Ivanhoe, Walter Scott [the lemonade war series txt] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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himself had been most distinguished for rebellion and ingratitude
to his father.
“I think,” said he, after a moment’s pause, “that my brother
proposed to confer upon his favourite the rich manor of Ivanhoe.”
“He did endow him with it,” answered Cedric; “nor is it my least
quarrel with my son, that he stooped to hold, as a feudal vassal,
the very domains which his fathers possessed in free and
independent right.”
“We shall then have your willing sanction, good Cedric,” said
Prince John, “to confer this fief upon a person whose dignity
will not be diminished by holding land of the British crown.
---Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,” he said, turning towards that
Baron, “I trust you will so keep the goodly Barony of Ivanhoe,
that Sir Wilfred shall not incur his father’s farther displeasure
by again entering upon that fief.”
“By St Anthony!” answered the black-brow’d giant, “I will consent
that your highness shall hold me a Saxon, if either Cedric or
Wilfred, or the best that ever bore English blood, shall wrench
from me the gift with which your highness has graced me.”
“Whoever shall call thee Saxon, Sir Baron,” replied Cedric,
offended at a mode of expression by which the Normans frequently
expressed their habitual contempt of the English, “will do thee
an honour as great as it is undeserved.”
Front-de-Boeuf would have replied, but Prince John’s petulance
and levity got the start.
“Assuredly,” said be, “my lords, the noble Cedric speaks truth;
and his race may claim precedence over us as much in the length
of their pedigrees as in the longitude of their cloaks.”
“They go before us indeed in the field---as deer before dogs,”
said Malvoisin.
“And with good right may they go before us---forget not,” said
the Prior Aymer, “the superior decency and decorum of their
manners.”
“Their singular abstemiousness and temperance,” said De Bracy,
forgetting the plan which promised him a Saxon bride.
“Together with the courage and conduct,” said Brian de
Bois-Guilbert, “by which they distinguished themselves at
Hastings and elsewhere.”
While, with smooth and smiling cheek, the courtiers, each in
turn, followed their Prince’s example, and aimed a shaft of
ridicule at Cedric, the face of the Saxon became inflamed with
passion, and he glanced his eyes fiercely from one to another, as
if the quick succession of so many injuries had prevented his
replying to them in turn; or, like a baited bull, who, surrounded
by his tormentors, is at a loss to choose from among them the
immediate object of his revenge. At length he spoke, in a voice
half choked with passion; and, addressing himself to Prince John
as the head and front of the offence which he had received,
“Whatever,” he said, “have been the follies and vices of our
race, a Saxon would have been held ‘nidering’,” *
There was nothing accounted so ignominious among the Saxons as to merit this disgraceful epithet. Even William the Conqueror, hated as he was by them, continued to draw a considerable army of Anglo-Saxons to his standard, by threatening to stigmatize those who staid at home, as nidering. Bartholinus, I think, mentions a similar phrase which had like influence on the Danes. L. T.(the most emphatic term for abject worthlessness,) “who should in
his own hall, and while his own wine-cup passed, have treated, or
suffered to be treated, an unoffending guest as your highness has
this day beheld me used; and whatever was the misfortune of our
fathers on the field of Hastings, those may at least be silent,”
here he looked at Front-de-Boeuf and the Templar, “who have
within these few hours once and again lost saddle and stirrup
before the lance of a Saxon.”
“By my faith, a biting jest!” said Prince John. “How like you
it, sirs?---Our Saxon subjects rise in spirit and courage; become
shrewd in wit, and bold in bearing, in these unsettled times
---What say ye, my lords?---By this good light, I hold it best to
take our galleys, and return to Normandy in time.”
“For fear of the Saxons?” said De Bracy, laughing; “we should
need no weapon but our hunting spears to bring these boars to
bay.”
“A truce with your raillery, Sir Knights,” said Fitzurse;---“and
it were well,” he added, addressing the Prince, “that your
highness should assure the worthy Cedric there is no insult
intended him by jests, which must sound but harshly in the ear of
a stranger.”
“Insult?” answered Prince John, resuming his courtesy of
demeanour; “I trust it will not be thought that I could mean, or
permit any, to be offered in my presence. Here! I fill my cup to
Cedric himself, since he refuses to pledge his son’s health.”
The cup went round amid the well-dissembled applause of the
courtiers, which, however, failed to make the impression on the
mind of the Saxon that had been designed. He was not naturally
acute of perception, but those too much undervalued his
understanding who deemed that this flattering compliment would
obliterate the sense of the prior insult. He was silent,
however, when the royal pledge again passed round, “To Sir
Athelstane of Coningsburgh.”
The knight made his obeisance, and showed his sense of the honour
by draining a huge goblet in answer to it.
“And now, sirs,” said Prince John, who began to be warmed with
the wine which he had drank, “having done justice to our Saxon
guests, we will pray of them some requital to our courtesy.
---Worthy Thane,” he continued, addressing Cedric, “may we pray
you to name to us some Norman whose mention may least sully your
mouth, and to wash down with a goblet of wine all bitterness
which the sound may leave behind it?”
