Ivanhoe: A Romance
order to gratify an unruly passion for the daughter of another
people.—Put not a price on my deliverance, Sir Knight—sell not a deed
of generosity—protect the oppressed for the sake of charity, and not
for a selfish advantage—Go to the throne of England; Richard will
listen to my appeal from these cruel men.”
“Never, Rebecca!” said the Templar, fiercely. “If I renounce my Order,
for thee alone will I renounce it—Ambition shall remain mine, if thou
refuse my love; I will not be fooled on all hands.—Stoop my crest to
Richard?—ask a boon of that heart of pride?—Never, Rebecca, will I
place the Order of the Temple at his feet in my person. I may forsake
the Order, I never will degrade or betray it.”
“Now God be gracious to me,” said Rebecca, “for the succour of man is
well-nigh hopeless!”
“It is indeed,” said the Templar; “for, proud as thou art, thou hast in
me found thy match. If I enter the lists with my spear in rest, think
not any human consideration shall prevent my putting forth my strength;
and think then upon thine own fate—to die the dreadful death of the
worst of criminals—to be consumed upon a blazing pile—dispersed to the
elements of which our strange forms are so mystically composed—not a
relic left of that graceful frame, from which we could say this lived
and moved!—Rebecca, it is not in woman to sustain this prospect—thou
wilt yield to my suit.”
“Bois-Guilbert,” answered the Jewess, “thou knowest not the heart of
woman, or hast only conversed with those who are lost to her best
feelings. I tell thee, proud Templar, that not in thy fiercest battles
hast thou displayed more of thy vaunted courage, than has been shown by
woman when called upon to suffer by affection or duty. I am myself a
woman, tenderly nurtured, naturally fearful of danger, and impatient of
pain—yet, when we enter those fatal lists, thou to fight and I to
suffer, I feel the strong assurance within me, that my courage shall
mount higher than thine. Farewell—I waste no more words on thee; the
time that remains on earth to the daughter of Jacob must be otherwise
spent—she must seek the Comforter, who may hide his face from his
people, but who ever opens his ear to the cry of those who seek him in
sincerity and in truth.”
“We part then thus?” said the Templar, after a short pause; “would to
Heaven that we had never met, or that thou hadst been noble in birth
and Christian in faith!—Nay, by Heaven! when I gaze on thee, and think
when and how we are next to meet, I could even wish myself one of thine
own degraded nation; my hand conversant with ingots and shekels,
instead of spear and shield; my head bent down before each petty noble,
and my look only terrible to the shivering and bankrupt debtor—this
could I wish, Rebecca, to be near to thee in life, and to escape the
fearful share I must have in thy death.”
“Thou hast spoken the Jew,” said Rebecca, “as the persecution of such
as thou art has made him. Heaven in ire has driven him from his
country, but industry has opened to him the only road to power and to
influence, which oppression has left unbarred. Read the ancient history
of the people of God, and tell me if those, by whom Jehovah wrought
such marvels among the nations, were then a people of misers and of
usurers!—And know, proud knight, we number names amongst us to which
your boasted northern nobility is as the gourd compared with the
cedar—names that ascend far back to those high times when the Divine
Presence shook the mercy-seat between the cherubim, and which derive
their splendour from no earthly prince, but from the awful Voice, which
bade their fathers be nearest of the congregation to the Vision—Such
were the princes of the House of Jacob.”
Rebecca’s colour rose as she boasted the ancient glories of her race,
but faded as she added, with at sigh, “Such WERE the princes of Judah,
now such no more!—They are trampled down like the shorn grass, and
mixed with the mire of the ways. Yet are there those among them who
shame not such high descent, and of such shall be the daughter of Isaac
the son of Adonikam! Farewell!—I envy not thy blood-won honours—I envy
not thy barbarous descent from northern heathens—I envy thee not thy
faith, which is ever in thy mouth, but never in thy heart nor in thy
practice.”
“There is a spell on me, by Heaven!” said Bois-Guilbert. “I almost
think yon besotted skeleton spoke truth, and that the reluctance with
which I part from thee hath something in it more than is natural.—Fair
creature!” he said, approaching near her, but with great respect,—“so
young, so beautiful, so fearless of death! and yet doomed to die, and
with infamy and agony. Who would not weep for thee?—The tear, that has
been a stranger to these eyelids for twenty years, moistens them as I
gaze on thee. But it must be—nothing may now save thy life. Thou and I
are but the blind instruments of some irresistible fatality, that
hurries us along, like goodly vessels driving before the storm, which
are dashed against each other, and so perish. Forgive me, then, and let
us part, at least, as friends part. I have assailed thy resolution in
vain, and mine own is fixed as the adamantine decrees of fate.”
“Thus,” said Rebecca, “do men throw on fate the issue of their own wild
passions. But I do forgive thee, Bois-Guilbert, though the author of my
early death. There are noble things which cross over thy powerful mind;
but it is the garden of the sluggard, and the weeds have rushed up, and
conspired to choke the fair and wholesome blossom.”
“Yes,” said the Templar, “I am, Rebecca, as thou hast spoken me,
untaught, untamed—and proud, that, amidst a shoal of empty fools and
crafty bigots, I have retained the preeminent fortitude that places me
above them. I have been a child of battle from my youth upward, high in
my views, steady and inflexible in pursuing them. Such must I
remain—proud, inflexible, and unchanging; and of this the world shall
have proof.—But thou forgivest me, Rebecca?”
