Ivanhoe by Walter Scott (world best books to read .TXT) 📖

>“Dog of an unbeliever,” said an old man, whose threadbare tunic

bore witness to his poverty, as his sword, and dagger, and golden

chain intimated his pretensions to rank,---“whelp of a she-wolf!

darest thou press upon a Christian, and a Norman gentleman of the

blood of Montdidier?”

This rough expostulation was addressed to no other than our

acquaintance Isaac, who, richly and even magnificently dressed

in a gaberdine ornamented with lace and lined with fur, was

endeavouring to make place in the foremost row beneath the

gallery for his daughter, the beautiful Rebecca, who had joined

him at Ashby, and who was now hanging on her father’s arm, not a

little terrified by the popular displeasure which seemed

generally excited by her parent’s presumption. But Isaac, though

we have seen him sufficiently timid on other occasions, knew well

that at present he had nothing to fear. It was not in places of

general resort, or where their equals were assembled, that any

avaricious or malevolent noble durst offer him injury. At such

meetings the Jews were under the protection of the general law;

and if that proved a weak assurance, it usually happened that

there were among the persons assembled some barons, who, for

their own interested motives, were ready to act as their

protectors. On the present occasion, Isaac felt more than

usually confident, being aware that Prince John was even then in

the very act of negotiating a large loan from the Jews of York,

to be secured upon certain jewels and lands. Isaac’s own share

in this transaction was considerable, and he well knew that the

Prince’s eager desire to bring it to a conclusion would ensure

him his protection in the dilemma in which he stood.

Emboldened by these considerations, the Jew pursued his point,

and jostled the Norman Christian, without respect either to his

descent, quality, or religion. The complaints of the old man,

however, excited the indignation of the bystanders. One of

these, a stout well-set yeoman, arrayed in Lincoln green, having

twelve arrows stuck in his belt, with a baldric and badge of

silver, and a bow of six feet length in his hand, turned short

round, and while his countenance, which his constant exposure to

weather had rendered brown as a hazel nut, grew darker with

anger, he advised the Jew to remember that all the wealth he had

acquired by sucking the blood of his miserable victims had but

swelled him like a bloated spider, which might be overlooked

while he kept in a comer, but would be crushed if it ventured

into the light. This intimation, delivered in Norman-English

with a firm voice and a stern aspect, made the Jew shrink back;

and he would have probably withdrawn himself altogether from a

vicinity so dangerous, had not the attention of every one been

called to the sudden entrance of Prince John, who at that moment

entered the lists, attended by a numerous and gay train,

consisting partly of laymen, partly of churchmen, as light in

their dress, and as gay in their demeanour, as their companions.

Among the latter was the Prior of Jorvaulx, in the most gallant

trim which a dignitary of the church could venture to exhibit.

Fur and gold were not spared in his garments; and the points of

his boots, out-heroding the preposterous fashion of the time,

turned up so very far, as to be attached, not to his knees

merely, but to his very girdle, and effectually prevented him

from putting his foot into the stirrup. This, however, was a

slight inconvenience to the gallant Abbot, who, perhaps, even

rejoicing in the opportunity to display his accomplished

horsemanship before so many spectators, especially of the fair

sex, dispensed with the use of these supports to a timid rider.

The rest of Prince John’s retinue consisted of the favourite

leaders of his mercenary troops, some marauding barons and

profligate attendants upon the court, with several Knights

Templars and Knights of St John.

It may be here remarked, that the knights of these two orders

were accounted hostile to King Richard, having adopted the side

of Philip of France in the long train of disputes which took

place in Palestine betwixt that monarch and the lion-hearted

King of England. It was the well-known consequence of this

discord that Richard’s repeated victories had been rendered

fruitless, his romantic attempts to besiege Jerusalem

disappointed, and the fruit of all the glory which he had

acquired had dwindled into an uncertain truce with the Sultan

Saladin. With the same policy which had dictated the conduct of

their brethren in the Holy Land, the Templars and Hospitallers in

England and Normandy attached themselves to the faction of Prince

John, having little reason to desire the return of Richard to

England, or the succession of Arthur, his legitimate heir. For

the opposite reason, Prince John hated and contemned the few

Saxon families of consequence which subsisted in England, and

omitted no opportunity of mortifying and affronting them; being

conscious that his person and pretensions were disliked by them,

as well as by the greater part of the English commons, who feared

farther innovation upon their rights and liberties, from a

sovereign of John’s licentious and tyrannical disposition.

Attended by this gallant equipage, himself well mounted, and

splendidly dressed in crimson and in gold, bearing upon his hand

a falcon, and having his head covered by a rich fur bonnet,

adorned with a circle of precious stones, from which his long

curled hair escaped and overspread his shoulders, Prince John,

upon a grey and high-mettled palfrey, caracoled within the lists

at the head of his jovial party, laughing loud with his train,

and eyeing with all the boldness of royal criticism the beauties

who adorned the lofty galleries.

