of the right to
aspire to tragic excellence; and in painting or literary composition,
an artist or poet may be master exclusively of modes of thought, and
powers of expression, which confine him to a single course of subjects.
But much more frequently the same capacity which carries a man to
popularity in one department will obtain for him success in another,
and that must be more particularly the case in literary composition,
than either in acting or painting, because the adventurer in that
department is not impeded in his exertions by any peculiarity of
features, or conformation of person, proper for particular parts, or,
by any peculiar mechanical habits of using the pencil, limited to a
particular class of subjects.

Whether this reasoning be correct or otherwise, the present author
felt, that, in confining himself to subjects purely Scottish, he was
not only likely to weary out the indulgence of his readers, but also
greatly to limit his own power of affording them pleasure. In a highly
polished country, where so much genius is monthly employed in catering
for public amusement, a fresh topic, such as he had himself had the
happiness to light upon, is the untasted spring of the desert;—

“Men bless their stars and call it luxury.”


But when men and horses, cattle, camels, and dromedaries, have poached
the spring into mud, it becomes loathsome to those who at first drank
of it with rapture; and he who had the merit of discovering it, if he
would preserve his reputation with the tribe, must display his talent
by a fresh discovery of untasted fountains.

If the author, who finds himself limited to a particular class of
subjects, endeavours to sustain his reputation by striving to add a
novelty of attraction to themes of the same character which have been
formerly successful under his management, there are manifest reasons
why, after a certain point, he is likely to fail. If the mine be not
wrought out, the strength and capacity of the miner become necessarily
exhausted. If he closely imitates the narratives which he has before
rendered successful, he is doomed to “wonder that they please no more.”
If he struggles to take a different view of the same class of subjects,
he speedily discovers that what is obvious, graceful, and natural, has
been exhausted; and, in order to obtain the indispensable charm of
novelty, he is forced upon caricature, and, to avoid being trite, must
become extravagant.

It is not, perhaps, necessary to enumerate so many reasons why the
author of the Scottish Novels, as they were then exclusively termed,
should be desirous to make an experiment on a subject purely English.
It was his purpose, at the same time, to have rendered the experiment
as complete as possible, by bringing the intended work before the
public as the effort of a new candidate for their favour, in order that
no degree of prejudice, whether favourable or the reverse, might attach
to it, as a new production of the Author of Waverley; but this
intention was afterwards departed from, for reasons to be hereafter
mentioned.

The period of the narrative adopted was the reign of Richard I., not
only as abounding with characters whose very names were sure to attract
general attention, but as affording a striking contrast betwixt the
Saxons, by whom the soil was cultivated, and the Normans, who still
reigned in it as conquerors, reluctant to mix with the vanquished, or
acknowledge themselves of the same stock. The idea of this contrast was
taken from the ingenious and unfortunate Logan’s tragedy of Runnamede,
in which, about the same period of history, the author had seen the
Saxon and Norman barons opposed to each other on different sides of the
stage. He does not recollect that there was any attempt to contrast the
two races in their habits and sentiments; and indeed it was obvious,
that history was violated by introducing the Saxons still existing as a
high-minded and martial race of nobles.

They did, however, survive as a people, and some of the ancient Saxon
families possessed wealth and power, although they were exceptions to
the humble condition of the race in general. It seemed to the author,
that the existence of the two races in the same country, the vanquished
distinguished by their plain, homely, blunt manners, and the free
spirit infused by their ancient institutions and laws; the victors, by
the high spirit of military fame, personal adventure, and whatever
could distinguish them as the Flower of Chivalry, might, intermixed
with other characters belonging to the same time and country, interest
the reader by the contrast, if the author should not fail on his part.

Scotland, however, had been of late used so exclusively as the scene of
what is called Historical Romance, that the preliminary letter of Mr
Laurence Templeton became in some measure necessary. To this, as to an
Introduction, the reader is referred, as expressing the author’s
purpose and opinions in undertaking this species of composition, under
the necessary reservation, that he is far from thinking he has attained
the point at which he aimed.

It is scarcely necessary to add, that there was no idea or wish to pass
off the supposed Mr Templeton as a real person. But a kind of
continuation of the Tales of my Landlord had been recently attempted by
a stranger, and it was supposed this Dedicatory Epistle might pass for
some imitation of the same kind, and thus putting enquirers upon a
false scent, induce them to believe they had before them the work of
some new candidate for their favour.

After a considerable part of the work had been finished and printed,
the Publishers, who pretended to discern in it a germ of popularity,
remonstrated strenuously against its appearing as an absolutely
anonymous production, and contended that it should have the advantage
of being announced as by the Author of Waverley. The author did not
make any obstinate opposition, for he began to be of opinion with Dr
Wheeler, in Miss Edgeworth’s excellent tale of “Maneuvering,” that
“Trick upon Trick” might be too much for the patience of an indulgent
public, and might be reasonably considered as trifling with their
favour.

The book, therefore, appeared as an avowed continuation of the Waverley
Novels; and it would be ungrateful not to acknowledge, that it met with
the same favourable reception as its predecessors.

Such annotations as may be useful to assist the reader in comprehending
the characters of the Jew, the Templar, the Captain of the mercenaries,
or Free Companions, as they were called, and others proper to the
period, are added, but with a sparing hand, since sufficient
information on these subjects is to be found in general history.

An incident in the tale, which had the good fortune to find favour in
the eyes of many readers, is more directly borrowed from the stores of
old romance. I mean the meeting of the King with Friar Tuck at the cell
of that buxom hermit. The general tone of the story belongs to all
ranks and all countries, which emulate each other in describing the
rambles of a disguised sovereign, who, going in search of information
or amusement, into the lower ranks of life, meets with adventures
diverting to the reader or hearer, from the contrast betwixt the
monarch’s outward appearance, and his real character. The Eastern
tale-teller has for his theme the disguised expeditions of Haroun
Alraschid with his faithful attendants, Mesrour and Giafar, through the
midnight streets of Bagdad; and Scottish tradition dwells upon the
similar exploits of James V., distinguished during such excursions by
the travelling name of the Goodman of Ballengeigh, as the Commander of
the Faithful, when he desired to be incognito, was known by that of Il
Bondocani. The French minstrels are not silent on so popular a theme.
There must have been a Norman original of the Scottish metrical romance
of Rauf Colziar, in which Charlemagne is introduced as the unknown
guest of a charcoal-man. 2

It seems to have been the original of other poems of the kind.

In merry England there is no end of popular ballads on this theme. The
poem of John the Reeve, or Steward, mentioned by Bishop Percy, in the
Reliques of English Poetry, 3 is said to have turned on such an
incident; and we have besides, the King and the Tanner of Tamworth, the
King and the Miller of Mansfield, and others on the same topic. But the
peculiar tale of this nature to which the author of Ivanhoe has to
acknowledge an obligation, is more ancient by two centuries than any of
these last mentioned.

It was first communicated to the public in that curious record of
ancient literature, which has been accumulated by the combined
exertions of Sir Egerton Brydges and Mr Hazlewood, in the periodical
work entitled the British Bibliographer. From thence it has been
transferred by the Reverend Charles Henry Hartshorne, M.A., editor of a
very curious volume, entitled “Ancient Metrical Tales, printed chiefly
from original sources, 1829.” Mr Hartshorne gives no other authority
for the present fragment, except the article in the Bibliographer,
where it is entitled the Kyng and the Hermite. A short abstract of its
contents will show its similarity to the meeting of King Richard and
Friar Tuck.

King Edward (we are not told which among the monarchs of that name,
but, from his temper and habits, we may suppose Edward IV.) sets forth
with his court to a gallant hunting-match in Sherwood Forest, in which,
as is not unusual for princes in romance, he falls in with a deer of
extraordinary size and swiftness, and pursues it closely, till he has
outstripped his whole retinue, tired out hounds and horse, and finds
himself alone under the gloom of an extensive forest, upon which night
is descending. Under the apprehensions natural to a situation so
uncomfortable, the king recollects that he has heard how poor men, when
apprehensive of a bad nights lodging, pray to Saint Julian, who, in the
Romish calendar, stands Quarter-Master-General to all forlorn
travellers that render him due homage. Edward puts up his orisons
accordingly, and by the guidance, doubtless, of the good Saint, reaches
a small path, conducting him to a chapel in the forest, having a
hermit’s cell in its close vicinity. The King hears the reverend man,
with a companion of his solitude, telling his beads within, and meekly
requests of him quarters for the night. “I have no accommodation for
such a lord as ye be,” said the Hermit. “I live here in the wilderness
upon roots and rinds, and may not receive into my dwelling even the
poorest wretch that lives, unless it were to save his life.” The King
enquires the way to the next town, and, understanding it is by a road
which he cannot find without difficulty, even if he had daylight to
befriend him, he declares, that with or without the Hermit’s consent,
he is determined to be his guest that night. He is admitted
accordingly, not without a hint from the Recluse, that were he himself
out of his priestly weeds, he would care little for his threats of
using violence, and that he gives way to him not out of intimidation,
but simply to avoid scandal.

The King is admitted into the cell—two bundles of straw are shaken down
for his accommodation, and he comforts himself that he is now under
shelter, and that

“A night will soon be gone.”


Other wants, however, arise. The guest becomes clamorous for supper,
observing,

“For certainly, as I you say,
I ne had never so sorry a day,
    That I ne had a merry night.”


But this indication of his taste for good cheer, joined to the
annunciation of his being a follower of the Court, who had lost himself
at the great hunting-match, cannot induce the niggard Hermit to produce
better fare than bread and cheese, for which his guest showed little
appetite; and “thin drink,” which was even less acceptable. At length
the King presses his host on a point to which he had more than once
alluded, without obtaining a satisfactory reply:

“Then said the King, ‘by God’s grace,
Thou wert in a merry place,
    To shoot should thou here
When the foresters go to rest,
Sometyme thou might have of the best,
    All of the wild deer;
I wold hold it for no scathe,
Though thou hadst bow and arrows baith,
    Althoff thou best a Frere.’”


The Hermit, in return, expresses his apprehension that his guest means
to drag him into some confession of offence against the forest laws,
which, being betrayed to the King, might cost him his life. Edward
answers by fresh assurances of secrecy, and again urges on him the
necessity of procuring some venison. The Hermit replies, by once more
insisting on the duties incumbent upon him as a churchman, and
continues to affirm himself free from all such breaches of order:

“Many day I have here been,
And flesh-meat I eat never,
    But milk of the kye;
Warm thee well, and go to sleep,
And I will lap thee with my cope,
    Softly to lye.”


It would seem that the manuscript is here imperfect, for we do not find
the reasons which finally induce the curtal Friar to amend the King’s
cheer. But acknowledging his guest to be such a “good fellow” as has
seldom graced his board, the holy man at length produces the best his
cell affords. Two candles are placed on a table, white bread and baked
pasties are displayed by the light, besides choice of venison, both
salt and fresh, from which they select collops. “I might have eaten my
bread dry,” said the King, “had I not pressed thee on the score of
archery, but now have I dined like a prince—if we had but drink enow.”

This too is afforded by the hospitable anchorite, who dispatches an
assistant to fetch a pot of four gallons from a secret corner near his
bed, and the whole three set in to serious drinking. This amusement is
superintended by the Friar, according to the recurrence of certain
fustian words, to be repeated by every compotator in turn before he
drank—a species of High Jinks, as it were, by which they regulated
their potations, as toasts were given in latter times. The one toper
says “fusty bandias”, to which the other is obliged to reply, “strike
pantnere”, and the Friar passes many jests on the King’s want of
memory, who sometimes forgets the words of action. The night is spent
in this jolly pastime. Before his departure in the morning, the King
invites his reverend host to Court, promises, at least, to requite his
hospitality, and expresses himself much pleased with his entertainment.
The jolly Hermit at length agrees to venture thither, and to enquire
for Jack Fletcher, which is the name assumed by the King. After the
Hermit has shown Edward some feats of archery, the joyous pair
separate. The King rides home, and rejoins his retinue. As the romance
is imperfect, we are not acquainted how the discovery takes place; but
it is probably much in the same manner as in other narratives turning
on the same subject, where the host, apprehensive of death for having
trespassed on the respect due to his Sovereign, while incognito, is
agreeably surprised by receiving honours and reward.

In Mr Hartshorne’s collection, there is a romance on the same
foundation, called King Edward and the Shepherd,4 which, considered as
illustrating manners, is still more curious than the King and the
Hermit; but it is foreign to the present purpose. The reader has here
the original legend from which the incident in the romance is derived;
and the identifying the irregular Eremite with the Friar Tuck of Robin
Hood’s story, was an obvious expedient.

The name of Ivanhoe was suggested by an old rhyme. All novelists have
had occasion at some time or other to wish with Falstaff, that they
knew where a commodity of good names was to be had. On such an occasion
the author chanced to call to memory a rhyme recording three names of
the manors forfeited by the ancestor of the celebrated Hampden, for
striking the Black Prince a blow with his racket, when they quarrelled
at tennis:

“Tring, Wing, and Ivanhoe,
For striking of a blow,
Hampden did forego,
And glad he could escape so.”


The word suited the author’s purpose in two material respects,—for,
first, it had an ancient English sound; and secondly, it conveyed no
indication whatever of the nature of the story. He presumes to hold
this last quality to be of no small importance. What is called a taking
title, serves the direct interest of the bookseller or publisher, who
by this means sometimes sells an edition while it is yet passing the
press. But if the author permits an over degree of attention to be
drawn to his work ere it has appeared, he places himself in the
embarrassing condition of having excited a degree of expectation which,
if he proves unable to satisfy, is an error fatal to his literary
reputation. Besides, when we meet such a title as the Gunpowder Plot,
or any other connected with general history, each reader, before he has
seen the book, has formed to himself some particular idea of the sort
of manner in which the story is to be conducted, and the nature of the
amusement which he is to derive from it. In this he is probably
disappointed, and in that case may be naturally disposed to visit upon
the author or the work, the unpleasant feelings thus excited. In such a
case the literary adventurer is censured, not for having missed the
mark at which he himself aimed, but for not having shot off his shaft
in a direction he never thought of.

On the footing of unreserved communication which the Author has
established with the reader, he may here add the trifling circumstance,
that a roll of Norman warriors, occurring in the Auchinleck Manuscript,
gave him the formidable name of Front-de-Bœuf.

Ivanhoe was highly successful upon its appearance, and may be said to
have procured for its author the freedom of the Rules, since he has
ever since been permitted to exercise his powers of fictitious
composition in England, as well as Scotland.

The character of the fair Jewess found so much favour in the eyes of
some fair readers, that the writer was censured, because, when
arranging the fates of the characters of the drama, he had not assigned
the hand of Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than the less interesting
Rowena. But, not to mention that the prejudices of the age rendered
such an union almost impossible, the author may, in passing, observe,
that he thinks a character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp, is
degraded rather than exalted by an attempt to reward virtue with
temporal prosperity. Such is not the recompense which Providence has
deemed worthy of suffering merit, and it is a dangerous and fatal
doctrine to teach young persons, the most common readers of romance,
that rectitude of conduct and of principle are either naturally allied
with, or adequately rewarded by, the gratification of our passions, or
attainment of our wishes. In a word, if a virtuous and self-denied
character is dismissed with temporal wealth, greatness, rank, or the
indulgence of such a rashly formed or ill assorted passion as that of
Rebecca for Ivanhoe, the reader will be apt to say, verily Virtue has
had its reward. But a glance on the great picture of life will show,
that the duties of self-denial, and the sacrifice of passion to
principle, are seldom thus remunerated; and that the internal
consciousness of their high-minded discharge of duty, produces on their
own reflections a more adequate recompense, in the form of that peace
which the world cannot give or take away.

Abbotsford, 1_st September_, 1830.




DEDICATORY EPISTLE


TO
THE REV. DR DRYASDUST, F.A.S.
Residing in the Castle-Gate, York.

Much esteemed and dear Sir,

It is scarcely necessary to mention the various and concurring reasons
which induce me to place your name at the head of the following work.
Yet the chief of these reasons may perhaps be refuted by the
imperfections of the performance. Could I have hoped to render it
worthy of your patronage, the public would at once have seen the
propriety of inscribing a work designed to illustrate the domestic
antiquities of England, and particularly of our Saxon forefathers, to
the learned author of the Essays upon the Horn of King Ulphus, and on
the Lands bestowed by him upon the patrimony of St Peter. I am
conscious, however, that the slight, unsatisfactory, and trivial
manner, in which the result of my antiquarian researches has been
recorded in the following pages, takes the work from under that class
which bears the proud motto, “Detur digniori”. On the contrary, I fear
I shall incur the censure of presumption in placing the venerable name
of Dr Jonas Dryasdust at the head of a publication, which the more
grave antiquary will perhaps class with the idle novels and romances of
the day. I am anxious to vindicate myself from such a charge; for
although I might trust to your friendship for an apology in your eyes,
yet I would not willingly stand conviction in those of the public of so
grave a crime, as my fears lead me to anticipate my being charged with.

I must therefore remind you, that when we first talked over together
that class of productions, in one of which the private and family
affairs of your learned northern friend, Mr Oldbuck of Monkbarns, were
so unjustifiably exposed to the public, some discussion occurred
between us concerning the cause of the popularity these works have
attained in this idle age, which, whatever other merit they possess,
must be admitted to be hastily written, and in violation of every rule
assigned to the epopeia. It seemed then to be your opinion, that the
charm lay entirely in the art with which the unknown author had availed
himself, like a second M’Pherson, of the antiquarian stores which lay
scattered around him, supplying his own indolence or poverty of
invention, by the incidents which had actually taken place in his
country at no distant period, by introducing real characters, and
scarcely suppressing real names. It was not above sixty or seventy
years, you observed, since the whole north of Scotland was under a
state of government nearly as simple and as patriarchal as those of our
good allies the Mohawks and Iroquois. Admitting that the author cannot
himself be supposed to have witnessed those times, he must have lived,
you observed, among persons who had acted and suffered in them; and
even within these thirty years, such an infinite change has taken place
in the manners of Scotland, that men look back upon the habits of
society proper to their immediate ancestors, as we do on those of the
reign of Queen Anne, or even the period of the Revolution. Having thus
materials of every kind lying strewed around him, there was little, you
observed, to embarrass the author, but the difficulty of choice. It was
no wonder, therefore, that, having begun to work a mine so plentiful,
he should have derived from his works fully more credit and profit than
the facility of his labours merited.

Admitting (as I could not deny) the general truth of these conclusions,
I cannot but think it strange that no attempt has been made to excite
an interest for the traditions and manners of Old England, similiar to
that which has been obtained in behalf of those of our poorer and less
celebrated neighbours. The Kendal green, though its date is more
ancient, ought surely to be as dear to our feelings, as the variegated
tartans of the north. The name of Robin Hood, if duly conjured with,
should raise a spirit as soon as that of Rob Roy; and the patriots of
England deserve no less their renown in our modern circles, than the
Bruces and Wallaces of Caledonia. If the scenery of the south be less
romantic and sublime than that of the northern mountains, it must be
allowed to possess in the same proportion superior softness and beauty;
and upon the whole, we feel ourselves entitled to exclaim with the
patriotic Syrian—“Are not Pharphar and Abana, rivers of Damascus,
better than all the rivers of Israel?”

Your objections to such an attempt, my dear Doctor, were, you may
remember, two-fold. You insisted upon the advantages which the Scotsman
possessed, from the very recent existence of that state of society in
which his scene was to be laid. Many now alive, you remarked, well
remembered persons who had not only seen the celebrated Roy M’Gregor,
but had feasted, and even fought with him. All those minute
circumstances belonging to private life and domestic character, all
that gives verisimilitude to a narrative, and individuality to the
persons introduced, is still known and remembered in Scotland; whereas
in England, civilisation has been so long complete, that our ideas of
our ancestors are only to be gleaned from musty records and chronicles,
the authors of which seem perversely to have conspired to suppress in
their narratives all interesting details, in order to find room for
flowers of monkish eloquence, or trite reflections upon morals. To
match an English and a Scottish author in the rival task of embodying
and reviving the traditions of their respective countries, would be,
you alleged, in the highest degree unequal and unjust. The Scottish
magician, you said, was, like Lucan’s witch, at liberty to walk over
the recent field of battle, and to select for the subject of
resuscitation by his sorceries, a body whose limbs had recently
quivered with existence, and whose throat had but just uttered the last
note of agony. Such a subject even the powerful Erictho was compelled
to select, as alone capable of being reanimated even by “her” potent
magic—

——gelidas leto scrutata medullas,
Pulmonis rigidi stantes sine vulnere fibras
Invenit, et vocem defuncto in corpore quaerit.


