Ivanhoe - Walter Scott (e ink ebook reader txt) 📗

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