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

body of men close under the outer barrier of the

barbican.*

Every Gothic castle and city had, beyond the outer-walls, a fortification composed of palisades, called the barriers, which were often the scene of severe skirmishes, as these must necessarily be carried before the walls themselves could be approached. Many of those valiant feats of arms which adorn the chivalrous pages of Froissart took place at the barriers of besieged places.

---They pull down the piles and palisades; they hew down the

barriers with axes.---His high black plume floats abroad over the

throng, like a raven over the field of the slain.---They have

made a breach in the barriers---they rush in---they are thrust

back!---Front-de-Boeuf heads the defenders; I see his gigantic

form above the press. They throng again to the breach, and the

pass is disputed hand to hand, and man to man. God of Jacob! it

is the meeting of two fierce tides---the conflict of two oceans

moved by adverse winds!”

She turned her head from the lattice, as if unable longer to

endure a sight so terrible.

“Look forth again, Rebecca,” said Ivanhoe, mistaking the cause of

her retiring; “the archery must in some degree have ceased, since

they are now fighting hand to hand.---Look again, there is now

less danger.”

Rebecca again looked forth, and almost immediately exclaimed,

“Holy prophets of the law! Front-de-Boeuf and the Black Knight

fight hand to hand on the breach, amid the roar of their

followers, who watch the progress of the strife---Heaven strike

with the cause of the oppressed and of the captive!” She then

uttered a loud shriek, and exclaimed, “He is down!---he is down!”

“Who is down?” cried Ivanhoe; “for our dear Lady’s sake, tell me

which has fallen?”

“The Black Knight,” answered Rebecca, faintly; then instantly

again shouted with joyful eagerness---“But no---but no!---the

name of the Lord of Hosts be blessed!---he is on foot again, and

fights as if there were twenty men’s strength in his single arm

---His sword is broken---he snatches an axe from a yeoman---he

presses Front-de-Boeuf with blow on blow---The giant stoops and

totters like an oak under the steel of the woodman---he falls

---he falls!”

“Front-de-Boeuf?” exclaimed Ivanhoe.

“Front-de-Boeuf!” answered the Jewess; “his men rush to the

rescue, headed by the haughty Templar---their united force

compels the champion to pause---They drag Front-de-Boeuf within

the walls.”

“The assailants have won the barriers, have they not?” said

Ivanhoe.

“They have---they have!” exclaimed Rebecca---“and they press the

besieged hard upon the outer wall; some plant ladders, some swarm

like bees, and endeavour to ascend upon the shoulders of each

other---down go stones, beams, and trunks of trees upon their

heads, and as fast as they bear the wounded to the rear, fresh

men supply their places in the assault---Great God! hast thou

given men thine own image, that it should be thus cruelly defaced

by the hands of their brethren!”

“Think not of that,” said Ivanhoe; “this is no time for such

thoughts---Who yield?---who push their way?”

“The ladders are thrown down,” replied Rebecca, shuddering; “the

soldiers lie grovelling under them like crushed reptiles---The

besieged have the better.”

“Saint George strike for us!” exclaimed the knight; “do the false

yeomen give way?”

“No!” exclaimed Rebecca, “they bear themselves right yeomanly

---the Black Knight approaches the postern with his huge axe

---the thundering blows which he deals, you may hear them above

all the din and shouts of the battle---Stones and beams are

hailed down on the bold champion---he regards them no more than

if they were thistle-down or feathers!”

“By Saint John of Acre,” said Ivanhoe, raising himself joyfully

on his couch, “methought there was but one man in England that

might do such a deed!”

“The postern gate shakes,” continued Rebecca; “it crashes---it is

splintered by his blows---they rush in---the outwork is won---Oh,

God!---they hurl the defenders from the battlements---they throw

them into the moat---O men, if ye be indeed men, spare them that

can resist no longer!”

“The bridge---the bridge which communicates with the castle

---have they won that pass?” exclaimed Ivanhoe.

“No,” replied Rebecca, “The Templar has destroyed the plank on

which they crossed---few of the defenders escaped with him into

the castle--- the shrieks and cries which you hear tell the fate

of the others---Alas!---I see it is still more difficult to look

upon victory than upon battle.”

“What do they now, maiden?” said Ivanhoe; “look forth yet again

---this is no time to faint at bloodshed.”

“It is over for the time,” answered Rebecca; “our friends

strengthen themselves within the outwork which they have

mastered, and it affords them so good a shelter from the foemen’s

shot, that the garrison only bestow a few bolts on it from

interval to interval, as if rather to disquiet than effectually

to injure them.”

“Our friends,” said Wilfred, “will surely not abandon an

enterprise so gloriously begun and so happily attained.---O no!

I will put my faith in the good knight whose axe hath rent

heart-of-oak and bars of iron.---Singular,” he again muttered to

himself, “if there be two who can do a deed of such derring-do!*

“Derring-do”---desperate courage.

---a fetterlock, and a shacklebolt on a field sable---what may

that mean?---seest thou nought else, Rebecca, by which the Black

Knight may be distinguished?”

