Ivanhoe Walter Scott (best desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📖

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!36⁠—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 ladylove, 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 warhorse?”

“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