Ivanhoe, Walter Scott [the lemonade war series txt] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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yet more so under my wearing, becomes a hissing and a reproach.
I lose fame, I lose honour, I lose the prospect of such greatness
as scarce emperors attain to---I sacrifice mighty ambition, I
destroy schemes built as high as the mountains with which
heathens say their heaven was once nearly scaled---and yet,
Rebecca,” he added, throwing himself at her feet, “this greatness
will I sacrifice, this fame will I renounce, this power will I
forego, even now when it is half within my grasp, if thou wilt
say, Bois-Guilbert, I receive thee for my lover.”
“Think not of such foolishness, Sir Knight,” answered Rebecca,
“but hasten to the Regent, the Queen Mother, and to Prince John
---they cannot, in honour to the English crown, allow of the
proceedings of your Grand Master. So shall you give me
protection without sacrifice on your part, or the pretext of
requiring any requital from me.”
“With these I deal not,” he continued, holding the train of her
robe---“it is thee only I address; and what can counterbalance
thy choice? Bethink thee, were I a fiend, yet death is a worse,
and it is death who is my rival.”
“I weigh not these evils,” said Rebecca, afraid to provoke the
wild knight, yet equally determined neither to endure his
passion, nor even feign to endure it. “Be a man, be a Christian!
If indeed thy faith recommends that mercy which rather your
tongues than your actions pretend, save me from this dreadful
death, without seeking a requital which would change thy
magnanimity into base barter.”
“No, damsel!” said the proud Templar, springing up, “thou shalt
not thus impose on me---if I renounce present fame and future
ambition, I renounce it for thy sake, and we will escape in
company. Listen to me, Rebecca,” he said, again softening his
tone; “England,---Europe,---is not the world. There are spheres
in which we may act, ample enough even for my ambition. We will
go to Palestine, where Conrade, Marquis of Montserrat, is my
friend---a friend free as myself from the doting scruples which
fetter our free-born reason----rather with Saladin will we league
ourselves, than endure the scorn of the bigots whom we contemn.
---I will form new paths to greatness,” he continued, again
traversing the room with hasty strides---“Europe shall hear the
loud step of him she has driven from her sons!---Not the millions
whom her crusaders send to slaughter, can do so much to defend
Palestine---not the sabres of the thousands and ten thousands of
Saracens can hew their way so deep into that land for which
nations are striving, as the strength and policy of me and those
brethren, who, in despite of yonder old bigot, will adhere to me
in good and evil. Thou shalt be a queen, Rebecca---on Mount
Carmel shall we pitch the throne which my valour will gain for
you, and I will exchange my long-desired batoon for a sceptre!”
“A dream,” said Rebecca; “an empty vision of the night, which,
were it a waking reality, affects me not. Enough, that the power
which thou mightest acquire, I will never share; nor hold I so
light of country or religious faith, as to esteem him who is
willing to barter these ties, and cast away the bonds of the
Order of which he is a sworn member, in order to gratify an
unruly passion for the daughter of another people.---Put not a
price on my deliverance, Sir Knight---sell not a deed of
generosity---protect the oppressed for the sake of charity, and
not for a selfish advantage---Go to the throne of England;
Richard will listen to my appeal from these cruel men.”
“Never, Rebecca!” said the Templar, fiercely. “If I renounce my
Order, for thee alone will I renounce it---Ambition shall remain
mine, if thou refuse my love; I will not be fooled on all hands.
---Stoop my crest to Richard?---ask a boon of that heart of
pride?---Never, Rebecca, will I place the Order of the Temple at
his feet in my person. I may forsake the Order, I never will
degrade or betray it.”
“Now God be gracious to me,” said Rebecca, “for the succour of
man is well-nigh hopeless!”
“It is indeed,” said the Templar; “for, proud as thou art, thou
hast in me found thy match. If I enter the lists with my spear
in rest, think not any human consideration shall prevent my
putting forth my strength; and think then upon thine own fate
---to die the dreadful death of the worst of criminals---to be
consumed upon a blazing pile---dispersed to the elements of which
our strange forms are so mystically composed---not a relic left
of that graceful frame, from which we could say this lived and
moved!---Rebecca, it is not in woman to sustain this prospect
---thou wilt yield to my suit.”
“Bois-Guilbert,” answered the Jewess, “thou knowest not the heart
of woman, or hast only conversed with those who are lost to her
best feelings. I tell thee, proud Templar, that not in thy
fiercest battles hast thou displayed more of thy vaunted courage,
than has been shown by woman when called upon to suffer by
affection or duty. I am myself a woman, tenderly nurtured,
naturally fearful of danger, and impatient of pain---yet, when we
enter those fatal lists, thou to fight and I to suffer, I feel
the strong assurance within me, that my courage shall mount
higher than thine. Farewell---I waste no more words on thee; the
time that remains on earth to the daughter of Jacob must be
otherwise spent---she must seek the Comforter, who may hide his
face from his people, but who ever opens his ear to the cry of
those who seek him in sincerity and in truth.”
