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

he designs to assume his brother’s crown.”

“Not without a blow struck in its defence,” said Ivanhoe, raising

himself upon the couch, “if there were but one true subject in

England I will fight for Richard’s title with the best of them

---ay, one or two, in his just quarrel!”

“But that you may be able to do so,” said Rebecca touching his

shoulder with her hand, “you must now observe my directions, and

remain quiet.”

“True, maiden,” said Ivanhoe, “as quiet as these disquieted times

will permit---And of Cedric and his household?”

“His steward came but brief while since,” said the Jewess,

“panting with haste, to ask my father for certain monies, the

price of wool the growth of Cedric’s flocks, and from him I

learned that Cedric and Athelstane of Coningsburgh had left

Prince John’s lodging in high displeasure, and were about to set

forth on their return homeward.”

“Went any lady with them to the banquet?” said Wilfred.

“The Lady Rowena,” said Rebecca, answering the question with more

precision than it had been asked---“The Lady Rowena went not to

the Prince’s feast, and, as the steward reported to us, she is

now on her journey back to Rotherwood, with her guardian Cedric.

And touching your faithful squire Gurth------”

“Ha!” exclaimed the knight, “knowest thou his name?---But thou

dost,” he immediately added, “and well thou mayst, for it was

from thy hand, and, as I am now convinced, from thine own

generosity of spirit, that he received but yesterday a hundred

zecchins.”

“Speak not of that,” said Rebecca, blushing deeply; “I see how

easy it is for the tongue to betray what the heart would gladly

conceal.”

“But this sum of gold,” said Ivanhoe, gravely, “my honour is

concerned in repaying it to your father.”

“Let it be as thou wilt,” said Rebecca, “when eight days have

passed away; but think not, and speak not now, of aught that may

retard thy recovery.”

“Be it so, kind maiden,” said Ivanhoe; “I were most ungrateful to

dispute thy commands. But one word of the fate of poor Gurth,

and I have done with questioning thee.”

“I grieve to tell thee, Sir Knight,” answered the Jewess, “that

he is in custody by the order of Cedric.”---And then observing

the distress which her communication gave to Wilfred, she

instantly added, “But the steward Oswald said, that if nothing

occurred to renew his master’s displeasure against him, he was

sure that Cedric would pardon Gurth, a faithful serf, and one who

stood high in favour, and who had but committed this error out of

the love which he bore to Cedric’s son. And he said, moreover,

that he and his comrades, and especially Wamba the Jester, were

resolved to warn Gurth to make his escape by the way, in case

Cedric’s ire against him could not be mitigated.”

“Would to God they may keep their purpose!” said Ivanhoe; “but it

seems as if I were destined to bring ruin on whomsoever hath

shown kindness to me. My king, by whom I was honoured and

distinguished, thou seest that the brother most indebted to him

is raising his arms to grasp his crown;---my regard hath brought

restraint and trouble on the fairest of her sex;---and now my

father in his mood may slay this poor bondsman but for his love

and loyal service to me!---Thou seest, maiden, what an ill-fated

wretch thou dost labour to assist; be wise, and let me go, ere

the misfortunes which track my footsteps like slot-hounds, shall

involve thee also in their pursuit.”

“Nay,” said Rebecca, “thy weakness and thy grief, Sir Knight,

make thee miscalculate the purposes of Heaven. Thou hast been

restored to thy country when it most needed the assistance of a

strong hand and a true heart, and thou hast humbled the pride of

thine enemies and those of thy king, when their horn was most

highly exalted, and for the evil which thou hast sustained, seest

thou not that Heaven has raised thee a helper and a physician,

even among the most despised of the land?---Therefore, be of good

courage, and trust that thou art preserved for some marvel which

thine arm shall work before this people. Adieu---and having

taken the medicine which I shall send thee by the hand of Reuben,

compose thyself again to rest, that thou mayest be the more able

to endure the journey on the succeeding day.”

Ivanhoe was convinced by the reasoning, and obeyed the

directions, of Rebecca. The drought which Reuben administered

was of a sedative and narcotic quality, and secured the patient

sound and undisturbed slumbers. In the morning his kind

physician found him entirely free from feverish symptoms, and fit

to undergo the fatigue of a journey.

He was deposited in the horse-litter which had brought him from

the lists, and every precaution taken for his travelling with

ease. In one circumstance only even the entreaties of Rebecca

were unable to secure sufficient attention to the accommodation

of the wounded knight. Isaac, like the enriched traveller of

Juvenal’s tenth satire, had ever the fear of robbery before his

eyes, conscious that he would be alike accounted fair game by the

marauding Norman noble, and by the Saxon outlaw. He therefore

journeyed at a great rate, and made short halts, and shorter

repasts, so that he passed by Cedric and Athelstane who had

several hours the start of him, but who had been delayed by their

protracted feasting at the convent of Saint Withold’s. Yet such

was the virtue of Miriam’s balsam, or such the strength of

Ivanhoe’s constitution, that he did not sustain from the hurried

journey that inconvenience which his kind physician had

apprehended.

