Ivanhoe: A Romance by Walter Scott (the best books of all time TXT) 📖

no one. But when churchman and layman, prince and prior, knight and priest, come knocking to Isaac’s door, they borrow not his shekels with these uncivil terms. It is then, Friend Isaac, will you pleasure us in this matter, and our day shall be truly kept, so God sa’ me?—and Kind Isaac, if ever you served man, show yourself a friend in this need! And when the day comes, and I ask my own, then what hear I but Damned Jew, and The curse of Egypt on your tribe, and all that may stir up the rude and uncivil populace against poor strangers!”

“Prior,” said the Captain, “Jew though he be, he hath in this spoken well. Do thou, therefore, name his ransom, as he named thine, without farther rude terms.”

“None but ‘latro famosus’—the interpretation whereof,” said the Prior, “will I give at some other time and tide—would place a Christian prelate and an unbaptized Jew upon the same bench. But since ye require me to put a price upon this caitiff, I tell you openly that ye will wrong yourselves if you take from him a penny under a thousand crowns.”

“A sentence!—a sentence!” exclaimed the chief Outlaw.

“A sentence!—a sentence!” shouted his assessors; “the Christian has shown his good nurture, and dealt with us more generously than the Jew.”

“The God of my fathers help me!” said the Jew; “will ye bear to the ground an impoverished creature?—I am this day childless, and will ye deprive me of the means of livelihood?”

“Thou wilt have the less to provide for, Jew, if thou art childless,” said Aymer.

“Alas! my lord,” said Isaac, “your law permits you not to know how the child of our bosom is entwined with the strings of our heart—O Rebecca! laughter of my beloved Rachel! were each leaf on that tree a zecchin, and each zecchin mine own, all that mass of wealth would I give to know whether thou art alive, and escaped the hands of the Nazarene!”

“Was not thy daughter dark-haired?” said one of the outlaws; “and wore she not a veil of twisted sendal, broidered with silver?”

“She did!—she did!” said the old man, trembling with eagerness, as formerly with fear. “The blessing of Jacob be upon thee! canst thou tell me aught of her safety?”

“It was she, then,” said the yeoman, “who was carried off by the proud Templar, when he broke through our ranks on yester-even. I had drawn my bow to send a shaft after him, but spared him even for the sake of the damsel, who I feared might take harm from the arrow.”

“Oh!” answered the Jew, “I would to God thou hadst shot, though the arrow had pierced her bosom!—Better the tomb of her fathers than the dishonourable couch of the licentious and savage Templar. Ichabod! Ichabod! the glory hath departed from my house!”

“Friends,” said the Chief, looking round, “the old man is but a Jew, natheless his grief touches me.—Deal uprightly with us, Isaac—will paying this ransom of a thousand crowns leave thee altogether penniless?”

Isaac, recalled to think of his worldly goods, the love of which, by dint of inveterate habit, contended even with his parental affection, grew pale, stammered, and could not deny there might be some small surplus.

“Well—go to—what though there be,” said the Outlaw, “we will not reckon with thee too closely. Without treasure thou mayst as well hope to redeem thy child from the clutches of Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, as to shoot a stag-royal with a headless shaft.—We will take thee at the same ransom with Prior Aymer, or rather at one hundred crowns lower, which hundred crowns shall be mine own peculiar loss, and not light upon this worshipful community; and so we shall avoid the heinous offence of rating a Jew merchant as high as a Christian prelate, and thou wilt have six hundred crowns remaining to treat for thy daughter’s ransom. Templars love the glitter of silver shekels as well as the sparkle of black eyes.—Hasten to make thy crowns chink in the ear of De Bois-Guilbert, ere worse comes of it. Thou wilt find him, as our scouts have brought notice, at the next Preceptory house of his Order.—Said I well, my merry mates?”

The yeomen expressed their wonted acquiescence in their leader’s opinion; and Isaac, relieved of one half of his apprehensions, by learning that his daughter lived, and might possibly be ransomed, threw himself at the feet of the generous Outlaw, and, rubbing his beard against his buskins, sought to kiss the hem of his green cassock. The Captain drew himself back, and extricated himself from the Jew’s grasp, not without some marks of contempt.

“Nay, beshrew thee, man, up with thee! I am English born, and love no such Eastern prostrations—Kneel to God, and not to a poor sinner, like me.”

“Ay, Jew,” said Prior Aymer; “kneel to God, as represented in the servant of his altar, and who knows, with thy sincere repentance and due gifts to the shrine of Saint Robert, what grace thou mayst acquire for thyself and thy daughter Rebecca? I grieve for the maiden, for she is of fair and comely countenance,—I beheld her in the lists of Ashby. Also Brian de Bois-Guilbert is one with whom I may do much—bethink thee how thou mayst deserve my good word with him.”

“Alas! alas!” said the Jew, “on every hand the spoilers arise against me—I am given as a prey unto the Assyrian, and a prey unto him of Egypt.”

“And what else should be the lot of thy accursed race?” answered the Prior; “for what saith holy writ, ‘verbum Domini projecerunt, et sapientia est nulla in eis’—they have cast forth the word of the Lord, and there is no wisdom in them; ‘propterea dabo mulieres eorum exteris’—I will give their women to strangers, that is to the Templar, as in the present matter; ‘et thesauros eorum haeredibus alienis’, and their treasures to others—as in the present case to these honest gentlemen.”

Isaac groaned deeply, and began to wring his hands, and to relapse into his state of desolation and despair. But the leader of the yeomen led him aside.