Fitzurse arose while Prince John spoke, and gliding behind the
seat of the Saxon, whispered to him not to omit the opportunity
of putting an end to unkindness betwixt the two races, by naming
Prince John. The Saxon replied not to this politic insinuation,
but, rising up, and filling his cup to the brim, be addressed
Prince John in these words: “Your highness has required that I
should name a Norman deserving to be remembered at our banquet.
This, perchance, is a hard task, since it calls on the slave to
sing the praises of the master---upon the vanquished, while
pressed by all the evils of conquest, to sing the praises of the
conqueror. Yet I will name a Norman---the first in arms and in
place---the best and the noblest of his race. And the lips that
shall refuse to pledge me to his well-earned fame, I term false
and dishonoured, and will so maintain them with my life.---I
quaff this goblet to the health of Richard the Lion-hearted!”
Prince John, who had expected that his own name would have closed
the Saxon’s speech, started when that of his injured brother was
so unexpectedly introduced. He raised mechanically the wine-cup
to his lips, then instantly set it down, to view the demeanour of
the company at this unexpected proposal, which many of them felt
it as unsafe to oppose as to comply with. Some of them, ancient
and experienced courtiers, closely imitated the example of the
Prince himself, raising the goblet to their lips, and again
replacing it before them. There were many who, with a more
generous feeling, exclaimed, “Long live King Richard! and may he
be speedily restored to us!” And some few, among whom were
Front-de-Boeuf and the Templar, in sullen disdain suffered their
goblets to stand untasted before them. But no man ventured
directly to gainsay a pledge filled to the health of the
reigning monarch.
Having enjoyed his triumph for about a minute, Cedric said to his
companion, “Up, noble Athelstane! we have remained here long
enough, since we have requited the hospitable courtesy of Prince
John’s banquet. Those who wish to know further of our rude Saxon
manners must henceforth seek us in the homes of our fathers,
since we have seen enough of royal banquets, and enough of Norman
courtesy.”
So saying, he arose and left the banqueting room, followed by
Athelstane, and by several other guests, who, partaking of the
Saxon lineage, held themselves insulted by the sarcasms of Prince
John and his courtiers.
“By the bones of St Thomas,” said Prince John, as they retreated,
“the Saxon churls have borne off the best of the day, and have
retreated with triumph!”
“‘Conclamatum est, poculatum est’,” said Prior Aymer; “we have
drunk and we have shouted,---it were time we left our wine
flagons.”
“The monk hath some fair penitent to shrive to-night, that he is
in such a hurry to depart,” said De Bracy.
“Not so, Sir Knight,” replied the Abbot; “but I must move several
miles forward this evening upon my homeward journey.”
“They are breaking up,” said the Prince in a whisper to Fitzurse;
“their fears anticipate the event, and this coward Prior is the
first to shrink from me.”
“Fear not, my lord,” said Waldemar; “I will show him such reasons
as shall induce him to join us when we hold our meeting at York.
---Sir Prior,” he said, “I must speak with you in private, before
you mount your palfrey.”
The other guests were now fast dispersing, with the exception of
those immediately attached to Prince John’s faction, and his
retinue.
“This, then, is the result of your advice,” said the Prince,
turning an angry countenance upon Fitzurse; “that I should be
bearded at my own board by a drunken Saxon churl, and that, on
the mere sound of my brother’s name, men should fall off from me
as if I had the leprosy?”
“Have patience, sir,” replied his counsellor; “I might retort
your accusation, and blame the inconsiderate levity which foiled
my design, and misled your own better judgment. But this is no
time for recrimination. De Bracy and I will instantly go among
these shuffling cowards, and convince them they have gone too far
to recede.”
“It will be in vain,” said Prince John, pacing the apartment with
disordered steps, and expressing himself with an agitation to
which the wine he had drank partly contributed---“It will be in
vain—they have seen the handwriting on the wall---they have
marked the paw of the lion in the sand---they have heard his
approaching roar shake the wood---nothing will reanimate their
courage.”
“Would to God,” said Fitzurse to De Bracy, “that aught could
reanimate his own! His brother’s very name is an ague to him.
Unhappy are the counsellors of a Prince, who wants fortitude and
perseverance alike in good and in evil!”
CHAPTER XV
And yet he thinks,---ha, ha, ha, ha,---he thinks
I am the tool and servant of his will.
Well, let it be; through all the maze of trouble
His plots and base oppression must create,
I’ll shape myself a way to higher things,
And who will say ‘tis wrong?
Basil, a Tragedy
No spider ever took more pains to repair the shattered meshes of
his web, than did Waldemar Fitzurse to reunite and combine the
scattered members of Prince John’s cabal. Few of these were
attached to him from inclination, and none from personal regard.
It was therefore necessary, that Fitzurse should open to them new
prospects of advantage, and remind them of those which they at
present enjoyed. To the young and wild nobles, he held out the
prospect of unpunished license and uncontrolled revelry; to the
ambitious, that of power, and to the covetous, that of increased
wealth and extended domains. The leaders of the mercenaries
received a donation in gold; an argument the most persuasive to
their minds, and without which all others would have proved in
vain. Promises were still more liberally
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