Ivanhoe, Walter Scott [the lemonade war series txt] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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walls of York, ransack my house and that of all my tribe, wilt
thou find the tithe of that huge sum of silver that thou speakest
of.”
“I am reasonable,” answered Front-de-Boeuf, “and if silver be
scant, I refuse not gold. At the rate of a mark of gold for each
six pounds of silver, thou shalt free thy unbelieving carcass
from such punishment as thy heart has never even conceived.”
“Have mercy on me, noble knight!” exclaimed Isaac; “I am old, and
poor, and helpless. It were unworthy to triumph over me---It is
a poor deed to crush a worm.”
“Old thou mayst be,” replied the knight; “more shame to their
folly who have suffered thee to grow grey in usury and knavery
---Feeble thou mayst be, for when had a Jew either heart or hand
---But rich it is well known thou art.”
“I swear to you, noble knight,” said the Jew “by all which I
believe, and by all which we believe in common------”
“Perjure not thyself,” said the Norman, interrupting him, “and
let not thine obstinacy seal thy doom, until thou hast seen and
well considered the fate that awaits thee. Think not I speak to
thee only to excite thy terror, and practise on the base
cowardice thou hast derived from thy tribe. I swear to thee by
that which thou dost NOT believe, by the gospel which our church
teaches, and by the keys which are given her to bind and to
loose, that my purpose is deep and peremptory. This dungeon is
no place for trifling. Prisoners ten thousand times more
distinguished than thou have died within these walls, and their
fate hath never been known! But for thee is reserved a long and
lingering death, to which theirs were luxury.”
He again made a signal for the slaves to approach, and spoke to
them apart, in their own language; for he also had been in
Palestine, where perhaps, he had learnt his lesson of cruelty.
The Saracens produced from their baskets a quantity of charcoal,
a pair of bellows, and a flask of oil. While the one struck a
light with a flint and steel, the other disposed the charcoal in
the large rusty grate which we have already mentioned, and
exercised the bellows until the fuel came to a red glow.
“Seest thou, Isaac,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “the range of iron bars
above the glowing charcoal?*---
Note E. The range of iron bars above that glowing charcoalon that warm couch thou shalt lie, stripped of thy clothes as if
thou wert to rest on a bed of down. One of these slaves shall
maintain the fire beneath thee, while the other shall anoint thy
wretched limbs with oil, lest the roast should burn.---Now,
choose betwixt such a scorching bed and the payment of a thousand
pounds of silver; for, by the head of my father, thou hast no
other option.”
“It is impossible,” exclaimed the miserable Jew---“it is
impossible that your purpose can be real! The good God of nature
never made a heart capable of exercising such cruelty!”
“Trust not to that, Isaac,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “it were a fatal
error. Dost thou think that I, who have seen a town sacked, in
which thousands of my Christian countrymen perished by sword, by
flood, and by fire, will blench from my purpose for the outcries
or screams of one single wretched Jew?---or thinkest thou that
these swarthy slaves, who have neither law, country, nor
conscience, but their master’s will---who use the poison, or the
stake, or the poniard, or the cord, at his slightest wink
---thinkest thou that THEY will have mercy, who do not even
understand the language in which it is asked?---Be wise, old man;
discharge thyself of a portion of thy superfluous wealth; repay
to the hands of a Christian a part of what thou hast acquired by
the usury thou hast practised on those of his religion. Thy
cunning may soon swell out once more thy shrivelled purse, but
neither leech nor medicine can restore thy scorched hide and
flesh wert thou once stretched on these bars. Tell down thy
ransom, I say, and rejoice that at such rate thou canst redeem
thee from a dungeon, the secrets of which few have returned to
tell. I waste no more words with thee---choose between thy dross
and thy flesh and blood, and as thou choosest, so shall it be.”
“So may Abraham, Jacob, and all the fathers of our people assist
me,” said Isaac, “I cannot make the choice, because I have not
the means of satisfying your exorbitant demand!”
“Seize him and strip him, slaves,” said the knight, “and let the
fathers of his race assist him if they can.”
The assistants, taking their directions more from the Baron’s eye
and his hand than his tongue, once more stepped forward, laid
hands on the unfortunate Isaac, plucked him up from the ground,
and, holding him between them, waited the hard-hearted Baron’s
farther signal. The unhappy Jew eyed their countenances and that
of Front-de-Boeuf, in hope of discovering some symptoms of
relenting; but that of the Baron exhibited the same cold,
half-sullen, half-sarcastic smile which had been the prelude to
his cruelty; and the savage eyes of the Saracens, rolling
gloomily under their dark brows, acquiring a yet more sinister
expression by the whiteness of the circle which surrounds the
pupil, evinced rather the secret pleasure which they expected
from the approaching scene, than any reluctance to be its
directors or agents. The Jew then looked at the glowing furnace,
over which he was presently to be stretched, and seeing no chance
of his tormentor’s relenting, his resolution gave way.
“I will pay,” he said, “the thousand pounds of silver---That is,”
he added, after a moment’s pause, “I will pay it with the help of
my brethren; for I must beg as a mendicant at the door of our
synagogue ere I make up so unheard-of a sum.---When and where
must it be delivered?”
