Ivanhoe, Walter Scott [the lemonade war series txt] 📗
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to put forth a violent hand upon her kinsman---the son of her
guardian---the companion of her youth? But it is thy love must
buy his protection. I am not romantic fool enough to further the
fortune, or avert the fate, of one who is likely to be a
successful obstacle between me and my wishes. Use thine
influence with me in his behalf, and he is safe,---refuse to
employ it, Wilfred dies, and thou thyself art not the nearer to
freedom.”
“Thy language,” answered Rowena, “hath in its indifferent
bluntness something which cannot be reconciled with the horrors
it seems to express. I believe not that thy purpose is so
wicked, or thy power so great.”
“Flatter thyself, then, with that belief,” said De Bracy, “until
time shall prove it false. Thy lover lies wounded in this castle
---thy preferred lover. He is a bar betwixt Front-de-Boeuf and
that which Front-de-Boeuf loves better than either ambition or
beauty. What will it cost beyond the blow of a poniard, or the
thrust of a javelin, to silence his opposition for ever? Nay,
were Front-de-Boeuf afraid to justify a deed so open, let the
leech but give his patient a wrong draught---let the chamberlain,
or the nurse who tends him, but pluck the pillow from his head,
and Wilfred in his present condition, is sped without the
effusion of blood. Cedric also---”
“And Cedric also,” said Rowena, repeating his words; “my noble
---my generous guardian! I deserved the evil I have encountered,
for forgetting his fate even in that of his son!”
“Cedric’s fate also depends upon thy determination,” said De
Bracy; “and I leave thee to form it.”
Hitherto, Rowena had sustained her part in this trying scene with
undismayed courage, but it was because she had not considered the
danger as serious and imminent. Her disposition was naturally
that which physiognomists consider as proper to fair complexions,
mild, timid, and gentle; but it had been tempered, and, as it
were, hardened, by the circumstances of her education.
Accustomed to see the will of all, even of Cedric himself,
(sufficiently arbitrary with others,) give way before her wishes,
she had acquired that sort of courage and self-confidence which
arises from the habitual and constant deference of the circle in
which we move. She could scarce conceive the possibility of her
will being opposed, far less that of its being treated with total
disregard.
Her haughtiness and habit of domination was, therefore, a
fictitious character, induced over that which was natural to her,
and it deserted her when her eyes were opened to the extent of
her own danger, as well as that of her lover and her guardian;
and when she found her will, the slightest expression of which
was wont to command respect and attention, now placed in
opposition to that of a man of a strong, fierce, and determined
mind, who possessed the advantage over her, and was resolved to
use it, she quailed before him.
After casting her eyes around, as if to look for the aid which
was nowhere to be found, and after a few broken interjections,
she raised her hands to heaven, and burst into a passion of
uncontrolled vexation and sorrow. It was impossible to see so
beautiful a creature in such extremity without feeling for her,
and De Bracy was not unmoved, though he was yet more embarrassed
than touched. He had, in truth, gone too far to recede; and yet,
in Rowena’s present condition, she could not be acted on either
by argument or threats. He paced the apartment to and fro, now
vainly exhorting the terrified maiden to compose herself, now
hesitating concerning his own line of conduct.
If, thought he, I should be moved by the tears and sorrow of this
disconsolate damsel, what should I reap but the loss of these
fair hopes for which I have encountered so much risk, and the
ridicule of Prince John and his jovial comrades? “And yet,” he
said to himself, “I feel myself ill framed for the part which I
am playing. I cannot look on so fair a face while it is
disturbed with agony, or on those eyes when they are drowned in
tears. I would she had retained her original haughtiness of
disposition, or that I had a larger share of Front-de-Boeuf’s
thrice-tempered hardness of heart!”
Agitated by these thoughts, he could only bid the unfortunate
Rowena be comforted, and assure her, that as yet she had no
reason for the excess of despair to which she was now giving way.
But in this task of consolation De Bracy was interrupted by the
horn, “hoarse-winded blowing far and keen,” which had at the same
time alarmed the other inmates of the castle, and interrupted
their several plans of avarice and of license. Of them all,
perhaps, De Bracy least regretted the interruption; for his
conference with the Lady Rowena had arrived at a point, where he
found it equally difficult to prosecute or to resign his
enterprise.
And here we cannot but think it necessary to offer some better
proof than the incidents of an idle tale, to vindicate the
melancholy representation of manners which has been just laid
before the reader. It is grievous to think that those valiant
barons, to whose stand against the crown the liberties of England
were indebted for their existence, should themselves have been
such dreadful oppressors, and capable of excesses contrary not
only to the laws of England, but to those of nature and humanity.
But, alas! we have only to extract from the industrious Henry one
of those numerous passages which he has collected from
contemporary historians, to prove that fiction itself can hardly
reach the dark reality of the horrors of the period.
