Ivanhoe - Walter Scott (e ink ebook reader txt) 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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not a guilder’s profit, have you money to pay me?”
“Barely,” said Gurth, though the sum demanded was more reasonable
than he expected, “and it will leave my master nigh penniless.
Nevertheless, if such be your least offer, I must be content.”
“Fill thyself another goblet of wine,” said the Jew. “Ah! eighty
zecchins is too little. It leaveth no profit for the usages of
the moneys; and, besides, the good horse may have suffered wrong
in this day’s encounter. O, it was a hard and a dangerous
meeting! man and steed rushing on each other like wild bulls of
Bashan! The horse cannot but have had wrong.”
“And I say,” replied Gurth, “he is sound, wind and limb; and you
may see him now, in your stable. And I say, over and above, that
seventy zecchins is enough for the armour, and I hope a
Christian’s word is as good as a Jew’s. If you will not take
seventy, I will carry this bag” (and he shook it till the
contents jingled) “back to my master.”
“Nay, nay!” said Isaac; “lay down the talents---the shekels---the
eighty zecchins, and thou shalt see I will consider thee
liberally.”
Gurth at length complied; and telling out eighty zecchins upon
the table, the Jew delivered out to him an acquittance for the
horse and suit of armour. The Jew’s hand trembled for joy as he
wrapped up the first seventy pieces of gold. The last ten he
told over with much deliberation, pausing, and saying something
as he took each piece from the table, and dropt it into his
purse. It seemed as if his avarice were struggling with his
better nature, and compelling him to pouch zecchin after zecchin
while his generosity urged him to restore some part at least to
his benefactor, or as a donation to his agent. His whole speech
ran nearly thus:
“Seventy-one---seventy-two; thy master is a good youth
---seventy-three, an excellent youth---seventy-four---that piece
hath been clipt within the ring---seventy-five---and that looketh
light of weight ---seventy-six---when thy master wants money, let
him come to Isaac of York---seventy-seven---that is, with
reasonable security.” Here he made a considerable pause, and
Gurth had good hope that the last three pieces might escape the
fate of their comrades; but the enumeration proceeded.
---“Seventy-eight---thou art a good fellow---seventy-nine---and
deservest something for thyself------”
Here the Jew paused again, and looked at the last zecchin,
intending, doubtless, to bestow it upon Gurth. He weighed it
upon the tip of his finger, and made it ring by dropping it upon
the table. Had it rung too flat, or had it felt a hair’s breadth
too light, generosity had carried the day; but, unhappily for
Gurth, the chime was full and true, the zecchin plump, newly
coined, and a grain above weight. Isaac could not find in his
heart to part with it, so dropt it into his purse as if in
absence of mind, with the words, “Eighty completes the tale, and
I trust thy master will reward thee handsomely.---Surely,” he
added, looking earnestly at the bag, “thou hast more coins in
that pouch?”
Gurth grinned, which was his nearest approach to a laugh, as he
replied, “About the same quantity which thou hast just told over
so carefully.” He then folded the quittance, and put it under
his cap, adding,---“Peril of thy beard, Jew, see that this be
full and ample!” He filled himself unbidden, a third goblet of
wine, and left the apartment without ceremony.
“Rebecca,” said the Jew, “that Ishmaelite hath gone somewhat
beyond me. Nevertheless his master is a good youth---ay, and I
am well pleased that he hath gained shekels of gold and shekels
of silver, even by the speed of his horse and by the strength of
his lance, which, like that of Goliath the Philistine, might vie
with a weaver’s beam.”
As he turned to receive Rebecca’s answer, he observed, that
during his chattering with Gurth, she had left the apartment
unperceived.
In the meanwhile, Gurth had descended the stair, and, having
reached the dark antechamber or hall, was puzzling about to
discover the entrance, when a figure in white, shown by a small
silver lamp which she held in her hand, beckoned him into a side
apartment. Gurth had some reluctance to obey the summons. Rough
and impetuous as a wild boar, where only earthly force was to be
apprehended, he had all the characteristic terrors of a Saxon
respecting fawns, forest-fiends, white women, and the whole of
the superstitions which his ancestors had brought with them from
the wilds of Germany. He remembered, moreover, that he was in
the house of a Jew, a people who, besides the other unamiable
qualities which popular report ascribed to them, were supposed to
be profound necromancers and cabalists. Nevertheless, after a
moment’s pause, he obeyed the beckoning summons of the
apparition, and followed her into the apartment which she
indicated, where he found to his joyful surprise that his fair
guide was the beautiful Jewess whom he had seen at the
tournament, and a short time in her father’s apartment.
She asked him the particulars of his transaction with Isaac,
which he detailed accurately.
“My father did but jest with thee, good fellow,” said Rebecca;
“he owes thy master deeper kindness than these arms and steed
could pay, were their value tenfold. What sum didst thou pay my
father even now?”
“Eighty zecchins,” said Gurth, surprised at the question.
“In this purse,” said Rebecca, “thou wilt find a hundred.
