Ivanhoe, Walter Scott [the lemonade war series txt] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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little of him myself, but our cellarer and treasurer have dealt
largely with him, and report says that his house at York is so
full of gold and silver as is a shame in any Christian land.
Marvel it is to all living Christian hearts that such gnawing
adders should be suffered to eat into the bowels of the state,
and even of the holy church herself, with foul usuries and
extortions.”
“Hold, father,” said the Jew, “mitigate and assuage your choler.
I pray of your reverence to remember that I force my monies upon
no one. But when churchman and layman, prince and prior, knight
and priest, come knocking to Isaac’s door, they borrow not his
shekels with these uncivil terms. It is then, Friend Isaac, will
you pleasure us in this matter, and our day shall be truly kept,
so God sa’ me?---and Kind Isaac, if ever you served man, show
yourself a friend in this need! And when the day comes, and I
ask my own, then what hear I but Damned Jew, and The curse of
Egypt on your tribe, and all that may stir up the rude and
uncivil populace against poor strangers!”
“Prior,” said the Captain, “Jew though he be, he hath in this
spoken well. Do thou, therefore, name his ransom, as he named
thine, without farther rude terms.”
“None but ‘latro famosus’---the interpretation whereof,” said the
Prior, “will I give at some other time and tide---would place a
Christian prelate and an unbaptized Jew upon the same bench. But
since ye require me to put a price upon this caitiff, I tell you
openly that ye will wrong yourselves if you take from him a penny
under a thousand crowns.”
“A sentence!---a sentence!” exclaimed the chief Outlaw.
“A sentence!---a sentence!” shouted his assessors; “the Christian
has shown his good nurture, and dealt with us more generously
than the Jew.”
“The God of my fathers help me!” said the Jew; “will ye bear to
the ground an impoverished creature?---I am this day childless,
and will ye deprive me of the means of livelihood?”
“Thou wilt have the less to provide for, Jew, if thou art
childless,” said Aymer.
“Alas! my lord,” said Isaac, “your law permits you not to know
how the child of our bosom is entwined with the strings of our
heart---O Rebecca! laughter of my beloved Rachel! were each leaf
on that tree a zecchin, and each zecchin mine own, all that mass
of wealth would I give to know whether thou art alive, and
escaped the hands of the Nazarene!”
“Was not thy daughter dark-haired?” said one of the outlaws; “and
wore she not a veil of twisted sendal, broidered with silver?”
“She did!---she did!” said the old man, trembling with eagerness,
as formerly with fear. “The blessing of Jacob be upon thee!
canst thou tell me aught of her safety?”
“It was she, then,” said the yeoman, “who was carried off by the
proud Templar, when he broke through our ranks on yester-even.
I had drawn my bow to send a shaft after him, but spared him even
for the sake of the damsel, who I feared might take harm from the
arrow.”
“Oh!” answered the Jew, “I would to God thou hadst shot, though
the arrow had pierced her bosom!---Better the tomb of her fathers
than the dishonourable couch of the licentious and savage
Templar. Ichabod! Ichabod! the glory hath departed from my
house!”
“Friends,” said the Chief, looking round, “the
old man is but a Jew, natheless his grief touches me.---Deal
uprightly with us, Isaac---will paying this ransom of a thousand
crowns leave thee altogether penniless?”
Isaac, recalled to think of his worldly goods, the love of which,
by dint of inveterate habit, contended even with his parental
affection, grew pale, stammered, and could not deny there might
be some small surplus.
“Well---go to---what though there be,” said the Outlaw, “we will
not reckon with thee too closely. Without treasure thou mayst as
well hope to redeem thy child from the clutches of Sir Brian de
Bois-Guilbert, as to shoot a stag-royal with a headless shaft.
---We will take thee at the same ransom with Prior Aymer, or
rather at one hundred crowns lower, which hundred crowns shall be
mine own peculiar loss, and not light upon this worshipful
community; and so we shall avoid the heinous offence of rating a
Jew merchant as high as a Christian prelate, and thou wilt have
six hundred crowns remaining to treat for thy daughter’s ransom.
Templars love the glitter of silver shekels as well as the
sparkle of black eyes.---Hasten to make thy crowns chink in the
ear of De Bois-Guilbert, ere worse comes of it. Thou wilt find
him, as our scouts have brought notice, at the next Preceptory
house of his Order.---Said I well, my merry mates?”
The yeomen expressed their wonted acquiescence in their leader’s
opinion; and Isaac, relieved of one half of his apprehensions, by
learning that his daughter lived, and might possibly be ransomed,
threw himself at the feet of the generous Outlaw, and, rubbing
his beard against his buskins, sought to kiss the hem of his
green cassock. The Captain drew himself back, and extricated
himself from the Jew’s grasp, not without some marks of contempt.
“Nay, beshrew thee, man, up with thee! I am English born, and
love no such Eastern prostrations---Kneel to God, and not to a
poor sinner, like me.”
“Ay, Jew,” said Prior Aymer; “kneel to God, as represented in the
servant of his altar, and who knows, with thy sincere repentance
and due gifts to the shrine of Saint Robert, what grace thou
mayst acquire for thyself and thy daughter Rebecca? I grieve for
the maiden, for she is of fair and comely countenance,---I beheld
her in the lists of Ashby. Also Brian de Bois-Guilbert is one
with whom I may do much---bethink thee how thou mayst deserve my
good word with him.”
