Ivanhoe: A Romance
“I said he was a good youth!” exclaimed Isaac with joyful exultation.
“A cup of wine will do thee no harm,” he added, filling and handing to
the swineherd a richer drought than Gurth had ever before tasted. “And
how much money,” continued Isaac, “has thou brought with thee?”
“Holy Virgin!” said Gurth, setting down the cup, “what nectar these
unbelieving dogs drink, while true Christians are fain to quaff ale as
muddy and thick as the draff we give to hogs!—What money have I brought
with me?” continued the Saxon, when he had finished this uncivil
ejaculation, “even but a small sum; something in hand the whilst. What,
Isaac! thou must bear a conscience, though it be a Jewish one.”
“Nay, but,” said Isaac, “thy master has won goodly steeds and rich
armours with the strength of his lance, and of his right hand—but ’tis
a good youth—the Jew will take these in present payment, and render him
back the surplus.”
“My master has disposed of them already,” said Gurth.
“Ah! that was wrong,” said the Jew, “that was the part of a fool. No
Christians here could buy so many horses and armour—no Jew except
myself would give him half the values. But thou hast a hundred zecchins
with thee in that bag,” said Isaac, prying under Gurth’s cloak, “it is
a heavy one.”
“I have heads for cross-bow bolts in it,” said Gurth, readily.
“Well, then”—said Isaac, panting and hesitating between habitual love
of gain and a new-born desire to be liberal in the present instance,
“if I should say that I would take eighty zecchins for the good steed
and the rich armour, which leaves me not a guilder’s profit, have you
money to pay me?”
“Barely,” said Gurth, though the sum demanded was more reasonable than
he expected, “and it will leave my master nigh penniless. Nevertheless,
if such be your least offer, I must be content.”
“Fill thyself another goblet of wine,” said the Jew. “Ah! eighty
zecchins is too little. It leaveth no profit for the usages of the
moneys; and, besides, the good horse may have suffered wrong in this
day’s encounter. O, it was a hard and a dangerous meeting! man and
steed rushing on each other like wild bulls of Bashan! The horse cannot
but have had wrong.”
“And I say,” replied Gurth, “he is sound, wind and limb; and you may
see him now, in your stable. And I say, over and above, that seventy
zecchins is enough for the armour, and I hope a Christian’s word is as
good as a Jew’s. If you will not take seventy, I will carry this bag”
(and he shook it till the contents jingled) “back to my master.”
“Nay, nay!” said Isaac; “lay down the talents—the shekels—the eighty
zecchins, and thou shalt see I will consider thee liberally.”
Gurth at length complied; and telling out eighty zecchins upon the
table, the Jew delivered out to him an acquittance for the horse and
suit of armour. The Jew’s hand trembled for joy as he wrapped up the
first seventy pieces of gold. The last ten he told over with much
deliberation, pausing, and saying something as he took each piece from
the table, and dropt it into his purse. It seemed as if his avarice
were struggling with his better nature, and compelling him to pouch
zecchin after zecchin while his generosity urged him to restore some
part at least to his benefactor, or as a donation to his agent. His
whole speech ran nearly thus:
“Seventy-one—seventy-two; thy master is a good youth—seventy-three, an
excellent youth—seventy-four—that piece hath been clipt within the
ring—seventy-five—and that looketh light of weight—seventy-six—when thy
master wants money, let him come to Isaac of York—seventy-seven—that
is, with reasonable security.” Here he made a considerable pause, and
Gurth had good hope that the last three pieces might escape the fate of
their comrades; but the enumeration proceeded.—“Seventy-eight—thou art
a good fellow—seventy-nine—and deservest something for thyself—-”
Here the Jew paused again, and looked at the last zecchin, intending,
doubtless, to bestow it upon Gurth. He weighed it upon the tip of his
finger, and made it ring by dropping it upon the table. Had it rung too
flat, or had it felt a hair’s breadth too light, generosity had carried
the day; but, unhappily for Gurth, the chime was full and true, the
zecchin plump, newly coined, and a grain above weight. Isaac could not
find in his heart to part with it, so dropt it into his purse as if in
absence of mind, with the words, “Eighty completes the tale, and I
trust thy master will reward thee handsomely.—Surely,” he added,
looking earnestly at the bag, “thou hast more coins in that pouch?”
Gurth grinned, which was his nearest approach to a laugh, as he
replied, “About the same quantity which thou hast just told over so
carefully.” He then folded the quittance, and put it under his cap,
adding,—“Peril of thy beard, Jew, see that this be full and ample!” He
filled himself unbidden, a third goblet of wine, and left the apartment
without ceremony.
“Rebecca,” said the Jew, “that Ishmaelite hath gone somewhat beyond me.
Nevertheless his master is a good youth—ay, and I am well pleased that
he hath gained shekels of gold and shekels of silver, even by the speed
of his horse and by the strength of his lance, which, like that of
Goliath the Philistine, might vie with a weaver’s beam.”
As he turned to receive Rebecca’s answer, he observed, that during his
chattering with Gurth, she had left the apartment unperceived.