Restore to thy master that which is his due, and enrich thyself
with the remainder. Haste---begone---stay not to render thanks!
and beware how you pass through this crowded town, where thou
mayst easily lose both thy burden and thy life.---Reuben,” she
added, clapping her hands together, “light forth this stranger,
and fail not to draw lock and bar behind him.” Reuben, a
dark-brow’d and black-bearded Israelite, obeyed her summons, with
a torch in his hand; undid the outward door of the house, and
conducting Gurth across a paved court, let him out through a
wicket in the entrance-gate, which he closed behind him with such
bolts and chains as would well have become that of a prison.
“By St Dunstan,” said Gurth, as he stumbled up the dark avenue,
“this is no Jewess, but an angel from heaven! Ten zecchins from
my brave young master---twenty from this pearl of Zion---Oh,
happy day!---Such another, Gurth, will redeem thy bondage, and
make thee a brother as free of thy guild as the best. And then
do I lay down my swineherd’s horn and staff, and take the
freeman’s sword and buckler, and follow my young master to the
death, without hiding either my face or my name.”
CHAPTER XI
1st Outlaw: Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you;
If not, we’ll make you sit, and rifle you.
Speed: Sir, we are undone! these are the villains
That all the travellers do fear so much.
Val: My friends,---
1st Out: That’s not so, sir, we are your enemies.
2d Out: Peace! we’ll hear him.
3d Out: Ay, by my beard, will we;
For he’s a proper man.
Two Gentlemen of Verona
The nocturnal adventures of Gurth were not yet concluded; indeed
he himself became partly of that mind, when, after passing one or
two straggling houses which stood in the outskirts of the
village, he found himself in a deep lane, running between two
banks overgrown with hazel and holly, while here and there a
dwarf oak flung its arms altogether across the path. The lane
was moreover much rutted and broken up by the carriages which had
recently transported articles of various kinds to the tournament;
and it was dark, for the banks and bushes intercepted the light
of the harvest moon.
From the village were heard the distant sounds of revelry, mixed
occasionally with loud laughter, sometimes broken by screams, and
sometimes by wild strains of distant music. All these sounds,
intimating the disorderly state of the town, crowded with
military nobles and their dissolute attendants, gave Gurth some
uneasiness. “The Jewess was right,” he said to himself. “By
heaven and St Dunstan, I would I were safe at my journey’s end
with all this treasure! Here are such numbers, I will not say of
arrant thieves, but of errant knights and errant squires, errant
monks and errant minstrels, errant jugglers and errant jesters,
that a man with a single merk would be in danger, much more a
poor swineherd with a whole bagful of zecchins. Would I were out
of the shade of these infernal bushes, that I might at least see
any of St Nicholas’s clerks before they spring on my shoulders.”
Gurth accordingly hastened his pace, in order to gain the open
common to which the lane led, but was not so fortunate as to
accomplish his object. Just as he had attained the upper end of
the lane, where the underwood was thickest, four men sprung upon
him, even as his fears anticipated, two from each side of the
road, and seized him so fast, that resistance, if at first
practicable, would have been now too late.---“Surrender your
charge,” said one of them; “we are the deliverers of the
commonwealth, who ease every man of his burden.”
“You should not ease me of mine so lightly,” muttered Gurth,
whose surly honesty could not be tamed even by the pressure of
immediate violence,---“had I it but in my power to give three
strokes in its defence.”
“We shall see that presently,” said the robber; and, speaking to
his companions, he added, “bring along the knave. I see he would
have his head broken, as well as his purse cut, and so be let
blood in two veins at once.”
Gurth was hurried along agreeably to this mandate, and having
been dragged somewhat roughly over the bank, on the left-hand
side of the lane, found himself in a straggling thicket, which
lay betwixt it and the open common. He was compelled to follow
his rough conductors into the very depth of this cover, where
they stopt unexpectedly in an irregular open space, free in a
great measure from trees, and on which, therefore, the beams of
the moon fell without much interruption from boughs and leaves.
Here his captors were joined by two other persons, apparently
belonging to the gang. They had short swords by their sides, and
quarter-staves in their hands, and Gurth could now observe that
all six wore visors, which rendered their occupation a matter of
no question, even had their former proceedings left it in doubt.
“What money hast thou, churl?” said one of the thieves.
“Thirty zecchins of my own property,” answered Gurth, doggedly.
“A forfeit---a forfeit,” shouted the robbers; “a Saxon hath
thirty zecchins, and returns sober from a village! An undeniable
and unredeemable forfeit of all he hath about him.”
“I hoarded it to purchase my freedom,” said Gurth.
“Thou art an ass,” replied one of the thieves “three quarts of
double ale had rendered thee as free as thy master, ay, and freer
too, if he be a Saxon like thyself.”
“A sad truth,” replied Gurth; “but if these same thirty zecchins
will buy my freedom from you, unloose my hands, and I will pay
them to you.”
“Hold,” said one who seemed to exercise some authority over the
others; “this bag which thou bearest, as I can feel through thy
cloak, contains more coin than thou hast told us of.”
“It is the good knight my master’s,” answered Gurth, “of which,
assuredly, I would not have spoken a word, had you been satisfied
with working your will upon mine own property.”
“Thou art an honest fellow,” replied the robber, “I warrant thee;
and we worship not St Nicholas
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