The English author, on the other hand, without supposing him less of a
conjuror than the Northern Warlock, can, you observed, only have the
liberty of selecting his subject amidst the dust of antiquity, where
nothing was to be found but dry, sapless, mouldering, and disjointed
bones, such as those which filled the valley of Jehoshaphat. You
expressed, besides, your apprehension, that the unpatriotic prejudices
of my countrymen would not allow fair play to such a work as that of
which I endeavoured to demonstrate the probable success. And this, you
said, was not entirely owing to the more general prejudice in favour of
that which is foreign, but that it rested partly upon improbabilities,
arising out of the circumstances in which the English reader is placed.
If you describe to him a set of wild manners, and a state of primitive
society existing in the Highlands of Scotland, he is much disposed to
acquiesce in the truth of what is asserted. And reason good. If he be
of the ordinary class of readers, he has either never seen those remote
districts at all, or he has wandered through those desolate regions in
the course of a summer tour, eating bad dinners, sleeping on truckle
beds, stalking from desolation to desolation, and fully prepared to
believe the strangest things that could be told him of a people, wild
and extravagant enough to be attached to scenery so extraordinary. But
the same worthy person, when placed in his own snug parlour, and
surrounded by all the comforts of an Englishman’s fireside, is not half
so much disposed to believe that his own ancestors led a very different
life from himself; that the shattered tower, which now forms a vista
from his window, once held a baron who would have hung him up at his
own door without any form of trial; that the hinds, by whom his little
pet-farm is managed, a few centuries ago would have been his slaves;
and that the complete influence of feudal tyranny once extended over
the neighbouring village, where the attorney is now a man of more
importance than the lord of the manor.

While I own the force of these objections, I must confess, at the same
time, that they do not appear to me to be altogether insurmountable.
The scantiness of materials is indeed a formidable difficulty; but no
one knows better than Dr Dryasdust, that to those deeply read in
antiquity, hints concerning the private life of our ancestors lie
scattered through the pages of our various historians, bearing, indeed,
a slender proportion to the other matters of which they treat, but
still, when collected together, sufficient to throw considerable light
upon the _vie privée_ of our forefathers; indeed, I am convinced, that
however I myself may fail in the ensuing attempt, yet, with more labour
in collecting, or more skill in using, the materials within his reach,
illustrated as they have been by the labours of Dr Henry, of the late
Mr Strutt, and, above all, of Mr Sharon Turner, an abler hand would
have been successful; and therefore I protest, beforehand, against any
argument which may be founded on the failure of the present experiment.

On the other hand, I have already said, that if any thing like a true
picture of old English manners could be drawn, I would trust to the
good-nature and good sense of my countrymen for insuring its favourable
reception.

Having thus replied, to the best of my power, to the first class of
your objections, or at least having shown my resolution to overleap the
barriers which your prudence has raised, I will be brief in noticing
that which is more peculiar to myself. It seems to be your opinion,
that the very office of an antiquary, employed in grave, and, as the
vulgar will sometimes allege, in toilsome and minute research, must be
considered as incapacitating him from successfully compounding a tale
of this sort. But permit me to say, my dear Doctor, that this objection
is rather formal than substantial. It is true, that such slight
compositions might not suit the severer genius of our friend Mr
Oldbuck. Yet Horace Walpole wrote a goblin tale which has thrilled
through many a bosom; and George Ellis could transfer all the playful
fascination of a humour, as delightful as it was uncommon, into his
Abridgement of the Ancient Metrical Romances. So that, however I may
have occasion to rue my present audacity, I have at least the most
respectable precedents in my favour.

Still the severer antiquary may think, that, by thus intermingling
fiction with truth, I am polluting the well of history with modern
inventions, and impressing upon the rising generation false ideas of
the age which I describe. I cannot but in some sense admit the force of
this reasoning, which I yet hope to traverse by the following
considerations.

It is true, that I neither can, nor do pretend, to the observation of
complete accuracy, even in matters of outward costume, much less in the
more important points of language and manners. But the same motive
which prevents my writing the dialogue of the piece in Anglo-Saxon or
in Norman-French, and which prohibits my sending forth to the public
this essay printed with the types of Caxton or Wynken de Worde,
prevents my attempting to confine myself within the limits of the
period in which my story is laid. It is necessary, for exciting
interest of any kind, that the subject assumed should be, as it were,
translated into the manners, as well as the language, of the age we
live in. No fascination has ever been attached to Oriental literature,
equal to that produced by Mr Galland’s first translation of the Arabian
Tales; in which, retaining on the one hand the splendour of Eastern
costume, and on the other the wildness of Eastern fiction, he mixed
these with just so much ordinary feeling and expression, as rendered
them interesting and intelligible, while he abridged the long-winded
narratives, curtailed the monotonous reflections, and rejected the
endless repetitions of the Arabian original. The tales, therefore,
though less purely Oriental than in their first concoction, were
eminently better fitted for the European market, and obtained an
unrivalled degree of public favour, which they certainly would never
have gained had not the manners and style been in some degree
familiarized to the feelings and habits of the western reader.

In point of justice, therefore, to the multitudes who will, I trust,
devour this book with avidity, I have so far explained our ancient
manners in modern language, and so far detailed the characters and
sentiments of my persons, that the modern reader will not find himself,
I should hope, much trammelled by the repulsive dryness of mere
antiquity. In this, I respectfully contend, I have in no respect
exceeded the fair license due to the author of a fictitious
composition. The late ingenious Mr Strutt, in his romance of
Queen-Hoo-Hall, 5 acted upon another principle; and in distinguishing
between what was ancient and modern, forgot, as it appears to me, that
extensive neutral ground, the large proportion, that is, of manners and
sentiments which are common to us and to our ancestors, having been
handed down unaltered from them to us, or which, arising out of the
principles of our common nature, must have existed alike in either
state of society. In this manner, a man of talent, and of great
antiquarian erudition, limited the popularity of his work, by excluding
from it every thing which was not sufficiently obsolete to be
altogether forgotten and unintelligible.

The license which I would here vindicate, is so necessary to the
execution of my plan, that I will crave your patience while I
illustrate my argument a little farther.

He who first opens Chaucer, or any other ancient poet, is so much
struck with the obsolete spelling, multiplied consonants, and
antiquated appearance of the language, that he is apt to lay the work
down in despair, as encrusted too deep with the rust of antiquity, to
permit his judging of its merits or tasting its beauties. But if some
intelligent and accomplished friend points out to him, that the
difficulties by which he is startled are more in appearance than
reality, if, by reading aloud to him, or by reducing the ordinary words
to the modern orthography, he satisfies his proselyte that only about
one-tenth part of the words employed are in fact obsolete, the novice
may be easily persuaded to approach the “well of English undefiled,”
with the certainty that a slender degree of patience will enable him to
to enjoy both the humour and the pathos with which old Geoffrey
delighted the age of Cressy and of Poictiers.

To pursue this a little farther. If our neophyte, strong in the
new-born love of antiquity, were to undertake to imitate what he had
learnt to admire, it must be allowed he would act very injudiciously,
if he were to select from the Glossary the obsolete words which it
contains, and employ those exclusively of all phrases and vocables
retained in modern days. This was the error of the unfortunate
Chatterton. In order to give his language the appearance of antiquity,
he rejected every word that was modern, and produced a dialect entirely
different from any that had ever been spoken in Great Britain. He who
would imitate an ancient language with success, must attend rather to
its grammatical character, turn of expression, and mode of arrangement,
than labour to collect extraordinary and antiquated terms, which, as I
have already averred, do not in ancient authors approach the number of
words still in use, though perhaps somewhat altered in sense and
spelling, in the proportion of one to ten.

What I have applied to language, is still more justly applicable to
sentiments and manners. The passions, the sources from which these must
spring in all their modifications, are generally the same in all ranks
and conditions, all countries and ages; and it follows, as a matter of
course, that the opinions, habits of thinking, and actions, however
influenced by the peculiar state of society, must still, upon the
whole, bear a strong resemblance to each other. Our ancestors were not
more distinct from us, surely, than Jews are from Christians; they had
“eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions;” were
“fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the
same diseases, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer,” as
ourselves. The tenor, therefore, of their affections and feelings, must
have borne the same general proportion to our own.

It follows, therefore, that of the materials which an author has to use
in a romance, or fictitious composition, such as I have ventured to
attempt, he will find that a great proportion, both of language and
manners, is as proper to the present time as to those in which he has
laid his time of action. The freedom of choice which this allows him,
is therefore much greater, and the difficulty of his task much more
diminished, than at first appears. To take an illustration from a
sister art, the antiquarian details may be said to represent the
peculiar features of a landscape under delineation of the pencil. His
feudal tower must arise in due majesty; the figures which he introduces
must have the costume and character of their age; the piece must
represent the peculiar features of the scene which he has chosen for
his subject, with all its appropriate elevation of rock, or precipitate
descent of cataract. His general colouring, too, must be copied from
Nature: The sky must be clouded or serene, according to the climate,
and the general tints must be those which prevail in a natural
landscape. So far the painter is bound down by the rules of his art, to
a precise imitation of the features of Nature; but it is not required
that he should descend to copy all her more minute features, or
represent with absolute exactness the very herbs, flowers, and trees,
with which the spot is decorated. These, as well as all the more minute
points of light and shadow, are attributes proper to scenery in
general, natural to each situation, and subject to the artist’s
disposal, as his taste or pleasure may dictate.

It is true, that this license is confined in either case within
legitimate bounds. The painter must introduce no ornament inconsistent
with the climate or country of his landscape; he must not plant cypress
trees upon Inch-Merrin, or Scottish firs among the ruins of Persepolis;
and the author lies under a corresponding restraint. However far he may
venture in a more full detail of passions and feelings, than is to be
found in the ancient compositions which he imitates, he must introduce
nothing inconsistent with the manners of the age; his knights, squires,
grooms, and yeomen, may be more fully drawn than in the hard, dry
delineations of an ancient illuminated manuscript, but the character
and costume of the age must remain inviolate; they must be the same
figures, drawn by a better pencil, or, to speak more modestly, executed
in an age when the principles of art were better understood. His
language must not be exclusively obsolete and unintelligible; but he
should admit, if possible, no word or turn of phraseology betraying an
origin directly modern. It is one thing to make use of the language and
sentiments which are common to ourselves and our forefathers, and it is
another to invest them with the sentiments and dialect exclusively
proper to their descendants.

This, my dear friend, I have found the most difficult part of my task;
and, to speak frankly, I hardly expect to satisfy your less partial
judgment, and more extensive knowledge of such subjects, since I have
hardly been able to please my own.

I am conscious that I shall be found still more faulty in the tone of
keeping and costume, by those who may be disposed rigidly to examine my
Tale, with reference to the manners of the exact period in which my
actors flourished: It may be, that I have introduced little which can
positively be termed modern; but, on the other hand, it is extremely
probable that I may have confused the manners of two or three
centuries, and introduced, during the reign of Richard the First,
circumstances appropriated to a period either considerably earlier, or
a good deal later than that era. It is my comfort, that errors of this
kind will escape the general class of readers, and that I may share in
the ill-deserved applause of those architects, who, in their modern
Gothic, do not hesitate to introduce, without rule or method, ornaments
proper to different styles and to different periods of the art. Those
whose extensive researches have given them the means of judging my
backslidings with more severity, will probably be lenient in proportion
to their knowledge of the difficulty of my task. My honest and
neglected friend, Ingulphus, has furnished me with many a valuable
hint; but the light afforded by the Monk of Croydon, and Geoffrey de
Vinsauff, is dimmed by such a conglomeration of uninteresting and
unintelligible matter, that we gladly fly for relief to the delightful
pages of the gallant Froissart, although he flourished at a period so
much more remote from the date of my history. If, therefore, my dear
friend, you have generosity enough to pardon the presumptuous attempt,
to frame for myself a minstrel coronet, partly out of the pearls of
pure antiquity, and partly from the Bristol stones and paste, with
which I have endeavoured to imitate them, I am convinced your opinion
of the difficulty of the task will reconcile you to the imperfect
manner of its execution.

Of my materials I have but little to say. They may be chiefly found in
the singular Anglo-Norman MS., which Sir Arthur Wardour preserves with
such jealous care in the third drawer of his oaken cabinet, scarcely
allowing any one to touch it, and being himself not able to read one
syllable of its contents. I should never have got his consent, on my
visit to Scotland, to read in those precious pages for so many hours,
had I not promised to designate it by some emphatic mode of printing,
as {The Wardour Manuscript}; giving it, thereby, an individuality as
important as the Bannatyne MS., the Auchinleck MS., and any other
monument of the patience of a Gothic scrivener. I have sent, for your
private consideration, a list of the contents of this curious piece,
which I shall perhaps subjoin, with your approbation, to the third
volume of my Tale, in case the printer’s devil should continue
impatient for copy, when the whole of my narrative has been imposed.

Adieu, my dear friend; I have said enough to explain, if not to
vindicate, the attempt which I have made, and which, in spite of your
doubts, and my own incapacity, I am still willing to believe has not
been altogether made in vain.

I hope you are now well recovered from your spring fit of the gout, and
shall be happy if the advice of your learned physician should recommend
a tour to these parts. Several curiosities have been lately dug up near
the wall, as well as at the ancient station of Habitancum. Talking of
the latter, I suppose you have long since heard the news, that a sulky
churlish boor has destroyed the ancient statue, or rather bas-relief,
popularly called Robin of Redesdale. It seems Robin’s fame attracted
more visitants than was consistent with the growth of the heather, upon
a moor worth a shilling an acre. Reverend as you write yourself, be
revengeful for once, and pray with me that he may be visited with such
a fit of the stone, as if he had all the fragments of poor Robin in
that region of his viscera where the disease holds its seat. Tell this
not in Gath, lest the Scots rejoice that they have at length found a
parallel instance among their neighbours, to that barbarous deed which
demolished Arthur’s Oven. But there is no end to lamentation, when we
betake ourselves to such subjects. My respectful compliments attend
Miss Dryasdust; I endeavoured to match the spectacles agreeable to her
commission, during my late journey to London, and hope she has received
them safe, and found them satisfactory. I send this by the blind
carrier, so that probably it may be some time upon its journey. 6

The last news which I hear from Edinburgh is, that the gentleman who
fills the situation of Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland, 7 is the best amateur draftsman in that kingdom, and that
much is expected from his skill and zeal in delineating those specimens
of national antiquity, which are either mouldering under the slow touch
of time, or swept away by modern taste, with the same besom of
destruction which John Knox used at the Reformation. Once more adieu;
“vale tandem, non immemor mei”. Believe me to be,

Reverend, and very dear Sir,

Your most faithful humble Servant.

Laurence Templeton.

Toppingwold, near Egremont, Cumberland, Nov. 17, 1817.




IVANHOE.




CHAPTER I


Thus communed these; while to their lowly dome,
The full-fed swine return’d with evening home;
Compell’d, reluctant, to the several sties,
With din obstreperous, and ungrateful cries.


POPE’S ODYSSEY


In that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the
river Don, there extended in ancient times a large forest, covering the
greater part of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between
Sheffield and the pleasant town of Doncaster. The remains of this
extensive wood are still to be seen at the noble seats of Wentworth, of
Warncliffe Park, and around Rotherham. Here haunted of yore the
fabulous Dragon of Wantley; here were fought many of the most desperate
battles during the Civil Wars of the Roses; and here also flourished in
ancient times those bands of gallant outlaws, whose deeds have been
rendered so popular in English song.

Such being our chief scene, the date of our story refers to a period
towards the end of the reign of Richard I., when his return from his
long captivity had become an event rather wished than hoped for by his
despairing subjects, who were in the meantime subjected to every
species of subordinate oppression. The nobles, whose power had become
exorbitant during the reign of Stephen, and whom the prudence of Henry
the Second had scarce reduced to some degree of subjection to the
crown, had now resumed their ancient license in its utmost extent;
despising the feeble interference of the English Council of State,
fortifying their castles, increasing the number of their dependants,
reducing all around them to a state of vassalage, and striving by every
means in their power, to place themselves each at the head of such
forces as might enable him to make a figure in the national convulsions
which appeared to be impending.

The situation of the inferior gentry, or Franklins, as they were
called, who, by the law and spirit of the English constitution, were
entitled to hold themselves independent of feudal tyranny, became now
unusually precarious. If, as was most generally the case, they placed
themselves under the protection of any of the petty kings in their
vicinity, accepted of feudal offices in his household, or bound
themselves by mutual treaties of alliance and protection, to support
him in his enterprises, they might indeed purchase temporary repose;
but it must be with the sacrifice of that independence which was so
dear to every English bosom, and at the certain hazard of being
involved as a party in whatever rash expedition the ambition of their
protector might lead him to undertake. On the other hand, such and so
multiplied were the means of vexation and oppression possessed by the
great Barons, that they never wanted the pretext, and seldom the will,
to harass and pursue, even to the very edge of destruction, any of
their less powerful neighbours, who attempted to separate themselves
from their authority, and to trust for their protection, during the
dangers of the times, to their own inoffensive conduct, and to the laws
of the land.

A circumstance which greatly tended to enhance the tyranny of the
nobility, and the sufferings of the inferior classes, arose from the
consequences of the Conquest by Duke William of Normandy. Four
generations had not sufficed to blend the hostile blood of the Normans
and Anglo-Saxons, or to unite, by common language and mutual interests,
two hostile races, one of which still felt the elation of triumph,
while the other groaned under all the consequences of defeat. The power
had been completely placed in the hands of the Norman nobility, by the
event of the battle of Hastings, and it had been used, as our histories
assure us, with no moderate hand. The whole race of Saxon princes and
nobles had been extirpated or disinherited, with few or no exceptions;
nor were the numbers great who possessed land in the country of their
fathers, even as proprietors of the second, or of yet inferior classes.
The royal policy had long been to weaken, by every means, legal or
illegal, the strength of a part of the population which was justly
considered as nourishing the most inveterate antipathy to their victor.
All the monarchs of the Norman race had shown the most marked
predilection for their Norman subjects; the laws of the chase, and many
others equally unknown to the milder and more free spirit of the Saxon
constitution, had been fixed upon the necks of the subjugated
inhabitants, to add weight, as it were, to the feudal chains with which
they were loaded. At court, and in the castles of the great nobles,
where the pomp and state of a court was emulated, Norman-French was the
only language employed; in courts of law, the pleadings and judgments
were delivered in the same tongue. In short, French was the language of
honour, of chivalry, and even of justice, while the far more manly and
expressive Anglo-Saxon was abandoned to the use of rustics and hinds,
who knew no other. Still, however, the necessary intercourse between
the lords of the soil, and those oppressed inferior beings by whom that
soil was cultivated, occasioned the gradual formation of a dialect,
compounded betwixt the French and the Anglo-Saxon, in which they could
render themselves mutually intelligible to each other; and from this
necessity arose by degrees the structure of our present English
language, in which the speech of the victors and the vanquished have
been so happily blended together; and which has since been so richly
improved by importations from the classical languages, and from those
spoken by the southern nations of Europe.

This state of things I have thought it necessary to premise for the
information of the general reader, who might be apt to forget, that,
although no great historical events, such as war or insurrection, mark
the existence of the Anglo-Saxons as a separate people subsequent to
the reign of William the Second; yet the great national distinctions
betwixt them and their conquerors, the recollection of what they had
formerly been, and to what they were now reduced, continued down to the
reign of Edward the Third, to keep open the wounds which the Conquest
had inflicted, and to maintain a line of separation betwixt the
descendants of the victor Normans and the vanquished Saxons.

The sun was setting upon one of the rich grassy glades of that forest,
which we have mentioned in the beginning of the chapter. Hundreds of
broad-headed, short-stemmed, wide-branched oaks, which had witnessed
perhaps the stately march of the Roman soldiery, flung their gnarled
arms over a thick carpet of the most delicious green sward; in some
places they were intermingled with beeches, hollies, and copsewood of
various descriptions, so closely as totally to intercept the level
beams of the sinking sun; in others they receded from each other,
forming those long sweeping vistas, in the intricacy of which the eye
delights to lose itself, while imagination considers them as the paths
to yet wilder scenes of silvan solitude. Here the red rays of the sun
shot a broken and discoloured light, that partially hung upon the
shattered boughs and mossy trunks of the trees, and there they
illuminated in brilliant patches the portions of turf to which they
made their way. A considerable open space, in the midst of this glade,
seemed formerly to have been dedicated to the rites of Druidical
superstition; for, on the summit of a hillock, so regular as to seem
artificial, there still remained part of a circle of rough unhewn
stones, of large dimensions. Seven stood upright; the rest had been
dislodged from their places, probably by the zeal of some convert to
Christianity, and lay, some prostrate near their former site, and
others on the side of the hill. One large stone only had found its way
to the bottom, and in stopping the course of a small brook, which
glided smoothly round the foot of the eminence, gave, by its
opposition, a feeble voice of murmur to the placid and elsewhere silent
streamlet.

