Ivanhoe, Walter Scott [philippa perry book .txt] 📗

Captain, “that the Prior should name the Jew’s ransom, and the Jew name the Prior’s?”

“Thou art a mad knave,” said the Captain, “but thy plan transcends!⁠—Here, Jew, step forth⁠—Look at that holy Father Aymer, Prior of the rich Abbey of Jorvaulx, and tell us at what ransom we should hold him?⁠—Thou knowest the income of his convent, I warrant thee.”

“O, assuredly,” said Isaac. “I have trafficked with the good fathers, and bought wheat and barley, and fruits of the earth, and also much wool. O, it is a rich abbey-stede, and they do live upon the fat, and drink the sweet wines upon the lees, these good fathers of Jorvaulx. Ah, if an outcast like me had such a home to go to, and such incomings by the year and by the month, I would pay much gold and silver to redeem my captivity.”

“Hound of a Jew!” exclaimed the Prior, “no one knows better than thy own cursed self, that our holy house of God is indebted for the finishing of our chancel⁠—”

“And for the storing of your cellars in the last season with the due allowance of Gascon wine,” interrupted the Jew; “but that⁠—that is small matters.”

“Hear the infidel dog!” said the churchman; “he jangles as if our holy community did come under debts for the wines we have a license to drink, propter necessitatem, et ad frigus depellendum. The circumcised villain blasphemeth the holy church, and Christian men listen and rebuke him not!”

“All this helps nothing,” said the leader.⁠—“Isaac, pronounce what he may pay, without flaying both hide and hair.”

“An six hundred crowns,” said Isaac, “the good Prior might well pay to your honoured valours, and never sit less soft in his stall.”

“Six hundred crowns,” said the leader, gravely; “I am contented⁠—thou hast well spoken, Isaac⁠—six hundred crowns.⁠—It is a sentence, Sir Prior.”

“A sentence!⁠—a sentence!” exclaimed the band; “Solomon had not done it better.”

“Thou hearest thy doom, Prior,” said the leader.

“Ye are mad, my masters,” said the Prior; “where am I to find such a sum? If I sell the very pyx and candlesticks on the altar at Jorvaulx, I shall scarce raise the half; and it will be necessary for that purpose that I go to Jorvaulx myself; ye may retain as borrows44 my two priests.”

“That will be but blind trust,” said the Outlaw; “we will retain thee, Prior, and send them to fetch thy ransom. Thou shalt not want a cup of wine and a collop of venison the while; and if thou lovest woodcraft, thou shalt see such as your north country never witnessed.”

“Or, if so please you,” said Isaac, willing to curry favour with the outlaws, “I can send to York for the six hundred crowns, out of certain monies in my hands, if so be that the most reverend Prior present will grant me a quittance.”

“He shall grant thee whatever thou dost list, Isaac,” said the Captain; “and thou shalt lay down the redemption money for Prior Aymer as well as for thyself.”

“For myself! ah, courageous sirs,” said the Jew, “I am a broken and impoverished man; a beggar’s staff must be my portion through life, supposing I were to pay you fifty crowns.”

“The Prior shall judge of that matter,” replied the Captain.⁠—“How say you, Father Aymer? Can the Jew afford a good ransom?”

“Can he afford a ransom?” answered the Prior “Is he not Isaac of York, rich enough to redeem the captivity of the ten tribes of Israel, who were led into Assyrian bondage?⁠—I have seen but 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