Ivanhoe: A Romance
lists, or to make out any connected chain of the events in which he had
been engaged upon the yesterday. A sense of wounds and injury, joined
to great weakness and exhaustion, was mingled with the recollection of
blows dealt and received, of steeds rushing upon each other,
overthrowing and overthrown—of shouts and clashing of arms, and all the
heady tumult of a confused fight. An effort to draw aside the curtain
of his couch was in some degree successful, although rendered difficult
by the pain of his wound.
To his great surprise he found himself in a room magnificently
furnished, but having cushions instead of chairs to rest upon, and in
other respects partaking so much of Oriental costume, that he began to
doubt whether he had not, during his sleep, been transported back again
to the land of Palestine. The impression was increased, when, the
tapestry being drawn aside, a female form, dressed in a rich habit,
which partook more of the Eastern taste than that of Europe, glided
through the door which it concealed, and was followed by a swarthy
domestic.
As the wounded knight was about to address this fair apparition, she
imposed silence by placing her slender finger upon her ruby lips, while
the attendant, approaching him, proceeded to uncover Ivanhoe’s side,
and the lovely Jewess satisfied herself that the bandage was in its
place, and the wound doing well. She performed her task with a graceful
and dignified simplicity and modesty, which might, even in more
civilized days, have served to redeem it from whatever might seem
repugnant to female delicacy. The idea of so young and beautiful a
person engaged in attendance on a sick-bed, or in dressing the wound of
one of a different sex, was melted away and lost in that of a
beneficent being contributing her effectual aid to relieve pain, and to
avert the stroke of death. Rebecca’s few and brief directions were
given in the Hebrew language to the old domestic; and he, who had been
frequently her assistant in similar cases, obeyed them without reply.
The accents of an unknown tongue, however harsh they might have sounded
when uttered by another, had, coming from the beautiful Rebecca, the
romantic and pleasing effect which fancy ascribes to the charms
pronounced by some beneficent fairy, unintelligible, indeed, to the
ear, but, from the sweetness of utterance, and benignity of aspect,
which accompanied them, touching and affecting to the heart. Without
making an attempt at further question, Ivanhoe suffered them in silence
to take the measures they thought most proper for his recovery; and it
was not until those were completed, and this kind physician about to
retire, that his curiosity could no longer be suppressed.—“Gentle
maiden,” he began in the Arabian tongue, with which his Eastern travels
had rendered him familiar, and which he thought most likely to be
understood by the turban’d and caftan’d damsel who stood before him—“I
pray you, gentle maiden, of your courtesy—-”
But here he was interrupted by his fair physician, a smile which she
could scarce suppress dimpling for an instant a face, whose general
expression was that of contemplative melancholy. “I am of England, Sir
Knight, and speak the English tongue, although my dress and my lineage
belong to another climate.”
“Noble damsel,”—again the Knight of Ivanhoe began; and again Rebecca
hastened to interrupt him.
“Bestow not on me, Sir Knight,” she said, “the epithet of noble. It is
well you should speedily know that your handmaiden is a poor Jewess,
the daughter of that Isaac of York, to whom you were so lately a good
and kind lord. It well becomes him, and those of his household, to
render to you such careful tendance as your present state necessarily
demands.”
I know not whether the fair Rowena would have been altogether satisfied
with the species of emotion with which her devoted knight had hitherto
gazed on the beautiful features, and fair form, and lustrous eyes, of
the lovely Rebecca; eyes whose brilliancy was shaded, and, as it were,
mellowed, by the fringe of her long silken eyelashes, and which a
minstrel would have compared to the evening star darting its rays
through a bower of jessamine. But Ivanhoe was too good a Catholic to
retain the same class of feelings towards a Jewess. This Rebecca had
foreseen, and for this very purpose she had hastened to mention her
father’s name and lineage; yet—for the fair and wise daughter of Isaac
was not without a touch of female weakness—she could not but sigh
internally when the glance of respectful admiration, not altogether
unmixed with tenderness, with which Ivanhoe had hitherto regarded his
unknown benefactress, was exchanged at once for a manner cold,
composed, and collected, and fraught with no deeper feeling than that
which expressed a grateful sense of courtesy received from an
unexpected quarter, and from one of an inferior race. It was not that
Ivanhoe’s former carriage expressed more than that general devotional
homage which youth always pays to beauty; yet it was mortifying that
one word should operate as a spell to remove poor Rebecca, who could
not be supposed altogether ignorant of her title to such homage, into a
degraded class, to whom it could not be honourably rendered.
But the gentleness and candour of Rebecca’s nature imputed no fault to
Ivanhoe for sharing in the universal prejudices of his age and
religion. On the contrary the fair Jewess, though sensible her patient
now regarded her as one of a race of reprobation, with whom it was
disgraceful to hold any beyond the most necessary intercourse, ceased
not to pay the same patient and devoted attention to his safety and
convalescence. She informed him of the necessity they were under of
removing to York, and of her father’s resolution to transport him
thither, and tend him in his own house until his health should be
restored. Ivanhoe expressed great repugnance to this plan, which he
grounded on unwillingness to give farther trouble to his benefactors.