The human figures which completed this landscape, were in number two,
partaking, in their dress and appearance, of that wild and rustic
character, which belonged to the woodlands of the West-Riding of
Yorkshire at that early period. The eldest of these men had a stern,
savage, and wild aspect. His garment was of the simplest form
imaginable, being a close jacket with sleeves, composed of the tanned
skin of some animal, on which the hair had been originally left, but
which had been worn off in so many places, that it would have been
difficult to distinguish from the patches that remained, to what
creature the fur had belonged. This primeval vestment reached from the
throat to the knees, and served at once all the usual purposes of
body-clothing; there was no wider opening at the collar, than was
necessary to admit the passage of the head, from which it may be
inferred, that it was put on by slipping it over the head and
shoulders, in the manner of a modern shirt, or ancient hauberk.
Sandals, bound with thongs made of boars’ hide, protected the feet, and
a roll of thin leather was twined artificially round the legs, and,
ascending above the calf, left the knees bare, like those of a Scottish
Highlander. To make the jacket sit yet more close to the body, it was
gathered at the middle by a broad leathern belt, secured by a brass
buckle; to one side of which was attached a sort of scrip, and to the
other a ram’s horn, accoutred with a mouthpiece, for the purpose of
blowing. In the same belt was stuck one of those long, broad,
sharp-pointed, and two-edged knives, with a buck’s-horn handle, which
were fabricated in the neighbourhood, and bore even at this early
period the name of a Sheffield whittle. The man had no covering upon
his head, which was only defended by his own thick hair, matted and
twisted together, and scorched by the influence of the sun into a rusty
dark-red colour, forming a contrast with the overgrown beard upon his
cheeks, which was rather of a yellow or amber hue. One part of his
dress only remains, but it is too remarkable to be suppressed; it was a
brass ring, resembling a dog’s collar, but without any opening, and
soldered fast round his neck, so loose as to form no impediment to his
breathing, yet so tight as to be incapable of being removed, excepting
by the use of the file. On this singular gorget was engraved, in Saxon
characters, an inscription of the following purport:—“Gurth, the son of
Beowulph, is the born thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood.”

Beside the swine-herd, for such was Gurth’s occupation, was seated,
upon one of the fallen Druidical monuments, a person about ten years
younger in appearance, and whose dress, though resembling his
companion’s in form, was of better materials, and of a more fantastic
appearance. His jacket had been stained of a bright purple hue, upon
which there had been some attempt to paint grotesque ornaments in
different colours. To the jacket he added a short cloak, which scarcely
reached half way down his thigh; it was of crimson cloth, though a good
deal soiled, lined with bright yellow; and as he could transfer it from
one shoulder to the other, or at his pleasure draw it all around him,
its width, contrasted with its want of longitude, formed a fantastic
piece of drapery. He had thin silver bracelets upon his arms, and on
his neck a collar of the same metal bearing the inscription, “Wamba,
the son of Witless, is the thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood.” This
personage had the same sort of sandals with his companion, but instead
of the roll of leather thong, his legs were cased in a sort of gaiters,
of which one was red and the other yellow. He was provided also with a
cap, having around it more than one bell, about the size of those
attached to hawks, which jingled as he turned his head to one side or
other; and as he seldom remained a minute in the same posture, the
sound might be considered as incessant. Around the edge of this cap was
a stiff bandeau of leather, cut at the top into open work, resembling a
coronet, while a prolonged bag arose from within it, and fell down on
one shoulder like an old-fashioned nightcap, or a jelly-bag, or the
head-gear of a modern hussar. It was to this part of the cap that the
bells were attached; which circumstance, as well as the shape of his
head-dress, and his own half-crazed, half-cunning expression of
countenance, sufficiently pointed him out as belonging to the race of
domestic clowns or jesters, maintained in the houses of the wealthy, to
help away the tedium of those lingering hours which they were obliged
to spend within doors. He bore, like his companion, a scrip, attached
to his belt, but had neither horn nor knife, being probably considered
as belonging to a class whom it is esteemed dangerous to intrust with
edge-tools. In place of these, he was equipped with a sword of lath,
resembling that with which Harlequin operates his wonders upon the
modern stage.

The outward appearance of these two men formed scarce a stronger
contrast than their look and demeanour. That of the serf, or bondsman,
was sad and sullen; his aspect was bent on the ground with an
appearance of deep dejection, which might be almost construed into
apathy, had not the fire which occasionally sparkled in his red eye
manifested that there slumbered, under the appearance of sullen
despondency, a sense of oppression, and a disposition to resistance.
The looks of Wamba, on the other hand, indicated, as usual with his
class, a sort of vacant curiosity, and fidgetty impatience of any
posture of repose, together with the utmost self-satisfaction
respecting his own situation, and the appearance which he made. The
dialogue which they maintained between them, was carried on in
Anglo-Saxon, which, as we said before, was universally spoken by the
inferior classes, excepting the Norman soldiers, and the immediate
personal dependants of the great feudal nobles. But to give their
conversation in the original would convey but little information to the
modern reader, for whose benefit we beg to offer the following
translation:

“The curse of St Withold upon these infernal porkers!” said the
swine-herd, after blowing his horn obstreperously, to collect together
the scattered herd of swine, which, answering his call with notes
equally melodious, made, however, no haste to remove themselves from
the luxurious banquet of beech-mast and acorns on which they had
fattened, or to forsake the marshy banks of the rivulet, where several
of them, half plunged in mud, lay stretched at their ease, altogether
regardless of the voice of their keeper. “The curse of St Withold upon
them and upon me!” said Gurth; “if the two-legged wolf snap not up some
of them ere nightfall, I am no true man. Here, Fangs! Fangs!” he
ejaculated at the top of his voice to a ragged wolfish-looking dog, a
sort of lurcher, half mastiff, half greyhound, which ran limping about
as if with the purpose of seconding his master in collecting the
refractory grunters; but which, in fact, from misapprehension of the
swine-herd’s signals, ignorance of his own duty, or malice prepense,
only drove them hither and thither, and increased the evil which he
seemed to design to remedy. “A devil draw the teeth of him,” said
Gurth, “and the mother of mischief confound the Ranger of the forest,
that cuts the foreclaws off our dogs, and makes them unfit for their
trade! 8 Wamba, up and help me an thou be’st a man; take a turn round
the back o’ the hill to gain the wind on them; and when thous’t got the
weather-gage, thou mayst drive them before thee as gently as so many
innocent lambs.”

“Truly,” said Wamba, without stirring from the spot, “I have consulted
my legs upon this matter, and they are altogether of opinion, that to
carry my gay garments through these sloughs, would be an act of
unfriendship to my sovereign person and royal wardrobe; wherefore,
Gurth, I advise thee to call off Fangs, and leave the herd to their
destiny, which, whether they meet with bands of travelling soldiers, or
of outlaws, or of wandering pilgrims, can be little else than to be
converted into Normans before morning, to thy no small ease and
comfort.”

“The swine turned Normans to my comfort!” quoth Gurth; “expound that to
me, Wamba, for my brain is too dull, and my mind too vexed, to read
riddles.”

“Why, how call you those grunting brutes running about on their four
legs?” demanded Wamba.

“Swine, fool, swine,” said the herd, “every fool knows that.”

“And swine is good Saxon,” said the Jester; “but how call you the sow
when she is flayed, and drawn, and quartered, and hung up by the heels,
like a traitor?”

“Pork,” answered the swine-herd.

“I am very glad every fool knows that too,” said Wamba, “and pork, I
think, is good Norman-French; and so when the brute lives, and is in
the charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but becomes a
Norman, and is called pork, when she is carried to the Castle-hall to
feast among the nobles; what dost thou think of this, friend Gurth,
ha?”

“It is but too true doctrine, friend Wamba, however it got into thy
fool’s pate.”

“Nay, I can tell you more,” said Wamba, in the same tone; “there is old
Alderman Ox continues to hold his Saxon epithet, while he is under the
charge of serfs and bondsmen such as thou, but becomes Beef, a fiery
French gallant, when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are
destined to consume him. Mynheer Calf, too, becomes Monsieur de Veau in
the like manner; he is Saxon when he requires tendance, and takes a
Norman name when he becomes matter of enjoyment.”

“By St Dunstan,” answered Gurth, “thou speakest but sad truths; little
is left to us but the air we breathe, and that appears to have been
reserved with much hesitation, solely for the purpose of enabling us to
endure the tasks they lay upon our shoulders. The finest and the
fattest is for their board; the loveliest is for their couch; the best
and bravest supply their foreign masters with soldiers, and whiten
distant lands with their bones, leaving few here who have either will
or the power to protect the unfortunate Saxon. God’s blessing on our
master Cedric, he hath done the work of a man in standing in the gap;
but Reginald Front-de-Bœuf is coming down to this country in person,
and we shall soon see how little Cedric’s trouble will avail him.—Here,
here,” he exclaimed again, raising his voice, “So ho! so ho! well done,
Fangs! thou hast them all before thee now, and bring’st them on
bravely, lad.”

“Gurth,” said the Jester, “I know thou thinkest me a fool, or thou
wouldst not be so rash in putting thy head into my mouth. One word to
Reginald Front-de-Bœuf, or Philip de Malvoisin, that thou hast spoken
treason against the Norman,—and thou art but a cast-away
swineherd,—thou wouldst waver on one of these trees as a terror to all
evil speakers against dignities.”

“Dog, thou wouldst not betray me,” said Gurth, “after having led me on
to speak so much at disadvantage?”

“Betray thee!” answered the Jester; “no, that were the trick of a wise
man; a fool cannot half so well help himself—but soft, whom have we
here?” he said, listening to the trampling of several horses which
became then audible.

“Never mind whom,” answered Gurth, who had now got his herd before him,
and, with the aid of Fangs, was driving them down one of the long dim
vistas which we have endeavoured to describe.

“Nay, but I must see the riders,” answered Wamba; “perhaps they are
come from Fairy-land with a message from King Oberon.”

“A murrain take thee,” rejoined the swine-herd; “wilt thou talk of such
things, while a terrible storm of thunder and lightning is raging
within a few miles of us? Hark, how the thunder rumbles! and for summer
rain, I never saw such broad downright flat drops fall out of the
clouds; the oaks, too, notwithstanding the calm weather, sob and creak
with their great boughs as if announcing a tempest. Thou canst play the
rational if thou wilt; credit me for once, and let us home ere the
storm begins to rage, for the night will be fearful.”

Wamba seemed to feel the force of this appeal, and accompanied his
companion, who began his journey after catching up a long quarter-staff
which lay upon the grass beside him. This second Eumaeus strode hastily
down the forest glade, driving before him, with the assistance of
Fangs, the whole herd of his inharmonious charge.




CHAPTER II


A Monk there was, a fayre for the maistrie,
An outrider that loved venerie;
A manly man, to be an Abbot able,
Full many a daintie horse had he in stable:
And whan he rode, men might his bridle hear
Gingeling in a whistling wind as clear,
And eke as loud, as doth the chapell bell,
There as this lord was keeper of the cell.


CHAUCER


Notwithstanding the occasional exhortation and chiding of his
companion, the noise of the horsemen’s feet continuing to approach,
Wamba could not be prevented from lingering occasionally on the road,
upon every pretence which occurred; now catching from the hazel a
cluster of half-ripe nuts, and now turning his head to leer after a
cottage maiden who crossed their path. The horsemen, therefore, soon
overtook them on the road.

Their numbers amounted to ten men, of whom the two who rode foremost
seemed to be persons of considerable importance, and the others their
attendants. It was not difficult to ascertain the condition and
character of one of these personages. He was obviously an ecclesiastic
of high rank; his dress was that of a Cistercian Monk, but composed of
materials much finer than those which the rule of that order admitted.
His mantle and hood were of the best Flanders cloth, and fell in ample,
and not ungraceful folds, around a handsome, though somewhat corpulent
person. His countenance bore as little the marks of self-denial, as his
habit indicated contempt of worldly splendour. His features might have
been called good, had there not lurked under the pent-house of his eye,
that sly epicurean twinkle which indicates the cautious voluptuary. In
other respects, his profession and situation had taught him a ready
command over his countenance, which he could contract at pleasure into
solemnity, although its natural expression was that of good-humoured
social indulgence. In defiance of conventual rules, and the edicts of
popes and councils, the sleeves of this dignitary were lined and turned
up with rich furs, his mantle secured at the throat with a golden
clasp, and the whole dress proper to his order as much refined upon and
ornamented, as that of a quaker beauty of the present day, who, while
she retains the garb and costume of her sect continues to give to its
simplicity, by the choice of materials and the mode of disposing them,
a certain air of coquettish attraction, savouring but too much of the
vanities of the world.

This worthy churchman rode upon a well-fed ambling mule, whose
furniture was highly decorated, and whose bridle, according to the
fashion of the day, was ornamented with silver bells. In his seat he
had nothing of the awkwardness of the convent, but displayed the easy
and habitual grace of a well-trained horseman. Indeed, it seemed that
so humble a conveyance as a mule, in however good case, and however
well broken to a pleasant and accommodating amble, was only used by the
gallant monk for travelling on the road. A lay brother, one of those
who followed in the train, had, for his use on other occasions, one of
the most handsome Spanish jennets ever bred at Andalusia, which
merchants used at that time to import, with great trouble and risk, for
the use of persons of wealth and distinction. The saddle and housings
of this superb palfrey were covered by a long foot-cloth, which reached
nearly to the ground, and on which were richly embroidered, mitres,
crosses, and other ecclesiastical emblems. Another lay brother led a
sumpter mule, loaded probably with his superior’s baggage; and two
monks of his own order, of inferior station, rode together in the rear,
laughing and conversing with each other, without taking much notice of
the other members of the cavalcade.

The companion of the church dignitary was a man past forty, thin,
strong, tall, and muscular; an athletic figure, which long fatigue and
constant exercise seemed to have left none of the softer part of the
human form, having reduced the whole to brawn, bones, and sinews, which
had sustained a thousand toils, and were ready to dare a thousand more.
His head was covered with a scarlet cap, faced with fur—of that kind
which the French call “mortier”, from its resemblance to the shape of
an inverted mortar. His countenance was therefore fully displayed, and
its expression was calculated to impress a degree of awe, if not of
fear, upon strangers. High features, naturally strong and powerfully
expressive, had been burnt almost into Negro blackness by constant
exposure to the tropical sun, and might, in their ordinary state, be
said to slumber after the storm of passion had passed away; but the
projection of the veins of the forehead, the readiness with which the
upper lip and its thick black moustaches quivered upon the slightest
emotion, plainly intimated that the tempest might be again and easily
awakened. His keen, piercing, dark eyes, told in every glance a history
of difficulties subdued, and dangers dared, and seemed to challenge
opposition to his wishes, for the pleasure of sweeping it from his road
by a determined exertion of courage and of will; a deep scar on his
brow gave additional sternness to his countenance, and a sinister
expression to one of his eyes, which had been slightly injured on the
same occasion, and of which the vision, though perfect, was in a slight
and partial degree distorted.

The upper dress of this personage resembled that of his companion in
shape, being a long monastic mantle; but the colour, being scarlet,
showed that he did not belong to any of the four regular orders of
monks. On the right shoulder of the mantle there was cut, in white
cloth, a cross of a peculiar form. This upper robe concealed what at
first view seemed rather inconsistent with its form, a shirt, namely,
of linked mail, with sleeves and gloves of the same, curiously plaited
and interwoven, as flexible to the body as those which are now wrought
in the stocking-loom, out of less obdurate materials. The fore-part of
his thighs, where the folds of his mantle permitted them to be seen,
were also covered with linked mail; the knees and feet were defended by
splints, or thin plates of steel, ingeniously jointed upon each other;
and mail hose, reaching from the ankle to the knee, effectually
protected the legs, and completed the rider’s defensive armour. In his
girdle he wore a long and double-edged dagger, which was the only
offensive weapon about his person.

He rode, not a mule, like his companion, but a strong hackney for the
road, to save his gallant war-horse, which a squire led behind, fully
accoutred for battle, with a chamfron or plaited head-piece upon his
head, having a short spike projecting from the front. On one side of
the saddle hung a short battle-axe, richly inlaid with Damascene
carving; on the other the rider’s plumed head-piece and hood of mail,
with a long two-handed sword, used by the chivalry of the period. A
second squire held aloft his master’s lance, from the extremity of
which fluttered a small banderole, or streamer, bearing a cross of the
same form with that embroidered upon his cloak. He also carried his
small triangular shield, broad enough at the top to protect the breast,
and from thence diminishing to a point. It was covered with a scarlet
cloth, which prevented the device from being seen.

These two squires were followed by two attendants, whose dark visages,
white turbans, and the Oriental form of their garments, showed them to
be natives of some distant Eastern country. 9

The whole appearance of this warrior and his retinue was wild and
outlandish; the dress of his squires was gorgeous, and his Eastern
attendants wore silver collars round their throats, and bracelets of
the same metal upon their swarthy arms and legs, of which the former
were naked from the elbow, and the latter from mid-leg to ankle. Silk
and embroidery distinguished their dresses, and marked the wealth and
importance of their master; forming, at the same time, a striking
contrast with the martial simplicity of his own attire. They were armed
with crooked sabres, having the hilt and baldric inlaid with gold, and
matched with Turkish daggers of yet more costly workmanship. Each of
them bore at his saddle-bow a bundle of darts or javelins, about four
feet in length, having sharp steel heads, a weapon much in use among
the Saracens, and of which the memory is yet preserved in the martial
exercise called “El Jerrid”, still practised in the Eastern countries.

The steeds of these attendants were in appearance as foreign as their
riders. They were of Saracen origin, and consequently of Arabian
descent; and their fine slender limbs, small fetlocks, thin manes, and
easy springy motion, formed a marked contrast with the large-jointed,
heavy horses, of which the race was cultivated in Flanders and in
Normandy, for mounting the men-at-arms of the period in all the panoply
of plate and mail; and which, placed by the side of those Eastern
coursers, might have passed for a personification of substance and of
shadow.

The singular appearance of this cavalcade not only attracted the
curiosity of Wamba, but excited even that of his less volatile
companion. The monk he instantly knew to be the Prior of Jorvaulx
Abbey, well known for many miles around as a lover of the chase, of the
banquet, and, if fame did him not wrong, of other worldly pleasures
still more inconsistent with his monastic vows.

Yet so loose were the ideas of the times respecting the conduct of the
clergy, whether secular or regular, that the Prior Aymer maintained a
fair character in the neighbourhood of his abbey. His free and jovial
temper, and the readiness with which he granted absolution from all
ordinary delinquencies, rendered him a favourite among the nobility and
principal gentry, to several of whom he was allied by birth, being of a
distinguished Norman family. The ladies, in particular, were not
disposed to scan too nicely the morals of a man who was a professed
admirer of their sex, and who possessed many means of dispelling the
ennui which was too apt to intrude upon the halls and bowers of an
ancient feudal castle. The Prior mingled in the sports of the field
with more than due eagerness, and was allowed to possess the
best-trained hawks, and the fleetest greyhounds in the North Riding;
circumstances which strongly recommended him to the youthful gentry.
With the old, he had another part to play, which, when needful, he
could sustain with great decorum. His knowledge of books, however
superficial, was sufficient to impress upon their ignorance respect for
his supposed learning; and the gravity of his deportment and language,
with the high tone which he exerted in setting forth the authority of
the church and of the priesthood, impressed them no less with an
opinion of his sanctity. Even the common people, the severest critics
of the conduct of their betters, had commiseration with the follies of
Prior Aymer. He was generous; and charity, as it is well known,
covereth a multitude of sins, in another sense than that in which it is
said to do so in Scripture. The revenues of the monastery, of which a
large part was at his disposal, while they gave him the means of
supplying his own very considerable expenses, afforded also those
largesses which he bestowed among the peasantry, and with which he
frequently relieved the distresses of the oppressed. If Prior Aymer
rode hard in the chase, or remained long at the banquet,—if Prior Aymer
was seen, at the early peep of dawn, to enter the postern of the abbey,
as he glided home from some rendezvous which had occupied the hours of
darkness, men only shrugged up their shoulders, and reconciled
themselves to his irregularities, by recollecting that the same were
practised by many of his brethren who had no redeeming qualities
whatsoever to atone for them. Prior Aymer, therefore, and his
character, were well known to our Saxon serfs, who made their rude
obeisance, and received his “benedicite, mes filz,” in return.

