Ivanhoe, Walter Scott [the lemonade war series txt] 📗
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forget the very hour of dinner.”
“It is time lost,” muttered Cedric apart and impatiently, “to
speak to him of aught else but that which concerns his appetite!
The soul of Hardicanute hath taken possession of him, and he hath
no pleasure save to fill, to swill, and to call for more.
---Alas!” said he, looking at Athelstane with compassion, “that
so dull a spirit should be lodged in so goodly a form! Alas! that
such an enterprise as the regeneration of England should turn on
a hinge so imperfect! Wedded to Rowena, indeed, her nobler and
more generous soul may yet awake the better nature which is
torpid within him. Yet how should this be, while Rowena,
Athelstane, and I myself, remain the prisoners of this brutal
marauder and have been made so perhaps from a sense of the
dangers which our liberty might bring to the usurped power of his
nation?”
While the Saxon was plunged in these painful reflections, the
door of their prison opened, and gave entrance to a sewer,
holding his white rod of office. This important person advanced
into the chamber with a grave pace, followed by four attendants,
bearing in a table covered with dishes, the sight and smell of
which seemed to be an instant compensation to Athelstane for all
the inconvenience he had undergone. The persons who attended on
the feast were masked and cloaked.
“What mummery is this?” said Cedric; “think you that we are
ignorant whose prisoners we are, when we are in the castle of
your master? Tell him,” he continued, willing to use this
opportunity to open a negotiation for his freedom,---“Tell your
master, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, that we know no reason he can
have for withholding our liberty, excepting his unlawful desire
to enrich himself at our expense. Tell him that we yield to his
rapacity, as in similar circumstances we should do to that of a
literal robber. Let him name the ransom at which he rates our
liberty, and it shall be paid, providing the exaction is suited
to our means.” The sewer made no answer, but bowed his head.
“And tell Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,” said Athelstane, “that I
send him my mortal defiance, and challenge him to combat with me,
on foot or horseback, at any secure place, within eight days
after our liberation; which, if he be a true knight, he will not,
under these circumstances, venture to refuse or to delay.”
“I shall deliver to the knight your defiance,” answered the
sewer; “meanwhile I leave you to your food.”
The challenge of Athelstane was delivered with no good grace; for
a large mouthful, which required the exercise of both jaws at
once, added to a natural hesitation, considerably damped the
effect of the bold defiance it contained. Still, however, his
speech was hailed by Cedric as an incontestible token of reviving
spirit in his companion, whose previous indifference had begun,
notwithstanding his respect for Athelstane’s descent, to wear out
his patience. But he now cordially shook hands with him in token
of his approbation, and was somewhat grieved when Athelstane
observed, “that he would fight a dozen such men as
Front-de-Boeuf, if, by so doing, he could hasten his departure
from a dungeon where they put so much garlic into their pottage.”
Notwithstanding this intimation of a relapse into the apathy of
sensuality, Cedric placed himself opposite to Athelstane, and
soon showed, that if the distresses of his country could banish
the recollection of food while the table was uncovered, yet no
sooner were the victuals put there, than he proved that the
appetite of his Saxon ancestors had descended to him along with
their other qualities.
The captives had not long enjoyed their refreshment, however, ere
their attention was disturbed even from this most serious
occupation by the blast of a horn winded before the gate. It was
repeated three times, with as much violence as if it had been
blown before an enchanted castle by the destined knight, at whose
summons halls and towers, barbican and battlement, were to roll
off like a morning vapour. The Saxons started from the table,
and hastened to the window. But their curiosity was
disappointed; for these outlets only looked upon the court of the
castle, and the sound came from beyond its precincts. The
summons, however, seemed of importance, for a considerable degree
of bustle instantly took place in the castle.
CHAPTER XXII
My daughter---O my ducats---O my daughter!
------------O my Christian ducats!
Justice---the Law---my ducats, and my daughter!
Merchant of Venice
Leaving the Saxon chiefs to return to their banquet as soon as
their ungratified curiosity should permit them to attend to the
calls of their half-satiated appetite, we have to look in upon
the yet more severe imprisonment of Isaac of York. The poor Jew
had been hastily thrust into a dungeon-vault of the castle, the
floor of which was deep beneath the level of the ground, and very
damp, being lower than even the moat itself. The only light was
received through one or two loop-holes far above the reach of the
captive’s hand. These apertures admitted, even at mid-day, only
a dim and uncertain light, which was changed for utter darkness
long before the rest of the castle had lost the blessing of day.
Chains and shackles, which had been the portion of former
captives, from whom active exertions to escape had been
apprehended, hung rusted and empty on the walls of the prison,
and in the rings of one of those sets of fetters there remained
two mouldering bones, which seemed to have been once those of the
human leg, as if some prisoner had been left not only to perish
there, but to be consumed to a skeleton.
At one end of this ghastly apartment was a large fire-grate, over
the top of which were stretched some transverse iron bars, half
devoured with rust.
