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

>Rowena consents to be the bride of De Bracy, who is it shall dare

to put forth a violent hand upon her kinsman---the son of her

guardian---the companion of her youth? But it is thy love must

buy his protection. I am not romantic fool enough to further the

fortune, or avert the fate, of one who is likely to be a

successful obstacle between me and my wishes. Use thine

influence with me in his behalf, and he is safe,---refuse to

employ it, Wilfred dies, and thou thyself art not the nearer to

freedom.”

“Thy language,” answered Rowena, “hath in its indifferent

bluntness something which cannot be reconciled with the horrors

it seems to express. I believe not that thy purpose is so

wicked, or thy power so great.”

“Flatter thyself, then, with that belief,” said De Bracy, “until

time shall prove it false. Thy lover lies wounded in this castle

---thy preferred lover. He is a bar betwixt Front-de-Boeuf and

that which Front-de-Boeuf loves better than either ambition or

beauty. What will it cost beyond the blow of a poniard, or the

thrust of a javelin, to silence his opposition for ever? Nay,

were Front-de-Boeuf afraid to justify a deed so open, let the

leech but give his patient a wrong draught---let the chamberlain,

or the nurse who tends him, but pluck the pillow from his head,

and Wilfred in his present condition, is sped without the

effusion of blood. Cedric also---”

“And Cedric also,” said Rowena, repeating his words; “my noble

---my generous guardian! I deserved the evil I have encountered,

for forgetting his fate even in that of his son!”

“Cedric’s fate also depends upon thy determination,” said De

Bracy; “and I leave thee to form it.”

Hitherto, Rowena had sustained her part in this trying scene with

undismayed courage, but it was because she had not considered the

danger as serious and imminent. Her disposition was naturally

that which physiognomists consider as proper to fair complexions,

mild, timid, and gentle; but it had been tempered, and, as it

were, hardened, by the circumstances of her education.

Accustomed to see the will of all, even of Cedric himself,

(sufficiently arbitrary with others,) give way before her wishes,

she had acquired that sort of courage and self-confidence which

arises from the habitual and constant deference of the circle in

which we move. She could scarce conceive the possibility of her

will being opposed, far less that of its being treated with total

disregard.

Her haughtiness and habit of domination was, therefore, a

fictitious character, induced over that which was natural to her,

and it deserted her when her eyes were opened to the extent of

her own danger, as well as that of her lover and her guardian;

and when she found her will, the slightest expression of which

was wont to command respect and attention, now placed in

opposition to that of a man of a strong, fierce, and determined

mind, who possessed the advantage over her, and was resolved to

use it, she quailed before him.

After casting her eyes around, as if to look for the aid which

was nowhere to be found, and after a few broken interjections,

she raised her hands to heaven, and burst into a passion of

uncontrolled vexation and sorrow. It was impossible to see so

beautiful a creature in such extremity without feeling for her,

and De Bracy was not unmoved, though he was yet more embarrassed

than touched. He had, in truth, gone too far to recede; and yet,

in Rowena’s present condition, she could not be acted on either

by argument or threats. He paced the apartment to and fro, now

vainly exhorting the terrified maiden to compose herself, now

hesitating concerning his own line of conduct.

If, thought he, I should be moved by the tears and sorrow of this

disconsolate damsel, what should I reap but the loss of these

fair hopes for which I have encountered so much risk, and the

ridicule of Prince John and his jovial comrades? “And yet,” he

said to himself, “I feel myself ill framed for the part which I

am playing. I cannot look on so fair a face while it is

disturbed with agony, or on those eyes when they are drowned in

tears. I would she had retained her original haughtiness of

disposition, or that I had a larger share of Front-de-Boeuf’s

thrice-tempered hardness of heart!”

Agitated by these thoughts, he could only bid the unfortunate

Rowena be comforted, and assure her, that as yet she had no

reason for the excess of despair to which she was now giving way.

But in this task of consolation De Bracy was interrupted by the

horn, “hoarse-winded blowing far and keen,” which had at the same

time alarmed the other inmates of the castle, and interrupted

their several plans of avarice and of license. Of them all,

perhaps, De Bracy least regretted the interruption; for his

conference with the Lady Rowena had arrived at a point, where he

found it equally difficult to prosecute or to resign his

enterprise.

And here we cannot but think it necessary to offer some better

proof than the incidents of an idle tale, to vindicate the

melancholy representation of manners which has been just laid

before the reader. It is grievous to think that those valiant

barons, to whose stand against the crown the liberties of England

were indebted for their existence, should themselves have been

such dreadful oppressors, and capable of excesses contrary not

only to the laws of England, but to those of nature and humanity.

But, alas! we have only to extract from the industrious Henry one

of those numerous passages which he has collected from

contemporary historians, to prove that fiction itself can hardly

reach the dark reality of the horrors of the period.

