Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott

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

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

``Saints of Heaven!'' exclaimed De Bracy, ``he
must have escaped in the monk's garments!''

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

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

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

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

``Oh, a Norman saw will soon cut a Saxon collar.''
said De Bracy.

``Ay, noble sir,'' said Wamba, ``and thence
goes the proverb---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

``Nor to the Jew Isaac's daughter,'' said the
Templar, who had now joined them

``Neither,'' said Front-de-Buf, ``belong to this
Saxon's company.''

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

``This is the real _Deus vobiscum_,'' said Wamba,
as he passed the reverend brother; ``the others
were but counterfeits.''

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

``Safe thou art,'' replied De Bracy; ``and for
Christianity, here is the stout Baron Reginald
Front-de-Buf, whose utter abomination is a Jew;
and the good Knight Templar, Brian de Bois-Guilbert,
whose trade is to slay Saracens---If these are
not good marks of Christianity, I know no other
which they bear about them.''
``Ye are friends and allies of our reverend father
in God, Aymer, Prior of Jorvaulx,'' said the monk,
without noticing the tone of De Bracy's reply; ``ye
owe him aid both by knightly faith and holy charity;
for what saith the blessed Saint Augustin,
in his treatise _De Civitate Dei_------''

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

``_Sancta Maria!_'' ejaculated Father Ambrose,
``how prompt to ire are these unhallowed laymen!
---But be it known to you, brave knights, that certain
murderous caitiffs, casting behind them fear
of God, and reverence of his church, and not regarding
the bull of the holy see, _Si quis, suadende
Diabolo_------''

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

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

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

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

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

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

``To the battlements!'' cried De Bracy, ``and
let us mark what these knaves do without;'' and
so saying, he opened a latticed window which led
to a sort of bartisan or projecting balcony, and immediately
called from thence to those in the apartment---
``Saint Dennis, but the old monk hath
brought true tidings!---They bring forward mantelets
and pavisses,* and the archers muster on the

* Mantelets were temporary and movable defences formed
* of planks, under cover of which the assailants advanced to the
* attack of fortified places of old. Pavisses were a species of large
* shields covering the whole person, employed on the same occasions.

skirts of the wood like a dark cloud before a hailstorm.''

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

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

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

``Go patter thy petitions to heaven,'' said the
fierce Norman, ``for we on earth have no time to
listen to them.---Ho! there, Anselm I see that seething
pitch and oil are ready to pour on the heads of
these audacious traitors---Look that the cross-bowmen
lack not bolts.*---Fling abroad my banner with

* The bolt was the arrow peculiarly fitted to the cross-bow,
* as that of the long-bow was called a shaft. Hence the English
* proverb---``I will either make a shaft or bolt of it,'' signifying a
* determination to make one use or other of the thing spoken of.

the old bull's head---the knaves shall soon find with
whom they have to do this day!''

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

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

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

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

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

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

``I espy him,'' said De Bracy; ``I see the waving
of a knight's crest, and the gleam of his armour.
See yon tall man in the black mail, who is
busied marshalling the farther troop of the rascaille
yeomen---by Saint Dennis, I hold him to be the
same whom we called _Le Noir Faineant_, who overthrew
thee, Front-de-Buf, in the lists at Ashby.''
``So much the better,'' said Front-de-Buf,
``that he comes here to give me my revenge. Some
hilding fellow he must be, who dared not stay to
assert his claim to the tourney prize which chance
had assigned him. I should in vain have sought
for him where knights and nobles seek their foes,
and right glad am I he hath here shown himself
among yon villain yeomanry.''

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

CHAPTER XXVIII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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