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

challenge.---Meantime, let him be assured, that I hold him

not as one of his companions, with whom I can with pleasure

exchange courtesies; but rather as one with whom I stand upon

terms of mortal defiance.”

“My master,” answered Baldwin, “knows how to requite scorn with

scorn, and blows with blows, as well as courtesy with courtesy.

Since you disdain to accept from him any share of the ransom at

which you have rated the arms of the other knights, I must leave

his armour and his horse here, being well assured that he will

never deign to mount the one nor wear the other.”

“You have spoken well, good squire,” said the Disinherited

Knight, “well and boldly, as it beseemeth him to speak who

answers for an absent master. Leave not, however, the horse and

armour here. Restore them to thy master; or, if he scorns to

accept them, retain them, good friend, for thine own use. So far

as they are mine, I bestow them upon you freely.”

Baldwin made a deep obeisance, and retired with his companions;

and the Disinherited Knight entered the pavilion.

“Thus far, Gurth,” said he, addressing his attendant, “the

reputation of English chivalry hath not suffered in my hands.”

“And I,” said Gurth, “for a Saxon swineherd, have not ill played

the personage of a Norman squire-at-arms.”

“Yea, but,” answered the Disinherited Knight, “thou hast ever

kept me in anxiety lest thy clownish bearing should discover

thee.”

“Tush!” said Gurth, “I fear discovery from none, saving my

playfellow, Wamba the Jester, of whom I could never discover

whether he were most knave or fool. Yet I could scarce choose

but laugh, when my old master passed so near to me, dreaming all

the while that Gurth was keeping his porkers many a mile off, in

the thickets and swamps of Rotherwood. If I am discovered------”

“Enough,” said the Disinherited Knight, “thou knowest my

promise.”

“Nay, for that matter,” said Gurth, “I will never fail my friend

for fear of my skin-cutting. I have a tough hide, that will bear

knife or scourge as well as any boar’s hide in my herd.”

“Trust me, I will requite the risk you run for my love, Gurth,”

said the Knight. “Meanwhile, I pray you to accept these ten

pieces of gold.”

“I am richer,” said Gurth, putting them into his pouch, “than

ever was swineherd or bondsman.”

“Take this bag of gold to Ashby,” continued his master, “and find

out Isaac the Jew of York, and let him pay himself for the horse

and arms with which his credit supplied me.”

“Nay, by St Dunstan,” replied Gurth, “that I will not do.”

“How, knave,” replied his master, “wilt thou not obey my

commands?”

“So they be honest, reasonable, and Christian commands,” replied

Gurth; “but this is none of these. To suffer the Jew to pay

himself would be dishonest, for it would be cheating my master;

and unreasonable, for it were the part of a fool; and

unchristian, since it would be plundering a believer to enrich an

infidel.”

“See him contented, however, thou stubborn varlet,” said the

Disinherited Knight.

“I will do so,” said Gurth, taking the bag under his cloak, and

leaving the apartment; “and it will go hard,” he muttered, “but I

content him with one-half of his own asking.” So saying, he

departed, and left the Disinherited Knight to his own perplexed

ruminations; which, upon more accounts than it is now possible to

communicate to the reader, were of a nature peculiarly agitating

and painful.

We must now change the scene to the village of Ashby, or rather

to a country house in its vicinity belonging to a wealthy

Israelite, with whom Isaac, his daughter, and retinue, had taken

up their quarters; the Jews, it is well known, being as liberal

in exercising the duties of hospitality and charity among their

own people, as they were alleged to be reluctant and churlish in

extending them to those whom they termed Gentiles, and whose

treatment of them certainly merited little hospitality at their

hand.

In an apartment, small indeed, but richly furnished with

decorations of an Oriental taste, Rebecca was seated on a heap of

embroidered cushions, which, piled along a low platform that

surrounded the chamber, served, like the estrada of the

Spaniards, instead of chairs and stools. She was watching the

motions of her father with a look of anxious and filial

affection, while he paced the apartment with a dejected mien and

disordered step; sometimes clasping his hands together

---sometimes casting his eyes to the roof of the apartment, as

one who laboured under great mental tribulation. “O, Jacob!” he

exclaimed---“O, all ye twelve Holy Fathers of our tribe! what a

losing venture is this for one who hath duly kept every jot and

tittle of the law of Moses---Fifty zecchins wrenched from me at

one clutch, and by the talons of a tyrant!”

“But, father,” said Rebecca, “you seemed to give the gold to

Prince John willingly.”

“Willingly? the blotch of Egypt upon him!---Willingly, saidst

thou?---Ay, as willingly as when, in the Gulf of Lyons, I flung

over my merchandise to lighten the ship, while she laboured in

the tempest---robed the seething billows in my choice silks

---perfumed their briny foam with myrrh and aloes---enriched

their caverns with gold and silver work! And was not that an

hour of unutterable misery, though my own hands made the

sacrifice?”

“But it was a sacrifice which Heaven exacted to save our lives,”

answered Rebecca, “and the God of our fathers has since blessed

your store and your gettings.”

