Ivanhoe: A Romance by Walter Scott (ebooks online reader txt) 📕
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- Author: Walter Scott
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“And now,” said Prior Aymer, “I will pray you of restitution of my mules and palfreys, and the freedom of the reverend brethren attending upon me, and also of the gymmal rings, jewels, and fair vestures, of which I have been despoiled, having now satisfied you for my ransom as a true prisoner.”
“Touching your brethren, Sir Prior,” said Locksley, “they shall have present freedom, it were unjust to detain them; touching your horses and mules, they shall also be restored, with such spending-money as may enable you to reach York, for it were cruel to deprive you of the means of journeying.—But as concerning rings, jewels, chains, and what else, you must understand that we are men of tender consciences, and will not yield to a venerable man like yourself, who should be dead to the vanities of this life, the strong temptation to break the rule of his foundation, by wearing rings, chains, or other vain gauds.”
“Think what you do, my masters,” said the Prior, “ere you put your hand on the Church’s patrimony—These things are ‘inter res sacras’, and I wot not what judgment might ensue were they to be handled by laical hands.”
“I will take care of that, reverend Prior,” said the Hermit of Copmanhurst; “for I will wear them myself.”
“Friend, or brother,” said the Prior, in answer to this solution of his doubts, “if thou hast really taken religious orders, I pray thee to look how thou wilt answer to thine official for the share thou hast taken in this day’s work.”
“Friend Prior,” returned the Hermit, “you are to know that I belong to a little diocese, where I am my own diocesan, and care as little for the Bishop of York as I do for the Abbot of Jorvaulx, the Prior, and all the convent.”
“Thou art utterly irregular,” said the Prior; “one of those disorderly men, who, taking on them the sacred character without due cause, profane the holy rites, and endanger the souls of those who take counsel at their hands; ‘lapides pro pane condonantes iis’, giving them stones instead of bread as the Vulgate hath it.”
“Nay,” said the Friar, “an my brain-pan could have been broken by Latin, it had not held so long together.—I say, that easing a world of such misproud priests as thou art of their jewels and their gimcracks, is a lawful spoiling of the Egyptians.”
“Thou be’st a hedge-priest,” 46 said the Prior, in great wrath, “‘excommunicabo vos’.”
“Thou be’st thyself more like a thief and a heretic,” said the Friar, equally indignant; “I will pouch up no such affront before my parishioners, as thou thinkest it not shame to put upon me, although I be a reverend brother to thee. ‘Ossa ejus perfringam’, I will break your bones, as the Vulgate hath it.”
“Hola!” cried the Captain, “come the reverend brethren to such terms?—Keep thine assurance of peace, Friar.—Prior, an thou hast not made thy peace perfect with God, provoke the Friar no further.—Hermit, let the reverend father depart in peace, as a ransomed man.”
The yeomen separated the incensed priests, who continued to raise their voices, vituperating each other in bad Latin, which the Prior delivered the more fluently, and the Hermit with the greater vehemence. The Prior at length recollected himself sufficiently to be aware that he was compromising his dignity, by squabbling with such a hedge-priest as the Outlaw’s chaplain, and being joined by his attendants, rode off with considerably less pomp, and in a much more apostolical condition, so far as worldly matters were concerned, than he had exhibited before this rencounter.
It remained that the Jew should produce some security for the ransom which he was to pay on the Prior’s account, as well as upon his own. He gave, accordingly, an order sealed with his signet, to a brother of his tribe at York, requiring him to pay to the bearer the sum of a thousand crowns, and to deliver certain merchandises specified in the note.
“My brother Sheva,” he said, groaning deeply, “hath the key of my warehouses.”
“And of the vaulted chamber,” whispered Locksley.
“No, no—may Heaven forefend!” said Isaac; “evil is the hour that let any one whomsoever into that secret!”
“It is safe with me,” said the Outlaw, “so be that this thy scroll produce the sum therein nominated and set down.—But what now, Isaac? art dead? art stupefied? hath the payment of a thousand crowns put thy daughter’s peril out of thy mind?”
The Jew started to his feet—“No, Diccon, no—I will presently set forth.—Farewell, thou whom I may not call good, and dare not and will not call evil.”
Yet ere Isaac departed, the Outlaw Chief bestowed on him this parting advice:—“Be liberal of thine offers, Isaac, and spare not thy purse for thy daughter’s safety. Credit me, that the gold thou shalt spare in her cause, will hereafter give thee as much agony as if it were poured molten down thy throat.”
Isaac acquiesced with a deep groan, and set forth on his journey, accompanied by two tall foresters, who were to be his guides, and at the same time his guards, through the wood.
The Black Knight, who had seen with no small interest these various proceedings, now took his leave of the Outlaw in turn; nor could he avoid expressing his surprise at having witnessed so much of civil policy amongst persons cast out from all the ordinary protection and influence of the laws.
“Good fruit, Sir Knight,” said the yeoman, “will sometimes grow on a sorry tree; and evil times are not always productive of evil alone and unmixed. Amongst those who are drawn into this lawless state, there are, doubtless, numbers who wish to exercise its license with some moderation, and some who regret, it may be, that they are obliged to follow such a trade at all.”
“And to one of those,” said the Knight, “I am now, I presume, speaking?”
“Sir Knight,” said the Outlaw, “we have each our secret. You are welcome to form your judgment of me, and I may use my conjectures touching you, though neither of our shafts may hit the mark they are shot at. But as I do not pray to be admitted into your mystery, be not offended that I preserve my own.”
“I crave pardon, brave Outlaw,” said the Knight, “your reproof is just. But it may be we shall meet hereafter with less of concealment on either side.—Meanwhile we part friends, do we not?”
