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

“I am richer,” said Gurth, putting them into his pouch, “than ever was swineherd or bondsman.”

“Take this bag of gold to Ashby,” continued his master, “and find out Isaac the Jew of York, and let him pay himself for the horse and arms with which his credit supplied me.”

“Nay, by St. Dunstan,” replied Gurth, “that I will not do.”

“How, knave,” replied his master, “wilt thou not obey my commands?”

“So they be honest, reasonable, and Christian commands,” replied Gurth; “but this is none of these. To suffer the Jew to pay himself would be dishonest, for it would be cheating my master; and unreasonable, for it were the part of a fool; and unchristian, since it would be plundering a believer to enrich an infidel.”

“See him contented, however, thou stubborn varlet,” said the Disinherited Knight.

“I will do so,” said Gurth, taking the bag under his cloak, and leaving the apartment; “and it will go hard,” he muttered, “but I content him with one-half of his own asking.” So saying, he departed, and left the Disinherited Knight to his own perplexed ruminations; which, upon more accounts than it is now possible to communicate to the reader, were of a nature peculiarly agitating and painful.

We must now change the scene to the village of Ashby, or rather to a country house in its vicinity belonging to a wealthy Israelite, with whom Isaac, his daughter, and retinue, had taken up their quarters; the Jews, it is well known, being as liberal in exercising the duties of hospitality and charity among their own people, as they were alleged to be reluctant and churlish in extending them to those whom they termed Gentiles, and whose treatment of them certainly merited little hospitality at their hand.

In an apartment, small indeed, but richly furnished with decorations of an Oriental taste, Rebecca was seated on a heap of embroidered cushions, which, piled along a low platform that surrounded the chamber, served, like the estrada of the Spaniards, instead of chairs and stools. She was watching the motions of her father with a look of anxious and filial affection, while he paced the apartment with a dejected mien and disordered step; sometimes clasping his hands together⁠—sometimes casting his eyes to the roof of the apartment, as one who laboured under great mental tribulation. “O, Jacob!” he exclaimed⁠—“O, all ye twelve Holy Fathers of our tribe! what a losing venture is this for one who hath duly kept every jot and tittle of the law of Moses⁠—Fifty zecchins wrenched from me at one clutch, and by the talons of a tyrant!”

“But, father,” said Rebecca, “you seemed to give the gold to Prince John willingly.”

“Willingly? the blotch of Egypt upon him!⁠—Willingly, saidst thou?⁠—Ay, as willingly as when, in the Gulf of Lyons, I flung over my merchandise to lighten the ship, while she laboured in the tempest⁠—robed the seething billows in my choice silks⁠—perfumed their briny foam with myrrh and aloes⁠—enriched their caverns with gold and silver work! And was not that an hour of unutterable misery, though my own hands made the sacrifice?”

“But it was a sacrifice which Heaven exacted to save our lives,” answered Rebecca, “and the God of our fathers has since blessed your store and your gettings.”

“Ay,” answered Isaac, “but if the tyrant lays hold on them as he did today, and compels me to smile while he is robbing me?⁠—O, daughter, disinherited and wandering as we are, the worst evil which befalls our race is, that when we are wronged and plundered, all the world laughs around, and we are compelled to suppress our sense of injury, and to smile tamely, when we would revenge bravely.”

“Think not thus of it, my father,” said Rebecca; “we also have advantages. These Gentiles, cruel and oppressive as they are, are in some sort dependent on the dispersed children of Zion, whom they despise and persecute. Without the aid of our wealth, they could neither furnish forth their hosts in war, nor their triumphs in peace, and the gold which we lend them returns with increase to our coffers. We are like the herb which flourisheth most when it is most trampled on. Even this day’s pageant had not proceeded without the consent of the despised Jew, who furnished the means.”

“Daughter,” said Isaac, “thou hast harped upon another string of sorrow. The goodly steed and the rich armour, equal to the full profit of my adventure with our Kirjath Jairam of Leicester⁠—there is a dead loss too⁠—ay, a loss which swallows up the gains of a week; ay, of the space between two Sabbaths⁠—and yet it may end better than I now think, for ’tis a good youth.”

“Assuredly,” said Rebecca, “you shall not repent you of requiting the good deed received of the stranger knight.”

“I trust so, daughter,” said Isaac, “and I trust too in the rebuilding of Zion; but as well do I hope with my own bodily eyes to see the walls and battlements of the new Temple, as to see a Christian, yea, the very best of Christians, repay a debt to a Jew, unless under the awe of the judge and jailor.”

So saying, he resumed his discontented walk through the apartment; and Rebecca, perceiving that her attempts at consolation only served to awaken new subjects of complaint, wisely desisted from her unavailing efforts⁠—a prudential line of conduct, and we recommend to all who set up for comforters and advisers, to follow it in the like circumstances.

The evening was now becoming dark, when a Jewish servant entered the apartment, and placed upon the table two silver lamps, fed with perfumed oil; the richest wines, and the most delicate refreshments, were at the same time displayed by another Israelitish domestic on a small ebony table, inlaid with silver; for, in the interior of their houses, the Jews refused themselves no expensive indulgences. At the same time the servant informed Isaac, that a Nazarene (so