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

of Rebecca. He was not originally a cruel or even a severe man; but with passions by nature cold, and with a high, though mistaken, sense of duty, his heart had been gradually hardened by the ascetic life which he pursued, the supreme power which he enjoyed, and the supposed necessity of subduing infidelity and eradicating heresy, which he conceived peculiarly incumbent on him. His features relaxed in their usual severity as he gazed upon the beautiful creature before him, alone, unfriended, and defending herself with so much spirit and courage. He crossed himself twice, as doubting whence arose the unwonted softening of a heart, which on such occasions used to resemble in hardness the steel of his sword. At length he spoke.

“Damsel,” he said, “if the pity I feel for thee arise from any practice thine evil arts have made on me, great is thy guilt. But I rather judge it the kinder feelings of nature, which grieves that so goodly a form should be a vessel of perdition. Repent, my daughter—confess thy witchcrafts—turn thee from thine evil faith—embrace this holy emblem, and all shall yet be well with thee here and hereafter. In some sisterhood of the strictest order, shalt thou have time for prayer and fitting penance, and that repentance not to be repented of. This do and live—what has the law of Moses done for thee that thou shouldest die for it?”

“It was the law of my fathers,” said Rebecca; “it was delivered in thunders and in storms upon the mountain of Sinai, in cloud and in fire. This, if ye are Christians, ye believe—it is, you say, recalled; but so my teachers have not taught me.”

“Let our chaplain,” said Beaumanoir, “stand forth, and tell this obstinate infidel—”

“Forgive the interruption,” said Rebecca, meekly; “I am a maiden, unskilled to dispute for my religion, but I can die for it, if it be God’s will.—Let me pray your answer to my demand of a champion.”

“Give me her glove,” said Beaumanoir. “This is indeed,” he continued, as he looked at the flimsy texture and slender fingers, “a slight and frail gage for a purpose so deadly!—Seest thou, Rebecca, as this thin and light glove of thine is to one of our heavy steel gauntlets, so is thy cause to that of the Temple, for it is our Order which thou hast defied.”

“Cast my innocence into the scale,” answered Rebecca, “and the glove of silk shall outweigh the glove of iron.”

“Then thou dost persist in thy refusal to confess thy guilt, and in that bold challenge which thou hast made?”

“I do persist, noble sir,” answered Rebecca.

“So be it then, in the name of Heaven,” said the Grand Master; “and may God show the right!”

“Amen,” replied the Preceptors around him, and the word was deeply echoed by the whole assembly.

“Brethren,” said Beaumanoir, “you are aware that we might well have refused to this woman the benefit of the trial by combat—but though a Jewess and an unbeliever, she is also a stranger and defenceless, and God forbid that she should ask the benefit of our mild laws, and that it should be refused to her. Moreover, we are knights and soldiers as well as men of religion, and shame it were to us upon any pretence, to refuse proffered combat. Thus, therefore, stands the case. Rebecca, the daughter of Isaac of York, is, by many frequent and suspicious circumstances, defamed of sorcery practised on the person of a noble knight of our holy Order, and hath challenged the combat in proof of her innocence. To whom, reverend brethren, is it your opinion that we should deliver the gage of battle, naming him, at the same time, to be our champion on the field?”

“To Brian de Bois-Guilbert, whom it chiefly concerns,” said the Preceptor of Goodalricke, “and who, moreover, best knows how the truth stands in this matter.”

“But if,” said the Grand Master, “our brother Brian be under the influence of a charm or a spell—we speak but for the sake of precaution, for to the arm of none of our holy Order would we more willingly confide this or a more weighty cause.”

“Reverend father,” answered the Preceptor of Goodalricke, “no spell can effect the champion who comes forward to fight for the judgment of God.”

“Thou sayest right, brother,” said the Grand Master. “Albert Malvoisin, give this gage of battle to Brian de Bois-Guilbert.—It is our charge to thee, brother,” he continued, addressing himself to Bois-Guilbert, “that thou do thy battle manfully, nothing doubting that the good cause shall triumph.—And do thou, Rebecca, attend, that we assign thee the third day from the present to find a champion.”

“That is but brief space,” answered Rebecca, “for a stranger, who is also of another faith, to find one who will do battle, wagering life and honour for her cause, against a knight who is called an approved soldier.”

“We may not extend it,” answered the Grand Master; “the field must be foughten in our own presence, and divers weighty causes call us on the fourth day from hence.”

“God’s will be done!” said Rebecca; “I put my trust in Him, to whom an instant is as effectual to save as a whole age.”

“Thou hast spoken well, damsel,” said the Grand Master; “but well know we who can array himself like an angel of light. It remains but to name a fitting place of combat, and, if it so hap, also of execution.—Where is the Preceptor of this house?”

Albert Malvoisin, still holding Rebecca’s glove in his hand, was speaking to Bois-Guilbert very earnestly, but in a low voice.

“How!” said the Grand Master, “will he not receive the gage?”

“He will—he doth, most Reverend Father,” said Malvoisin, slipping the glove under his own mantle. “And for the place of combat, I hold the fittest to be the lists of Saint George belonging to this Preceptory, and used by us for military exercise.”

“It is well,” said the Grand Master.—“Rebecca, in those lists shalt thou produce thy champion; and if thou failest to do so, or if thy champion shall be discomfited by the judgment of God, thou shalt then die the death of a sorceress, according to doom.—Let this our judgment be recorded, and the record read aloud, that no one may pretend ignorance.”

