Ivanhoe: A Romance
too strong for my archery in the open field—they would scatter us like
dust. Had I but known it was Rebecca when she was borne off, something
might have been done; but now thou must needs proceed by policy. Come,
shall I treat for thee with the Prior?”
“In God’s name, Diccon, an thou canst, aid me to recover the child of
my bosom!”
“Do not thou interrupt me with thine ill-timed avarice,” said the
Outlaw, “and I will deal with him in thy behalf.”
He then turned from the Jew, who followed him, however, as closely as
his shadow.
“Prior Aymer,” said the Captain, “come apart with me under this tree.
Men say thou dost love wine, and a lady’s smile, better than beseems
thy Order, Sir Priest; but with that I have nought to do. I have heard,
too, thou dost love a brace of good dogs and a fleet horse, and it may
well be that, loving things which are costly to come by, thou hatest
not a purse of gold. But I have never heard that thou didst love
oppression or cruelty.—Now, here is Isaac willing to give thee the
means of pleasure and pastime in a bag containing one hundred marks of
silver, if thy intercession with thine ally the Templar shall avail to
procure the freedom of his daughter.”
“In safety and honour, as when taken from me,” said the Jew, “otherwise
it is no bargain.”
“Peace, Isaac,” said the Outlaw, “or I give up thine interest.—What say
you to this my purpose, Prior Aymer?”
“The matter,” quoth the Prior, “is of a mixed condition; for, if I do a
good deal on the one hand, yet, on the other, it goeth to the vantage
of a Jew, and in so much is against my conscience. Yet, if the
Israelite will advantage the Church by giving me somewhat over to the
building of our dortour, 45 I will take it on my conscience to aid him
in the matter of his daughter.”
“For a score of marks to the dortour,” said the Outlaw,—“Be still, I
say, Isaac!—or for a brace of silver candlesticks to the altar, we will
not stand with you.”
“Nay, but, good Diccon Bend-the-Bow”—said Isaac, endeavouring to
interpose.
“Good Jew—good beast—good earthworm!” said the yeoman, losing patience;
“an thou dost go on to put thy filthy lucre in the balance with thy
daughter’s life and honour, by Heaven, I will strip thee of every
maravedi thou hast in the world, before three days are out!”
Isaac shrunk together, and was silent.
“And what pledge am I to have for all this?” said the Prior.
“When Isaac returns successful through your mediation,” said the
Outlaw, “I swear by Saint Hubert, I will see that he pays thee the
money in good silver, or I will reckon with him for it in such sort, he
had better have paid twenty such sums.”
“Well then, Jew,” said Aymer, “since I must needs meddle in this
matter, let me have the use of thy writing-tablets—though, hold—rather
than use thy pen, I would fast for twenty-four hours, and where shall I
find one?”
“If your holy scruples can dispense with using the Jew’s tablets, for
the pen I can find a remedy,” said the yeoman; and, bending his bow, he
aimed his shaft at a wild-goose which was soaring over their heads, the
advanced-guard of a phalanx of his tribe, which were winging their way
to the distant and solitary fens of Holderness. The bird came
fluttering down, transfixed with the arrow.
“There, Prior,” said the Captain, “are quills enow to supply all the
monks of Jorvaulx for the next hundred years, an they take not to
writing chronicles.”
The Prior sat down, and at great leisure indited an epistle to Brian de
Bois-Guilbert, and having carefully sealed up the tablets, delivered
them to the Jew, saying, “This will be thy safe-conduct to the
Preceptory of Templestowe, and, as I think, is most likely to
accomplish the delivery of thy daughter, if it be well backed with
proffers of advantage and commodity at thine own hand; for, trust me
well, the good Knight Bois-Guilbert is of their confraternity that do
nought for nought.”
“Well, Prior,” said the Outlaw, “I will detain thee no longer here than
to give the Jew a quittance for the six hundred crowns at which thy
ransom is fixed—I accept of him for my pay-master; and if I hear that
ye boggle at allowing him in his accompts the sum so paid by him, Saint
Mary refuse me, an I burn not the abbey over thine head, though I hang
ten years the sooner!”
With a much worse grace than that wherewith he had penned the letter to
Bois-Guilbert, the Prior wrote an acquittance, discharging Isaac of
York of six hundred crowns, advanced to him in his need for acquittal
of his ransom, and faithfully promising to hold true compt with him for
that sum.
“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.
CHAPTER XXXIV
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