“Advise thee well, Isaac,” said Locksley, “what thou wilt do in this matter; my counsel to thee is to make a friend of this churchman. He is vain, Isaac, and he is covetous; at least he needs money to supply his profusion. Thou canst easily gratify his greed; for think not that I am blinded by thy pretexts of poverty. I am intimately acquainted, Isaac, with the very iron chest in which thou dost keep thy money-bags—What! know I not the great stone beneath the apple-tree, that leads into the vaulted chamber under thy garden at York?” The Jew grew as pale as death—“But fear nothing from me,” continued the yeoman, “for we are of old acquainted. Dost thou not remember the sick yeoman whom thy fair daughter Rebecca redeemed from the gyves at York, and kept him in thy house till his health was restored, when thou didst dismiss him recovered, and with a piece of money?—Usurer as thou art, thou didst never place coin at better interest than that poor silver mark, for it has this day saved thee five hundred crowns.”

“And thou art he whom we called Diccon Bend-the-Bow?” said Isaac; “I thought ever I knew the accent of thy voice.”

“I am Bend-the-Bow,” said the Captain, “and Locksley, and have a good name besides all these.”

“But thou art mistaken, good Bend-the-Bow, concerning that same vaulted apartment. So help me Heaven, as there is nought in it but some merchandises which I will gladly part with to you—one hundred yards of Lincoln green to make doublets to thy men, and a hundred staves of Spanish yew to make bows, and a hundred silken bowstrings, tough, round, and sound—these will I send thee for thy good-will, honest Diccon, an thou wilt keep silence about the vault, my good Diccon.”

“Silent as a dormouse,” said the Outlaw; “and never trust me but I am grieved for thy daughter. But I may not help it—The Templars lances are too strong for my archery in the open field—they would scatter us like dust. Had I but known it was Rebecca when she was borne off, something might have been done; but now thou must needs proceed by policy. Come, shall I treat for thee with the Prior?”

“In God’s name, Diccon, an thou canst, aid me to recover the child of my bosom!”

“Do not thou interrupt me with thine ill-timed avarice,” said the Outlaw, “and I will deal with him in thy behalf.”

He then turned from the Jew, who followed him, however, as closely as his shadow.

“Prior Aymer,” said the Captain, “come apart with me under this tree. Men say thou dost love wine, and a lady’s smile, better than beseems thy Order, Sir Priest; but with that I have nought to do. I have heard, too, thou dost love a brace of good dogs and a fleet horse, and it may well be that, loving things which are costly to come by, thou hatest not a purse of gold. But I have never heard that thou didst love oppression or cruelty.—Now, here is Isaac willing to give thee the means of pleasure and pastime in a bag containing one hundred marks of silver, if thy intercession with thine ally the Templar shall avail to procure the freedom of his daughter.”

“In safety and honour, as when taken from me,” said the Jew, “otherwise it is no bargain.”

“Peace, Isaac,” said the Outlaw, “or I give up thine interest.—What say you to this my purpose, Prior Aymer?”

“The matter,” quoth the Prior, “is of a mixed condition; for, if I do a good deal on the one hand, yet, on the other, it goeth to the vantage of a Jew, and in so much is against my conscience. Yet, if the Israelite will advantage the Church by giving me somewhat over to the building of our dortour, 45 I will take it on my conscience to aid him in the matter of his daughter.”

“For a score of marks to the dortour,” said the Outlaw,—“Be still, I say, Isaac!—or for a brace of silver candlesticks to the altar, we will not stand with you.”

“Nay, but, good Diccon Bend-the-Bow”—said Isaac, endeavouring to interpose.

“Good Jew—good beast—good earthworm!” said the yeoman, losing patience; “an thou dost go on to put thy filthy lucre in the balance with thy daughter’s life and honour, by Heaven, I will strip thee of every maravedi thou hast in the world, before three days are out!”

Isaac shrunk together, and was silent.

“And what pledge am I to have for all this?” said the Prior.

“When Isaac returns successful through your mediation,” said the Outlaw, “I swear by Saint Hubert, I will see that he pays thee the money in good silver, or I will reckon with him for it in such sort, he had better have paid twenty such sums.”

“Well then, Jew,” said Aymer, “since I must needs meddle in this matter, let me have the use of thy writing-tablets—though, hold—rather than use thy pen, I would fast for twenty-four hours, and where shall I find one?”

“If your holy scruples can dispense with using the Jew’s tablets, for the pen I can find a remedy,” said the yeoman; and, bending his bow, he aimed his shaft at a wild-goose which was soaring over their heads, the advanced-guard of a phalanx of his tribe, which were winging their way to the distant and solitary fens of Holderness. The bird came fluttering down, transfixed with the arrow.

“There, Prior,” said the Captain, “are quills enow to supply all the monks of Jorvaulx for the next hundred years, an they take not to writing chronicles.”

The Prior sat down, and at great leisure indited an epistle to Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and having carefully sealed up the tablets, delivered them to the Jew, saying, “This will be thy safe-conduct to the Preceptory of Templestowe, and, as I think, is most likely to accomplish the delivery of thy daughter, if it be well backed with proffers of advantage and commodity at thine own hand; for, trust me well, the good Knight Bois-Guilbert is of their confraternity that do nought for nought.”

“Well, Prior,” said the Outlaw, “I will detain thee no longer here than to give the Jew a quittance for the six hundred crowns at which thy ransom is fixed—I accept of him for my pay-master; and if I hear that ye boggle at allowing him in his accompts the sum so paid by him, Saint Mary refuse me, an I burn not the abbey over thine head, though I hang ten years the sooner!”

With a much worse grace than that wherewith he had penned the letter to Bois-Guilbert, the Prior wrote an acquittance, discharging Isaac of York of six hundred crowns, advanced to him in his need for acquittal of his ransom, and faithfully promising to hold