In another point of view, however, the Jew’s haste proved

somewhat more than good speed. The rapidity with which he

insisted on travelling, bred several disputes between him and the

party whom he had hired to attend him as a guard. These men were

Saxons, and not free by any means from the national love of ease

and good living which the Normans stigmatized as laziness and

gluttony. Reversing Shylock’s position, they had accepted the

employment in hopes of feeding upon the wealthy Jew, and were

very much displeased when they found themselves disappointed, by

the rapidity with which he insisted on their proceeding. They

remonstrated also upon the risk of damage to their horses by

these forced marches. Finally, there arose betwixt Isaac and his

satellites a deadly feud, concerning the quantity of wine and ale

to be allowed for consumption at each meal. And thus it happened,

that when the alarm of danger approached, and that which Isaac

feared was likely to come upon him, he was deserted by the

discontented mercenaries on whose protection he had relied,

without using the means necessary to secure their attachment.

In this deplorable condition the Jew, with his daughter and her

wounded patient, were found by Cedric, as has already been

noticed, and soon afterwards fell into the power of De Bracy and

his confederates. Little notice was at first taken of the

horse-litter, and it might have remained behind but for the

curiosity of De Bracy, who looked into it under the impression

that it might contain the object of his enterprise, for Rowena

had not unveiled herself. But De Bracy’s astonishment was

considerable, when he discovered that the litter contained a

wounded man, who, conceiving himself to have fallen into the

power of Saxon outlaws, with whom his name might be a protection

for himself and his friends, frankly avowed himself to be Wilfred

of Ivanhoe.

The ideas of chivalrous honour, which, amidst his wildness and

levity, never utterly abandoned De Bracy, prohibited him from

doing the knight any injury in his defenceless condition, and

equally interdicted his betraying him to Front-de-Boeuf, who

would have had no scruples to put to death, under any

circumstances, the rival claimant of the fief of Ivanhoe. On the

other hand, to liberate a suitor preferred by the Lady Rowena, as

the events of the tournament, and indeed Wilfred’s previous

banishment from his father’s house, had made matter of notoriety,

was a pitch far above the flight of De Bracy’s generosity. A

middle course betwixt good and evil was all which he found

himself capable of adopting, and he commanded two of his own

squires to keep close by the litter, and to suffer no one to

approach it. If questioned, they were directed by their master

to say, that the empty litter of the Lady Rowena was employed to

transport one of their comrades who had been wounded in the

scuffle. On arriving at Torquilstone, while the Knight Templar

and the lord of that castle were each intent upon their own

schemes, the one on the Jew’s treasure, and the other on his

daughter, De Bracy’s squires conveyed Ivanhoe, still under the

name of a wounded comrade, to a distant apartment. This

explanation was accordingly returned by these men to

Front-de-Boeuf, when he questioned them why they did not make for

the battlements upon the alarm.

“A wounded companion!” he replied in great wrath and

astonishment. “No wonder that churls and yeomen wax so

presumptuous as even to lay leaguer before castles, and that

clowns and swineherds send defiances to nobles, since men-at-arms

have turned sick men’s nurses, and Free Companions are grown

keepers of dying folk’s curtains, when the castle is about to be

assailed.---To the battlements, ye loitering villains!” he

exclaimed, raising his stentorian voice till the arches around

rung again, “to the battlements, or I will splinter your bones

with this truncheon!”

The men sulkily replied, “that they desired nothing better than

to go to the battlements, providing Front-de-Boeuf would bear

them out with their master, who had commanded them to tend the

dying man.”

“The dying man, knaves!” rejoined the Baron; “I promise thee we

shall all be dying men an we stand not to it the more stoutly.

But I will relieve the guard upon this caitiff companion of

yours.---Here, Urfried---hag---fiend of a Saxon witch---hearest

me not?---tend me this bedridden fellow since he must needs be

tended, whilst these knaves use their weapons.---Here be two

arblasts, comrades, with windlaces and quarrells*

The arblast was a cross-bow, the windlace the machine used in bending that weapon, and the quarrell, so called from its square or diamond-shaped head, was the bolt adapted to it.

---to the barbican with you, and see you drive each bolt through

a Saxon brain.”

The men, who, like most of their description, were fond of

enterprise and detested inaction, went joyfully to the scene of

danger as they were commanded, and thus the charge of Ivanhoe was

transferred to Urfried, or Ulrica. But she, whose brain was

burning with remembrance of injuries and with hopes of vengeance,

was readily induced to devolve upon Rebecca the care of her

patient.

CHAPTER XXIX

Ascend the watch-tower yonder, valiant soldier,

Look on the field, and say how goes the battle.

Schiller’s Maid of Orleans

A moment of peril is often also a moment of open-hearted kindness

and affection. We are thrown off our guard by the general

agitation of our feelings, and betray the intensity of those,

which, at more tranquil periods, our prudence at least conceals,

if it cannot altogether suppress them. In finding herself once

more by the side of Ivanhoe, Rebecca was astonished at the keen

sensation of pleasure which she experienced, even at a time when

all around them both was danger, if not despair. As she felt his

pulse, and enquired after his health, there was a softness in her

touch and in her accents implying a kinder interest than she

would herself have been pleased to have voluntarily expressed.

Her voice faltered and her hand trembled, and it was only the

cold question of Ivanhoe, “Is it you, gentle