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

name which has grown

yet more so under my wearing, becomes a hissing and a reproach.

I lose fame, I lose honour, I lose the prospect of such greatness

as scarce emperors attain to---I sacrifice mighty ambition, I

destroy schemes built as high as the mountains with which

heathens say their heaven was once nearly scaled---and yet,

Rebecca,” he added, throwing himself at her feet, “this greatness

will I sacrifice, this fame will I renounce, this power will I

forego, even now when it is half within my grasp, if thou wilt

say, Bois-Guilbert, I receive thee for my lover.”

“Think not of such foolishness, Sir Knight,” answered Rebecca,

“but hasten to the Regent, the Queen Mother, and to Prince John

---they cannot, in honour to the English crown, allow of the

proceedings of your Grand Master. So shall you give me

protection without sacrifice on your part, or the pretext of

requiring any requital from me.”

“With these I deal not,” he continued, holding the train of her

robe---“it is thee only I address; and what can counterbalance

thy choice? Bethink thee, were I a fiend, yet death is a worse,

and it is death who is my rival.”

“I weigh not these evils,” said Rebecca, afraid to provoke the

wild knight, yet equally determined neither to endure his

passion, nor even feign to endure it. “Be a man, be a Christian!

If indeed thy faith recommends that mercy which rather your

tongues than your actions pretend, save me from this dreadful

death, without seeking a requital which would change thy

magnanimity into base barter.”

“No, damsel!” said the proud Templar, springing up, “thou shalt

not thus impose on me---if I renounce present fame and future

ambition, I renounce it for thy sake, and we will escape in

company. Listen to me, Rebecca,” he said, again softening his

tone; “England,---Europe,---is not the world. There are spheres

in which we may act, ample enough even for my ambition. We will

go to Palestine, where Conrade, Marquis of Montserrat, is my

friend---a friend free as myself from the doting scruples which

fetter our free-born reason----rather with Saladin will we league

ourselves, than endure the scorn of the bigots whom we contemn.

---I will form new paths to greatness,” he continued, again

traversing the room with hasty strides---“Europe shall hear the

loud step of him she has driven from her sons!---Not the millions

whom her crusaders send to slaughter, can do so much to defend

Palestine---not the sabres of the thousands and ten thousands of

Saracens can hew their way so deep into that land for which

nations are striving, as the strength and policy of me and those

brethren, who, in despite of yonder old bigot, will adhere to me

in good and evil. Thou shalt be a queen, Rebecca---on Mount

Carmel shall we pitch the throne which my valour will gain for

you, and I will exchange my long-desired batoon for a sceptre!”

“A dream,” said Rebecca; “an empty vision of the night, which,

were it a waking reality, affects me not. Enough, that the power

which thou mightest acquire, I will never share; nor hold I so

light of country or religious faith, as to esteem him who is

willing to barter these ties, and cast away the bonds of the

Order of which he is a sworn member, in order to gratify an

unruly passion for the daughter of another people.---Put not a

price on my deliverance, Sir Knight---sell not a deed of

generosity---protect the oppressed for the sake of charity, and

not for a selfish advantage---Go to the throne of England;

Richard will listen to my appeal from these cruel men.”

“Never, Rebecca!” said the Templar, fiercely. “If I renounce my

Order, for thee alone will I renounce it---Ambition shall remain

mine, if thou refuse my love; I will not be fooled on all hands.

---Stoop my crest to Richard?---ask a boon of that heart of

pride?---Never, Rebecca, will I place the Order of the Temple at

his feet in my person. I may forsake the Order, I never will

degrade or betray it.”

“Now God be gracious to me,” said Rebecca, “for the succour of

man is well-nigh hopeless!”

“It is indeed,” said the Templar; “for, proud as thou art, thou

hast in me found thy match. If I enter the lists with my spear

in rest, think not any human consideration shall prevent my

putting forth my strength; and think then upon thine own fate

---to die the dreadful death of the worst of criminals---to be

consumed upon a blazing pile---dispersed to the elements of which

our strange forms are so mystically composed---not a relic left

of that graceful frame, from which we could say this lived and

moved!---Rebecca, it is not in woman to sustain this prospect

---thou wilt yield to my suit.”

“Bois-Guilbert,” answered the Jewess, “thou knowest not the heart

of woman, or hast only conversed with those who are lost to her

best feelings. I tell thee, proud Templar, that not in thy

fiercest battles hast thou displayed more of thy vaunted courage,

than has been shown by woman when called upon to suffer by

affection or duty. I am myself a woman, tenderly nurtured,

naturally fearful of danger, and impatient of pain---yet, when we

enter those fatal lists, thou to fight and I to suffer, I feel

the strong assurance within me, that my courage shall mount

higher than thine. Farewell---I waste no more words on thee; the

time that remains on earth to the daughter of Jacob must be

otherwise spent---she must seek the Comforter, who may hide his

face from his people, but who ever opens his ear to the cry of

those who seek him in sincerity and in truth.”