“Here,” replied Front-de-Boeuf, “here it must be delivered
---weighed it must be---weighed and told down on this very
dungeon floor.---Thinkest thou I will part with thee until thy
ransom is secure?”
“And what is to be my surety,” said the Jew, “that I shall be at
liberty after this ransom is paid?”
“The word of a Norman noble, thou pawn-broking slave,” answered
Front-de-Boeuf; “the faith of a Norman nobleman, more pure than
the gold and silver of thee and all thy tribe.”
“I crave pardon, noble lord,” said Isaac timidly, “but wherefore
should I rely wholly on the word of one who will trust nothing to
mine?”
“Because thou canst not help it, Jew,” said the knight, sternly.
“Wert thou now in thy treasure-chamber at York, and were I
craving a loan of thy shekels, it would be thine to dictate the
time of payment, and the pledge of security. This is MY
treasure-chamber. Here I have thee at advantage, nor will I
again deign to repeat the terms on which I grant thee liberty.”
The Jew groaned deeply.---“Grant me,” he said, “at least with my
own liberty, that of the companions with whom I travel. They
scorned me as a Jew, yet they pitied my desolation, and because
they tarried to aid me by the way, a share of my evil hath come
upon them; moreover, they may contribute in some sort to my
ransom.”
“If thou meanest yonder Saxon churls,” said Front-de-Boeuf,
“their ransom will depend upon other terms than thine. Mind
thine own concerns, Jew, I warn thee, and meddle not with those
of others.”
“I am, then,” said Isaac, “only to be set at liberty, together
with mine wounded friend?”
“Shall I twice recommend it,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “to a son of
Israel, to meddle with his own concerns, and leave those of
others alone?---Since thou hast made thy choice, it remains but
that thou payest down thy ransom, and that at a short day.”
“Yet hear me,” said the Jew---“for the sake of that very wealth
which thou wouldst obtain at the expense of thy------” Here he
stopt short, afraid of irritating the savage Norman. But
Front-de-Boeuf only laughed, and himself filled up the blank at
which the Jew had hesitated.
“At the expense of my conscience, thou wouldst say, Isaac; speak
it out---I tell thee, I am reasonable. I can bear the reproaches
of a loser, even when that loser is a Jew. Thou wert not so
patient, Isaac, when thou didst invoke justice against Jacques
Fitzdotterel, for calling thee a usurious blood-sucker, when thy
exactions had devoured his patrimony.”
“I swear by the Talmud,” said the Jew, “that your valour has been
misled in that matter. Fitzdotterel drew his poniard upon me in
mine own chamber, because I craved him for mine own silver. The
term of payment was due at the Passover.”
“I care not what he did,” said Front-de-Boeuf; “the question is,
when shall I have mine own?---when shall I have the shekels,
Isaac?”
“Let my daughter Rebecca go forth to York,” answered Isaac, “with
your safe conduct, noble knight, and so soon as man and horse can
return, the treasure------” Here he groaned deeply, but added,
after the pause of a few seconds,---“The treasure shall be told
down on this very floor.”
“Thy daughter!” said Front-de-Boeuf, as if surprised,---“By
heavens, Isaac, I would I had known of this. I deemed that
yonder black-browed girl had been thy concubine, and I gave her
to be a handmaiden to Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, after the
fashion of patriarchs and heroes of the days of old, who set us
in these matters a wholesome example.”
The yell which Isaac raised at this unfeeling communication made
the very vault to ring, and astounded the two Saracens so much
that they let go their hold of the Jew. He availed himself of
his enlargement to throw himself on the pavement, and clasp the
knees of Front-de-Boeuf.
“Take all that you have asked,” said he, “Sir Knight---take ten
times more---reduce me to ruin and to beggary, if thou wilt,
---nay, pierce me with thy poniard, broil me on that furnace, but
spare my daughter, deliver her in safety and honour!---As thou
art born of woman, spare the honour of a helpless maiden---She is
the image of my deceased Rachel, she is the last of six pledges
of her love---Will you deprive a widowed husband of his sole
remaining comfort?---Will you reduce a father to wish that his
only living child were laid beside her dead mother, in the tomb
of our fathers?”
“I would,” said the Norman, somewhat relenting, “that I had known
of this before. I thought your race had loved nothing save their
moneybags.”
“Think not so vilely of us, Jews though we be,” said Isaac, eager
to improve the moment of apparent sympathy; “the hunted fox, the
tortured wildcat loves its young---the despised and persecuted
race of Abraham love their children!”
“Be it so,” said Front-de-Boeuf; “I will believe it in future,
Isaac, for thy very sake---but it aids us not now, I cannot help
what has happened, or what is to follow; my word is passed to my
comrade in arms, nor would I break it for ten Jews and Jewesses
to boot. Besides, why shouldst thou think evil is to come to the
girl, even if she became Bois-Guilbert’s booty?”
“There will, there must!” exclaimed Isaac, wringing his hands in
agony; “when did Templars breathe aught but cruelty to men, and
dishonour to women!”
“Dog of an infidel,” said Front-de-Boeuf, with sparkling eyes,
and not sorry, perhaps, to seize a pretext for working himself
into a passion, “blaspheme not the Holy Order of the Temple of
Zion, but
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