“We part then thus?” said the Templar, after a short pause;
“would to Heaven that we had never met, or that thou hadst been
noble in birth and Christian in faith!---Nay, by Heaven! when I
gaze on thee, and think when and how we are next to meet, I could
even wish myself one of thine own degraded nation; my hand
conversant with ingots and shekels, instead of spear and shield;
my head bent down before each petty noble, and my look only
terrible to the shivering and bankrupt debtor---this could I
wish, Rebecca, to be near to thee in life, and to escape the
fearful share I must have in thy death.”
“Thou hast spoken the Jew,” said Rebecca, “as the persecution of
such as thou art has made him. Heaven in ire has driven him from
his country, but industry has opened to him the only road to
power and to influence, which oppression has left unbarred. Read
the ancient history of the people of God, and tell me if those,
by whom Jehovah wrought such marvels among the nations, were then
a people of misers and of usurers!---And know, proud knight, we
number names amongst us to which your boasted northern nobility
is as the gourd compared with the cedar---names that ascend far
back to those high times when the Divine Presence shook the
mercy-seat between the cherubim, and which derive their splendour
from no earthly prince, but from the awful Voice, which bade
their fathers be nearest of the congregation to the Vision---Such
were the princes of the House of Jacob.”
Rebecca’s colour rose as she boasted the ancient glories of her
race, but faded as she added, with at sigh, “Such WERE the
princes of Judah, now such no more!---They are trampled down like
the shorn grass, and mixed with the mire of the ways. Yet are
there those among them who shame not such high descent, and of
such shall be the daughter of Isaac the son of Adonikam!
Farewell!---I envy not thy blood-won honours---I envy not thy
barbarous descent from northern heathens---I envy thee not thy
faith, which is ever in thy mouth, but never in thy heart nor in
thy practice.”
“There is a spell on me, by Heaven!” said Bois-Guilbert. “I
almost think yon besotted skeleton spoke truth, and that the
reluctance with which I part from thee hath something in it more
than is natural.---Fair creature!” he said, approaching near her,
but with great respect,---“so young, so beautiful, so fearless of
death! and yet doomed to die, and with infamy and agony. Who
would not weep for thee?---The tear, that has been a stranger to
these eyelids for twenty years, moistens them as I gaze on thee.
But it must be---nothing may now save thy life. Thou and I are
but the blind instruments of some irresistible fatality, that
hurries us along, like goodly vessels driving before the storm,
which are dashed against each other, and so perish. Forgive me,
then, and let us part, at least, as friends part. I have
assailed thy resolution in vain, and mine own is fixed as the
adamantine decrees of fate.”
“Thus,” said Rebecca, “do men throw on fate the issue of their
own wild passions. But I do forgive thee, Bois-Guilbert, though
the author of my early death. There are noble things which cross
over thy powerful mind; but it is the garden of the sluggard, and
the weeds have rushed up, and conspired to choke the fair and
wholesome blossom.”
“Yes,” said the Templar, “I am, Rebecca, as thou hast spoken me,
untaught, untamed---and proud, that, amidst a shoal of empty
fools and crafty bigots, I have retained the preeminent fortitude
that places me above them. I have been a child of battle from my
youth upward, high in my views, steady and inflexible in pursuing
them. Such must I remain---proud, inflexible, and unchanging;
and of this the world shall have proof.---But thou forgivest me,
Rebecca?”
“As freely as ever victim forgave her executioner.”
“Farewell, then,” said the Templar, and left the apartment.
The Preceptor Albert waited impatiently in an adjacent chamber
the return of Bois-Guilbert.
“Thou hast tarried long,” he said; “I have been as if stretched
on red-hot iron with very impatience. What if the Grand Master,
or his spy Conrade, had come hither? I had paid dear for my
complaisance.---But what ails thee, brother?---Thy step totters,
thy brow is as black as night. Art thou well, Bois-Guilbert?”
“Ay,” answered the Templar, “as well as the wretch who is doomed
to die within an hour.---Nay, by the rood, not half so well---for
there be those in such state, who can lay down life like a
cast-off garment. By Heaven, Malvoisin, yonder girl hath
well-nigh unmanned me. I am half resolved to go to the Grand
Master, abjure the Order to his very teeth, and refuse to act the
brutality which his tyranny has imposed on me.”
“Thou art mad,” answered Malvoisin; “thou mayst thus indeed
utterly ruin thyself, but canst not even find a chance thereby to
save the life of this Jewess, which seems so precious in thine
eyes. Beaumanoir will name another of the Order to defend his
judgment in thy place, and the accused will as assuredly perish
as if thou hadst taken the duty imposed on thee.”
“‘Tis false---I will myself take arms in her behalf,” answered
the Templar, haughtily; “and, should I do so, I think, Malvoisin,
that thou knowest not one of the Order, who will keep his saddle
before the point of my lance.”
“Ay, but thou forgettest,” said the wily adviser, “thou wilt have
neither leisure nor opportunity to execute this mad project. Go
to Lucas Beaumanoir, and say thou hast renounced thy vow of
obedience, and see how long the despotic old man will leave thee
in personal freedom. The words shall scarce have left thy lips,
ere thou wilt either be an hundred feet under ground, in the
dungeon of the Preceptory, to abide trial as a recreant knight;
or, if his opinion holds concerning
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