But the singular appearance of his companion and his attendants,
arrested their attention and excited their wonder, and they could
scarcely attend to the Prior of Jorvaulx’ question, when he demanded if
they knew of any place of harbourage in the vicinity; so much were they
surprised at the half monastic, half military appearance of the swarthy
stranger, and at the uncouth dress and arms of his Eastern attendants.
It is probable, too, that the language in which the benediction was
conferred, and the information asked, sounded ungracious, though not
probably unintelligible, in the ears of the Saxon peasants.

“I asked you, my children,” said the Prior, raising his voice, and
using the lingua Franca, or mixed language, in which the Norman and
Saxon races conversed with each other, “if there be in this
neighbourhood any good man, who, for the love of God, and devotion to
Mother Church, will give two of her humblest servants, with their
train, a night’s hospitality and refreshment?”

This he spoke with a tone of conscious importance, which formed a
strong contrast to the modest terms which he thought it proper to
employ.

“Two of the humblest servants of Mother Church!” repeated Wamba to
himself,—but, fool as he was, taking care not to make his observation
audible; “I should like to see her seneschals, her chief butlers, and
other principal domestics!”

After this internal commentary on the Prior’s speech, he raised his
eyes, and replied to the question which had been put.

“If the reverend fathers,” he said, “loved good cheer and soft lodging,
few miles of riding would carry them to the Priory of Brinxworth, where
their quality could not but secure them the most honourable reception;
or if they preferred spending a penitential evening, they might turn
down yonder wild glade, which would bring them to the hermitage of
Copmanhurst, where a pious anchoret would make them sharers for the
night of the shelter of his roof and the benefit of his prayers.”

The Prior shook his head at both proposals.

“Mine honest friend,” said he, “if the jangling of thy bells had not
dizzied thine understanding, thou mightst know “Clericus clericum non
decimat”; that is to say, we churchmen do not exhaust each other’s
hospitality, but rather require that of the laity, giving them thus an
opportunity to serve God in honouring and relieving his appointed
servants.”

“It is true,” replied Wamba, “that I, being but an ass, am,
nevertheless, honoured to hear the bells as well as your reverence’s
mule; notwithstanding, I did conceive that the charity of Mother Church
and her servants might be said, with other charity, to begin at home.”

“A truce to thine insolence, fellow,” said the armed rider, breaking in
on his prattle with a high and stern voice, “and tell us, if thou
canst, the road to—How call’d you your Franklin, Prior Aymer?”

“Cedric,” answered the Prior; “Cedric the Saxon.—Tell me, good fellow,
are we near his dwelling, and can you show us the road?”

“The road will be uneasy to find,” answered Gurth, who broke silence
for the first time, “and the family of Cedric retire early to rest.”

“Tush, tell not me, fellow,” said the military rider; “’tis easy for
them to arise and supply the wants of travellers such as we are, who
will not stoop to beg the hospitality which we have a right to
command.”

“I know not,” said Gurth, sullenly, “if I should show the way to my
master’s house, to those who demand as a right, the shelter which most
are fain to ask as a favour.”

“Do you dispute with me, slave!” said the soldier; and, setting spurs
to his horse, he caused him make a demivolte across the path, raising
at the same time the riding rod which he held in his hand, with a
purpose of chastising what he considered as the insolence of the
peasant.

Gurth darted at him a savage and revengeful scowl, and with a fierce,
yet hesitating motion, laid his hand on the haft of his knife; but the
interference of Prior Aymer, who pushed his mule betwixt his companion
and the swineherd, prevented the meditated violence.

“Nay, by St Mary, brother Brian, you must not think you are now in
Palestine, predominating over heathen Turks and infidel Saracens; we
islanders love not blows, save those of holy Church, who chasteneth
whom she loveth.—Tell me, good fellow,” said he to Wamba, and seconded
his speech by a small piece of silver coin, “the way to Cedric the
Saxon’s; you cannot be ignorant of it, and it is your duty to direct
the wanderer even when his character is less sanctified than ours.”

“In truth, venerable father,” answered the Jester, “the Saracen head of
your right reverend companion has frightened out of mine the way home—I
am not sure I shall get there to-night myself.”

“Tush,” said the Abbot, “thou canst tell us if thou wilt. This reverend
brother has been all his life engaged in fighting among the Saracens
for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre; he is of the order of Knights
Templars, whom you may have heard of; he is half a monk, half a
soldier.”

“If he is but half a monk,” said the Jester, “he should not be wholly
unreasonable with those whom he meets upon the road, even if they
should be in no hurry to answer questions that no way concern them.”

“I forgive thy wit,” replied the Abbot, “on condition thou wilt show me
the way to Cedric’s mansion.”

“Well, then,” answered Wamba, “your reverences must hold on this path
till you come to a sunken cross, of which scarce a cubit’s length
remains above ground; then take the path to the left, for there are
four which meet at Sunken Cross, and I trust your reverences will
obtain shelter before the storm comes on.”

[Illustration]

The Abbot thanked his sage adviser; and the cavalcade, setting spurs to
their horses, rode on as men do who wish to reach their inn before the
bursting of a night-storm. As their horses’ hoofs died away, Gurth said
to his companion, “If they follow thy wise direction, the reverend
fathers will hardly reach Rotherwood this night.”

“No,” said the Jester, grinning, “but they may reach Sheffield if they
have good luck, and that is as fit a place for them. I am not so bad a
woodsman as to show the dog where the deer lies, if I have no mind he
should chase him.”

“Thou art right,” said Gurth; “it were ill that Aymer saw the Lady
Rowena; and it were worse, it may be, for Cedric to quarrel, as is most
likely he would, with this military monk. But, like good servants let
us hear and see, and say nothing.”

We return to the riders, who had soon left the bondsmen far behind
them, and who maintained the following conversation in the
Norman-French language, usually employed by the superior classes, with
the exception of the few who were still inclined to boast their Saxon
descent.

“What mean these fellows by their capricious insolence?” said the
Templar to the Benedictine, “and why did you prevent me from chastising
it?”

“Marry, brother Brian,” replied the Prior, “touching the one of them,
it were hard for me to render a reason for a fool speaking according to
his folly; and the other churl is of that savage, fierce, intractable
race, some of whom, as I have often told you, are still to be found
among the descendants of the conquered Saxons, and whose supreme
pleasure it is to testify, by all means in their power, their aversion
to their conquerors.”

“I would soon have beat him into courtesy,” observed Brian; “I am
accustomed to deal with such spirits: Our Turkish captives are as
fierce and intractable as Odin himself could have been; yet two months
in my household, under the management of my master of the slaves, has
made them humble, submissive, serviceable, and observant of your will.
Marry, sir, you must be aware of the poison and the dagger; for they
use either with free will when you give them the slightest
opportunity.”

“Ay, but,” answered Prior Aymer, “every land has its own manners and
fashions; and, besides that beating this fellow could procure us no
information respecting the road to Cedric’s house, it would have been
sure to have established a quarrel betwixt you and him had we found our
way thither. Remember what I told you: this wealthy franklin is proud,
fierce, jealous, and irritable, a withstander of the nobility, and even
of his neighbors, Reginald Front-de-Bœuf and Philip Malvoisin, who are
no babies to strive with. He stands up sternly for the privileges of
his race, and is so proud of his uninterrupted descend from Hereward, a
renowned champion of the Heptarchy, that he is universally called
Cedric the Saxon; and makes a boast of his belonging to a people from
whom many others endeaver to hide their descent, lest they should
encounter a share of the ‘vae victis,’ or severities imposed upon the
vanquished.”

“Prior Aymer,” said the Templar, “you are a man of gallantry, learned
in the study of beauty, and as expert as a troubadour in all matters
concerning the ‘arrets’ of love; but I shall expect much beauty in this
celebrated Rowena to counterbalance the self-denial and forbearance
which I must exert if I am to court the favor of such a seditious churl
as you have described her father Cedric.”

“Cedric is not her father,” replied the Prior, “and is but of remote
relation: she is descended from higher blood than even he pretends to,
and is but distantly connected with him by birth. Her guardian,
however, he is, self-constituted as I believe; but his ward is as dear
to him as if she were his own child. Of her beauty you shall soon be
judge; and if the purity of her complexion, and the majestic, yet soft
expression of a mild blue eye, do not chase from your memory the
black-tressed girls of Palestine, ay, or the houris of old Mahound’s
paradise, I am an infidel, and no true son of the church.”

“Should your boasted beauty,” said the Templar, “be weighed in the
balance and found wanting, you know our wager?”

“My gold collar,” answered the Prior, “against ten butts of Chian
wine;—they are mine as securely as if they were already in the convent
vaults, under the key of old Dennis the cellarer.”

“And I am myself to be judge,” said the Templar, “and am only to be
convicted on my own admission, that I have seen no maiden so beautiful
since Pentecost was a twelvemonth. Ran it not so?—Prior, your collar is
in danger; I will wear it over my gorget in the lists of
Ashby-de-la-Zouche.”

“Win it fairly,” said the Prior, “and wear it as ye will; I will trust
your giving true response, on your word as a knight and as a churchman.
Yet, brother, take my advice, and file your tongue to a little more
courtesy than your habits of predominating over infidel captives and
Eastern bondsmen have accustomed you. Cedric the Saxon, if
offended,—and he is noway slack in taking offence,—is a man who,
without respect to your knighthood, my high office, or the sanctity of
either, would clear his house of us, and send us to lodge with the
larks, though the hour were midnight. And be careful how you look on
Rowena, whom he cherishes with the most jealous care; an he take the
least alarm in that quarter we are but lost men. It is said he banished
his only son from his family for lifting his eyes in the way of
affection towards this beauty, who may be worshipped, it seems, at a
distance, but is not to be approached with other thoughts than such as
we bring to the shrine of the Blessed Virgin.”

“Well, you have said enough,” answered the Templar; “I will for a night
put on the needful restraint, and deport me as meekly as a maiden; but
as for the fear of his expelling us by violence, myself and squires,
with Hamet and Abdalla, will warrant you against that disgrace. Doubt
not that we shall be strong enough to make good our quarters.”

“We must not let it come so far,” answered the Prior; “but here is the
clown’s sunken cross, and the night is so dark that we can hardly see
which of the roads we are to follow. He bid us turn, I think to the
left.”

“To the right,” said Brian, “to the best of my remembrance.”

“To the left, certainly, the left; I remember his pointing with his
wooden sword.”

“Ay, but he held his sword in his left hand, and so pointed across his
body with it,” said the Templar.

Each maintained his opinion with sufficient obstinacy, as is usual in
all such cases; the attendants were appealed to, but they had not been
near enough to hear Wamba’s directions. At length Brian remarked, what
had at first escaped him in the twilight; “Here is some one either
asleep, or lying dead at the foot of this cross—Hugo, stir him with the
butt-end of thy lance.”

This was no sooner done than the figure arose, exclaiming in good
French, “Whosoever thou art, it is discourteous in you to disturb my
thoughts.”

“We did but wish to ask you,” said the Prior, “the road to Rotherwood,
the abode of Cedric the Saxon.”

“I myself am bound thither,” replied the stranger; “and if I had a
horse, I would be your guide, for the way is somewhat intricate, though
perfectly well known to me.”

“Thou shalt have both thanks and reward, my friend,” said the Prior,
“if thou wilt bring us to Cedric’s in safety.”

And he caused one of his attendants to mount his own led horse, and
give that upon which he had hitherto ridden to the stranger, who was to
serve for a guide.

Their conductor pursued an opposite road from that which Wamba had
recommended, for the purpose of misleading them. The path soon led
deeper into the woodland, and crossed more than one brook, the approach
to which was rendered perilous by the marshes through which it flowed;
but the stranger seemed to know, as if by instinct, the soundest ground
and the safest points of passage; and by dint of caution and attention,
brought the party safely into a wilder avenue than any they had yet
seen; and, pointing to a large low irregular building at the upper
extremity, he said to the Prior, “Yonder is Rotherwood, the dwelling of
Cedric the Saxon.”

This was a joyful intimation to Aymer, whose nerves were none of the
strongest, and who had suffered such agitation and alarm in the course
of passing through the dangerous bogs, that he had not yet had the
curiosity to ask his guide a single question. Finding himself now at
his ease and near shelter, his curiosity began to awake, and he
demanded of the guide who and what he was.

“A Palmer, just returned from the Holy Land,” was the answer.

“You had better have tarried there to fight for the recovery of the
Holy Sepulchre,” said the Templar.

“True, Reverend Sir Knight,” answered the Palmer, to whom the
appearance of the Templar seemed perfectly familiar; “but when those
who are under oath to recover the holy city, are found travelling at
such a distance from the scene of their duties, can you wonder that a
peaceful peasant like me should decline the task which they have
abandoned?”

The Templar would have made an angry reply, but was interrupted by the
Prior, who again expressed his astonishment, that their guide, after
such long absence, should be so perfectly acquainted with the passes of
the forest.

“I was born a native of these parts,” answered their guide, and as he
made the reply they stood before the mansion of Cedric;—a low irregular
building, containing several court-yards or enclosures, extending over
a considerable space of ground, and which, though its size argued the
inhabitant to be a person of wealth, differed entirely from the tall,
turretted, and castellated buildings in which the Norman nobility
resided, and which had become the universal style of architecture
throughout England.

Rotherwood was not, however, without defences; no habitation, in that
disturbed period, could have been so, without the risk of being
plundered and burnt before the next morning. A deep fosse, or ditch,
was drawn round the whole building, and filled with water from a
neighbouring stream. A double stockade, or palisade, composed of
pointed beams, which the adjacent forest supplied, defended the outer
and inner bank of the trench. There was an entrance from the west
through the outer stockade, which communicated by a drawbridge, with a
similar opening in the interior defences. Some precautions had been
taken to place those entrances under the protection of projecting
angles, by which they might be flanked in case of need by archers or
slingers.

Before this entrance the Templar wound his horn loudly; for the rain,
which had long threatened, began now to descend with great violence.




CHAPTER III


Then (sad relief!) from the bleak coast that hears
The German Ocean roar, deep-blooming, strong,
And yellow hair’d, the blue-eyed Saxon came.


THOMSON’S LIBERTY


In a hall, the height of which was greatly disproportioned to its
extreme length and width, a long oaken table, formed of planks
rough-hewn from the forest, and which had scarcely received any polish,
stood ready prepared for the evening meal of Cedric the Saxon. The
roof, composed of beams and rafters, had nothing to divide the
apartment from the sky excepting the planking and thatch; there was a
huge fireplace at either end of the hall, but as the chimneys were
constructed in a very clumsy manner, at least as much of the smoke
found its way into the apartment as escaped by the proper vent. The
constant vapour which this occasioned, had polished the rafters and
beams of the low-browed hall, by encrusting them with a black varnish
of soot. On the sides of the apartment hung implements of war and of
the chase, and there were at each corner folding doors, which gave
access to other parts of the extensive building.

The other appointments of the mansion partook of the rude simplicity of
the Saxon period, which Cedric piqued himself upon maintaining. The
floor was composed of earth mixed with lime, trodden into a hard
substance, such as is often employed in flooring our modern barns. For
about one quarter of the length of the apartment, the floor was raised
by a step, and this space, which was called the dais, was occupied only
by the principal members of the family, and visitors of distinction.
For this purpose, a table richly covered with scarlet cloth was placed
transversely across the platform, from the middle of which ran the
longer and lower board, at which the domestics and inferior persons
fed, down towards the bottom of the hall. The whole resembled the form
of the letter T, or some of those ancient dinner-tables, which,
arranged on the same principles, may be still seen in the antique
Colleges of Oxford or Cambridge. Massive chairs and settles of carved
oak were placed upon the dais, and over these seats and the more
elevated table was fastened a canopy of cloth, which served in some
degree to protect the dignitaries who occupied that distinguished
station from the weather, and especially from the rain, which in some
places found its way through the ill-constructed roof.

The walls of this upper end of the hall, as far as the dais extended,
were covered with hangings or curtains, and upon the floor there was a
carpet, both of which were adorned with some attempts at tapestry, or
embroidery, executed with brilliant or rather gaudy colouring. Over the
lower range of table, the roof, as we have noticed, had no covering;
the rough plastered walls were left bare, and the rude earthen floor
was uncarpeted; the board was uncovered by a cloth, and rude massive
benches supplied the place of chairs.

In the centre of the upper table, were placed two chairs more elevated
than the rest, for the master and mistress of the family, who presided
over the scene of hospitality, and from doing so derived their Saxon
title of honour, which signifies “the Dividers of Bread.”

To each of these chairs was added a footstool, curiously carved and
inlaid with ivory, which mark of distinction was peculiar to them. One
of these seats was at present occupied by Cedric the Saxon, who, though
but in rank a thane, or, as the Normans called him, a Franklin, felt,
at the delay of his evening meal, an irritable impatience, which might
have become an alderman, whether of ancient or of modern times.

It appeared, indeed, from the countenance of this proprietor, that he
was of a frank, but hasty and choleric temper. He was not above the
middle stature, but broad-shouldered, long-armed, and powerfully made,
like one accustomed to endure the fatigue of war or of the chase; his
face was broad, with large blue eyes, open and frank features, fine
teeth, and a well formed head, altogether expressive of that sort of
good-humour which often lodges with a sudden and hasty temper. Pride
and jealousy there was in his eye, for his life had been spent in
asserting rights which were constantly liable to invasion; and the
prompt, fiery, and resolute disposition of the man, had been kept
constantly upon the alert by the circumstances of his situation. His
long yellow hair was equally divided on the top of his head and upon
his brow, and combed down on each side to the length of his shoulders;
it had but little tendency to grey, although Cedric was approaching to
his sixtieth year.

His dress was a tunic of forest green, furred at the throat and cuffs
with what was called minever; a kind of fur inferior in quality to
ermine, and formed, it is believed, of the skin of the grey squirrel.
This doublet hung unbuttoned over a close dress of scarlet which sat
tight to his body; he had breeches of the same, but they did not reach
below the lower part of the thigh, leaving the knee exposed. His feet
had sandals of the same fashion with the peasants, but of finer
materials, and secured in the front with golden clasps. He had
bracelets of gold upon his arms, and a broad collar of the same
precious metal around his neck. About his waist he wore a
richly-studded belt, in which was stuck a short straight two-edged
sword, with a sharp point, so disposed as to hang almost
perpendicularly by his side. Behind his seat was hung a scarlet cloth
cloak lined with fur, and a cap of the same materials richly
embroidered, which completed the dress of the opulent landholder when
he chose to go forth. A short boar-spear, with a broad and bright steel
head, also reclined against the back of his chair, which served him,
when he walked abroad, for the purposes of a staff or of a weapon, as
chance might require.

Several domestics, whose dress held various proportions betwixt the
richness of their master’s, and the coarse and simple attire of Gurth
the swine-herd, watched the looks and waited the commands of the Saxon
dignitary. Two or three servants of a superior order stood behind their
master upon the dais; the rest occupied the lower part of the hall.
Other attendants there were of a different description; two or three
large and shaggy greyhounds, such as were then employed in hunting the
stag and wolf; as many slow-hounds of a large bony breed, with thick
necks, large heads, and long ears; and one or two of the smaller dogs,
now called terriers, which waited with impatience the arrival of the
supper; but, with the sagacious knowledge of physiognomy peculiar to
their race, forbore to intrude upon the moody silence of their master,
apprehensive probably of a small white truncheon which lay by Cedric’s
trencher, for the purpose of repelling the advances of his four-legged
dependants. One grisly old wolf-dog alone, with the liberty of an
indulged favourite, had planted himself close by the chair of state,
and occasionally ventured to solicit notice by putting his large hairy
head upon his master’s knee, or pushing his nose into his hand. Even he
was repelled by the stern command, “Down, Balder, down! I am not in the
humour for foolery.”