One of the chaplains, who acted as clerks to the chapter, immediately engrossed the order in a huge volume, which contained the proceedings of the Templar Knights when solemnly assembled on such occasions; and when he had finished writing, the other read aloud the sentence of the Grand Master, which, when translated from the Norman-French in which it was couched, was expressed as follows.—

“Rebecca, a Jewess, daughter of Isaac of York, being attainted of sorcery, seduction, and other damnable practices, practised on a Knight of the most Holy Order of the Temple of Zion, doth deny the same; and saith, that the testimony delivered against her this day is false, wicked, and disloyal; and that by lawful ‘essoine’ 54 of her body as being unable to combat in her own behalf, she doth offer, by a champion instead thereof, to avouch her case, he performing his loyal ‘devoir’ in all knightly sort, with such arms as to gage of battle do fully appertain, and that at her peril and cost. And therewith she proffered her gage. And the gage having been delivered to the noble Lord and Knight, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, of the Holy Order of the Temple of Zion, he was appointed to do this battle, in behalf of his Order and himself, as injured and impaired by the practices of the appellant. Wherefore the most reverend Father and puissant Lord, Lucas Marquis of Beaumanoir, did allow of the said challenge, and of the said ‘essoine’ of the appellant’s body, and assigned the third day for the said combat, the place being the enclosure called the lists of Saint George, near to the Preceptory of Templestowe. And the Grand Master appoints the appellant to appear there by her champion, on pain of doom, as a person convicted of sorcery or seduction; and also the defendant so to appear, under the penalty of being held and adjudged recreant in case of default; and the noble Lord and most reverend Father aforesaid appointed the battle to be done in his own presence, and according to all that is commendable and profitable in such a case. And may God aid the just cause!”

“Amen!” said the Grand Master; and the word was echoed by all around. Rebecca spoke not, but she looked up to heaven, and, folding her hands, remained for a minute without change of attitude. She then modestly reminded the Grand Master, that she ought to be permitted some opportunity of free communication with her friends, for the purpose of making her condition known to them, and procuring, if possible, some champion to fight in her behalf.

“It is just and lawful,” said the Grand Master; “choose what messenger thou shalt trust, and he shall have free communication with thee in thy prison-chamber.”

“Is there,” said Rebecca, “any one here, who, either for love of a good cause, or for ample hire, will do the errand of a distressed being?”

All were silent; for none thought it safe, in the presence of the Grand Master, to avow any interest in the calumniated prisoner, lest he should be suspected of leaning towards Judaism. Not even the prospect of reward, far less any feelings of compassion alone, could surmount this apprehension.

Rebecca stood for a few moments in indescribable anxiety, and then exclaimed, “Is it really thus?—And, in English land, am I to be deprived of the poor chance of safety which remains to me, for want of an act of charity which would not be refused to the worst criminal?”

Higg, the son of Snell, at length replied, “I am but a maimed man, but that I can at all stir or move was owing to her charitable assistance.—I will do thine errand,” he added, addressing Rebecca, “as well as a crippled object can, and happy were my limbs fleet enough to repair the mischief done by my tongue. Alas! when I boasted of thy charity, I little thought I was leading thee into danger!”

“God,” said Rebecca, “is the disposer of all. He can turn back the captivity of Judah, even by the weakest instrument. To execute his message the snail is as sure a messenger as the falcon. Seek out Isaac of York—here is that will pay for horse and man—let him have this scroll.—I know not if it be of Heaven the spirit which inspires me, but most truly do I judge that I am not to die this death, and that a champion will be raised up for me. Farewell!—Life and death are in thy haste.”

The peasant took the scroll, which contained only a few lines in Hebrew. Many of the crowd would have dissuaded him from touching a document so suspicious; but Higg was resolute in the service of his benefactress. She had saved his body, he said, and he was confident she did not mean to peril his soul.

“I will get me,” he said, “my neighbour Buthan’s good capul, 55 and I will be at York within as brief space as man and beast may.”

But as it fortuned, he had no occasion to go so far, for within a quarter of a mile from the gate of the Preceptory he met with two riders, whom, by their dress and their huge yellow caps, he knew to be Jews; and, on approaching more nearly, discovered that one of them was his ancient employer, Isaac of York. The other was the Rabbi Ben Samuel; and both had approached as near to the Preceptory as they dared, on hearing that the Grand Master had summoned a chapter for the trial of a sorceress.

“Brother Ben Samuel,” said Isaac, “my soul is disquieted, and I wot not why. This charge of necromancy is right often used for cloaking evil practices on our people.”

“Be of good comfort, brother,” said the physician; “thou canst deal with the Nazarenes as one possessing the mammon of unrighteousness, and canst therefore purchase immunity at their hands—it rules the savage minds of those ungodly men, even as the signet of the mighty Solomon was said to command the evil genii.—But what poor wretch comes hither upon his crutches, desiring, as I think, some speech of me?—Friend,” continued the physician, addressing Higg, the son of Snell, “I refuse thee not the aid of mine art, but I relieve not with one asper those who beg for alms upon the highway. Out upon thee!—Hast thou the palsy in thy legs? then let thy hands work for thy livelihood; for, albeit thou be’st unfit for a speedy post, or for a careful shepherd, or for the warfare, or for the service of a hasty master, yet there be occupations—How now, brother?”