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

class="calibre1">So spoke the burly Priest, assuming, on his part, high defiance.

But who may resist his fate? The buffet of the Knight was given

with such strength and good-will, that the Friar rolled head over

heels upon the plain, to the great amazement of all the

spectators. But he arose neither angry nor crestfallen.

“Brother,” said he to the Knight, “thou shouldst have used thy

strength with more discretion. I had mumbled but a lame mass an

thou hadst broken my jaw, for the piper plays ill that wants the

nether chops. Nevertheless, there is my hand, in friendly

witness, that I will exchange no more cuffs with thee, having

been a loser by the barter. End now all unkindness. Let us put

the Jew to ransom, since the leopard will not change his spots,

and a Jew he will continue to be.”

“The Priest,” said Clement, “is not half so confident of the

Jew’s conversion, since he received that buffet on the ear.”

“Go to, knave, what pratest thou of conversions?---what, is there

no respect?---all masters and no men?---I tell thee, fellow, I

was somewhat totty when I received the good knight’s blow, or I

had kept my ground under it. But an thou gibest more of it, thou

shalt learn I can give as well as take.”

“Peace all!” said the Captain. “And thou, Jew, think of thy

ransom; thou needest not to be told that thy race are held to be

accursed in all Christian communities, and trust me that we

cannot endure thy presence among us. Think, therefore, of an

offer, while I examine a prisoner of another cast.”

“Were many of Front-de-Boeuf’s men taken?” demanded the Black

Knight.

“None of note enough to be put to ransom,” answered the Captain;

“a set of hilding fellows there were, whom we dismissed to find

them a new master---enough had been done for revenge and profit;

the bunch of them were not worth a cardecu. The prisoner I speak

of is better booty---a jolly monk riding to visit his leman, an I

may judge by his horse-gear and wearing apparel.---Here cometh

the worthy prelate, as pert as a pyet.” And, between two yeomen,

was brought before the silvan throne of the outlaw Chief, our old

friend, Prior Aymer of Jorvaulx.

CHAPTER XXXIII

------Flower of warriors,

How is’t with Titus Lartius?

MARCIUS.—As with a man busied about decrees,

Condemning some to death and some to exile,

Ransoming him or pitying, threatening the other.

Coriolanus

The captive Abbot’s features and manners exhibited a whimsical

mixture of offended pride, and deranged foppery and bodily

terror.

“Why, how now, my masters?” said he, with a voice in which all

three emotions were blended. “What order is this among ye? Be

ye Turks or Christians, that handle a churchman?---Know ye what

it is, ‘manus imponere in servos Domini’? Ye have plundered my

mails---torn my cope of curious cut lace, which might have served

a cardinal!---Another in my place would have been at his

‘excommunicabo vos’; but I am placible, and if ye order forth my

palfreys, release my brethren, and restore my mails, tell down

with all speed an hundred crowns to be expended in masses at the

high altar of Jorvaulx Abbey, and make your vow to eat no venison

until next Pentecost, it may be you shall hear little more of

this mad frolic.”

“Holy Father,” said the chief Outlaw, “it grieves me to think

that you have met with such usage from any of my followers, as

calls for your fatherly reprehension.”

“Usage!” echoed the priest, encouraged by the mild tone of the

silvan leader; “it were usage fit for no hound of good race

---much less for a Christian---far less for a priest---and least

of all for the Prior of the holy community of Jorvaulx. Here is

a profane and drunken minstrel, called Allan-a-Dale---‘nebulo

quidam’---who has menaced me with corporal punishment---nay, with

death itself, an I pay not down four hundred crowns of ransom, to

the boot of all the treasure he hath already robbed me of---gold

chains and gymmal rings to an unknown value; besides what is

broken and spoiled among their rude hands, such as my pouncer-box

and silver crisping-tongs.”

“It is impossible that Allan-a-Dale can have thus treated a man

of your reverend bearing,” replied the Captain.

“It is true as the gospel of Saint Nicodemus,” said the Prior;

“he swore, with many a cruel north-country oath, that he would

hang me up on the highest tree in the greenwood.”

“Did he so in very deed? Nay, then, reverend father, I think you

had better comply with his demands---for Allan-a-Dale is the very

man to abide by his word when he has so pledged it.” *

A commissary is said to have received similar consolation from a certain Commander-in-chief, to whom he complained that a general officer had used some such threat towards him as that in the text.

“You do but jest with me,” said the astounded Prior, with a

forced laugh; “and I love a good jest with all my heart. But,

ha! ha! ha! when the mirth has lasted the livelong night, it is

time to be grave in the morning.”

“And I am as grave as a father confessor,” replied the Outlaw;

“you must pay a round ransom, Sir Prior, or your convent is

likely to be called to a new election; for your place will know

you no more.”

“Are ye Christians,” said the Prior, “and hold this language to a

churchman?”

“Christians! ay, marry are we, and have divinity among us to

boot,” answered the Outlaw. “Let our buxom chaplain stand forth,

and expound to this reverend father the texts which concern this

matter.”

The Friar, half-drunk, half-sober, had huddled a friar’s frock

over his green cassock, and now summoning together whatever

scraps of learning he had acquired by rote in former days, “Holy

father,” said he, “‘Deus faciat salvam benignitatem vestram’

---You are welcome to the greenwood.”