“Was there not,” he said, “in Ashby, or near it, some Saxon franklin,
or even some wealthy peasant, who would endure the burden of a wounded
countryman’s residence with him until he should be again able to bear
his armour?—Was there no convent of Saxon endowment, where he could be
received?—Or could he not be transported as far as Burton, where he was
sure to find hospitality with Waltheoff, the Abbot of St Withold’s, to
whom he was related?”
“Any, the worst of these harbourages,” said Rebecca, with a melancholy
smile, “would unquestionably be more fitting for your residence than
the abode of a despised Jew; yet, Sir Knight, unless you would dismiss
your physician, you cannot change your lodging. Our nation, as you well
know, can cure wounds, though we deal not in inflicting them; and in
our own family, in particular, are secrets which have been handed down
since the days of Solomon, and of which you have already experienced
the advantages. No Nazarene—I crave your forgiveness, Sir Knight—no
Christian leech, within the four seas of Britain, could enable you to
bear your corslet within a month.”
“And how soon wilt THOU enable me to brook it?” said Ivanhoe,
impatiently.
“Within eight days, if thou wilt be patient and conformable to my
directions,” replied Rebecca.
“By Our Blessed Lady,” said Wilfred, “if it be not a sin to name her
here, it is no time for me or any true knight to be bedridden; and if
thou accomplish thy promise, maiden, I will pay thee with my casque
full of crowns, come by them as I may.”
“I will accomplish my promise,” said Rebecca, “and thou shalt bear
thine armour on the eighth day from hence, if thou will grant me but
one boon in the stead of the silver thou dost promise me.”
“If it be within my power, and such as a true Christian knight may
yield to one of thy people,” replied Ivanhoe, “I will grant thy boon
blithely and thankfully.”
“Nay,” answered Rebecca, “I will but pray of thee to believe
henceforward that a Jew may do good service to a Christian, without
desiring other guerdon than the blessing of the Great Father who made
both Jew and Gentile.”
“It were sin to doubt it, maiden,” replied Ivanhoe; “and I repose
myself on thy skill without further scruple or question, well trusting
you will enable me to bear my corslet on the eighth day. And now, my
kind leech, let me enquire of the news abroad. What of the noble Saxon
Cedric and his household?—what of the lovely Lady—” He stopt, as if
unwilling to speak Rowena’s name in the house of a Jew—“Of her, I mean,
who was named Queen of the tournament?”
“And who was selected by you, Sir Knight, to hold that dignity, with
judgment which was admired as much as your valour,” replied Rebecca.
The blood which Ivanhoe had lost did not prevent a flush from crossing
his cheek, feeling that he had incautiously betrayed a deep interest in
Rowena by the awkward attempt he had made to conceal it.
“It was less of her I would speak,” said he, “than of Prince John; and
I would fain know somewhat of a faithful squire, and why he now attends
me not?”
“Let me use my authority as a leech,” answered Rebecca, “and enjoin you
to keep silence, and avoid agitating reflections, whilst I apprize you
of what you desire to know. Prince John hath broken off the tournament,
and set forward in all haste towards York, with the nobles, knights,
and churchmen of his party, after collecting such sums as they could
wring, by fair means or foul, from those who are esteemed the wealthy
of the land. It is said he designs to assume his brother’s crown.”
“Not without a blow struck in its defence,” said Ivanhoe, raising
himself upon the couch, “if there were but one true subject in England
I will fight for Richard’s title with the best of them—ay, one or two,
in his just quarrel!”
“But that you may be able to do so,” said Rebecca touching his shoulder
with her hand, “you must now observe my directions, and remain quiet.”
“True, maiden,” said Ivanhoe, “as quiet as these disquieted times will
permit—And of Cedric and his household?”
“His steward came but brief while since,” said the Jewess, “panting
with haste, to ask my father for certain monies, the price of wool the
growth of Cedric’s flocks, and from him I learned that Cedric and
Athelstane of Coningsburgh had left Prince John’s lodging in high
displeasure, and were about to set forth on their return homeward.”
“Went any lady with them to the banquet?” said Wilfred.
“The Lady Rowena,” said Rebecca, answering the question with more
precision than it had been asked—“The Lady Rowena went not to the
Prince’s feast, and, as the steward reported to us, she is now on her
journey back to Rotherwood, with her guardian Cedric. And touching your
faithful squire Gurth—-”
“Ha!” exclaimed the knight, “knowest thou his name?—But thou dost,” he
immediately added, “and well thou mayst, for it was from thy hand, and,
as I am now convinced, from thine own generosity of spirit, that he
received but yesterday a hundred zecchins.”
“Speak not of that,” said Rebecca, blushing deeply; “I see how easy it
is for the tongue to betray what the heart would gladly conceal.”
“But this sum of gold,” said Ivanhoe, gravely, “my honour is concerned
in repaying it to your father.”
“Let it be as thou wilt,” said Rebecca, “when eight days have passed
away; but think not, and speak not now, of aught that may retard thy
recovery.”
“Be it so, kind maiden,” said Ivanhoe; “I were most ungrateful to
dispute thy commands. But one word of the fate of poor Gurth, and I
have done with questioning thee.”
“I grieve to tell thee, Sir Knight,” answered the Jewess, “that he is
in custody by the order of Cedric.”—And then observing the distress
which her communication gave to Wilfred, she instantly added, “But the