In fact, Cedric, as we have observed, was in no very placid state of
mind. The Lady Rowena, who had been absent to attend an evening mass at
a distant church, had but just returned, and was changing her garments,
which had been wetted by the storm. There were as yet no tidings of
Gurth and his charge, which should long since have been driven home
from the forest and such was the insecurity of the period, as to render
it probable that the delay might be explained by some depreciation of
the outlaws, with whom the adjacent forest abounded, or by the violence
of some neighbouring baron, whose consciousness of strength made him
equally negligent of the laws of property. The matter was of
consequence, for great part of the domestic wealth of the Saxon
proprietors consisted in numerous herds of swine, especially in
forest-land, where those animals easily found their food.

Besides these subjects of anxiety, the Saxon thane was impatient for
the presence of his favourite clown Wamba, whose jests, such as they
were, served for a sort of seasoning to his evening meal, and to the
deep draughts of ale and wine with which he was in the habit of
accompanying it. Add to all this, Cedric had fasted since noon, and his
usual supper hour was long past, a cause of irritation common to
country squires, both in ancient and modern times. His displeasure was
expressed in broken sentences, partly muttered to himself, partly
addressed to the domestics who stood around; and particularly to his
cupbearer, who offered him from time to time, as a sedative, a silver
goblet filled with wine—“Why tarries the Lady Rowena?”

“She is but changing her head-gear,” replied a female attendant, with
as much confidence as the favourite lady’s-maid usually answers the
master of a modern family; “you would not wish her to sit down to the
banquet in her hood and kirtle? and no lady within the shire can be
quicker in arraying herself than my mistress.”

This undeniable argument produced a sort of acquiescent umph! on the
part of the Saxon, with the addition, “I wish her devotion may choose
fair weather for the next visit to St John’s Kirk;—but what, in the
name of ten devils,” continued he, turning to the cupbearer, and
raising his voice as if happy to have found a channel into which he
might divert his indignation without fear or control—“what, in the name
of ten devils, keeps Gurth so long afield? I suppose we shall have an
evil account of the herd; he was wont to be a faithful and cautious
drudge, and I had destined him for something better; perchance I might
even have made him one of my warders.” 11

Oswald the cupbearer modestly suggested, “that it was scarce an hour
since the tolling of the curfew;” an ill-chosen apology, since it
turned upon a topic so harsh to Saxon ears.

“The foul fiend,” exclaimed Cedric, “take the curfew-bell, and the
tyrannical bastard by whom it was devised, and the heartless slave who
names it with a Saxon tongue to a Saxon ear! The curfew!” he added,
pausing, “ay, the curfew; which compels true men to extinguish their
lights, that thieves and robbers may work their deeds in darkness!—Ay,
the curfew;—Reginald Front-de-Bœuf and Philip de Malvoisin know the use
of the curfew as well as William the Bastard himself, or e’er a Norman
adventurer that fought at Hastings. I shall hear, I guess, that my
property has been swept off to save from starving the hungry banditti,
whom they cannot support but by theft and robbery. My faithful slave is
murdered, and my goods are taken for a prey—and Wamba—where is Wamba?
Said not some one he had gone forth with Gurth?”

Oswald replied in the affirmative.

“Ay? why this is better and better! he is carried off too, the Saxon
fool, to serve the Norman lord. Fools are we all indeed that serve
them, and fitter subjects for their scorn and laughter, than if we were
born with but half our wits. But I will be avenged,” he added, starting
from his chair in impatience at the supposed injury, and catching hold
of his boar-spear; “I will go with my complaint to the great council; I
have friends, I have followers—man to man will I appeal the Norman to
the lists; let him come in his plate and his mail, and all that can
render cowardice bold; I have sent such a javelin as this through a
stronger fence than three of their war shields!—Haply they think me
old; but they shall find, alone and childless as I am, the blood of
Hereward is in the veins of Cedric.—Ah, Wilfred, Wilfred!” he exclaimed
in a lower tone, “couldst thou have ruled thine unreasonable passion,
thy father had not been left in his age like the solitary oak that
throws out its shattered and unprotected branches against the full
sweep of the tempest!” The reflection seemed to conjure into sadness
his irritated feelings. Replacing his javelin, he resumed his seat,
bent his looks downward, and appeared to be absorbed in melancholy
reflection.

From his musing, Cedric was suddenly awakened by the blast of a horn,
which was replied to by the clamorous yells and barking of all the dogs
in the hall, and some twenty or thirty which were quartered in other
parts of the building. It cost some exercise of the white truncheon,
well seconded by the exertions of the domestics, to silence this canine
clamour.

“To the gate, knaves!” said the Saxon, hastily, as soon as the tumult
was so much appeased that the dependants could hear his voice. “See
what tidings that horn tells us of—to announce, I ween, some hership 12
and robbery which has been done upon my lands.”

Returning in less than three minutes, a warder announced “that the
Prior Aymer of Jorvaulx, and the good knight Brian de Bois-Guilbert,
commander of the valiant and venerable order of Knights Templars, with
a small retinue, requested hospitality and lodging for the night, being
on their way to a tournament which was to be held not far from
Ashby-de-la-Zouche, on the second day from the present.”

“Aymer, the Prior Aymer? Brian de Bois-Guilbert?”—muttered Cedric;
“Normans both;—but Norman or Saxon, the hospitality of Rotherwood must
not be impeached; they are welcome, since they have chosen to halt—more
welcome would they have been to have ridden further on their way—But it
were unworthy to murmur for a night’s lodging and a night’s food; in
the quality of guests, at least, even Normans must suppress their
insolence.—Go, Hundebert,” he added, to a sort of major-domo who stood
behind him with a white wand; “take six of the attendants, and
introduce the strangers to the guests’ lodging. Look after their horses
and mules, and see their train lack nothing. Let them have change of
vestments if they require it, and fire, and water to wash, and wine and
ale; and bid the cooks add what they hastily can to our evening meal;
and let it be put on the board when those strangers are ready to share
it. Say to them, Hundebert, that Cedric would himself bid them welcome,
but he is under a vow never to step more than three steps from the dais
of his own hall to meet any who shares not the blood of Saxon royalty.
Begone! see them carefully tended; let them not say in their pride, the
Saxon churl has shown at once his poverty and his avarice.”

The major-domo departed with several attendants, to execute his
master’s commands.

“The Prior Aymer!” repeated Cedric, looking to Oswald, “the brother, if
I mistake not, of Giles de Mauleverer, now lord of Middleham?”

Oswald made a respectful sign of assent. “His brother sits in the seat,
and usurps the patrimony, of a better race, the race of Ulfgar of
Middleham; but what Norman lord doth not the same? This Prior is, they
say, a free and jovial priest, who loves the wine-cup and the
bugle-horn better than bell and book: Good; let him come, he shall be
welcome. How named ye the Templar?”

“Brian de Bois-Guilbert.”

“Bois-Guilbert,” said Cedric, still in the musing, half-arguing tone,
which the habit of living among dependants had accustomed him to
employ, and which resembled a man who talks to himself rather than to
those around him—“Bois-Guilbert? that name has been spread wide both
for good and evil. They say he is valiant as the bravest of his order;
but stained with their usual vices, pride, arrogance, cruelty, and
voluptuousness; a hard-hearted man, who knows neither fear of earth,
nor awe of heaven. So say the few warriors who have returned from
Palestine.—Well; it is but for one night; he shall be welcome
too.—Oswald, broach the oldest wine-cask; place the best mead, the
mightiest ale, the richest morat, the most sparkling cider, the most
odoriferous pigments, upon the board; fill the largest horns 13
—Templars and Abbots love good wines and good measure.—Elgitha, let thy
Lady Rowena, know we shall not this night expect her in the hall,
unless such be her especial pleasure.”

“But it will be her especial pleasure,” answered Elgitha, with great
readiness, “for she is ever desirous to hear the latest news from
Palestine.”

Cedric darted at the forward damsel a glance of hasty resentment; but
Rowena, and whatever belonged to her, were privileged and secure from
his anger. He only replied, “Silence, maiden; thy tongue outruns thy
discretion. Say my message to thy mistress, and let her do her
pleasure. Here, at least, the descendant of Alfred still reigns a
princess.” Elgitha left the apartment.

“Palestine!” repeated the Saxon; “Palestine! how many ears are turned
to the tales which dissolute crusaders, or hypocritical pilgrims, bring
from that fatal land! I too might ask—I too might enquire—I too might
listen with a beating heart to fables which the wily strollers devise
to cheat us into hospitality—but no—The son who has disobeyed me is no
longer mine; nor will I concern myself more for his fate than for that
of the most worthless among the millions that ever shaped the cross on
their shoulder, rushed into excess and blood-guiltiness, and called it
an accomplishment of the will of God.”

He knit his brows, and fixed his eyes for an instant on the ground; as
he raised them, the folding doors at the bottom of the hall were cast
wide, and, preceded by the major-domo with his wand, and four domestics
bearing blazing torches, the guests of the evening entered the
apartment.




CHAPTER IV


With sheep and shaggy goats the porkers bled,
And the proud steer was on the marble spread;
With fire prepared, they deal the morsels round,
Wine rosy bright the brimming goblets crown’d.

Disposed apart, Ulysses shares the treat;
A trivet table and ignobler seat,
The Prince assigns—


ODYSSEY, _Book_ XXI.


The Prior Aymer had taken the opportunity afforded him, of changing his
riding robe for one of yet more costly materials, over which he wore a
cope curiously embroidered. Besides the massive golden signet ring,
which marked his ecclesiastical dignity, his fingers, though contrary
to the canon, were loaded with precious gems; his sandals were of the
finest leather which was imported from Spain; his beard trimmed to as
small dimensions as his order would possibly permit, and his shaven
crown concealed by a scarlet cap richly embroidered.

The appearance of the Knight Templar was also changed; and, though less
studiously bedecked with ornament, his dress was as rich, and his
appearance far more commanding, than that of his companion. He had
exchanged his shirt of mail for an under tunic of dark purple silk,
garnished with furs, over which flowed his long robe of spotless white,
in ample folds. The eight-pointed cross of his order was cut on the
shoulder of his mantle in black velvet. The high cap no longer invested
his brows, which were only shaded by short and thick curled hair of a
raven blackness, corresponding to his unusually swart complexion.
Nothing could be more gracefully majestic than his step and manner, had
they not been marked by a predominant air of haughtiness, easily
acquired by the exercise of unresisted authority.

These two dignified persons were followed by their respective
attendants, and at a more humble distance by their guide, whose figure
had nothing more remarkable than it derived from the usual weeds of a
pilgrim. A cloak or mantle of coarse black serge, enveloped his whole
body. It was in shape something like the cloak of a modern hussar,
having similar flaps for covering the arms, and was called a
“Sclaveyn”, or “Sclavonian”. Coarse sandals, bound with thongs, on his
bare feet; a broad and shadowy hat, with cockle-shells stitched on its
brim, and a long staff shod with iron, to the upper end of which was
attached a branch of palm, completed the palmer’s attire. He followed
modestly the last of the train which entered the hall, and, observing
that the lower table scarce afforded room sufficient for the domestics
of Cedric and the retinue of his guests, he withdrew to a settle placed
beside and almost under one of the large chimneys, and seemed to employ
himself in drying his garments, until the retreat of some one should
make room at the board, or the hospitality of the steward should supply
him with refreshments in the place he had chosen apart.

Cedric rose to receive his guests with an air of dignified hospitality,
and, descending from the dais, or elevated part of his hall, made three
steps towards them, and then awaited their approach.

“I grieve,” he said, “reverend Prior, that my vow binds me to advance
no farther upon this floor of my fathers, even to receive such guests
as you, and this valiant Knight of the Holy Temple. But my steward has
expounded to you the cause of my seeming discourtesy. Let me also pray,
that you will excuse my speaking to you in my native language, and that
you will reply in the same if your knowledge of it permits; if not, I
sufficiently understand Norman to follow your meaning.”

“Vows,” said the Abbot, “must be unloosed, worthy Franklin, or permit
me rather to say, worthy Thane, though the title is antiquated. Vows
are the knots which tie us to Heaven—they are the cords which bind the
sacrifice to the horns of the altar,—and are therefore,—as I said
before,—to be unloosened and discharged, unless our holy Mother Church
shall pronounce the contrary. And respecting language, I willingly hold
communication in that spoken by my respected grandmother, Hilda of
Middleham, who died in odour of sanctity, little short, if we may
presume to say so, of her glorious namesake, the blessed Saint Hilda of
Whitby, God be gracious to her soul!”

When the Prior had ceased what he meant as a conciliatory harangue, his
companion said briefly and emphatically, “I speak ever French, the
language of King Richard and his nobles; but I understand English
sufficiently to communicate with the natives of the country.”

Cedric darted at the speaker one of those hasty and impatient glances,
which comparisons between the two rival nations seldom failed to call
forth; but, recollecting the duties of hospitality, he suppressed
further show of resentment, and, motioning with his hand, caused his
guests to assume two seats a little lower than his own, but placed
close beside him, and gave a signal that the evening meal should be
placed upon the board.

While the attendants hastened to obey Cedric’s commands, his eye
distinguished Gurth the swineherd, who, with his companion Wamba, had
just entered the hall. “Send these loitering knaves up hither,” said
the Saxon, impatiently. And when the culprits came before the
dais,—“How comes it, villains! that you have loitered abroad so late as
this? Hast thou brought home thy charge, sirrah Gurth, or hast thou
left them to robbers and marauders?”

“The herd is safe, so please ye,” said Gurth.

“But it does not please me, thou knave,” said Cedric, “that I should be
made to suppose otherwise for two hours, and sit here devising
vengeance against my neighbours for wrongs they have not done me. I
tell thee, shackles and the prison-house shall punish the next offence
of this kind.”

Gurth, knowing his master’s irritable temper, attempted no exculpation;
but the Jester, who could presume upon Cedric’s tolerance, by virtue of
his privileges as a fool, replied for them both; “In troth, uncle
Cedric, you are neither wise nor reasonable to-night.”

“‘How, sir?” said his master; “you shall to the porter’s lodge, and
taste of the discipline there, if you give your foolery such license.”

“First let your wisdom tell me,” said Wamba, “is it just and reasonable
to punish one person for the fault of another?”

“Certainly not, fool,” answered Cedric.

“Then why should you shackle poor Gurth, uncle, for the fault of his
dog Fangs? for I dare be sworn we lost not a minute by the way, when we
had got our herd together, which Fangs did not manage until we heard
the vesper-bell.”

“Then hang up Fangs,” said Cedric, turning hastily towards the
swineherd, “if the fault is his, and get thee another dog.”

“Under favour, uncle,” said the Jester, “that were still somewhat on
the bow-hand of fair justice; for it was no fault of Fangs that he was
lame and could not gather the herd, but the fault of those that struck
off two of his fore-claws, an operation for which, if the poor fellow
had been consulted, he would scarce have given his voice.”

“And who dared to lame an animal which belonged to my bondsman?” said
the Saxon, kindling in wrath.

“Marry, that did old Hubert,” said Wamba, “Sir Philip de Malvoisin’s
keeper of the chase. He caught Fangs strolling in the forest, and said
he chased the deer contrary to his master’s right, as warden of the
walk.”

“The foul fiend take Malvoisin,” answered the Saxon, “and his keeper
both! I will teach them that the wood was disforested in terms of the
great Forest Charter. But enough of this. Go to, knave, go to thy
place—and thou, Gurth, get thee another dog, and should the keeper dare
to touch it, I will mar his archery; the curse of a coward on my head,
if I strike not off the forefinger of his right hand!—he shall draw
bowstring no more.—I crave your pardon, my worthy guests. I am beset
here with neighbours that match your infidels, Sir Knight, in Holy
Land. But your homely fare is before you; feed, and let welcome make
amends for hard fare.”

The feast, however, which was spread upon the board, needed no
apologies from the lord of the mansion. Swine’s flesh, dressed in
several modes, appeared on the lower part of the board, as also that of
fowls, deer, goats, and hares, and various kinds of fish, together with
huge loaves and cakes of bread, and sundry confections made of fruits
and honey. The smaller sorts of wild-fowl, of which there was
abundance, were not served up in platters, but brought in upon small
wooden spits or broaches, and offered by the pages and domestics who
bore them, to each guest in succession, who cut from them such a
portion as he pleased. Beside each person of rank was placed a goblet
of silver; the lower board was accommodated with large drinking horns.

When the repast was about to commence, the major-domo, or steward,
suddenly raising his wand, said aloud,—“Forbear!—Place for the Lady
Rowena.”

A side-door at the upper end of the hall now opened behind the banquet
table, and Rowena, followed by four female attendants, entered the
apartment. Cedric, though surprised, and perhaps not altogether
agreeably so, at his ward appearing in public on this occasion,
hastened to meet her, and to conduct her, with respectful ceremony, to
the elevated seat at his own right hand, appropriated to the lady of
the mansion. All stood up to receive her; and, replying to their
courtesy by a mute gesture of salutation, she moved gracefully forward
to assume her place at the board. Ere she had time to do so, the
Templar whispered to the Prior, “I shall wear no collar of gold of
yours at the tournament. The Chian wine is your own.”

“Said I not so?” answered the Prior; “but check your raptures, the
Franklin observes you.”

Unheeding this remonstrance, and accustomed only to act upon the
immediate impulse of his own wishes, Brian de Bois-Guilbert kept his
eyes riveted on the Saxon beauty, more striking perhaps to his
imagination, because differing widely from those of the Eastern
sultanas.

Formed in the best proportions of her sex, Rowena was tall in stature,
yet not so much so as to attract observation on account of superior
height. Her complexion was exquisitely fair, but the noble cast of her
head and features prevented the insipidity which sometimes attaches to
fair beauties. Her clear blue eye, which sat enshrined beneath a
graceful eyebrow of brown sufficiently marked to give expression to the
forehead, seemed capable to kindle as well as melt, to command as well
as to beseech. If mildness were the more natural expression of such a
combination of features, it was plain, that in the present instance,
the exercise of habitual superiority, and the reception of general
homage, had given to the Saxon lady a loftier character, which mingled
with and qualified that bestowed by nature. Her profuse hair, of a
colour betwixt brown and flaxen, was arranged in a fanciful and
graceful manner in numerous ringlets, to form which art had probably
aided nature. These locks were braided with gems, and, being worn at
full length, intimated the noble birth and free-born condition of the
maiden. A golden chain, to which was attached a small reliquary of the
same metal, hung round her neck. She wore bracelets on her arms, which
were bare. Her dress was an under-gown and kirtle of pale sea-green
silk, over which hung a long loose robe, which reached to the ground,
having very wide sleeves, which came down, however, very little below
the elbow. This robe was crimson, and manufactured out of the very
finest wool. A veil of silk, interwoven with gold, was attached to the
upper part of it, which could be, at the wearer’s pleasure, either
drawn over the face and bosom after the Spanish fashion, or disposed as
a sort of drapery round the shoulders.

When Rowena perceived the Knight Templar’s eyes bent on her with an
ardour, that, compared with the dark caverns under which they moved,
gave them the effect of lighted charcoal, she drew with dignity the
veil around her face, as an intimation that the determined freedom of
his glance was disagreeable. Cedric saw the motion and its cause. “Sir
Templar,” said he, “the cheeks of our Saxon maidens have seen too
little of the sun to enable them to bear the fixed glance of a
crusader.”

“If I have offended,” replied Sir Brian, “I crave your pardon,—that is,
I crave the Lady Rowena’s pardon,—for my humility will carry me no
lower.”

“The Lady Rowena,” said the Prior, “has punished us all, in chastising
the boldness of my friend. Let me hope she will be less cruel to the
splendid train which are to meet at the tournament.”

“Our going thither,” said Cedric, “is uncertain. I love not these
vanities, which were unknown to my fathers when England was free.”

“Let us hope, nevertheless,” said the Prior, “our company may determine
you to travel thitherward; when the roads are so unsafe, the escort of
Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert is not to be despised.”

“Sir Prior,” answered the Saxon, “wheresoever I have travelled in this
land, I have hitherto found myself, with the assistance of my good
sword and faithful followers, in no respect needful of other aid. At
present, if we indeed journey to Ashby-de-la-Zouche, we do so with my
noble neighbour and countryman Athelstane of Coningsburgh, and with
such a train as would set outlaws and feudal enemies at defiance.—I
drink to you, Sir Prior, in this cup of wine, which I trust your taste
will approve, and I thank you for your courtesy. Should you be so rigid
in adhering to monastic rule,” he added, “as to prefer your acid
preparation of milk, I hope you will not strain courtesy to do me
reason.”

