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

when it appeareth you

forget the very hour of dinner.”

“It is time lost,” muttered Cedric apart and impatiently, “to

speak to him of aught else but that which concerns his appetite!

The soul of Hardicanute hath taken possession of him, and he hath

no pleasure save to fill, to swill, and to call for more.

---Alas!” said he, looking at Athelstane with compassion, “that

so dull a spirit should be lodged in so goodly a form! Alas! that

such an enterprise as the regeneration of England should turn on

a hinge so imperfect! Wedded to Rowena, indeed, her nobler and

more generous soul may yet awake the better nature which is

torpid within him. Yet how should this be, while Rowena,

Athelstane, and I myself, remain the prisoners of this brutal

marauder and have been made so perhaps from a sense of the

dangers which our liberty might bring to the usurped power of his

nation?”

While the Saxon was plunged in these painful reflections, the

door of their prison opened, and gave entrance to a sewer,

holding his white rod of office. This important person advanced

into the chamber with a grave pace, followed by four attendants,

bearing in a table covered with dishes, the sight and smell of

which seemed to be an instant compensation to Athelstane for all

the inconvenience he had undergone. The persons who attended on

the feast were masked and cloaked.

“What mummery is this?” said Cedric; “think you that we are

ignorant whose prisoners we are, when we are in the castle of

your master? Tell him,” he continued, willing to use this

opportunity to open a negotiation for his freedom,---“Tell your

master, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, that we know no reason he can

have for withholding our liberty, excepting his unlawful desire

to enrich himself at our expense. Tell him that we yield to his

rapacity, as in similar circumstances we should do to that of a

literal robber. Let him name the ransom at which he rates our

liberty, and it shall be paid, providing the exaction is suited

to our means.” The sewer made no answer, but bowed his head.

“And tell Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,” said Athelstane, “that I

send him my mortal defiance, and challenge him to combat with me,

on foot or horseback, at any secure place, within eight days

after our liberation; which, if he be a true knight, he will not,

under these circumstances, venture to refuse or to delay.”

“I shall deliver to the knight your defiance,” answered the

sewer; “meanwhile I leave you to your food.”

The challenge of Athelstane was delivered with no good grace; for

a large mouthful, which required the exercise of both jaws at

once, added to a natural hesitation, considerably damped the

effect of the bold defiance it contained. Still, however, his

speech was hailed by Cedric as an incontestible token of reviving

spirit in his companion, whose previous indifference had begun,

notwithstanding his respect for Athelstane’s descent, to wear out

his patience. But he now cordially shook hands with him in token

of his approbation, and was somewhat grieved when Athelstane

observed, “that he would fight a dozen such men as

Front-de-Boeuf, if, by so doing, he could hasten his departure

from a dungeon where they put so much garlic into their pottage.”

Notwithstanding this intimation of a relapse into the apathy of

sensuality, Cedric placed himself opposite to Athelstane, and

soon showed, that if the distresses of his country could banish

the recollection of food while the table was uncovered, yet no

sooner were the victuals put there, than he proved that the

appetite of his Saxon ancestors had descended to him along with

their other qualities.

The captives had not long enjoyed their refreshment, however, ere

their attention was disturbed even from this most serious

occupation by the blast of a horn winded before the gate. It was

repeated three times, with as much violence as if it had been

blown before an enchanted castle by the destined knight, at whose

summons halls and towers, barbican and battlement, were to roll

off like a morning vapour. The Saxons started from the table,

and hastened to the window. But their curiosity was

disappointed; for these outlets only looked upon the court of the

castle, and the sound came from beyond its precincts. The

summons, however, seemed of importance, for a considerable degree

of bustle instantly took place in the castle.

CHAPTER XXII

My daughter---O my ducats---O my daughter!

------------O my Christian ducats!

Justice---the Law---my ducats, and my daughter!

Merchant of Venice

Leaving the Saxon chiefs to return to their banquet as soon as

their ungratified curiosity should permit them to attend to the

calls of their half-satiated appetite, we have to look in upon

the yet more severe imprisonment of Isaac of York. The poor Jew

had been hastily thrust into a dungeon-vault of the castle, the

floor of which was deep beneath the level of the ground, and very

damp, being lower than even the moat itself. The only light was

received through one or two loop-holes far above the reach of the

captive’s hand. These apertures admitted, even at mid-day, only

a dim and uncertain light, which was changed for utter darkness

long before the rest of the castle had lost the blessing of day.

Chains and shackles, which had been the portion of former

captives, from whom active exertions to escape had been

apprehended, hung rusted and empty on the walls of the prison,

and in the rings of one of those sets of fetters there remained

two mouldering bones, which seemed to have been once those of the

human leg, as if some prisoner had been left not only to perish

there, but to be consumed to a skeleton.

At one end of this ghastly apartment was a large fire-grate, over

the top of which were stretched some transverse iron bars, half

devoured with rust.

