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

though no one was free from the charge, he

himself had been most distinguished for rebellion and ingratitude

to his father.

“I think,” said he, after a moment’s pause, “that my brother

proposed to confer upon his favourite the rich manor of Ivanhoe.”

“He did endow him with it,” answered Cedric; “nor is it my least

quarrel with my son, that he stooped to hold, as a feudal vassal,

the very domains which his fathers possessed in free and

independent right.”

“We shall then have your willing sanction, good Cedric,” said

Prince John, “to confer this fief upon a person whose dignity

will not be diminished by holding land of the British crown.

---Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,” he said, turning towards that

Baron, “I trust you will so keep the goodly Barony of Ivanhoe,

that Sir Wilfred shall not incur his father’s farther displeasure

by again entering upon that fief.”

“By St Anthony!” answered the black-brow’d giant, “I will consent

that your highness shall hold me a Saxon, if either Cedric or

Wilfred, or the best that ever bore English blood, shall wrench

from me the gift with which your highness has graced me.”

“Whoever shall call thee Saxon, Sir Baron,” replied Cedric,

offended at a mode of expression by which the Normans frequently

expressed their habitual contempt of the English, “will do thee

an honour as great as it is undeserved.”

Front-de-Boeuf would have replied, but Prince John’s petulance

and levity got the start.

“Assuredly,” said be, “my lords, the noble Cedric speaks truth;

and his race may claim precedence over us as much in the length

of their pedigrees as in the longitude of their cloaks.”

“They go before us indeed in the field---as deer before dogs,”

said Malvoisin.

“And with good right may they go before us---forget not,” said

the Prior Aymer, “the superior decency and decorum of their

manners.”

“Their singular abstemiousness and temperance,” said De Bracy,

forgetting the plan which promised him a Saxon bride.

“Together with the courage and conduct,” said Brian de

Bois-Guilbert, “by which they distinguished themselves at

Hastings and elsewhere.”

While, with smooth and smiling cheek, the courtiers, each in

turn, followed their Prince’s example, and aimed a shaft of

ridicule at Cedric, the face of the Saxon became inflamed with

passion, and he glanced his eyes fiercely from one to another, as

if the quick succession of so many injuries had prevented his

replying to them in turn; or, like a baited bull, who, surrounded

by his tormentors, is at a loss to choose from among them the

immediate object of his revenge. At length he spoke, in a voice

half choked with passion; and, addressing himself to Prince John

as the head and front of the offence which he had received,

“Whatever,” he said, “have been the follies and vices of our

race, a Saxon would have been held ‘nidering’,” *

There was nothing accounted so ignominious among the Saxons as to merit this disgraceful epithet. Even William the Conqueror, hated as he was by them, continued to draw a considerable army of Anglo-Saxons to his standard, by threatening to stigmatize those who staid at home, as nidering. Bartholinus, I think, mentions a similar phrase which had like influence on the Danes. L. T.

(the most emphatic term for abject worthlessness,) “who should in

his own hall, and while his own wine-cup passed, have treated, or

suffered to be treated, an unoffending guest as your highness has

this day beheld me used; and whatever was the misfortune of our

fathers on the field of Hastings, those may at least be silent,”

here he looked at Front-de-Boeuf and the Templar, “who have

within these few hours once and again lost saddle and stirrup

before the lance of a Saxon.”

“By my faith, a biting jest!” said Prince John. “How like you

it, sirs?---Our Saxon subjects rise in spirit and courage; become

shrewd in wit, and bold in bearing, in these unsettled times

---What say ye, my lords?---By this good light, I hold it best to

take our galleys, and return to Normandy in time.”

“For fear of the Saxons?” said De Bracy, laughing; “we should

need no weapon but our hunting spears to bring these boars to

bay.”

“A truce with your raillery, Sir Knights,” said Fitzurse;---“and

it were well,” he added, addressing the Prince, “that your

highness should assure the worthy Cedric there is no insult

intended him by jests, which must sound but harshly in the ear of

a stranger.”

“Insult?” answered Prince John, resuming his courtesy of

demeanour; “I trust it will not be thought that I could mean, or

permit any, to be offered in my presence. Here! I fill my cup to

Cedric himself, since he refuses to pledge his son’s health.”

The cup went round amid the well-dissembled applause of the

courtiers, which, however, failed to make the impression on the

mind of the Saxon that had been designed. He was not naturally

acute of perception, but those too much undervalued his

understanding who deemed that this flattering compliment would

obliterate the sense of the prior insult. He was silent,

however, when the royal pledge again passed round, “To Sir

Athelstane of Coningsburgh.”

The knight made his obeisance, and showed his sense of the honour

by draining a huge goblet in answer to it.

“And now, sirs,” said Prince John, who began to be warmed with

the wine which he had drank, “having done justice to our Saxon

guests, we will pray of them some requital to our courtesy.

---Worthy Thane,” he continued, addressing Cedric, “may we pray

you to name to us some Norman whose mention may least sully your

mouth, and to wash down with a goblet of wine all bitterness

which the sound may leave behind it?”