The description given by the author of the Saxon Chronicle of the

cruelties exercised in the reign of King Stephen by the great

barons and lords of castles, who were all Normans, affords a

strong proof of the excesses of which they were capable when

their passions were inflamed. “They grievously oppressed the

poor people by building castles; and when they were built, they

filled them with wicked men, or rather devils, who seized both

men and women who they imagined had any money, threw them into

prison, and put them to more cruel tortures than the martyrs ever

endured. They suffocated some in mud, and suspended others by

the feet, or the head, or the thumbs, kindling fires below them.

They squeezed the heads of some with knotted cords till they

pierced their brains, while they threw others into dungeons

swarming with serpents, snakes, and toads.” But it would be

cruel to put the reader to the pain of perusing the remainder of

this description.*

Henry’s Hist. edit. 1805, vol. vii. p. .146.

As another instance of these bitter fruits of conquest, and

perhaps the strongest that can be quoted, we may mention, that

the Princess Matilda, though a daughter of the King of Scotland,

and afterwards both Queen of England, niece to Edgar Atheling,

and mother to the Empress of Germany, the daughter, the wife, and

the mother of monarchs, was obliged, during her early residence

for education in England, to assume the veil of a nun, as the

only means of escaping the licentious pursuit of the Norman

nobles. This excuse she stated before a great council of the

clergy of England, as the sole reason for her having taken the

religious habit. The assembled clergy admitted the validity of

the plea, and the notoriety of the circumstances upon which it

was founded; giving thus an indubitable and most remarkable

testimony to the existence of that disgraceful license by which

that age was stained. It was a matter of public knowledge, they

said, that after the conquest of King William, his Norman

followers, elated by so great a victory, acknowledged no law but

their own wicked pleasure, and not only despoiled the conquered

Saxons of their lands and their goods, but invaded the honour of

their wives and of their daughters with the most unbridled

license; and hence it was then common for matrons and maidens of

noble families to assume the veil, and take shelter in convents,

not as called thither by the vocation of God, but solely to

preserve their honour from the unbridled wickedness of man.

Such and so licentious were the times, as announced by the public

declaration of the assembled clergy, recorded by Eadmer; and we

need add nothing more to vindicate the probability of the scenes

which we have detailed, and are about to detail, upon the more

apocryphal authority of the Wardour MS.

CHAPTER XXIV

I’ll woo her as the lion woos his bride.

Douglas

While the scenes we have described were passing in other parts of

the castle, the Jewess Rebecca awaited her fate in a distant and

sequestered turret. Hither she had been led by two of her

disguised ravishers, and on being thrust into the little cell,

she found herself in the presence of an old sibyl, who kept

murmuring to herself a Saxon rhyme, as if to beat time to the

revolving dance which her spindle was performing upon the floor.

The hag raised her head as Rebecca entered, and scowled at the

fair Jewess with the malignant envy with which old age and

ugliness, when united with evil conditions, are apt to look upon

youth and beauty.

“Thou must up and away, old house-cricket,” said one of the men;

“our noble master commands it---Thou must e’en leave this chamber

to a fairer guest.”

“Ay,” grumbled the hag, “even thus is service requited. I have

known when my bare word would have cast the best man-at-arms

among ye out of saddle and out of service; and now must I up and

away at the command of every groom such as thou.”

“Good Dame Urfried,” said the other man, “stand not to reason on

it, but up and away. Lords’ hests must be listened to with a

quick ear. Thou hast had thy day, old dame, but thy sun has long

been set. Thou art now the very emblem of an old war-horse

turned out on the barren heath---thou hast had thy paces in thy

time, but now a broken amble is the best of them---Come, amble

off with thee.”

“Ill omens dog ye both!” said the old woman; “and a kennel be

your burying-place! May the evil demon Zernebock tear me limb

from limb, if I leave my own cell ere I have spun out the hemp on

my distaff!”

“Answer it to our lord, then, old housefiend,” said the man, and

retired; leaving Rebecca in company with the old woman, upon

whose presence she had been thus unwillingly forced.

“What devil’s deed have they now in the wind?” said the old hag,

murmuring to herself, yet from time to time casting a sidelong

and malignant glance at Rebecca; “but it is easy to guess

---Bright eyes, black locks, and a skin like paper, ere the

priest stains it with his black unguent---Ay, it is easy to guess

why they send her to this lone turret, whence a shriek could no

more be heard than at the depth of five hundred fathoms beneath

the earth.---Thou wilt have owls for thy neighbours, fair one;

and their screams will be heard as far, and as much regarded, as

thine own. Outlandish, too,” she said, marking the dress and

turban of Rebecca---“What country art thou of?---a Saracen? or an

Egyptian?---Why dost not answer?---thou canst weep, canst thou

not speak?”

“Be not angry, good mother,” said Rebecca.

“Thou needst say no more,” replied Urfried “men know a fox by the

train, and a Jewess by her tongue.”

“For the sake of mercy,” said Rebecca, “tell me what I am to