In the meanwhile, Gurth had descended the stair, and, having reached
the dark antechamber or hall, was puzzling about to discover the
entrance, when a figure in white, shown by a small silver lamp which
she held in her hand, beckoned him into a side apartment. Gurth had
some reluctance to obey the summons. Rough and impetuous as a wild
boar, where only earthly force was to be apprehended, he had all the
characteristic terrors of a Saxon respecting fawns, forest-fiends,
white women, and the whole of the superstitions which his ancestors had
brought with them from the wilds of Germany. He remembered, moreover,
that he was in the house of a Jew, a people who, besides the other
unamiable qualities which popular report ascribed to them, were
supposed to be profound necromancers and cabalists. Nevertheless, after
a moment’s pause, he obeyed the beckoning summons of the apparition,
and followed her into the apartment which she indicated, where he found
to his joyful surprise that his fair guide was the beautiful Jewess
whom he had seen at the tournament, and a short time in her father’s
apartment.
She asked him the particulars of his transaction with Isaac, which he
detailed accurately.
“My father did but jest with thee, good fellow,” said Rebecca; “he owes
thy master deeper kindness than these arms and steed could pay, were
their value tenfold. What sum didst thou pay my father even now?”
“Eighty zecchins,” said Gurth, surprised at the question.
“In this purse,” said Rebecca, “thou wilt find a hundred. Restore to
thy master that which is his due, and enrich thyself with the
remainder. Haste—begone—stay not to render thanks! and beware how you
pass through this crowded town, where thou mayst easily lose both thy
burden and thy life.—Reuben,” she added, clapping her hands together,
“light forth this stranger, and fail not to draw lock and bar behind
him.” Reuben, a dark-brow’d and black-bearded Israelite, obeyed her
summons, with a torch in his hand; undid the outward door of the house,
and conducting Gurth across a paved court, let him out through a wicket
in the entrance-gate, which he closed behind him with such bolts and
chains as would well have become that of a prison.
“By St Dunstan,” said Gurth, as he stumbled up the dark avenue, “this
is no Jewess, but an angel from heaven! Ten zecchins from my brave
young master—twenty from this pearl of Zion—Oh, happy day!—Such
another, Gurth, will redeem thy bondage, and make thee a brother as
free of thy guild as the best. And then do I lay down my swineherd’s
horn and staff, and take the freeman’s sword and buckler, and follow my
young master to the death, without hiding either my face or my name.”
CHAPTER XI
1st Outlaw: Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you;
If not, we’ll make you sit, and rifle you.
Speed: Sir, we are undone! these are the villains
That all the travellers do fear so much.
Val: My friends,—
1st Out: That’s not so, sir, we are your enemies.
2d Out: Peace! we’ll hear him.
3d Out: Ay, by my beard, will we;
For he’s a proper man.
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
The nocturnal adventures of Gurth were not yet concluded; indeed he
himself became partly of that mind, when, after passing one or two
straggling houses which stood in the outskirts of the village, he found
himself in a deep lane, running between two banks overgrown with hazel
and holly, while here and there a dwarf oak flung its arms altogether
across the path. The lane was moreover much rutted and broken up by the
carriages which had recently transported articles of various kinds to
the tournament; and it was dark, for the banks and bushes intercepted
the light of the harvest moon.
From the village were heard the distant sounds of revelry, mixed
occasionally with loud laughter, sometimes broken by screams, and
sometimes by wild strains of distant music. All these sounds,
intimating the disorderly state of the town, crowded with military
nobles and their dissolute attendants, gave Gurth some uneasiness. “The
Jewess was right,” he said to himself. “By heaven and St Dunstan, I
would I were safe at my journey’s end with all this treasure! Here are
such numbers, I will not say of arrant thieves, but of errant knights
and errant squires, errant monks and errant minstrels, errant jugglers
and errant jesters, that a man with a single merk would be in danger,
much more a poor swineherd with a whole bagful of zecchins. Would I
were out of the shade of these infernal bushes, that I might at least
see any of St Nicholas’s clerks before they spring on my shoulders.”
Gurth accordingly hastened his pace, in order to gain the open common
to which the lane led, but was not so fortunate as to accomplish his
object. Just as he had attained the upper end of the lane, where the
underwood was thickest, four men sprung upon him, even as his fears
anticipated, two from each side of the road, and seized him so fast,
that resistance, if at first practicable, would have been now too
late.—“Surrender your charge,” said one of them; “we are the deliverers
of the commonwealth, who ease every man of his burden.”
“You should not ease me of mine so lightly,” muttered Gurth, whose
surly honesty could not be tamed even by the pressure of immediate
violence,—“had I it but in my power to give three strokes in its
defence.”
“We shall see that presently,” said the robber; and, speaking to his
companions, he added, “bring along the knave. I see he would have his
head broken, as well as his purse cut, and so be let blood in two veins
at once.”
Gurth was hurried along agreeably to this mandate, and having been
dragged somewhat roughly over the bank, on the left-hand side of the
lane, found himself in a straggling thicket, which lay betwixt it and
the open common. He was compelled to follow his rough conductors into
the very depth of this cover, where they stopt unexpectedly in an
irregular open space, free in a great measure from trees, and on which,
therefore, the beams of the moon fell without much interruption from
boughs and leaves. Here his captors were joined by two other persons,
apparently belonging to the gang. They had short swords by their sides,
and quarter-staves in their hands, and Gurth could now observe that all
six wore visors, which rendered their occupation a matter of no
question, even had their former proceedings left it in doubt.