Fitzurse arose while Prince John spoke, and gliding behind the

seat of the Saxon, whispered to him not to omit the opportunity

of putting an end to unkindness betwixt the two races, by naming

Prince John. The Saxon replied not to this politic insinuation,

but, rising up, and filling his cup to the brim, be addressed

Prince John in these words: “Your highness has required that I

should name a Norman deserving to be remembered at our banquet.

This, perchance, is a hard task, since it calls on the slave to

sing the praises of the master---upon the vanquished, while

pressed by all the evils of conquest, to sing the praises of the

conqueror. Yet I will name a Norman---the first in arms and in

place---the best and the noblest of his race. And the lips that

shall refuse to pledge me to his well-earned fame, I term false

and dishonoured, and will so maintain them with my life.---I

quaff this goblet to the health of Richard the Lion-hearted!”

Prince John, who had expected that his own name would have closed

the Saxon’s speech, started when that of his injured brother was

so unexpectedly introduced. He raised mechanically the wine-cup

to his lips, then instantly set it down, to view the demeanour of

the company at this unexpected proposal, which many of them felt

it as unsafe to oppose as to comply with. Some of them, ancient

and experienced courtiers, closely imitated the example of the

Prince himself, raising the goblet to their lips, and again

replacing it before them. There were many who, with a more

generous feeling, exclaimed, “Long live King Richard! and may he

be speedily restored to us!” And some few, among whom were

Front-de-Boeuf and the Templar, in sullen disdain suffered their

goblets to stand untasted before them. But no man ventured

directly to gainsay a pledge filled to the health of the

reigning monarch.

Having enjoyed his triumph for about a minute, Cedric said to his

companion, “Up, noble Athelstane! we have remained here long

enough, since we have requited the hospitable courtesy of Prince

John’s banquet. Those who wish to know further of our rude Saxon

manners must henceforth seek us in the homes of our fathers,

since we have seen enough of royal banquets, and enough of Norman

courtesy.”

So saying, he arose and left the banqueting room, followed by

Athelstane, and by several other guests, who, partaking of the

Saxon lineage, held themselves insulted by the sarcasms of Prince

John and his courtiers.

“By the bones of St Thomas,” said Prince John, as they retreated,

“the Saxon churls have borne off the best of the day, and have

retreated with triumph!”

“‘Conclamatum est, poculatum est’,” said Prior Aymer; “we have

drunk and we have shouted,---it were time we left our wine

flagons.”

“The monk hath some fair penitent to shrive to-night, that he is

in such a hurry to depart,” said De Bracy.

“Not so, Sir Knight,” replied the Abbot; “but I must move several

miles forward this evening upon my homeward journey.”

“They are breaking up,” said the Prince in a whisper to Fitzurse;

“their fears anticipate the event, and this coward Prior is the

first to shrink from me.”

“Fear not, my lord,” said Waldemar; “I will show him such reasons

as shall induce him to join us when we hold our meeting at York.

---Sir Prior,” he said, “I must speak with you in private, before

you mount your palfrey.”

The other guests were now fast dispersing, with the exception of

those immediately attached to Prince John’s faction, and his

retinue.

“This, then, is the result of your advice,” said the Prince,

turning an angry countenance upon Fitzurse; “that I should be

bearded at my own board by a drunken Saxon churl, and that, on

the mere sound of my brother’s name, men should fall off from me

as if I had the leprosy?”

“Have patience, sir,” replied his counsellor; “I might retort

your accusation, and blame the inconsiderate levity which foiled

my design, and misled your own better judgment. But this is no

time for recrimination. De Bracy and I will instantly go among

these shuffling cowards, and convince them they have gone too far

to recede.”

“It will be in vain,” said Prince John, pacing the apartment with

disordered steps, and expressing himself with an agitation to

which the wine he had drank partly contributed---“It will be in

vain—they have seen the handwriting on the wall---they have

marked the paw of the lion in the sand---they have heard his

approaching roar shake the wood---nothing will reanimate their

courage.”

“Would to God,” said Fitzurse to De Bracy, “that aught could

reanimate his own! His brother’s very name is an ague to him.

Unhappy are the counsellors of a Prince, who wants fortitude and

perseverance alike in good and in evil!”

CHAPTER XV

And yet he thinks,---ha, ha, ha, ha,---he thinks

I am the tool and servant of his will.

Well, let it be; through all the maze of trouble

His plots and base oppression must create,

I’ll shape myself a way to higher things,

And who will say ‘tis wrong?

Basil, a Tragedy

No spider ever took more pains to repair the shattered meshes of

his web, than did Waldemar Fitzurse to reunite and combine the

scattered members of Prince John’s cabal. Few of these were

attached to him from inclination, and none from personal regard.

It was therefore necessary, that Fitzurse should open to them new

prospects of advantage, and remind them of those which they at

present enjoyed. To the young and wild nobles, he held out the

prospect of unpunished license and uncontrolled revelry; to the

ambitious, that of power, and to the covetous, that of increased

wealth and extended domains. The leaders of the mercenaries

received a donation in gold; an argument the most persuasive to

their minds, and without which all others would have proved in

vain. Promises were still more liberally