“Nothing,” said the Jewess; “all about him is black as the wing

of the night raven. Nothing can I spy that can mark him further

---but having once seen him put forth his strength in battle,

methinks I could know him again among a thousand warriors. He

rushes to the fray as if he were summoned to a banquet. There is

more than mere strength, there seems as if the whole soul and

spirit of the champion were given to every blow which he deals

upon his enemies. God assoilize him of the sin of bloodshed!

---it is fearful, yet magnificent, to behold how the arm and

heart of one man can triumph over hundreds.”

“Rebecca,” said Ivanhoe, “thou hast painted a hero; surely they

rest but to refresh their force, or to provide the means of

crossing the moat---Under such a leader as thou hast spoken this

knight to be, there are no craven fears, no cold-blooded delays,

no yielding up a gallant emprize; since the difficulties which

render it arduous render it also glorious. I swear by the honour

of my house---I vow by the name of my bright lady-love, I would

endure ten years’ captivity to fight one day by that good

knight’s side in such a quarrel as this!”

“Alas,” said Rebecca, leaving her station at the window, and

approaching the couch of the wounded knight, “this impatient

yearning after action---this struggling with and repining at your

present weakness, will not fail to injure your returning health

---How couldst thou hope to inflict wounds on others, ere that be

healed which thou thyself hast received?”

“Rebecca,” he replied, “thou knowest not how impossible it is for

one trained to actions of chivalry to remain passive as a priest,

or a woman, when they are acting deeds of honour around him. The

love of battle is the food upon which we live---the dust of the

‘melee’ is the breath of our nostrils! We live not---we wish not

to live---longer than while we are victorious and renowned

---Such, maiden, are the laws of chivalry to which we are sworn,

and to which we offer all that we hold dear.”

“Alas!” said the fair Jewess, “and what is it, valiant knight,

save an offering of sacrifice to a demon of vain glory, and a

passing through the fire to Moloch?---What remains to you as the

prize of all the blood you have spilled---of all the travail and

pain you have endured---of all the tears which your deeds have

caused, when death hath broken the strong man’s spear, and

overtaken the speed of his war-horse?”

“What remains?” cried Ivanhoe; “Glory, maiden, glory! which gilds

our sepulchre and embalms our name.”

“Glory?” continued Rebecca; “alas, is the rusted mail which hangs

as a hatchment over the champion’s dim and mouldering tomb---is

the defaced sculpture of the inscription which the ignorant monk

can hardly read to the enquiring pilgrim---are these sufficient

rewards for the sacrifice of every kindly affection, for a life

spent miserably that ye may make others miserable? Or is there

such virtue in the rude rhymes of a wandering bard, that domestic

love, kindly affection, peace and happiness, are so wildly

bartered, to become the hero of those ballads which vagabond

minstrels sing to drunken churls over their evening ale?”

“By the soul of Hereward!” replied the knight impatiently, “thou

speakest, maiden, of thou knowest not what. Thou wouldst quench

the pure light of chivalry, which alone distinguishes the noble

from the base, the gentle knight from the churl and the savage;

which rates our life far, far beneath the pitch of our honour;

raises us victorious over pain, toil, and suffering, and teaches

us to fear no evil but disgrace. Thou art no Christian, Rebecca;

and to thee are unknown those high feelings which swell the bosom

of a noble maiden when her lover hath done some deed of emprize

which sanctions his flame. Chivalry!---why, maiden, she is the

nurse of pure and high affection---the stay of the oppressed, the

redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant

---Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds

the best protection in her lance and her sword.”

“I am, indeed,” said Rebecca, “sprung from a race whose courage

was distinguished in the defence of their own land, but who

warred not, even while yet a nation, save at the command of the

Deity, or in defending their country from oppression. The sound

of the trumpet wakes Judah no longer, and her despised children

are now but the unresisting victims of hostile and military

oppression. Well hast thou spoken, Sir Knight,---until the God

of Jacob shall raise up for his chosen people a second Gideon, or

a new Maccabeus, it ill beseemeth the Jewish damsel to speak of

battle or of war.”

The high-minded maiden concluded the argument in a tone of

sorrow, which deeply expressed her sense of the degradation of

her people, embittered perhaps by the idea that Ivanhoe

considered her as one not entitled to interfere in a case of

honour, and incapable of entertaining or expressing sentiments of

honour and generosity.

“How little he knows this bosom,” she said, “to imagine that

cowardice or meanness of soul must needs be its guests, because I

have censured the fantastic chivalry of the Nazarenes! Would to

heaven that the shedding of mine own blood, drop by drop, could

redeem the captivity of Judah! Nay, would to God it could avail

to set free my father, and this his benefactor, from the chains

of the oppressor! The proud Christian should then see whether

the daughter of God’s chosen people dared not to die as bravely

as the vainest Nazarene maiden, that boasts her descent from some

petty chieftain of the rude and frozen north!”

She then looked towards the couch of the wounded knight.

“He sleeps,” she said; “nature exhausted by sufferance and the

waste of spirits, his wearied frame embraces the first moment of

temporary relaxation to sink into slumber. Alas! is it a crime

that I should look upon him, when it may be for the last time?

---When yet but a short space, and those fair features will be no

longer animated by the bold and buoyant spirit which forsakes

them not even in sleep!---When the nostril shall be distended,

the mouth agape, the eyes fixed and bloodshot; and when the proud

and noble knight may be trodden on by the lowest caitiff of this

accursed castle,