“Alas! alas!” said the Jew, “on every hand the spoilers arise
against me---I am given as a prey unto the Assyrian, and a prey
unto him of Egypt.”
“And what else should be the lot of thy accursed race?” answered
the Prior; “for what saith holy writ, ‘verbum Domini projecerunt,
et sapientia est nulla in eis’---they have cast forth the word of
the Lord, and there is no wisdom in them; ‘propterea dabo
mulieres eorum exteris’---I will give their women to strangers,
that is to the Templar, as in the present matter; ‘et thesauros
eorum haeredibus alienis’, and their treasures to others---as in
the present case to these honest gentlemen.”
Isaac groaned deeply, and began to wring his hands, and to
relapse into his state of desolation and despair. But the leader
of the yeomen led him aside.
“Advise thee well, Isaac,” said Locksley, “what thou wilt do in
this matter; my counsel to thee is to make a friend of this
churchman. He is vain, Isaac, and he is covetous; at least he
needs money to supply his profusion. Thou canst easily gratify
his greed; for think not that I am blinded by thy pretexts of
poverty. I am intimately acquainted, Isaac, with the very iron
chest in which thou dost keep thy money-bags---What! know I not
the great stone beneath the apple-tree, that leads into the
vaulted chamber under thy garden at York?” The Jew grew as pale
as death---“But fear nothing from me,” continued the yeoman, “for
we are of old acquainted. Dost thou not remember the sick yeoman
whom thy fair daughter Rebecca redeemed from the gyves at York,
and kept him in thy house till his health was restored, when thou
didst dismiss him recovered, and with a piece of money?---Usurer
as thou art, thou didst never place coin at better interest than
that poor silver mark, for it has this day saved thee five
hundred crowns.”
“And thou art he whom we called Diccon Bend-the-Bow?” said Isaac;
“I thought ever I knew the accent of thy voice.”
“I am Bend-the-Bow,” said the Captain, “and Locksley, and have a
good name besides all these.”
“But thou art mistaken, good Bend-the-Bow, concerning that same
vaulted apartment. So help me Heaven, as there is nought in it
but some merchandises which I will gladly part with to you---one
hundred yards of Lincoln green to make doublets to thy men, and a
hundred staves of Spanish yew to make bows, and a hundred silken
bowstrings, tough, round, and sound---these will I send thee for
thy good-will, honest Diccon, an thou wilt keep silence about the
vault, my good Diccon.”
“Silent as a dormouse,” said the Outlaw; “and never trust me but
I am grieved for thy daughter. But I may not help it---The
Templars lances are too strong for my archery in the open field
---they would scatter us like dust. Had I but known it was
Rebecca when she was borne off, something might have been done;
but now thou must needs proceed by policy. Come, shall I treat
for thee with the Prior?”
“In God’s name, Diccon, an thou canst, aid me to recover the
child of my bosom!”
“Do not thou interrupt me with thine ill-timed avarice,” said the
Outlaw, “and I will deal with him in thy behalf.”
He then turned from the Jew, who followed him, however, as
closely as his shadow.
“Prior Aymer,” said the Captain, “come apart with me under this
tree. Men say thou dost love wine, and a lady’s smile, better
than beseems thy Order, Sir Priest; but with that I have nought
to do. I have heard, too, thou dost love a brace of good dogs
and a fleet horse, and it may well be that, loving things which
are costly to come by, thou hatest not a purse of gold. But I
have never heard that thou didst love oppression or cruelty.
---Now, here is Isaac willing to give thee the means of pleasure
and pastime in a bag containing one hundred marks of silver, if
thy intercession with thine ally the Templar shall avail to
procure the freedom of his daughter.”
“In safety and honour, as when taken from me,” said the Jew,
“otherwise it is no bargain.”
“Peace, Isaac,” said the Outlaw, “or I give up thine interest.
---What say you to this my purpose, Prior Aymer?”
“The matter,” quoth the Prior, “is of a mixed condition; for, if
I do a good deal on the one hand, yet, on the other, it goeth to
the vantage of a Jew, and in so much is against my conscience.
Yet, if the Israelite will advantage the Church by giving me
somewhat over to the building of our dortour,*
“Dortour”, or dormitory.I will take it on my conscience to aid him in the matter of his
daughter.”
“For a score of marks to the dortour,” said the Outlaw,---“Be
still, I say, Isaac!---or for a brace of silver candlesticks to
the altar, we will not stand with you.”
“Nay, but, good Diccon Bend-the-Bow”---said Isaac, endeavouring
to interpose.
“Good Jew---good beast---good earthworm!” said the yeoman, losing
patience; “an thou dost go on to put thy filthy lucre in the
balance with thy daughter’s life and honour, by Heaven, I will
strip thee of every maravedi thou hast in the world, before three
days are out!”
Isaac shrunk together, and was silent.
“And what pledge am I to have for all this?” said the Prior.
“When Isaac returns successful through your mediation,” said the
Outlaw, “I swear by Saint Hubert, I will see that he pays thee
the money in good silver, or I will reckon with him for it in
such sort, he had better have paid twenty such sums.”
“Well then, Jew,” said
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