The whole appearance of the dungeon might have appalled a stouter

heart than that of Isaac, who, nevertheless, was more composed

under the imminent pressure of danger, than he had seemed to be

while affected by terrors, of which the cause was as yet remote

and contingent. The lovers of the chase say that the hare feels

more agony during the pursuit of the greyhounds, than when she is

struggling in their fangs.*

“Nota Bene.” ---We by no means warrant the accuracy of this piece of natural history, which we give on the authority of the Wardour MS. L. T.

And thus it is probable, that the Jews, by the very frequency of

their fear on all occasions, had their minds in some degree

prepared for every effort of tyranny which could be practised

upon them; so that no aggression, when it had taken place, could

bring with it that surprise which is the most disabling quality

of terror. Neither was it the first time that Isaac had been

placed in circumstances so dangerous. He had therefore

experience to guide him, as well as hope, that he might again, as

formerly, be delivered as a prey from the fowler. Above all, he

had upon his side the unyielding obstinacy of his nation, and

that unbending resolution, with which Israelites have been

frequently known to submit to the uttermost evils which power and

violence can inflict upon them, rather than gratify their

oppressors by granting their demands.

In this humour of passive resistance, and with his garment

collected beneath him to keep his limbs from the wet pavement,

Isaac sat in a corner of his dungeon, where his folded hands, his

dishevelled hair and beard, his furred cloak and high cap, seen

by the wiry and broken light, would have afforded a study for

Rembrandt, had that celebrated painter existed at the period.

The Jew remained, without altering his position, for nearly three

hours, at the expiry of which steps were heard on the dungeon

stair. The bolts screamed as they were withdrawn---the hinges

creaked as the wicket opened, and Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,

followed by the two Saracen slaves of the Templar, entered the

prison.

Front-de-Boeuf, a tall and strong man, whose life had been spent

in public war or in private feuds and broils, and who had

hesitated at no means of extending his feudal power, had

features corresponding to his character, and which strongly

expressed the fiercer and more malignant passions of the mind.

The scars with which his visage was seamed, would, on features of

a different cast, have excited the sympathy and veneration due to

the marks of honourable valour; but, in the peculiar case of

Front-de-Boeuf, they only added to the ferocity of his

countenance, and to the dread which his presence inspired. This

formidable baron was clad in a leathern doublet, fitted close to

his body, which was frayed and soiled with the stains of his

armour. He had no weapon, excepting a poniard at his belt, which

served to counterbalance the weight of the bunch of rusty keys

that hung at his right side.

The black slaves who attended Front-de-Boeuf were stripped of

their gorgeous apparel, and attired in jerkins and trowsers of

coarse linen, their sleeves being tucked up above the elbow, like

those of butchers when about to exercise their function in the

slaughter-house. Each had in his hand a small pannier; and, when

they entered the dungeon, they stopt at the door until

Front-de-Boeuf himself carefully locked and double-locked it.

Having taken this precaution, he advanced slowly up the apartment

towards the Jew, upon whom he kept his eye fixed, as if he wished

to paralyze him with his glance, as some animals are said to

fascinate their prey. It seemed indeed as if the sullen and

malignant eye of Front-de-Boeuf possessed some portion of that

supposed power over his unfortunate prisoner. The Jew sat with

his mouth agape, and his eyes fixed on the savage baron with

such earnestness of terror, that his frame seemed literally to

shrink together, and to diminish in size while encountering the

fierce Norman’s fixed and baleful gaze. The unhappy Isaac was

deprived not only of the power of rising to make the obeisance

which his terror dictated, but he could not even doff his cap, or

utter any word of supplication; so strongly was he agitated by

the conviction that tortures and death were impending over him.

On the other hand, the stately form of the Norman appeared to

dilate in magnitude, like that of the eagle, which ruffles up its

plumage when about to pounce on its defenceless prey. He paused

within three steps of the corner in which the unfortunate Jew had

now, as it were, coiled himself up into the smallest possible

space, and made a sign for one of the slaves to approach. The

black satellite came forward accordingly, and, producing from his

basket a large pair of scales and several weights, he laid them

at the feet of Front-de-Boeuf, and again retired to the

respectful distance, at which his companion had already taken his

station.

The motions of these men were slow and solemn, as if there

impended over their souls some preconception of horror and of

cruelty. Front-de-Boeuf himself opened the scene by thus

addressing his ill-fated captive.

“Most accursed dog of an accursed race,” he said, awaking with

his deep and sullen voice the sullen echoes of his dungeon vault,

“seest thou these scales?”

The unhappy Jew returned a feeble affirmative.

“In these very scales shalt thou weigh me out,” said the

relentless Baron, “a thousand silver pounds, after the just

measure and weight of the Tower of London.”

“Holy Abraham!” returned the Jew, finding voice through the very

extremity of his danger, “heard man ever such a demand?---Who

ever heard, even in a minstrel’s tale, of such a sum as a

thousand pounds of silver?---What human sight was ever blessed

with the vision of such a