“Nay,” said the Priest, laughing, “it is only in our abbey that we
confine ourselves to the ‘lac dulce’ or the ‘lac acidum’ either.
Conversing with, the world, we use the world’s fashions, and therefore
I answer your pledge in this honest wine, and leave the weaker liquor
to my lay-brother.”

“And I,” said the Templar, filling his goblet, “drink wassail to the
fair Rowena; for since her namesake introduced the word into England,
has never been one more worthy of such a tribute. By my faith, I could
pardon the unhappy Vortigern, had he half the cause that we now
witness, for making shipwreck of his honour and his kingdom.”

“I will spare your courtesy, Sir Knight,” said Rowena with dignity, and
without unveiling herself; “or rather I will tax it so far as to
require of you the latest news from Palestine, a theme more agreeable
to our English ears than the compliments which your French breeding
teaches.”

“I have little of importance to say, lady,” answered Sir Brian de
Bois-Guilbert, “excepting the confirmed tidings of a truce with
Saladin.”

He was interrupted by Wamba, who had taken his appropriated seat upon a
chair, the back of which was decorated with two ass’s ears, and which
was placed about two steps behind that of his master, who, from time to
time, supplied him with victuals from his own trencher; a favour,
however, which the Jester shared with the favourite dogs, of whom, as
we have already noticed, there were several in attendance. Here sat
Wamba, with a small table before him, his heels tucked up against the
bar of the chair, his cheeks sucked up so as to make his jaws resemble
a pair of nut-crackers, and his eyes half-shut, yet watching with
alertness every opportunity to exercise his licensed foolery.

“These truces with the infidels,” he exclaimed, without caring how
suddenly he interrupted the stately Templar, “make an old man of me!”

“Go to, knave, how so?” said Cedric, his features prepared to receive
favourably the expected jest.

“Because,” answered Wamba, “I remember three of them in my day, each of
which was to endure for the course of fifty years; so that, by
computation, I must be at least a hundred and fifty years old.”

“I will warrant you against dying of old age, however,” said the
Templar, who now recognised his friend of the forest; “I will assure
you from all deaths but a violent one, if you give such directions to
wayfarers, as you did this night to the Prior and me.”

“How, sirrah!” said Cedric, “misdirect travellers? We must have you
whipt; you are at least as much rogue as fool.”

“I pray thee, uncle,” answered the Jester, “let my folly, for once,
protect my roguery. I did but make a mistake between my right hand and
my left; and he might have pardoned a greater, who took a fool for his
counsellor and guide.”

Conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of the porter’s page,
who announced that there was a stranger at the gate, imploring
admittance and hospitality.

“Admit him,” said Cedric, “be he who or what he may;—a night like that
which roars without, compels even wild animals to herd with tame, and
to seek the protection of man, their mortal foe, rather than perish by
the elements. Let his wants be ministered to with all care—look to it,
Oswald.”

And the steward left the banqueting hall to see the commands of his
patron obeyed.




CHAPTER V


Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses,
affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same
weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed
and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?


MERCHANT OF VENICE


Oswald, returning, whispered into the ear of his master, “It is a Jew,
who calls himself Isaac of York; is it fit I should marshall him into
the hall?”

“Let Gurth do thine office, Oswald,” said Wamba with his usual
effrontery; “the swineherd will be a fit usher to the Jew.”

“St Mary,” said the Abbot, crossing himself, “an unbelieving Jew, and
admitted into this presence!”

“A dog Jew,” echoed the Templar, “to approach a defender of the Holy
Sepulchre?”

“By my faith,” said Wamba, “it would seem the Templars love the Jews’
inheritance better than they do their company.”

“Peace, my worthy guests,” said Cedric; “my hospitality must not be
bounded by your dislikes. If Heaven bore with the whole nation of
stiff-necked unbelievers for more years than a layman can number, we
may endure the presence of one Jew for a few hours. But I constrain no
man to converse or to feed with him.—Let him have a board and a morsel
apart,—unless,” he said smiling, “these turban’d strangers will admit
his society.”

“Sir Franklin,” answered the Templar, “my Saracen slaves are true
Moslems, and scorn as much as any Christian to hold intercourse with a
Jew.”

“Now, in faith,” said Wamba, “I cannot see that the worshippers of
Mahound and Termagaunt have so greatly the advantage over the people
once chosen of Heaven.”

“He shall sit with thee, Wamba,” said Cedric; “the fool and the knave
will be well met.”

“The fool,” answered Wamba, raising the relics of a gammon of bacon,
“will take care to erect a bulwark against the knave.”

“Hush,” said Cedric, “for here he comes.”

Introduced with little ceremony, and advancing with fear and
hesitation, and many a bow of deep humility, a tall thin old man, who,
however, had lost by the habit of stooping much of his actual height,
approached the lower end of the board. His features, keen and regular,
with an aquiline nose, and piercing black eyes; his high and wrinkled
forehead, and long grey hair and beard, would have been considered as
handsome, had they not been the marks of a physiognomy peculiar to a
race, which, during those dark ages, was alike detested by the
credulous and prejudiced vulgar, and persecuted by the greedy and
rapacious nobility, and who, perhaps, owing to that very hatred and
persecution, had adopted a national character, in which there was much,
to say the least, mean and unamiable.

The Jew’s dress, which appeared to have suffered considerably from the
storm, was a plain russet cloak of many folds, covering a dark purple
tunic. He had large boots lined with fur, and a belt around his waist,
which sustained a small knife, together with a case for writing
materials, but no weapon. He wore a high square yellow cap of a
peculiar fashion, assigned to his nation to distinguish them from
Christians, and which he doffed with great humility at the door of the
hall.

The reception of this person in the hall of Cedric the Saxon, was such
as might have satisfied the most prejudiced enemy of the tribes of
Israel. Cedric himself coldly nodded in answer to the Jew’s repeated
salutations, and signed to him to take place at the lower end of the
table, where, however, no one offered to make room for him. On the
contrary, as he passed along the file, casting a timid supplicating
glance, and turning towards each of those who occupied the lower end of
the board, the Saxon domestics squared their shoulders, and continued
to devour their supper with great perseverance, paying not the least
attention to the wants of the new guest. The attendants of the Abbot
crossed themselves, with looks of pious horror, and the very heathen
Saracens, as Isaac drew near them, curled up their whiskers with
indignation, and laid their hands on their poniards, as if ready to rid
themselves by the most desperate means from the apprehended
contamination of his nearer approach.

Probably the same motives which induced Cedric to open his hall to this
son of a rejected people, would have made him insist on his attendants
receiving Isaac with more courtesy. But the Abbot had, at this moment,
engaged him in a most interesting discussion on the breed and character
of his favourite hounds, which he would not have interrupted for
matters of much greater importance than that of a Jew going to bed
supperless. While Isaac thus stood an outcast in the present society,
like his people among the nations, looking in vain for welcome or
resting place, the pilgrim who sat by the chimney took compassion upon
him, and resigned his seat, saying briefly, “Old man, my garments are
dried, my hunger is appeased, thou art both wet and fasting.” So
saying, he gathered together, and brought to a flame, the decaying
brands which lay scattered on the ample hearth; took from the larger
board a mess of pottage and seethed kid, placed it upon the small table
at which he had himself supped, and, without waiting the Jew’s thanks,
went to the other side of the hall;—whether from unwillingness to hold
more close communication with the object of his benevolence, or from a
wish to draw near to the upper end of the table, seemed uncertain.

Had there been painters in those days capable to execute such a
subject, the Jew, as he bent his withered form, and expanded his
chilled and trembling hands over the fire, would have formed no bad
emblematical personification of the Winter season. Having dispelled the
cold, he turned eagerly to the smoking mess which was placed before
him, and ate with a haste and an apparent relish, that seemed to
betoken long abstinence from food.

Meanwhile the Abbot and Cedric continued their discourse upon hunting;
the Lady Rowena seemed engaged in conversation with one of her
attendant females; and the haughty Templar, whose eye wandered from the
Jew to the Saxon beauty, revolved in his mind thoughts which appeared
deeply to interest him.

“I marvel, worthy Cedric,” said the Abbot, as their discourse
proceeded, “that, great as your predilection is for your own manly
language, you do not receive the Norman-French into your favour, so far
at least as the mystery of wood-craft and hunting is concerned. Surely
no tongue is so rich in the various phrases which the field-sports
demand, or furnishes means to the experienced woodman so well to
express his jovial art.”

“Good Father Aymer,” said the Saxon, “be it known to you, I care not
for those over-sea refinements, without which I can well enough take my
pleasure in the woods. I can wind my horn, though I call not the blast
either a ‘recheate’ or a ‘morte’—I can cheer my dogs on the prey, and I
can flay and quarter the animal when it is brought down, without using
the newfangled jargon of ‘curee, arbor, nombles’, and all the babble of
the fabulous Sir Tristrem.” 14

“The French,” said the Templar, raising his voice with the presumptuous
and authoritative tone which he used upon all occasions, “is not only
the natural language of the chase, but that of love and of war, in
which ladies should be won and enemies defied.”

“Pledge me in a cup of wine, Sir Templar,” said Cedric, “and fill
another to the Abbot, while I look back some thirty years to tell you
another tale. As Cedric the Saxon then was, his plain English tale
needed no garnish from French troubadours, when it was told in the ear
of beauty; and the field of Northallerton, upon the day of the Holy
Standard, could tell whether the Saxon war-cry was not heard as far
within the ranks of the Scottish host as the ‘cri de guerre’ of the
boldest Norman baron. To the memory of the brave who fought
there!—Pledge me, my guests.” He drank deep, and went on with
increasing warmth. “Ay, that was a day of cleaving of shields, when a
hundred banners were bent forwards over the heads of the valiant, and
blood flowed round like water, and death was held better than flight. A
Saxon bard had called it a feast of the swords—a gathering of the
eagles to the prey—the clashing of bills upon shield and helmet, the
shouting of battle more joyful than the clamour of a bridal. But our
bards are no more,” he said; “our deeds are lost in those of another
race—our language—our very name—is hastening to decay, and none mourns
for it save one solitary old man—Cupbearer! knave, fill the goblets—To
the strong in arms, Sir Templar, be their race or language what it
will, who now bear them best in Palestine among the champions of the
Cross!”

“It becomes not one wearing this badge to answer,” said Sir Brian de
Bois-Guilbert; “yet to whom, besides the sworn Champions of the Holy
Sepulchre, can the palm be assigned among the champions of the Cross?”

“To the Knights Hospitallers,” said the Abbot; “I have a brother of
their order.”

“I impeach not their fame,” said the Templar; “nevertheless—-”

“I think, friend Cedric,” said Wamba, interfering, “that had Richard of
the Lion’s Heart been wise enough to have taken a fool’s advice, he
might have staid at home with his merry Englishmen, and left the
recovery of Jerusalem to those same Knights who had most to do with the
loss of it.”

“Were there, then, none in the English army,” said the Lady Rowena,
“whose names are worthy to be mentioned with the Knights of the Temple,
and of St John?”

“Forgive me, lady,” replied De Bois-Guilbert; “the English monarch did,
indeed, bring to Palestine a host of gallant warriors, second only to
those whose breasts have been the unceasing bulwark of that blessed
land.”

“Second to NONE,” said the Pilgrim, who had stood near enough to hear,
and had listened to this conversation with marked impatience. All
turned toward the spot from whence this unexpected asseveration was
heard.

[Illustration]

“I say,” repeated the Pilgrim in a firm and strong voice, “that the
English chivalry were second to NONE who ever drew sword in defence of
the Holy Land. I say besides, for I saw it, that King Richard himself,
and five of his knights, held a tournament after the taking of St
John-de-Acre, as challengers against all comers. I say that, on that
day, each knight ran three courses, and cast to the ground three
antagonists. I add, that seven of these assailants were Knights of the
Temple—and Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert well knows the truth of what I
tell you.”

It is impossible for language to describe the bitter scowl of rage
which rendered yet darker the swarthy countenance of the Templar. In
the extremity of his resentment and confusion, his quivering fingers
griped towards the handle of his sword, and perhaps only withdrew, from
the consciousness that no act of violence could be safely executed in
that place and presence. Cedric, whose feelings were all of a right
onward and simple kind, and were seldom occupied by more than one
object at once, omitted, in the joyous glee with which he heard of the
glory of his countrymen, to remark the angry confusion of his guest; “I
would give thee this golden bracelet, Pilgrim,” he said, “couldst thou
tell me the names of those knights who upheld so gallantly the renown
of merry England.”

“That will I do blithely,” replied the Pilgrim, “and without guerdon;
my oath, for a time, prohibits me from touching gold.”

“I will wear the bracelet for you, if you will, friend Palmer,” said
Wamba.

“The first in honour as in arms, in renown as in place,” said the
Pilgrim, “was the brave Richard, King of England.”

“I forgive him,” said Cedric; “I forgive him his descent from the
tyrant Duke William.”

“The Earl of Leicester was the second,” continued the Pilgrim; “Sir
Thomas Multon of Gilsland was the third.”

“Of Saxon descent, he at least,” said Cedric, with exultation.

“Sir Foulk Doilly the fourth,” proceeded the Pilgrim.

“Saxon also, at least by the mother’s side,” continued Cedric, who
listened with the utmost eagerness, and forgot, in part at least, his
hatred to the Normans, in the common triumph of the King of England and
his islanders. “And who was the fifth?” he demanded.

“The fifth was Sir Edwin Turneham.”

“Genuine Saxon, by the soul of Hengist!” shouted Cedric—“And the
sixth?” he continued with eagerness—“how name you the sixth?”

“The sixth,” said the Palmer, after a pause, in which he seemed to
recollect himself, “was a young knight of lesser renown and lower rank,
assumed into that honourable company, less to aid their enterprise than
to make up their number—his name dwells not in my memory.”

“Sir Palmer,” said Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert scornfully, “this assumed
forgetfulness, after so much has been remembered, comes too late to
serve your purpose. I will myself tell the name of the knight before
whose lance fortune and my horse’s fault occasioned my falling—it was
the Knight of Ivanhoe; nor was there one of the six that, for his
years, had more renown in arms.—Yet this will I say, and loudly—that
were he in England, and durst repeat, in this week’s tournament, the
challenge of St John-de-Acre, I, mounted and armed as I now am, would
give him every advantage of weapons, and abide the result.”

“Your challenge would soon be answered,” replied the Palmer, “were your
antagonist near you. As the matter is, disturb not the peaceful hall
with vaunts of the issue of the conflict, which you well know cannot
take place. If Ivanhoe ever returns from Palestine, I will be his
surety that he meets you.”

“A goodly security!” said the Knight Templar; “and what do you proffer
as a pledge?”

“This reliquary,” said the Palmer, taking a small ivory box from his
bosom, and crossing himself, “containing a portion of the true cross,
brought from the Monastery of Mount Carmel.”

The Prior of Jorvaulx crossed himself and repeated a pater noster, in
which all devoutly joined, excepting the Jew, the Mahomedans, and the
Templar; the latter of whom, without vailing his bonnet, or testifying
any reverence for the alleged sanctity of the relic, took from his neck
a gold chain, which he flung on the board, saying—“Let Prior Aymer hold
my pledge and that of this nameless vagrant, in token that when the
Knight of Ivanhoe comes within the four seas of Britain, he underlies
the challenge of Brian de Bois-Guilbert, which, if he answer not, I
will proclaim him as a coward on the walls of every Temple Court in
Europe.”

“It will not need,” said the Lady Rowena, breaking silence; “My voice
shall be heard, if no other in this hall is raised in behalf of the
absent Ivanhoe. I affirm he will meet fairly every honourable
challenge. Could my weak warrant add security to the inestimable pledge
of this holy pilgrim, I would pledge name and fame that Ivanhoe gives
this proud knight the meeting he desires.”

A crowd of conflicting emotions seemed to have occupied Cedric, and
kept him silent during this discussion. Gratified pride, resentment,
embarrassment, chased each other over his broad and open brow, like the
shadow of clouds drifting over a harvest-field; while his attendants,
on whom the name of the sixth knight seemed to produce an effect almost
electrical, hung in suspense upon their master’s looks. But when Rowena
spoke, the sound of her voice seemed to startle him from his silence.

“Lady,” said Cedric, “this beseems not; were further pledge necessary,
I myself, offended, and justly offended, as I am, would yet gage my
honour for the honour of Ivanhoe. But the wager of battle is complete,
even according to the fantastic fashions of Norman chivalry—Is it not,
Father Aymer?”

“It is,” replied the Prior; “and the blessed relic and rich chain will
I bestow safely in the treasury of our convent, until the decision of
this warlike challenge.”

Having thus spoken, he crossed himself again and again, and after many
genuflections and muttered prayers, he delivered the reliquary to
Brother Ambrose, his attendant monk, while he himself swept up with
less ceremony, but perhaps with no less internal satisfaction, the
golden chain, and bestowed it in a pouch lined with perfumed leather,
which opened under his arm. “And now, Sir Cedric,” he said, “my ears
are chiming vespers with the strength of your good wine—permit us
another pledge to the welfare of the Lady Rowena, and indulge us with
liberty to pass to our repose.”

“By the rood of Bromholme,” said the Saxon, “you do but small credit to
your fame, Sir Prior! Report speaks you a bonny monk, that would hear
the matin chime ere he quitted his bowl; and, old as I am, I feared to
have shame in encountering you. But, by my faith, a Saxon boy of
twelve, in my time, would not so soon have relinquished his goblet.”

The Prior had his own reasons, however, for persevering in the course
of temperance which he had adopted. He was not only a professional
peacemaker, but from practice a hater of all feuds and brawls. It was
not altogether from a love to his neighbour, or to himself, or from a
mixture of both. On the present occasion, he had an instinctive
apprehension of the fiery temper of the Saxon, and saw the danger that
the reckless and presumptuous spirit, of which his companion had
already given so many proofs, might at length produce some disagreeable
explosion. He therefore gently insinuated the incapacity of the native
of any other country to engage in the genial conflict of the bowl with
the hardy and strong-headed Saxons; something he mentioned, but
slightly, about his own holy character, and ended by pressing his
proposal to depart to repose.

The grace-cup was accordingly served round, and the guests, after
making deep obeisance to their landlord and to the Lady Rowena, arose
and mingled in the hall, while the heads of the family, by separate
doors, retired with their attendants.

“Unbelieving dog,” said the Templar to Isaac the Jew, as he passed him
in the throng, “dost thou bend thy course to the tournament?”

“I do so propose,” replied Isaac, bowing in all humility, “if it please
your reverend valour.”

“Ay,” said the Knight, “to gnaw the bowels of our nobles with usury,
and to gull women and boys with gauds and toys—I warrant thee store of
shekels in thy Jewish scrip.”

“Not a shekel, not a silver penny, not a halfling—so help me the God of
Abraham!” said the Jew, clasping his hands; “I go but to seek the
assistance of some brethren of my tribe to aid me to pay the fine which
the Exchequer of the Jews have imposed upon me—Father Jacob be my
speed! I am an impoverished wretch—the very gaberdine I wear is
borrowed from Reuben of Tadcaster.” 15

The Templar smiled sourly as he replied, “Beshrew thee for a
false-hearted liar!” and passing onward, as if disdaining farther
conference, he communed with his Moslem slaves in a language unknown to
the bystanders. The poor Israelite seemed so staggered by the address
of the military monk, that the Templar had passed on to the extremity
of the hall ere he raised his head from the humble posture which he had
assumed, so far as to be sensible of his departure. And when he did
look around, it was with the astonished air of one at whose feet a
thunderbolt has just burst, and who hears still the astounding report
ringing in his ears.

The Templar and Prior were shortly after marshalled to their sleeping
apartments by the steward and the cupbearer, each attended by two
torchbearers and two servants carrying refreshments, while servants of
inferior condition indicated to their retinue and to the other guests
their respective places of repose.




CHAPTER VI


To buy his favour I extend this friendship:
If he will take it, so; if not, adieu;
And, for my love, I pray you wrong me not.


MERCHANT OF VENICE


As the Palmer, lighted by a domestic with a torch, passed through the
intricate combination of apartments of this large and irregular
mansion, the cupbearer coming behind him whispered in his ear, that if
he had no objection to a cup of good mead in his apartment, there were
many domestics in that family who would gladly hear the news he had
brought from the Holy Land, and particularly that which concerned the
Knight of Ivanhoe. Wamba presently appeared to urge the same request,
observing that a cup after midnight was worth three after curfew.
Without disputing a maxim urged by such grave authority, the Palmer
thanked them for their courtesy, but observed that he had included in
his religious vow, an obligation never to speak in the kitchen on
matters which were prohibited in the hall. “That vow,” said Wamba to
the cupbearer, “would scarce suit a serving-man.”