“As freely as ever victim forgave her executioner.”
“Farewell, then,” said the Templar, and left the apartment.
The Preceptor Albert waited impatiently in an adjacent chamber the
return of Bois-Guilbert.
“Thou hast tarried long,” he said; “I have been as if stretched on
red-hot iron with very impatience. What if the Grand Master, or his spy
Conrade, had come hither? I had paid dear for my complaisance.—But what
ails thee, brother?—Thy step totters, thy brow is as black as night.
Art thou well, Bois-Guilbert?”
“Ay,” answered the Templar, “as well as the wretch who is doomed to die
within an hour.—Nay, by the rood, not half so well—for there be those
in such state, who can lay down life like a cast-off garment. By
Heaven, Malvoisin, yonder girl hath well-nigh unmanned me. I am half
resolved to go to the Grand Master, abjure the Order to his very teeth,
and refuse to act the brutality which his tyranny has imposed on me.”
“Thou art mad,” answered Malvoisin; “thou mayst thus indeed utterly
ruin thyself, but canst not even find a chance thereby to save the life
of this Jewess, which seems so precious in thine eyes. Beaumanoir will
name another of the Order to defend his judgment in thy place, and the
accused will as assuredly perish as if thou hadst taken the duty
imposed on thee.”
“’Tis false—I will myself take arms in her behalf,” answered the
Templar, haughtily; “and, should I do so, I think, Malvoisin, that thou
knowest not one of the Order, who will keep his saddle before the point
of my lance.”
“Ay, but thou forgettest,” said the wily adviser, “thou wilt have
neither leisure nor opportunity to execute this mad project. Go to
Lucas Beaumanoir, and say thou hast renounced thy vow of obedience, and
see how long the despotic old man will leave thee in personal freedom.
The words shall scarce have left thy lips, ere thou wilt either be an
hundred feet under ground, in the dungeon of the Preceptory, to abide
trial as a recreant knight; or, if his opinion holds concerning thy
possession, thou wilt be enjoying straw, darkness, and chains, in some
distant convent cell, stunned with exorcisms, and drenched with holy
water, to expel the foul fiend which hath obtained dominion over thee.
Thou must to the lists, Brian, or thou art a lost and dishonoured man.”
“I will break forth and fly,” said Bois-Guilbert—“fly to some distant
land, to which folly and fanaticism have not yet found their way. No
drop of the blood of this most excellent creature shall be spilled by
my sanction.”
“Thou canst not fly,” said the Preceptor; “thy ravings have excited
suspicion, and thou wilt not be permitted to leave the Preceptory. Go
and make the essay—present thyself before the gate, and command the
bridge to be lowered, and mark what answer thou shalt receive.—Thou are
surprised and offended; but is it not the better for thee? Wert thou to
fly, what would ensue but the reversal of thy arms, the dishonour of
thine ancestry, the degradation of thy rank?—Think on it. Where shall
thine old companions in arms hide their heads when Brian de
Bois-Guilbert, the best lance of the Templars, is proclaimed recreant,
amid the hisses of the assembled people? What grief will be at the
Court of France! With what joy will the haughty Richard hear the news,
that the knight that set him hard in Palestine, and well-nigh darkened
his renown, has lost fame and honour for a Jewish girl, whom he could
not even save by so costly a sacrifice!”
“Malvoisin,” said the Knight, “I thank thee—thou hast touched the
string at which my heart most readily thrills!—Come of it what may,
recreant shall never be added to the name of Bois-Guilbert. Would to
God, Richard, or any of his vaunting minions of England, would appear
in these lists! But they will be empty—no one will risk to break a
lance for the innocent, the forlorn.”
“The better for thee, if it prove so,” said the Preceptor; “if no
champion appears, it is not by thy means that this unlucky damsel shall
die, but by the doom of the Grand Master, with whom rests all the
blame, and who will count that blame for praise and commendation.”
“True,” said Bois-Guilbert; “if no champion appears, I am but a part of
the pageant, sitting indeed on horseback in the lists, but having no
part in what is to follow.”
“None whatever,” said Malvoisin; “no more than the armed image of Saint
George when it makes part of a procession.”
“Well, I will resume my resolution,” replied the haughty Templar. “She
has despised me—repulsed me—reviled me—And wherefore should I offer up
for her whatever of estimation I have in the opinion of others?
Malvoisin, I will appear in the lists.”
He left the apartment hastily as he uttered these words, and the
Preceptor followed, to watch and confirm him in his resolution; for in
Bois-Guilbert’s fame he had himself a strong interest, expecting much
advantage from his being one day at the head of the Order, not to
mention the preferment of which Mont-Fitchet had given him hopes, on
condition he would forward the condemnation of the unfortunate Rebecca.
Yet although, in combating his friend’s better feelings, he possessed
all the advantage which a wily, composed, selfish disposition has over
a man agitated by strong and contending passions, it required all
Malvoisin’s art to keep Bois-Guilbert steady to the purpose he had
prevailed on him to adopt. He was obliged to watch him closely to
prevent his resuming his purpose of flight, to intercept his
communication with the Grand Master, lest he should come to an open
rupture with his Superior, and to renew, from time to time, the various
arguments by which he endeavoured to show, that, in appearing as
champion on this occasion, Bois-Guilbert, without either accelerating
or ensuring the fate of Rebecca, would follow the only course by which