“We part then thus?” said the Templar, after a short pause;

“would to Heaven that we had never met, or that thou hadst been

noble in birth and Christian in faith!---Nay, by Heaven! when I

gaze on thee, and think when and how we are next to meet, I could

even wish myself one of thine own degraded nation; my hand

conversant with ingots and shekels, instead of spear and shield;

my head bent down before each petty noble, and my look only

terrible to the shivering and bankrupt debtor---this could I

wish, Rebecca, to be near to thee in life, and to escape the

fearful share I must have in thy death.”

“Thou hast spoken the Jew,” said Rebecca, “as the persecution of

such as thou art has made him. Heaven in ire has driven him from

his country, but industry has opened to him the only road to

power and to influence, which oppression has left unbarred. Read

the ancient history of the people of God, and tell me if those,

by whom Jehovah wrought such marvels among the nations, were then

a people of misers and of usurers!---And know, proud knight, we

number names amongst us to which your boasted northern nobility

is as the gourd compared with the cedar---names that ascend far

back to those high times when the Divine Presence shook the

mercy-seat between the cherubim, and which derive their splendour

from no earthly prince, but from the awful Voice, which bade

their fathers be nearest of the congregation to the Vision---Such

were the princes of the House of Jacob.”

Rebecca’s colour rose as she boasted the ancient glories of her

race, but faded as she added, with at sigh, “Such WERE the

princes of Judah, now such no more!---They are trampled down like

the shorn grass, and mixed with the mire of the ways. Yet are

there those among them who shame not such high descent, and of

such shall be the daughter of Isaac the son of Adonikam!

Farewell!---I envy not thy blood-won honours---I envy not thy

barbarous descent from northern heathens---I envy thee not thy

faith, which is ever in thy mouth, but never in thy heart nor in

thy practice.”

“There is a spell on me, by Heaven!” said Bois-Guilbert. “I

almost think yon besotted skeleton spoke truth, and that the

reluctance with which I part from thee hath something in it more

than is natural.---Fair creature!” he said, approaching near her,

but with great respect,---“so young, so beautiful, so fearless of

death! and yet doomed to die, and with infamy and agony. Who

would not weep for thee?---The tear, that has been a stranger to

these eyelids for twenty years, moistens them as I gaze on thee.

But it must be---nothing may now save thy life. Thou and I are

but the blind instruments of some irresistible fatality, that

hurries us along, like goodly vessels driving before the storm,

which are dashed against each other, and so perish. Forgive me,

then, and let us part, at least, as friends part. I have

assailed thy resolution in vain, and mine own is fixed as the

adamantine decrees of fate.”

“Thus,” said Rebecca, “do men throw on fate the issue of their

own wild passions. But I do forgive thee, Bois-Guilbert, though

the author of my early death. There are noble things which cross

over thy powerful mind; but it is the garden of the sluggard, and

the weeds have rushed up, and conspired to choke the fair and

wholesome blossom.”

“Yes,” said the Templar, “I am, Rebecca, as thou hast spoken me,

untaught, untamed---and proud, that, amidst a shoal of empty

fools and crafty bigots, I have retained the preeminent fortitude

that places me above them. I have been a child of battle from my

youth upward, high in my views, steady and inflexible in pursuing

them. Such must I remain---proud, inflexible, and unchanging;

and of this the world shall have proof.---But thou forgivest me,

Rebecca?”

“As freely as ever victim forgave her executioner.”

“Farewell, then,” said the Templar, and left the apartment.

The Preceptor Albert waited impatiently in an adjacent chamber

the return of Bois-Guilbert.

“Thou hast tarried long,” he said; “I have been as if stretched

on red-hot iron with very impatience. What if the Grand Master,

or his spy Conrade, had come hither? I had paid dear for my

complaisance.---But what ails thee, brother?---Thy step totters,

thy brow is as black as night. Art thou well, Bois-Guilbert?”

“Ay,” answered the Templar, “as well as the wretch who is doomed

to die within an hour.---Nay, by the rood, not half so well---for

there be those in such state, who can lay down life like a

cast-off garment. By Heaven, Malvoisin, yonder girl hath

well-nigh unmanned me. I am half resolved to go to the Grand

Master, abjure the Order to his very teeth, and refuse to act the

brutality which his tyranny has imposed on me.”

“Thou art mad,” answered Malvoisin; “thou mayst thus indeed

utterly ruin thyself, but canst not even find a chance thereby to

save the life of this Jewess, which seems so precious in thine

eyes. Beaumanoir will name another of the Order to defend his

judgment in thy place, and the accused will as assuredly perish

as if thou hadst taken the duty imposed on thee.”

“‘Tis false---I will myself take arms in her behalf,” answered

the Templar, haughtily; “and, should I do so, I think, Malvoisin,

that thou knowest not one of the Order, who will keep his saddle

before the point of my lance.”

“Ay, but thou forgettest,” said the wily adviser, “thou wilt have

neither leisure nor opportunity to execute this mad project. Go

to Lucas Beaumanoir, and say thou hast renounced thy vow of

obedience, and see how long the despotic old man will leave thee

in personal freedom. The words shall scarce have left thy lips,

ere thou wilt either be an hundred feet under ground, in the

dungeon of the Preceptory, to abide trial as a recreant knight;

or, if his opinion holds concerning