“There is my hand upon it,” said Locksley; “and I will call it the hand of a true Englishman, though an outlaw for the present.”
“And there is mine in return,” said the Knight, “and I hold it honoured by being clasped with yours. For he that does good, having the unlimited power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good which he performs, but for the evil which he forbears. Fare thee well, gallant Outlaw!” Thus parted that fair fellowship; and He of the Fetterlock, mounting upon his strong war-horse, rode off through the forest.
KING JOHN.—I’ll tell thee what, my friend,
He is a very serpent in my way;
And wheresoe’er this foot of mine doth tread,
He lies before me.—Dost thou understand me?
KING JOHN
There was brave feasting in the Castle of York, to which Prince John had invited those nobles, prelates, and leaders, by whose assistance he hoped to carry through his ambitious projects upon his brother’s throne. Waldemar Fitzurse, his able and politic agent, was at secret work among them, tempering all to that pitch of courage which was necessary in making an open declaration of their purpose. But their enterprise was delayed by the absence of more than one main limb of the confederacy. The stubborn and daring, though brutal courage of Front-de-Bœuf; the buoyant spirits and bold bearing of De Bracy; the sagacity, martial experience, and renowned valour of Brian de Bois-Guilbert, were important to the success of their conspiracy; and, while cursing in secret their unnecessary and unmeaning absence, neither John nor his adviser dared to proceed without them. Isaac the Jew also seemed to have vanished, and with him the hope of certain sums of money, making up the subsidy for which Prince John had contracted with that Israelite and his brethren. This deficiency was likely to prove perilous in an emergency so critical.
It was on the morning after the fall of Torquilstone, that a confused report began to spread abroad in the city of York, that De Bracy and Bois-Guilbert, with their confederate Front-de-Bœuf, had been taken or slain. Waldemar brought the rumour to Prince John, announcing, that he feared its truth the more that they had set out with a small attendance, for the purpose of committing an assault on the Saxon Cedric and his attendants. At another time the Prince would have treated this deed of violence as a good jest; but now, that it interfered with and impeded his own plans, he exclaimed against the perpetrators, and spoke of the broken laws, and the infringement of public order and of private property, in a tone which might have become King Alfred.
“The unprincipled marauders,” he said—“were I ever to become monarch of England, I would hang such transgressors over the drawbridges of their own castles.”
“But to become monarch of England,” said his Ahithophel coolly, “it is necessary not only that your Grace should endure the transgressions of these unprincipled marauders, but that you should afford them your protection, notwithstanding your laudable zeal for the laws they are in the habit of infringing. We shall be finely helped, if the churl Saxons should have realized your Grace’s vision, of converting feudal drawbridges into gibbets; and yonder bold-spirited Cedric seemeth one to whom such an imagination might occur. Your Grace is well aware, it will be dangerous to stir without Front-de-Bœuf, De Bracy, and the Templar; and yet we have gone too far to recede with safety.”
Prince John struck his forehead with impatience, and then began to stride up and down the apartment.
“The villains,” he said, “the base treacherous villains, to desert me at this pinch!”
“Nay, say rather the feather-pated giddy madmen,” said Waldemar, “who must be toying with follies when such business was in hand.”
“What is to be done?” said the Prince, stopping short before Waldemar.
“I know nothing which can be done,” answered his counsellor, “save that which I have already taken order for.—I came not to bewail this evil chance with your Grace, until I had done my best to remedy it.”
“Thou art ever my better angel, Waldemar,” said the Prince; “and when I have such a chancellor to advise withal, the reign of John will be renowned in our annals.—What hast thou commanded?”
“I have ordered Louis Winkelbrand, De Bracy’s lieutenant, to cause his trumpet sound to horse, and to display his banner, and to set presently forth towards the castle of Front-de-Bœuf, to do what yet may be done for the succour of our friends.”
Prince John’s face flushed with the pride of a spoilt child, who has undergone what it conceives to be an insult. “By the face of God!” he said, “Waldemar Fitzurse, much hast thou taken upon thee! and over malapert thou wert to cause trumpet to blow, or banner to be raised, in a town where ourselves were in presence, without our express command.”
“I crave your Grace’s pardon,” said Fitzurse, internally cursing the idle vanity of his patron; “but when time pressed, and even the loss of minutes might be fatal, I judged it best to take this much burden upon me, in a matter of such importance to your Grace’s interest.”
“Thou art pardoned, Fitzurse,” said the prince, gravely; “thy purpose hath atoned for thy hasty rashness.—But whom have we here?—De Bracy himself, by the rood!—and in strange guise doth he come before us.”
It was indeed De Bracy—“bloody with spurring, fiery red with speed.” His armour bore all the marks of the late obstinate fray, being broken, defaced, and stained with blood in many places, and covered with clay and dust from the crest to the spur. Undoing his helmet, he placed it on the table, and stood a moment as if to collect himself before he told his news.
“De Bracy,” said Prince John, “what means this?—Speak, I charge thee!—Are the Saxons in rebellion?”
“Speak, De Bracy,” said Fitzurse, almost in the same moment with his master, “thou wert wont to be a man—Where is the Templar?—where Front-de-Bœuf?”
“The Templar is fled,” said De Bracy; “Front-de-Bœuf you will never see more. He has found a red grave among the blazing rafters of his own castle and I alone am escaped to tell you.”
“Cold news,” said Waldemar, “to us, though you speak of fire and conflagration.”
“The worst news is not yet said,” answered De Bracy; and, coming up to Prince John, he uttered in a low and emphatic tone—“Richard is in England—I have seen and spoken with him.”
Prince John turned pale,
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