“Ay,” answered Isaac, “but if the tyrant lays hold on them as he

did to-day, and compels me to smile while he is robbing me?---O,

daughter, disinherited and wandering as we are, the worst evil

which befalls our race is, that when we are wronged and

plundered, all the world laughs around, and we are compelled to

suppress our sense of injury, and to smile tamely, when we would

revenge bravely.”

“Think not thus of it, my father,” said Rebecca; “we also have

advantages. These Gentiles, cruel and oppressive as they are,

are in some sort dependent on the dispersed children of Zion,

whom they despise and persecute. Without the aid of our wealth,

they could neither furnish forth their hosts in war, nor their

triumphs in peace, and the gold which we lend them returns with

increase to our coffers. We are like the herb which flourisheth

most when it is most trampled on. Even this day’s pageant had

not proceeded without the consent of the despised Jew, who

furnished the means.”

“Daughter,” said Isaac, “thou hast harped upon another string of

sorrow. The goodly steed and the rich armour, equal to the full

profit of my adventure with our Kirjath Jairam of Leicester

---there is a dead loss too---ay, a loss which swallows up the

gains of a week; ay, of the space between two Sabbaths---and yet

it may end better than I now think, for ‘tis a good youth.”

“Assuredly,” said Rebecca, “you shall not repent you of requiting

the good deed received of the stranger knight.”

“I trust so, daughter,” said Isaac, “and I trust too in the

rebuilding of Zion; but as well do I hope with my own bodily eyes

to see the walls and battlements of the new Temple, as to see a

Christian, yea, the very best of Christians, repay a debt to a

Jew, unless under the awe of the judge and jailor.”

So saying, he resumed his discontented walk through the

apartment; and Rebecca, perceiving that her attempts at

consolation only served to awaken new subjects of complaint,

wisely desisted from her unavailing efforts---a prudential line

of conduct, and we recommend to all who set up for comforters and

advisers, to follow it in the like circumstances.

The evening was now becoming dark, when a Jewish servant entered

the apartment, and placed upon the table two silver lamps, fed

with perfumed oil; the richest wines, and the most delicate

refreshments, were at the same time displayed by another

Israelitish domestic on a small ebony table, inlaid with silver;

for, in the interior of their houses, the Jews refused themselves

no expensive indulgences. At the same time the servant informed

Isaac, that a Nazarene (so they termed Christians, while

conversing among themselves) desired to speak with him. He that

would live by traffic, must hold himself at the disposal of every

one claiming business with him. Isaac at once replaced on the

table the untasted glass of Greek wine which he had just raised

to his lips, and saying hastily to his daughter, “Rebecca, veil

thyself,” commanded the stranger to be admitted.

Just as Rebecca had dropped over her fine features a screen of

silver gauze which reached to her feet, the door opened, and

Gurth entered, wrapt in the ample folds of his Norman mantle.

His appearance was rather suspicious than prepossessing,

especially as, instead of doffing his bonnet, he pulled it still

deeper over his rugged brow.

“Art thou Isaac the Jew of York?” said Gurth, in Saxon.

“I am,” replied Isaac, in the same language, (for his traffic had

rendered every tongue spoken in Britain familiar to him)---“and

who art thou?”

“That is not to the purpose,” answered Gurth.

“As much as my name is to thee,” replied Isaac; “for without

knowing thine, how can I hold intercourse with thee?”

“Easily,” answered Gurth; “I, being to pay money, must know that

I deliver it to the right person; thou, who are to receive it,

will not, I think, care very greatly by whose hands it is

delivered.”

“O,” said the Jew, “you are come to pay moneys?---Holy Father

Abraham! that altereth our relation to each other. And from whom

dost thou bring it?”

“From the Disinherited Knight,” said Gurth, “victor in this day’s

tournament. It is the price of the armour supplied to him by

Kirjath Jairam of Leicester, on thy recommendation. The steed

is restored to thy stable. I desire to know the amount of the

sum which I am to pay for the armour.”

“I said he was a good youth!” exclaimed Isaac with joyful

exultation. “A cup of wine will do thee no harm,” he added,

filling and handing to the swineherd a richer drought than Gurth

had ever before tasted. “And how much money,” continued Isaac,

“has thou brought with thee?”

“Holy Virgin!” said Gurth, setting down the cup, “what nectar

these unbelieving dogs drink, while true Christians are fain to

quaff ale as muddy and thick as the draff we give to hogs!---What

money have I brought with me?” continued the Saxon, when he had

finished this uncivil ejaculation, “even but a small sum;

something in hand the whilst. What, Isaac! thou must bear a

conscience, though it be a Jewish one.”

“Nay, but,” said Isaac, “thy master has won goodly steeds and

rich armours with the strength of his lance, and of his right

hand---but ‘tis a good youth---the Jew will take these in present

payment, and render him back the surplus.”

“My master has disposed of them already,” said Gurth.

“Ah! that was wrong,” said the Jew, “that was the part of a fool.

No Christians here could buy so many horses and armour---no Jew

except myself would give him half the values. But thou hast a

hundred zecchins with thee in that bag,” said Isaac, prying under

Gurth’s cloak, “it is a heavy one.”

“I have heads for cross-bow bolts in it,” said Gurth, readily.

“Well, then”---said Isaac, panting and hesitating between

habitual love of gain and a new-born desire to be liberal in the

present instance, “if I should say that I would take eighty

zecchins for