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

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-Boeuf.”

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-Boeuf---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?---l 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