The cupbearer shrugged up his shoulders in displeasure. “I thought to
have lodged him in the solere chamber,” said he; “but since he is so
unsocial to Christians, e’en let him take the next stall to Isaac the
Jew’s.—Anwold,” said he to the torchbearer, “carry the Pilgrim to the
southern cell.—I give you good-night,” he added, “Sir Palmer, with
small thanks for short courtesy.”

“Good-night, and Our Lady’s benison,” said the Palmer, with composure;
and his guide moved forward.

In a small antechamber, into which several doors opened, and which was
lighted by a small iron lamp, they met a second interruption from the
waiting-maid of Rowena, who, saying in a tone of authority, that her
mistress desired to speak with the Palmer, took the torch from the hand
of Anwold, and, bidding him await her return, made a sign to the Palmer
to follow. Apparently he did not think it proper to decline this
invitation as he had done the former; for, though his gesture indicated
some surprise at the summons, he obeyed it without answer or
remonstrance.

A short passage, and an ascent of seven steps, each of which was
composed of a solid beam of oak, led him to the apartment of the Lady
Rowena, the rude magnificence of which corresponded to the respect
which was paid to her by the lord of the mansion. The walls were
covered with embroidered hangings, on which different-coloured silks,
interwoven with gold and silver threads, had been employed with all the
art of which the age was capable, to represent the sports of hunting
and hawking. The bed was adorned with the same rich tapestry, and
surrounded with curtains dyed with purple. The seats had also their
stained coverings, and one, which was higher than the rest, was
accommodated with a footstool of ivory, curiously carved.

No fewer than four silver candelabras, holding great waxen torches,
served to illuminate this apartment. Yet let not modern beauty envy the
magnificence of a Saxon princess. The walls of the apartment were so
ill finished and so full of crevices, that the rich hangings shook in
the night blast, and, in despite of a sort of screen intended to
protect them from the wind, the flame of the torches streamed sideways
into the air, like the unfurled pennon of a chieftain. Magnificence
there was, with some rude attempt at taste; but of comfort there was
little, and, being unknown, it was unmissed.

The Lady Rowena, with three of her attendants standing at her back, and
arranging her hair ere she lay down to rest, was seated in the sort of
throne already mentioned, and looked as if born to exact general
homage. The Pilgrim acknowledged her claim to it by a low genuflection.

“Rise, Palmer,” said she graciously. “The defender of the absent has a
right to favourable reception from all who value truth, and honour
manhood.” She then said to her train, “Retire, excepting only Elgitha;
I would speak with this holy Pilgrim.”

The maidens, without leaving the apartment, retired to its further
extremity, and sat down on a small bench against the wall, where they
remained mute as statues, though at such a distance that their whispers
could not have interrupted the conversation of their mistress.

“Pilgrim,” said the lady, after a moment’s pause, during which she
seemed uncertain how to address him, “you this night mentioned a name—I
mean,” she said, with a degree of effort, “the name of Ivanhoe, in the
halls where by nature and kindred it should have sounded most
acceptably; and yet, such is the perverse course of fate, that of many
whose hearts must have throbbed at the sound, I, only, dare ask you
where, and in what condition, you left him of whom you spoke?—We heard,
that, having remained in Palestine, on account of his impaired health,
after the departure of the English army, he had experienced the
persecution of the French faction, to whom the Templars are known to be
attached.”

“I know little of the Knight of Ivanhoe,” answered the Palmer, with a
troubled voice. “I would I knew him better, since you, lady, are
interested in his fate. He hath, I believe, surmounted the persecution
of his enemies in Palestine, and is on the eve of returning to England,
where you, lady, must know better than I, what is his chance of
happiness.”

The Lady Rowena sighed deeply, and asked more particularly when the
Knight of Ivanhoe might be expected in his native country, and whether
he would not be exposed to great dangers by the road. On the first
point, the Palmer professed ignorance; on the second, he said that the
voyage might be safely made by the way of Venice and Genoa, and from
thence through France to England. “Ivanhoe,” he said, “was so well
acquainted with the language and manners of the French, that there was
no fear of his incurring any hazard during that part of his travels.”

“Would to God,” said the Lady Rowena, “he were here safely arrived, and
able to bear arms in the approaching tourney, in which the chivalry of
this land are expected to display their address and valour. Should
Athelstane of Coningsburgh obtain the prize, Ivanhoe is like to hear
evil tidings when he reaches England.—How looked he, stranger, when you
last saw him? Had disease laid her hand heavy upon his strength and
comeliness?”

“He was darker,” said the Palmer, “and thinner, than when he came from
Cyprus in the train of Cœur-de-Lion, and care seemed to sit heavy on
his brow; but I approached not his presence, because he is unknown to
me.”

“He will,” said the lady, “I fear, find little in his native land to
clear those clouds from his countenance. Thanks, good Pilgrim, for your
information concerning the companion of my childhood.—Maidens,” she
said, “draw near—offer the sleeping cup to this holy man, whom I will
no longer detain from repose.”

One of the maidens presented a silver cup, containing a rich mixture of
wine and spice, which Rowena barely put to her lips. It was then
offered to the Palmer, who, after a low obeisance, tasted a few drops.

“Accept this alms, friend,” continued the lady, offering a piece of
gold, “in acknowledgment of thy painful travail, and of the shrines
thou hast visited.”

The Palmer received the boon with another low reverence, and followed
Edwina out of the apartment.

In the anteroom he found his attendant Anwold, who, taking the torch
from the hand of the waiting-maid, conducted him with more haste than
ceremony to an exterior and ignoble part of the building, where a
number of small apartments, or rather cells, served for sleeping places
to the lower order of domestics, and to strangers of mean degree.

“In which of these sleeps the Jew?” said the Pilgrim.

“The unbelieving dog,” answered Anwold, “kennels in the cell next your
holiness.—St Dunstan, how it must be scraped and cleansed ere it be
again fit for a Christian!”

“And where sleeps Gurth the swineherd?” said the stranger.

“Gurth,” replied the bondsman, “sleeps in the cell on your right, as
the Jew on that to your left; you serve to keep the child of
circumcision separate from the abomination of his tribe. You might have
occupied a more honourable place had you accepted of Oswald’s
invitation.”

“It is as well as it is,” said the Palmer; “the company, even of a Jew,
can hardly spread contamination through an oaken partition.”

So saying, he entered the cabin allotted to him, and taking the torch
from the domestic’s hand, thanked him, and wished him good-night.
Having shut the door of his cell, he placed the torch in a candlestick
made of wood, and looked around his sleeping apartment, the furniture
of which was of the most simple kind. It consisted of a rude wooden
stool, and still ruder hutch or bed-frame, stuffed with clean straw,
and accommodated with two or three sheepskins by way of bed-clothes.

The Palmer, having extinguished his torch, threw himself, without
taking off any part of his clothes, on this rude couch, and slept, or
at least retained his recumbent posture, till the earliest sunbeams
found their way through the little grated window, which served at once
to admit both air and light to his uncomfortable cell. He then started
up, and after repeating his matins, and adjusting his dress, he left
it, and entered that of Isaac the Jew, lifting the latch as gently as
he could.

The inmate was lying in troubled slumber upon a couch similar to that
on which the Palmer himself had passed the night. Such parts of his
dress as the Jew had laid aside on the preceding evening, were disposed
carefully around his person, as if to prevent the hazard of their being
carried off during his slumbers. There was a trouble on his brow
amounting almost to agony. His hands and arms moved convulsively, as if
struggling with the nightmare; and besides several ejaculations in
Hebrew, the following were distinctly heard in the Norman-English, or
mixed language of the country: “For the sake of the God of Abraham,
spare an unhappy old man! I am poor, I am penniless—should your irons
wrench my limbs asunder, I could not gratify you!”

The Palmer awaited not the end of the Jew’s vision, but stirred him
with his pilgrim’s staff. The touch probably associated, as is usual,
with some of the apprehensions excited by his dream; for the old man
started up, his grey hair standing almost erect upon his head, and
huddling some part of his garments about him, while he held the
detached pieces with the tenacious grasp of a falcon, he fixed upon the
Palmer his keen black eyes, expressive of wild surprise and of bodily
apprehension.

“Fear nothing from me, Isaac,” said the Palmer, “I come as your
friend.”

“The God of Israel requite you,” said the Jew, greatly relieved; “I
dreamed—But Father Abraham be praised, it was but a dream.” Then,
collecting himself, he added in his usual tone, “And what may it be
your pleasure to want at so early an hour with the poor Jew?”

“It is to tell you,” said the Palmer, “that if you leave not this
mansion instantly, and travel not with some haste, your journey may
prove a dangerous one.”

“Holy father!” said the Jew, “whom could it interest to endanger so
poor a wretch as I am?”

“The purpose you can best guess,” said the Pilgrim; “but rely on this,
that when the Templar crossed the hall yesternight, he spoke to his
Mussulman slaves in the Saracen language, which I well understand, and
charged them this morning to watch the journey of the Jew, to seize
upon him when at a convenient distance from the mansion, and to conduct
him to the castle of Philip de Malvoisin, or to that of Reginald
Front-de-Bœuf.”

It is impossible to describe the extremity of terror which seized upon
the Jew at this information, and seemed at once to overpower his whole
faculties. His arms fell down to his sides, and his head drooped on his
breast, his knees bent under his weight, every nerve and muscle of his
frame seemed to collapse and lose its energy, and he sunk at the foot
of the Palmer, not in the fashion of one who intentionally stoops,
kneels, or prostrates himself to excite compassion, but like a man
borne down on all sides by the pressure of some invisible force, which
crushes him to the earth without the power of resistance.

“Holy God of Abraham!” was his first exclamation, folding and elevating
his wrinkled hands, but without raising his grey head from the
pavement; “Oh, holy Moses! O, blessed Aaron! the dream is not dreamed
for nought, and the vision cometh not in vain! I feel their irons
already tear my sinews! I feel the rack pass over my body like the
saws, and harrows, and axes of iron over the men of Rabbah, and of the
cities of the children of Ammon!”

“Stand up, Isaac, and hearken to me,” said the Palmer, who viewed the
extremity of his distress with a compassion in which contempt was
largely mingled; “you have cause for your terror, considering how your
brethren have been used, in order to extort from them their hoards,
both by princes and nobles; but stand up, I say, and I will point out
to you the means of escape. Leave this mansion instantly, while its
inmates sleep sound after the last night’s revel. I will guide you by
the secret paths of the forest, known as well to me as to any forester
that ranges it, and I will not leave you till you are under safe
conduct of some chief or baron going to the tournament, whose good-will
you have probably the means of securing.”

As the ears of Isaac received the hopes of escape which this speech
intimated, he began gradually, and inch by inch, as it were, to raise
himself up from the ground, until he fairly rested upon his knees,
throwing back his long grey hair and beard, and fixing his keen black
eyes upon the Palmer’s face, with a look expressive at once of hope and
fear, not unmingled with suspicion. But when he heard the concluding
part of the sentence, his original terror appeared to revive in full
force, and he dropt once more on his face, exclaiming, “_I_ possess the
means of securing good-will! alas! there is but one road to the favour
of a Christian, and how can the poor Jew find it, whom extortions have
already reduced to the misery of Lazarus?” Then, as if suspicion had
overpowered his other feelings, he suddenly exclaimed, “For the love of
God, young man, betray me not—for the sake of the Great Father who made
us all, Jew as well as Gentile, Israelite and Ishmaelite—do me no
treason! I have not means to secure the good-will of a Christian
beggar, were he rating it at a single penny.” As he spoke these last
words, he raised himself, and grasped the Palmer’s mantle with a look
of the most earnest entreaty. The pilgrim extricated himself, as if
there were contamination in the touch.

“Wert thou loaded with all the wealth of thy tribe,” he said, “what
interest have I to injure thee?—In this dress I am vowed to poverty,
nor do I change it for aught save a horse and a coat of mail. Yet think
not that I care for thy company, or propose myself advantage by it;
remain here if thou wilt—Cedric the Saxon may protect thee.”

“Alas!” said the Jew, “he will not let me travel in his train—Saxon or
Norman will be equally ashamed of the poor Israelite; and to travel by
myself through the domains of Philip de Malvoisin and Reginald
Front-de-Bœuf—Good youth, I will go with you!—Let us haste—let us gird
up our loins—let us flee!—Here is thy staff, why wilt thou tarry?”

“I tarry not,” said the Pilgrim, giving way to the urgency of his
companion; “but I must secure the means of leaving this place—follow
me.”

He led the way to the adjoining cell, which, as the reader is apprised,
was occupied by Gurth the swineherd.—“Arise, Gurth,” said the Pilgrim,
“arise quickly. Undo the postern gate, and let out the Jew and me.”

Gurth, whose occupation, though now held so mean, gave him as much
consequence in Saxon England as that of Eumaeus in Ithaca, was offended
at the familiar and commanding tone assumed by the Palmer. “The Jew
leaving Rotherwood,” said he, raising himself on his elbow, and looking
superciliously at him without quitting his pallet, “and travelling in
company with the Palmer to boot—”

“I should as soon have dreamt,” said Wamba, who entered the apartment
at the instant, “of his stealing away with a gammon of bacon.”

“Nevertheless,” said Gurth, again laying down his head on the wooden
log which served him for a pillow, “both Jew and Gentile must be
content to abide the opening of the great gate—we suffer no visitors to
depart by stealth at these unseasonable hours.”

“Nevertheless,” said the Pilgrim, in a commanding tone, “you will not,
I think, refuse me that favour.”

So saying, he stooped over the bed of the recumbent swineherd, and
whispered something in his ear in Saxon. Gurth started up as if
electrified. The Pilgrim, raising his finger in an attitude as if to
express caution, added, “Gurth, beware—thou are wont to be prudent. I
say, undo the postern—thou shalt know more anon.”

With hasty alacrity Gurth obeyed him, while Wamba and the Jew followed,
both wondering at the sudden change in the swineherd’s demeanour. “My
mule, my mule!” said the Jew, as soon as they stood without the
postern.

“Fetch him his mule,” said the Pilgrim; “and, hearest thou,—let me have
another, that I may bear him company till he is beyond these parts—I
will return it safely to some of Cedric’s train at Ashby. And do
thou”—he whispered the rest in Gurth’s ear.

“Willingly, most willingly shall it be done,” said Gurth, and instantly
departed to execute the commission.

“I wish I knew,” said Wamba, when his comrade’s back was turned, “what
you Palmers learn in the Holy Land.”

“To say our orisons, fool,” answered the Pilgrim, “to repent our sins,
and to mortify ourselves with fastings, vigils, and long prayers.”

“Something more potent than that,” answered the Jester; “for when would
repentance or prayer make Gurth do a courtesy, or fasting or vigil
persuade him to lend you a mule?—I trow you might as well have told his
favourite black boar of thy vigils and penance, and wouldst have gotten
as civil an answer.”

“Go to,” said the Pilgrim, “thou art but a Saxon fool.”

“Thou sayst well,” said the Jester; “had I been born a Norman, as I
think thou art, I would have had luck on my side, and been next door to
a wise man.”

At this moment Gurth appeared on the opposite side of the moat with the
mules. The travellers crossed the ditch upon a drawbridge of only two
planks breadth, the narrowness of which was matched with the straitness
of the postern, and with a little wicket in the exterior palisade,
which gave access to the forest. No sooner had they reached the mules,
than the Jew, with hasty and trembling hands, secured behind the saddle
a small bag of blue buckram, which he took from under his cloak,
containing, as he muttered, “a change of raiment—only a change of
raiment.” Then getting upon the animal with more alacrity and haste
than could have been anticipated from his years, he lost no time in so
disposing of the skirts of his gabardine as to conceal completely from
observation the burden which he had thus deposited “en croupe”.

The Pilgrim mounted with more deliberation, reaching, as he departed,
his hand to Gurth, who kissed it with the utmost possible veneration.
The swineherd stood gazing after the travellers until they were lost
under the boughs of the forest path, when he was disturbed from his
reverie by the voice of Wamba.

“Knowest thou,” said the Jester, “my good friend Gurth, that thou art
strangely courteous and most unwontedly pious on this summer morning? I
would I were a black Prior or a barefoot Palmer, to avail myself of thy
unwonted zeal and courtesy—certes, I would make more out of it than a
kiss of the hand.”

“Thou art no fool thus far, Wamba,” answered Gurth, “though thou
arguest from appearances, and the wisest of us can do no more—But it is
time to look after my charge.”

So saying, he turned back to the mansion, attended by the Jester.

Meanwhile the travellers continued to press on their journey with a
dispatch which argued the extremity of the Jew’s fears, since persons
at his age are seldom fond of rapid motion. The Palmer, to whom every
path and outlet in the wood appeared to be familiar, led the way
through the most devious paths, and more than once excited anew the
suspicion of the Israelite, that he intended to betray him into some
ambuscade of his enemies.

His doubts might have been indeed pardoned; for, except perhaps the
flying fish, there was no race existing on the earth, in the air, or
the waters, who were the object of such an unintermitting, general, and
relentless persecution as the Jews of this period. Upon the slightest
and most unreasonable pretences, as well as upon accusations the most
absurd and groundless, their persons and property were exposed to every
turn of popular fury; for Norman, Saxon, Dane, and Briton, however
adverse these races were to each other, contended which should look
with greatest detestation upon a people, whom it was accounted a point
of religion to hate, to revile, to despise, to plunder, and to
persecute. The kings of the Norman race, and the independent nobles,
who followed their example in all acts of tyranny, maintained against
this devoted people a persecution of a more regular, calculated, and
self-interested kind. It is a well-known story of King John, that he
confined a wealthy Jew in one of the royal castles, and daily caused
one of his teeth to be torn out, until, when the jaw of the unhappy
Israelite was half disfurnished, he consented to pay a large sum, which
it was the tyrant’s object to extort from him. The little ready money
which was in the country was chiefly in possession of this persecuted
people, and the nobility hesitated not to follow the example of their
sovereign, in wringing it from them by every species of oppression, and
even personal torture. Yet the passive courage inspired by the love of
gain, induced the Jews to dare the various evils to which they were
subjected, in consideration of the immense profits which they were
enabled to realize in a country naturally so wealthy as England. In
spite of every kind of discouragement, and even of the special court of
taxations already mentioned, called the Jews’ Exchequer, erected for
the very purpose of despoiling and distressing them, the Jews
increased, multiplied, and accumulated huge sums, which they
transferred from one hand to another by means of bills of exchange—an
invention for which commerce is said to be indebted to them, and which
enabled them to transfer their wealth from land to land, that when
threatened with oppression in one country, their treasure might be
secured in another.

The obstinacy and avarice of the Jews being thus in a measure placed in
opposition to the fanaticism that tyranny of those under whom they
lived, seemed to increase in proportion to the persecution with which
they were visited; and the immense wealth they usually acquired in
commerce, while it frequently placed them in danger, was at other times
used to extend their influence, and to secure to them a certain degree
of protection. On these terms they lived; and their character,
influenced accordingly, was watchful, suspicious, and timid—yet
obstinate, uncomplying, and skilful in evading the dangers to which
they were exposed.

When the travellers had pushed on at a rapid rate through many devious
paths, the Palmer at length broke silence.

“That large decayed oak,” he said, “marks the boundaries over which
Front-de-Bœuf claims authority—we are long since far from those of
Malvoisin. There is now no fear of pursuit.”

“May the wheels of their chariots be taken off,” said the Jew, “like
those of the host of Pharaoh, that they may drive heavily!—But leave me
not, good Pilgrim—Think but of that fierce and savage Templar, with his
Saracen slaves—they will regard neither territory, nor manor, nor
lordship.”

“Our road,” said the Palmer, “should here separate; for it beseems not
men of my character and thine to travel together longer than needs must
be. Besides, what succour couldst thou have from me, a peaceful
Pilgrim, against two armed heathens?”

“O good youth,” answered the Jew, “thou canst defend me, and I know
thou wouldst. Poor as I am, I will requite it—not with money, for
money, so help me my Father Abraham, I have none—but—-”

“Money and recompense,” said the Palmer, interrupting him, “I have
already said I require not of thee. Guide thee I can; and, it may be,
even in some sort defend thee; since to protect a Jew against a
Saracen, can scarce be accounted unworthy of a Christian. Therefore,
Jew, I will see thee safe under some fitting escort. We are now not far
from the town of Sheffield, where thou mayest easily find many of thy
tribe with whom to take refuge.”