Those who remarked in the physiognomy of the Prince a dissolute

audacity, mingled with extreme haughtiness and indifference to

the feelings of others could not yet deny to his countenance that

sort of comeliness which belongs to an open set of features, well

formed by nature, modelled by art to the usual rules of courtesy,

yet so far frank and honest, that they seemed as if they

disclaimed to conceal the natural workings of the soul. Such an

expression is often mistaken for manly frankness, when in truth

it arises from the reckless indifference of a libertine

disposition, conscious of superiority of birth, of wealth, or of

some other adventitious advantage, totally unconnected with

personal merit. To those who did not think so deeply, and they

were the greater number by a hundred to one, the splendour of

Prince John’s “rheno”, (i.e. fur tippet,) the richness of his

cloak, lined with the most costly sables, his maroquin boots and

golden spurs, together with the grace with which he managed his

palfrey, were sufficient to merit clamorous applause.

In his joyous caracole round the lists, the attention of the

Prince was called by the commotion, not yet subsided, which had

attended the ambitious movement of Isaac towards the higher

places of the assembly. The quick eye of Prince John instantly

recognised the Jew, but was much more agreeably attracted by the

beautiful daughter of Zion, who, terrified by the tumult, clung

close to the arm of her aged father.

The figure of Rebecca might indeed have compared with the

proudest beauties of England, even though it had been judged by

as shrewd a connoisseur as Prince John. Her form was exquisitely

symmetrical, and was shown to advantage by a sort of Eastern

dress, which she wore according to the fashion of the females of

her nation. Her turban of yellow silk suited well with the

darkness of her complexion. The brilliancy of her eyes, the

superb arch of her eyebrows, her well-formed aquiline nose, her

teeth as white as pearl, and the profusion of her sable tresses,

which, each arranged in its own little spiral of twisted curls,

fell down upon as much of a lovely neck and bosom as a simarre of

the richest Persian silk, exhibiting flowers in their natural

colours embossed upon a purple ground, permitted to be visible

---all these constituted a combination of loveliness, which

yielded not to the most beautiful of the maidens who surrounded

her. It is true, that of the golden and pearl-studded clasps,

which closed her vest from the throat to the waist, the three

uppermost were left unfastened on account of the heat, which

something enlarged the prospect to which we allude. A diamond

necklace, with pendants of inestimable value, were by this means

also made more conspicuous. The feather of an ostrich, fastened

in her turban by an agraffe set with brilliants, was another

distinction of the beautiful Jewess, scoffed and sneered at by

the proud dames who sat above her, but secretly envied by those

who affected to deride them.

“By the bald scalp of Abraham,” said Prince John, “yonder Jewess

must be the very model of that perfection, whose charms drove

frantic the wisest king that ever lived! What sayest thou, Prior

Aymer?---By the Temple of that wise king, which our wiser brother

Richard proved unable to recover, she is the very Bride of the

Canticles!”

“The Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley,”---answered the

Prior, in a sort of snuffling tone; “but your Grace must remember

she is still but a Jewess.”

“Ay!” added Prince John, without heeding him, “and there is my

Mammon of unrighteousness too---the Marquis of Marks, the Baron

of Byzants, contesting for place with penniless dogs, whose

threadbare cloaks have not a single cross in their pouches to

keep the devil from dancing there. By the body of St Mark, my

prince of supplies, with his lovely Jewess, shall have a place in

the gallery!---What is she, Isaac? Thy wife or thy daughter, that

Eastern houri that thou lockest under thy arm as thou wouldst thy

treasure-casket?”

“My daughter Rebecca, so please your Grace,” answered Isaac, with

a low congee, nothing embarrassed by the Prince’s salutation, in

which, however, there was at least as much mockery as courtesy.

“The wiser man thou,” said John, with a peal of laughter, in

which his gay followers obsequiously joined. “But, daughter or

wife, she should be preferred according to her beauty and thy

merits.---Who sits above there?” he continued, bending his eye on

the gallery. “Saxon churls, lolling at their lazy length!---out

upon them!---let them sit close, and make room for my prince of

usurers and his lovely daughter. I’ll make the hinds know they

must share the high places of the synagogue with those whom the

synagogue properly belongs to.”

Those who occupied the gallery to whom this injurious and

unpolite speech was addressed, were the family of Cedric the

Saxon, with that of his ally and kinsman, Athelstane of

Coningsburgh, a personage, who, on account of his descent from

the last Saxon monarchs of England, was held in the highest

respect by all the Saxon natives of the north of England. But

with the blood of this ancient royal race, many of their

infirmities had descended to Athelstane. He was comely in

countenance, bulky and strong in person, and in the flower of his

age---yet inanimate in expression, dull-eyed, heavy-browed,

inactive and sluggish in all his motions, and so slow in

resolution, that the soubriquet of one of his ancestors was

conferred upon him, and he was very generally called Athelstane

the Unready. His friends, and he had many, who, as well as

Cedric, were passionately attached to him, contended that this

sluggish temper arose not from want of courage, but from mere

want of decision; others alleged that his hereditary vice of

drunkenness had obscured his faculties, never of a very acute

order, and that the passive courage and meek good-nature which

remained behind, were merely the dregs of a character that might

have been deserving of praise, but of which all the valuable

parts had flown off in the progress