The whole appearance of the dungeon might have appalled a stouter
heart than that of Isaac, who, nevertheless, was more composed
under the imminent pressure of danger, than he had seemed to be
while affected by terrors, of which the cause was as yet remote
and contingent. The lovers of the chase say that the hare feels
more agony during the pursuit of the greyhounds, than when she is
struggling in their fangs.*
“Nota Bene.” ---We by no means warrant the accuracy of this piece of natural history, which we give on the authority of the Wardour MS. L. T.And thus it is probable, that the Jews, by the very frequency of
their fear on all occasions, had their minds in some degree
prepared for every effort of tyranny which could be practised
upon them; so that no aggression, when it had taken place, could
bring with it that surprise which is the most disabling quality
of terror. Neither was it the first time that Isaac had been
placed in circumstances so dangerous. He had therefore
experience to guide him, as well as hope, that he might again, as
formerly, be delivered as a prey from the fowler. Above all, he
had upon his side the unyielding obstinacy of his nation, and
that unbending resolution, with which Israelites have been
frequently known to submit to the uttermost evils which power and
violence can inflict upon them, rather than gratify their
oppressors by granting their demands.
In this humour of passive resistance, and with his garment
collected beneath him to keep his limbs from the wet pavement,
Isaac sat in a corner of his dungeon, where his folded hands, his
dishevelled hair and beard, his furred cloak and high cap, seen
by the wiry and broken light, would have afforded a study for
Rembrandt, had that celebrated painter existed at the period.
The Jew remained, without altering his position, for nearly three
hours, at the expiry of which steps were heard on the dungeon
stair. The bolts screamed as they were withdrawn---the hinges
creaked as the wicket opened, and Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,
followed by the two Saracen slaves of the Templar, entered the
prison.
Front-de-Boeuf, a tall and strong man, whose life had been spent
in public war or in private feuds and broils, and who had
hesitated at no means of extending his feudal power, had
features corresponding to his character, and which strongly
expressed the fiercer and more malignant passions of the mind.
The scars with which his visage was seamed, would, on features of
a different cast, have excited the sympathy and veneration due to
the marks of honourable valour; but, in the peculiar case of
Front-de-Boeuf, they only added to the ferocity of his
countenance, and to the dread which his presence inspired. This
formidable baron was clad in a leathern doublet, fitted close to
his body, which was frayed and soiled with the stains of his
armour. He had no weapon, excepting a poniard at his belt, which
served to counterbalance the weight of the bunch of rusty keys
that hung at his right side.
The black slaves who attended Front-de-Boeuf were stripped of
their gorgeous apparel, and attired in jerkins and trowsers of
coarse linen, their sleeves being tucked up above the elbow, like
those of butchers when about to exercise their function in the
slaughter-house. Each had in his hand a small pannier; and, when
they entered the dungeon, they stopt at the door until
Front-de-Boeuf himself carefully locked and double-locked it.
Having taken this precaution, he advanced slowly up the apartment
towards the Jew, upon whom he kept his eye fixed, as if he wished
to paralyze him with his glance, as some animals are said to
fascinate their prey. It seemed indeed as if the sullen and
malignant eye of Front-de-Boeuf possessed some portion of that
supposed power over his unfortunate prisoner. The Jew sat with
his mouth agape, and his eyes fixed on the savage baron with
such earnestness of terror, that his frame seemed literally to
shrink together, and to diminish in size while encountering the
fierce Norman’s fixed and baleful gaze. The unhappy Isaac was
deprived not only of the power of rising to make the obeisance
which his terror dictated, but he could not even doff his cap, or
utter any word of supplication; so strongly was he agitated by
the conviction that tortures and death were impending over him.
On the other hand, the stately form of the Norman appeared to
dilate in magnitude, like that of the eagle, which ruffles up its
plumage when about to pounce on its defenceless prey. He paused
within three steps of the corner in which the unfortunate Jew had
now, as it were, coiled himself up into the smallest possible
space, and made a sign for one of the slaves to approach. The
black satellite came forward accordingly, and, producing from his
basket a large pair of scales and several weights, he laid them
at the feet of Front-de-Boeuf, and again retired to the
respectful distance, at which his companion had already taken his
station.
The motions of these men were slow and solemn, as if there
impended over their souls some preconception of horror and of
cruelty. Front-de-Boeuf himself opened the scene by thus
addressing his ill-fated captive.
“Most accursed dog of an accursed race,” he said, awaking with
his deep and sullen voice the sullen echoes of his dungeon vault,
“seest thou these scales?”
The unhappy Jew returned a feeble affirmative.
“In these very scales shalt thou weigh me out,” said the
relentless Baron, “a thousand silver pounds, after the just
measure and weight of the Tower of London.”
“Holy Abraham!” returned the Jew, finding voice through the very
extremity of his danger, “heard man ever such a demand?---Who
ever heard, even in a minstrel’s tale, of such a sum as a
thousand pounds of silver?---What human sight was ever blessed
with the vision of such a
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