“The blessing of Jacob be upon thee, good youth!” said the Jew; “in
Sheffield I can harbour with my kinsman Zareth, and find some means of
travelling forth with safety.”

“Be it so,” said the Palmer; “at Sheffield then we part, and
half-an-hour’s riding will bring us in sight of that town.”

The half hour was spent in perfect silence on both parts; the Pilgrim
perhaps disdaining to address the Jew, except in case of absolute
necessity, and the Jew not presuming to force a conversation with a
person whose journey to the Holy Sepulchre gave a sort of sanctity to
his character. They paused on the top of a gently rising bank, and the
Pilgrim, pointing to the town of Sheffield, which lay beneath them,
repeated the words, “Here, then, we part.”

“Not till you have had the poor Jew’s thanks,” said Isaac; “for I
presume not to ask you to go with me to my kinsman Zareth’s, who might
aid me with some means of repaying your good offices.”

“I have already said,” answered the Pilgrim, “that I desire no
recompense. If among the huge list of thy debtors, thou wilt, for my
sake, spare the gyves and the dungeon to some unhappy Christian who
stands in thy danger, I shall hold this morning’s service to thee well
bestowed.”

“Stay, stay,” said the Jew, laying hold of his garment; “something
would I do more than this, something for thyself.—God knows the Jew is
poor—yes, Isaac is the beggar of his tribe—but forgive me should I
guess what thou most lackest at this moment.”

“If thou wert to guess truly,” said the Palmer, “it is what thou canst
not supply, wert thou as wealthy as thou sayst thou art poor.”

“As I say?” echoed the Jew; “O! believe it, I say but the truth; I am a
plundered, indebted, distressed man. Hard hands have wrung from me my
goods, my money, my ships, and all that I possessed—Yet I can tell thee
what thou lackest, and, it may be, supply it too. Thy wish even now is
for a horse and armour.”

The Palmer started, and turned suddenly towards the Jew:—“What fiend
prompted that guess?” said he, hastily.

“No matter,” said the Jew, smiling, “so that it be a true one—and, as I
can guess thy want, so I can supply it.”

“But consider,” said the Palmer, “my character, my dress, my vow.”

“I know you Christians,” replied the Jew, “and that the noblest of you
will take the staff and sandal in superstitious penance, and walk afoot
to visit the graves of dead men.”

“Blaspheme not, Jew,” said the Pilgrim, sternly.

“Forgive me,” said the Jew; “I spoke rashly. But there dropt words from
you last night and this morning, that, like sparks from flint, showed
the metal within; and in the bosom of that Palmer’s gown, is hidden a
knight’s chain and spurs of gold. They glanced as you stooped over my
bed in the morning.”

The Pilgrim could not forbear smiling. “Were thy garments searched by
as curious an eye, Isaac,” said he, “what discoveries might not be
made?”

“No more of that,” said the Jew, changing colour; and drawing forth his
writing materials in haste, as if to stop the conversation, he began to
write upon a piece of paper which he supported on the top of his yellow
cap, without dismounting from his mule. When he had finished, he
delivered the scroll, which was in the Hebrew character, to the
Pilgrim, saying, “In the town of Leicester all men know the rich Jew,
Kirjath Jairam of Lombardy; give him this scroll—he hath on sale six
Milan harnesses, the worst would suit a crowned head—ten goodly steeds,
the worst might mount a king, were he to do battle for his throne. Of
these he will give thee thy choice, with every thing else that can
furnish thee forth for the tournament: when it is over, thou wilt
return them safely—unless thou shouldst have wherewith to pay their
value to the owner.”

“But, Isaac,” said the Pilgrim, smiling, “dost thou know that in these
sports, the arms and steed of the knight who is unhorsed are forfeit to
his victor? Now I may be unfortunate, and so lose what I cannot replace
or repay.”

The Jew looked somewhat astounded at this possibility; but collecting
his courage, he replied hastily. “No—no—no—It is impossible—I will not
think so. The blessing of Our Father will be upon thee. Thy lance will
be powerful as the rod of Moses.”

So saying, he was turning his mule’s head away, when the Palmer, in his
turn, took hold of his gaberdine. “Nay, but Isaac, thou knowest not all
the risk. The steed may be slain, the armour injured—for I will spare
neither horse nor man. Besides, those of thy tribe give nothing for
nothing; something there must be paid for their use.”

The Jew twisted himself in the saddle, like a man in a fit of the
colic; but his better feelings predominated over those which were most
familiar to him. “I care not,” he said, “I care not—let me go. If there
is damage, it will cost you nothing—if there is usage money, Kirjath
Jairam will forgive it for the sake of his kinsman Isaac. Fare thee
well!—Yet hark thee, good youth,” said he, turning about, “thrust
thyself not too forward into this vain hurly-burly—I speak not for
endangering the steed, and coat of armour, but for the sake of thine
own life and limbs.”

“Gramercy for thy caution,” said the Palmer, again smiling; “I will use
thy courtesy frankly, and it will go hard with me but I will requite
it.”

They parted, and took different roads for the town of Sheffield.




CHAPTER VII


Knights, with a long retinue of their squires,
In gaudy liveries march and quaint attires;
One laced the helm, another held the lance,
A third the shining buckler did advance.
The courser paw’d the ground with restless feet,
And snorting foam’d and champ’d the golden bit.
The smiths and armourers on palfreys ride,
Files in their hands, and hammers at their side;
And nails for loosen’d spears, and thongs for shields provide.
The yeomen guard the streets in seemly bands;
And clowns come crowding on, with cudgels in their hands.


PALAMON AND ARCITE


The condition of the English nation was at this time sufficiently
miserable. King Richard was absent a prisoner, and in the power of the
perfidious and cruel Duke of Austria. Even the very place of his
captivity was uncertain, and his fate but very imperfectly known to the
generality of his subjects, who were, in the meantime, a prey to every
species of subaltern oppression.

Prince John, in league with Philip of France, Cœur-de-Lion’s mortal
enemy, was using every species of influence with the Duke of Austria,
to prolong the captivity of his brother Richard, to whom he stood
indebted for so many favours. In the meantime, he was strengthening his
own faction in the kingdom, of which he proposed to dispute the
succession, in case of the King’s death, with the legitimate heir,
Arthur Duke of Brittany, son of Geoffrey Plantagenet, the elder brother
of John. This usurpation, it is well known, he afterwards effected. His
own character being light, profligate, and perfidious, John easily
attached to his person and faction, not only all who had reason to
dread the resentment of Richard for criminal proceedings during his
absence, but also the numerous class of “lawless resolutes,” whom the
crusades had turned back on their country, accomplished in the vices of
the East, impoverished in substance, and hardened in character, and who
placed their hopes of harvest in civil commotion. To these causes of
public distress and apprehension, must be added, the multitude of
outlaws, who, driven to despair by the oppression of the feudal
nobility, and the severe exercise of the forest laws, banded together
in large gangs, and, keeping possession of the forests and the wastes,
set at defiance the justice and magistracy of the country. The nobles
themselves, each fortified within his own castle, and playing the petty
sovereign over his own dominions, were the leaders of bands scarce less
lawless and oppressive than those of the avowed depredators. To
maintain these retainers, and to support the extravagance and
magnificence which their pride induced them to affect, the nobility
borrowed sums of money from the Jews at the most usurious interest,
which gnawed into their estates like consuming cankers, scarce to be
cured unless when circumstances gave them an opportunity of getting
free, by exercising upon their creditors some act of unprincipled
violence.

Under the various burdens imposed by this unhappy state of affairs, the
people of England suffered deeply for the present, and had yet more
dreadful cause to fear for the future. To augment their misery, a
contagious disorder of a dangerous nature spread through the land; and,
rendered more virulent by the uncleanness, the indifferent food, and
the wretched lodging of the lower classes, swept off many whose fate
the survivors were tempted to envy, as exempting them from the evils
which were to come.

Yet amid these accumulated distresses, the poor as well as the rich,
the vulgar as well as the noble, in the event of a tournament, which
was the grand spectacle of that age, felt as much interested as the
half-starved citizen of Madrid, who has not a real left to buy
provisions for his family, feels in the issue of a bull-feast. Neither
duty nor infirmity could keep youth or age from such exhibitions. The
Passage of Arms, as it was called, which was to take place at Ashby, in
the county of Leicester, as champions of the first renown were to take
the field in the presence of Prince John himself, who was expected to
grace the lists, had attracted universal attention, and an immense
confluence of persons of all ranks hastened upon the appointed morning
to the place of combat.

The scene was singularly romantic. On the verge of a wood, which
approached to within a mile of the town of Ashby, was an extensive
meadow, of the finest and most beautiful green turf, surrounded on one
side by the forest, and fringed on the other by straggling oak-trees,
some of which had grown to an immense size. The ground, as if fashioned
on purpose for the martial display which was intended, sloped gradually
down on all sides to a level bottom, which was enclosed for the lists
with strong palisades, forming a space of a quarter of a mile in
length, and about half as broad. The form of the enclosure was an
oblong square, save that the corners were considerably rounded off, in
order to afford more convenience for the spectators. The openings for
the entry of the combatants were at the northern and southern
extremities of the lists, accessible by strong wooden gates, each wide
enough to admit two horsemen riding abreast. At each of these portals
were stationed two heralds, attended by six trumpets, as many
pursuivants, and a strong body of men-at-arms for maintaining order,
and ascertaining the quality of the knights who proposed to engage in
this martial game.

On a platform beyond the southern entrance, formed by a natural
elevation of the ground, were pitched five magnificent pavilions,
adorned with pennons of russet and black, the chosen colours of the
five knights challengers. The cords of the tents were of the same
colour. Before each pavilion was suspended the shield of the knight by
whom it was occupied, and beside it stood his squire, quaintly
disguised as a salvage or silvan man, or in some other fantastic dress,
according to the taste of his master, and the character he was pleased
to assume during the game. 16

The central pavilion, as the place of honour, had been assigned to
Brian be Bois-Guilbert, whose renown in all games of chivalry, no less
than his connexions with the knights who had undertaken this Passage of
Arms, had occasioned him to be eagerly received into the company of the
challengers, and even adopted as their chief and leader, though he had
so recently joined them. On one side of his tent were pitched those of
Reginald Front-de-Bœuf and Richard de Malvoisin, and on the other was
the pavilion of Hugh de Grantmesnil, a noble baron in the vicinity,
whose ancestor had been Lord High Steward of England in the time of the
Conqueror, and his son William Rufus. Ralph de Vipont, a knight of St
John of Jerusalem, who had some ancient possessions at a place called
Heather, near Ashby-de-la-Zouche, occupied the fifth pavilion. From the
entrance into the lists, a gently sloping passage, ten yards in
breadth, led up to the platform on which the tents were pitched. It was
strongly secured by a palisade on each side, as was the esplanade in
front of the pavilions, and the whole was guarded by men-at-arms.

The northern access to the lists terminated in a similar entrance of
thirty feet in breadth, at the extremity of which was a large enclosed
space for such knights as might be disposed to enter the lists with the
challengers, behind which were placed tents containing refreshments of
every kind for their accommodation, with armourers, tarriers, and other
attendants, in readiness to give their services wherever they might be
necessary.

The exterior of the lists was in part occupied by temporary galleries,
spread with tapestry and carpets, and accommodated with cushions for
the convenience of those ladies and nobles who were expected to attend
the tournament. A narrow space, betwixt these galleries and the lists,
gave accommodation for yeomanry and spectators of a better degree than
the mere vulgar, and might be compared to the pit of a theatre. The
promiscuous multitude arranged themselves upon large banks of turf
prepared for the purpose, which, aided by the natural elevation of the
ground, enabled them to overlook the galleries, and obtain a fair view
into the lists. Besides the accommodation which these stations
afforded, many hundreds had perched themselves on the branches of the
trees which surrounded the meadow; and even the steeple of a country
church, at some distance, was crowded with spectators.

It only remains to notice respecting the general arrangement, that one
gallery in the very centre of the eastern side of the lists, and
consequently exactly opposite to the spot where the shock of the combat
was to take place, was raised higher than the others, more richly
decorated, and graced by a sort of throne and canopy, on which the
royal arms were emblazoned. Squires, pages, and yeomen in rich
liveries, waited around this place of honour, which was designed for
Prince John and his attendants. Opposite to this royal gallery was
another, elevated to the same height, on the western side of the lists;
and more gaily, if less sumptuously decorated, than that destined for
the Prince himself. A train of pages and of young maidens, the most
beautiful who could be selected, gaily dressed in fancy habits of green
and pink, surrounded a throne decorated in the same colours. Among
pennons and flags bearing wounded hearts, burning hearts, bleeding
hearts, bows and quivers, and all the commonplace emblems of the
triumphs of Cupid, a blazoned inscription informed the spectators, that
this seat of honour was designed for “La Royne de las Beaulte et des
Amours”. But who was to represent the Queen of Beauty and of Love on
the present occasion no one was prepared to guess.

Meanwhile, spectators of every description thronged forward to occupy
their respective stations, and not without many quarrels concerning
those which they were entitled to hold. Some of these were settled by
the men-at-arms with brief ceremony; the shafts of their battle-axes,
and pummels of their swords, being readily employed as arguments to
convince the more refractory. Others, which involved the rival claims
of more elevated persons, were determined by the heralds, or by the two
marshals of the field, William de Wyvil, and Stephen de Martival, who,
armed at all points, rode up and down the lists to enforce and preserve
good order among the spectators.

Gradually the galleries became filled with knights and nobles, in their
robes of peace, whose long and rich-tinted mantles were contrasted with
the gayer and more splendid habits of the ladies, who, in a greater
proportion than even the men themselves, thronged to witness a sport,
which one would have thought too bloody and dangerous to afford their
sex much pleasure. The lower and interior space was soon filled by
substantial yeomen and burghers, and such of the lesser gentry, as,
from modesty, poverty, or dubious title, durst not assume any higher
place. It was of course amongst these that the most frequent disputes
for precedence occurred.

“Dog of an unbeliever,” said an old man, whose threadbare tunic bore
witness to his poverty, as his sword, and dagger, and golden chain
intimated his pretensions to rank,—“whelp of a she-wolf! darest thou
press upon a Christian, and a Norman gentleman of the blood of
Montdidier?”

This rough expostulation was addressed to no other than our
acquaintance Isaac, who, richly and even magnificently dressed in a
gaberdine ornamented with lace and lined with fur, was endeavouring to
make place in the foremost row beneath the gallery for his daughter,
the beautiful Rebecca, who had joined him at Ashby, and who was now
hanging on her father’s arm, not a little terrified by the popular
displeasure which seemed generally excited by her parent’s presumption.
But Isaac, though we have seen him sufficiently timid on other
occasions, knew well that at present he had nothing to fear. It was not
in places of general resort, or where their equals were assembled, that
any avaricious or malevolent noble durst offer him injury. At such
meetings the Jews were under the protection of the general law; and if
that proved a weak assurance, it usually happened that there were among
the persons assembled some barons, who, for their own interested
motives, were ready to act as their protectors. On the present
occasion, Isaac felt more than usually confident, being aware that
Prince John was even then in the very act of negotiating a large loan
from the Jews of York, to be secured upon certain jewels and lands.
Isaac’s own share in this transaction was considerable, and he well
knew that the Prince’s eager desire to bring it to a conclusion would
ensure him his protection in the dilemma in which he stood.

Emboldened by these considerations, the Jew pursued his point, and
jostled the Norman Christian, without respect either to his descent,
quality, or religion. The complaints of the old man, however, excited
the indignation of the bystanders. One of these, a stout well-set
yeoman, arrayed in Lincoln green, having twelve arrows stuck in his
belt, with a baldric and badge of silver, and a bow of six feet length
in his hand, turned short round, and while his countenance, which his
constant exposure to weather had rendered brown as a hazel nut, grew
darker with anger, he advised the Jew to remember that all the wealth
he had acquired by sucking the blood of his miserable victims had but
swelled him like a bloated spider, which might be overlooked while he
kept in a corner, but would be crushed if it ventured into the light.
This intimation, delivered in Norman-English with a firm voice and a
stern aspect, made the Jew shrink back; and he would have probably
withdrawn himself altogether from a vicinity so dangerous, had not the
attention of every one been called to the sudden entrance of Prince
John, who at that moment entered the lists, attended by a numerous and
gay train, consisting partly of laymen, partly of churchmen, as light
in their dress, and as gay in their demeanour, as their companions.
Among the latter was the Prior of Jorvaulx, in the most gallant trim
which a dignitary of the church could venture to exhibit. Fur and gold
were not spared in his garments; and the points of his boots,
out-heroding the preposterous fashion of the time, turned up so very
far, as to be attached, not to his knees merely, but to his very
girdle, and effectually prevented him from putting his foot into the
stirrup. This, however, was a slight inconvenience to the gallant
Abbot, who, perhaps, even rejoicing in the opportunity to display his
accomplished horsemanship before so many spectators, especially of the
fair sex, dispensed with the use of these supports to a timid rider.
The rest of Prince John’s retinue consisted of the favourite leaders of
his mercenary troops, some marauding barons and profligate attendants
upon the court, with several Knights Templars and Knights of St John.

It may be here remarked, that the knights of these two orders were
accounted hostile to King Richard, having adopted the side of Philip of
France in the long train of disputes which took place in Palestine
betwixt that monarch and the lion-hearted King of England. It was the
well-known consequence of this discord that Richard’s repeated
victories had been rendered fruitless, his romantic attempts to besiege
Jerusalem disappointed, and the fruit of all the glory which he had
acquired had dwindled into an uncertain truce with the Sultan Saladin.
With the same policy which had dictated the conduct of their brethren
in the Holy Land, the Templars and Hospitallers in England and Normandy
attached themselves to the faction of Prince John, having little reason
to desire the return of Richard to England, or the succession of
Arthur, his legitimate heir. For the opposite reason, Prince John hated
and contemned the few Saxon families of consequence which subsisted in
England, and omitted no opportunity of mortifying and affronting them;
being conscious that his person and pretensions were disliked by them,
as well as by the greater part of the English commons, who feared
farther innovation upon their rights and liberties, from a sovereign of
John’s licentious and tyrannical disposition.

Attended by this gallant equipage, himself well mounted, and splendidly
dressed in crimson and in gold, bearing upon his hand a falcon, and
having his head covered by a rich fur bonnet, adorned with a circle of
precious stones, from which his long curled hair escaped and overspread
his shoulders, Prince John, upon a grey and high-mettled palfrey,
caracoled within the lists at the head of his jovial party, laughing
loud with his train, and eyeing with all the boldness of royal
criticism the beauties who adorned the lofty galleries.

Those who remarked in the physiognomy of the Prince a dissolute
audacity, mingled with extreme haughtiness and indifference to the
feelings of others could not yet deny to his countenance that sort of
comeliness which belongs to an open set of features, well formed by
nature, modelled by art to the usual rules of courtesy, yet so far
frank and honest, that they seemed as if they disclaimed to conceal the
natural workings of the soul. Such an expression is often mistaken for
manly frankness, when in truth it arises from the reckless indifference
of a libertine disposition, conscious of superiority of birth, of
wealth, or of some other adventitious advantage, totally unconnected
with personal merit. To those who did not think so deeply, and they
were the greater number by a hundred to one, the splendour of Prince
John’s “rheno”, (i.e. fur tippet,) the richness of his cloak, lined
with the most costly sables, his maroquin boots and golden spurs,
together with the grace with which he managed his palfrey, were
sufficient to merit clamorous applause.

In his joyous caracole round the lists, the attention of the Prince was
called by the commotion, not yet subsided, which had attended the
ambitious movement of Isaac towards the higher places of the assembly.
The quick eye of Prince John instantly recognised the Jew, but was much
more agreeably attracted by the beautiful daughter of Zion, who,
terrified by the tumult, clung close to the arm of her aged father.

The figure of Rebecca might indeed have compared with the proudest
beauties of England, even though it had been judged by as shrewd a
connoisseur as Prince John. Her form was exquisitely symmetrical, and
was shown to advantage by a sort of Eastern dress, which she wore
according to the fashion of the females of her nation. Her turban of
yellow silk suited well with the darkness of her complexion. The
brilliancy of her eyes, the superb arch of her eyebrows, her
well-formed aquiline nose, her teeth as white as pearl, and the
profusion of her sable tresses, which, each arranged in its own little
spiral of twisted curls, fell down upon as much of a lovely neck and
bosom as a simarre of the richest Persian silk, exhibiting flowers in
their natural colours embossed upon a purple ground, pe

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/82