The description given by the author of the Saxon Chronicle of the
cruelties exercised in the reign of King Stephen by the great
barons and lords of castles, who were all Normans, affords a
strong proof of the excesses of which they were capable when
their passions were inflamed. “They grievously oppressed the
poor people by building castles; and when they were built, they
filled them with wicked men, or rather devils, who seized both
men and women who they imagined had any money, threw them into
prison, and put them to more cruel tortures than the martyrs ever
endured. They suffocated some in mud, and suspended others by
the feet, or the head, or the thumbs, kindling fires below them.
They squeezed the heads of some with knotted cords till they
pierced their brains, while they threw others into dungeons
swarming with serpents, snakes, and toads.” But it would be
cruel to put the reader to the pain of perusing the remainder of
this description.*
Henry’s Hist. edit. 1805, vol. vii. p. .146.As another instance of these bitter fruits of conquest, and
perhaps the strongest that can be quoted, we may mention, that
the Princess Matilda, though a daughter of the King of Scotland,
and afterwards both Queen of England, niece to Edgar Atheling,
and mother to the Empress of Germany, the daughter, the wife, and
the mother of monarchs, was obliged, during her early residence
for education in England, to assume the veil of a nun, as the
only means of escaping the licentious pursuit of the Norman
nobles. This excuse she stated before a great council of the
clergy of England, as the sole reason for her having taken the
religious habit. The assembled clergy admitted the validity of
the plea, and the notoriety of the circumstances upon which it
was founded; giving thus an indubitable and most remarkable
testimony to the existence of that disgraceful license by which
that age was stained. It was a matter of public knowledge, they
said, that after the conquest of King William, his Norman
followers, elated by so great a victory, acknowledged no law but
their own wicked pleasure, and not only despoiled the conquered
Saxons of their lands and their goods, but invaded the honour of
their wives and of their daughters with the most unbridled
license; and hence it was then common for matrons and maidens of
noble families to assume the veil, and take shelter in convents,
not as called thither by the vocation of God, but solely to
preserve their honour from the unbridled wickedness of man.
Such and so licentious were the times, as announced by the public
declaration of the assembled clergy, recorded by Eadmer; and we
need add nothing more to vindicate the probability of the scenes
which we have detailed, and are about to detail, upon the more
apocryphal authority of the Wardour MS.
CHAPTER XXIV
I’ll woo her as the lion woos his bride.
Douglas
While the scenes we have described were passing in other parts of
the castle, the Jewess Rebecca awaited her fate in a distant and
sequestered turret. Hither she had been led by two of her
disguised ravishers, and on being thrust into the little cell,
she found herself in the presence of an old sibyl, who kept
murmuring to herself a Saxon rhyme, as if to beat time to the
revolving dance which her spindle was performing upon the floor.
The hag raised her head as Rebecca entered, and scowled at the
fair Jewess with the malignant envy with which old age and
ugliness, when united with evil conditions, are apt to look upon
youth and beauty.
“Thou must up and away, old house-cricket,” said one of the men;
“our noble master commands it---Thou must e’en leave this chamber
to a fairer guest.”
“Ay,” grumbled the hag, “even thus is service requited. I have
known when my bare word would have cast the best man-at-arms
among ye out of saddle and out of service; and now must I up and
away at the command of every groom such as thou.”
“Good Dame Urfried,” said the other man, “stand not to reason on
it, but up and away. Lords’ hests must be listened to with a
quick ear. Thou hast had thy day, old dame, but thy sun has long
been set. Thou art now the very emblem of an old war-horse
turned out on the barren heath---thou hast had thy paces in thy
time, but now a broken amble is the best of them---Come, amble
off with thee.”
“Ill omens dog ye both!” said the old woman; “and a kennel be
your burying-place! May the evil demon Zernebock tear me limb
from limb, if I leave my own cell ere I have spun out the hemp on
my distaff!”
“Answer it to our lord, then, old housefiend,” said the man, and
retired; leaving Rebecca in company with the old woman, upon
whose presence she had been thus unwillingly forced.
“What devil’s deed have they now in the wind?” said the old hag,
murmuring to herself, yet from time to time casting a sidelong
and malignant glance at Rebecca; “but it is easy to guess
---Bright eyes, black locks, and a skin like paper, ere the
priest stains it with his black unguent---Ay, it is easy to guess
why they send her to this lone turret, whence a shriek could no
more be heard than at the depth of five hundred fathoms beneath
the earth.---Thou wilt have owls for thy neighbours, fair one;
and their screams will be heard as far, and as much regarded, as
thine own. Outlandish, too,” she said, marking the dress and
turban of Rebecca---“What country art thou of?---a Saracen? or an
Egyptian?---Why dost not answer?---thou canst weep, canst thou
not speak?”
“Be not angry, good mother,” said Rebecca.
“Thou needst say no more,” replied Urfried “men know a fox by the
train, and a Jewess by her tongue.”
“For the sake of mercy,” said Rebecca, “tell me what I am to
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