“What profane mummery is this?” said the Prior. “Friend, if thou

be’st indeed of the church, it were a better deed to show me how

I may escape from these men’s hands, than to stand ducking and

grinning here like a morris-dancer.”

“Truly, reverend father,” said the Friar, “I know but one mode in

which thou mayst escape. This is Saint Andrew’s day with us, we

are taking our tithes.”

“But not of the church, then, I trust, my good brother?” said the

Prior.

“Of church and lay,” said the Friar; “and therefore, Sir Prior

‘facite vobis amicos de Mammone iniquitatis’---make yourselves

friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness, for no other friendship

is like to serve your turn.”

“I love a jolly woodsman at heart,” said the Prior, softening his

tone; “come, ye must not deal too hard with me---I can well of

woodcraft, and can wind a horn clear and lustily, and hollo till

every oak rings again---Come, ye must not deal too hard with me.”

“Give him a horn,” said the Outlaw; “we will prove the skill he

boasts of.”

The Prior Aymer winded a blast accordingly. The Captain shook

his head.

“Sir Prior,” he said, “thou blowest a merry note, but it may not

ransom thee---we cannot afford, as the legend on a good knight’s

shield hath it, to set thee free for a blast. Moreover, I have

found thee---thou art one of those, who, with new French graces

and Tra-li-ras, disturb the ancient English bugle notes.---Prior,

that last flourish on the recheat hath added fifty crowns to thy

ransom, for corrupting the true old manly blasts of venerie.”

“Well, friend,” said the Abbot, peevishly, “thou art ill to

please with thy woodcraft. I pray thee be more conformable in

this matter of my ransom. At a word---since I must needs, for

once, hold a candle to the devil---what ransom am I to pay for

walking on Watling-street, without having fifty men at my back?”

“Were it not well,” said the Lieutenant of the gang apart to the

Captain, “that the Prior should name the Jew’s ransom, and the

Jew name the Prior’s?”

“Thou art a mad knave,” said the Captain, “but thy plan

transcends!---Here, Jew, step forth---Look at that holy Father

Aymer, Prior of the rich Abbey of Jorvaulx, and tell us at what

ransom we should hold him?---Thou knowest the income of his

convent, I warrant thee.”

“O, assuredly,” said Isaac. “I have trafficked with the good

fathers, and bought wheat and barley, and fruits of the earth,

and also much wool. O, it is a rich abbey-stede, and they do

live upon the fat, and drink the sweet wines upon the lees, these

good fathers of Jorvaulx. Ah, if an outcast like me had such a

home to go to, and such incomings by the year and by the month, I

would pay much gold and silver to redeem my captivity.”

“Hound of a Jew!” exclaimed the Prior, “no one knows better than

thy own cursed self, that our holy house of God is indebted for

the finishing of our chancel---”

“And for the storing of your cellars in the last season with the

due allowance of Gascon wine,” interrupted the Jew; “but that

---that is small matters.”

“Hear the infidel dog!” said the churchman; “he jangles as if our

holy community did come under debts for the wines we have a

license to drink, ‘propter necessitatem, et ad frigus

depellendum’. The circumcised villain blasphemeth the holy

church, and Christian men listen and rebuke him not!”

“All this helps nothing,” said the leader.---“Isaac, pronounce

what he may pay, without flaying both hide and hair.”

“An six hundred crowns,” said Isaac, “the good Prior might well

pay to your honoured valours, and never sit less soft in his

stall.”

“Six hundred crowns,” said the leader, gravely; “I am contented

---thou hast well spoken, Isaac---six hundred crowns.---It is a

sentence, Sir Prior.”

“A sentence!---a sentence!” exclaimed the band; “Solomon had not

done it better.”

“Thou hearest thy doom, Prior,” said the leader.

“Ye are mad, my masters,” said the Prior; “where am I to find

such a sum? If I sell the very pyx and candlesticks on the altar

at Jorvaulx, I shall scarce raise the half; and it will be

necessary for that purpose that I go to Jorvaulx myself; ye may

retain as borrows*

Borghs, or borrows, signifies pledges. Hence our word to borrow, because we pledge ourselves to restore what is lent.

my two priests.”

“That will be but blind trust,” said the Outlaw; “we will retain

thee, Prior, and send them to fetch thy ransom. Thou shalt not

want a cup of wine and a collop of venison the while; and if thou

lovest woodcraft, thou shalt see such as your north country never

witnessed.”

“Or, if so please you,” said Isaac, willing to curry favour with

the outlaws, “I can send to York for the six hundred crowns, out

of certain monies in my hands, if so be that the most reverend

Prior present will grant me a quittance.”

“He shall grant thee whatever thou dost list, Isaac,” said the

Captain; “and thou shalt lay down the redemption money for Prior

Aymer as well as for thyself.”

“For myself! ah, courageous sirs,” said the Jew, “I am a broken

and impoverished man; a beggar’s staff must be my portion through

life, supposing I were to pay you fifty crowns.”

“The Prior shall judge of that matter,” replied the Captain.

---“How say you, Father Aymer? Can the Jew afford a good

ransom?”

“Can he afford a ransom?” answered the Prior “Is he not Isaac of

York, rich enough to redeem the captivity of the ten tribes of

Israel, who were led