Ivanhoe: A Romance
whom he had served so faithfully, and the magnanimous Wamba, decorated
with a new cap and a most gorgeous set of silver bells. Sharers of
Wilfred’s dangers and adversity, they remained, as they had a right to
expect, the partakers of his more prosperous career.
But besides this domestic retinue, these distinguished nuptials were
celebrated by the attendance of the high-born Normans, as well as
Saxons, joined with the universal jubilee of the lower orders, that
marked the marriage of two individuals as a pledge of the future peace
and harmony betwixt two races, which, since that period, have been so
completely mingled, that the distinction has become wholly invisible.
Cedric lived to see this union approximate towards its completion; for
as the two nations mixed in society and formed intermarriages with each
other, the Normans abated their scorn, and the Saxons were refined from
their rusticity. But it was not until the reign of Edward the Third
that the mixed language, now termed English, was spoken at the court of
London, and that the hostile distinction of Norman and Saxon seems
entirely to have disappeared.
It was upon the second morning after this happy bridal, that the Lady
Rowena was made acquainted by her handmaid Elgitha, that a damsel
desired admission to her presence, and solicited that their parley
might be without witness. Rowena wondered, hesitated, became curious,
and ended by commanding the damsel to be admitted, and her attendants
to withdraw.
She entered—a noble and commanding figure, the long white veil, in
which she was shrouded, overshadowing rather than concealing the
elegance and majesty of her shape. Her demeanour was that of respect,
unmingled by the least shade either of fear, or of a wish to propitiate
favour. Rowena was ever ready to acknowledge the claims, and attend to
the feelings, of others. She arose, and would have conducted her lovely
visitor to a seat; but the stranger looked at Elgitha, and again
intimated a wish to discourse with the Lady Rowena alone. Elgitha had
no sooner retired with unwilling steps, than, to the surprise of the
Lady of Ivanhoe, her fair visitant kneeled on one knee, pressed her
hands to her forehead, and bending her head to the ground, in spite of
Rowena’s resistance, kissed the embroidered hem of her tunic.
“What means this, lady?” said the surprised bride; “or why do you offer
to me a deference so unusual?”
“Because to you, Lady of Ivanhoe,” said Rebecca, rising up and resuming
the usual quiet dignity of her manner, “I may lawfully, and without
rebuke, pay the debt of gratitude which I owe to Wilfred of Ivanhoe. I
am—forgive the boldness which has offered to you the homage of my
country—I am the unhappy Jewess, for whom your husband hazarded his
life against such fearful odds in the tiltyard of Templestowe.”
“Damsel,” said Rowena, “Wilfred of Ivanhoe on that day rendered back
but in slight measure your unceasing charity towards him in his wounds
and misfortunes. Speak, is there aught remains in which he or I can
serve thee?”
“Nothing,” said Rebecca, calmly, “unless you will transmit to him my
grateful farewell.”
“You leave England then?” said Rowena, scarce recovering the surprise
of this extraordinary visit.
“I leave it, lady, ere this moon again changes. My father had a brother
high in favour with Mohammed Boabdil, King of Grenada—thither we go,
secure of peace and protection, for the payment of such ransom as the
Moslem exact from our people.”
“And are you not then as well protected in England?” said Rowena. “My
husband has favour with the King—the King himself is just and
generous.”
“Lady,” said Rebecca, “I doubt it not—but the people of England are a
fierce race, quarrelling ever with their neighbours or among
themselves, and ready to plunge the sword into the bowels of each
other. Such is no safe abode for the children of my people. Ephraim is
an heartless dove—Issachar an over-laboured drudge, which stoops
between two burdens. Not in a land of war and blood, surrounded by
hostile neighbours, and distracted by internal factions, can Israel
hope to rest during her wanderings.”
“But you, maiden,” said Rowena—“you surely can have nothing to fear.
She who nursed the sick-bed of Ivanhoe,” she continued, rising with
enthusiasm—“she can have nothing to fear in England, where Saxon and
Norman will contend who shall most do her honour.”
“Thy speech is fair, lady,” said Rebecca, “and thy purpose fairer; but
it may not be—there is a gulf betwixt us. Our breeding, our faith,
alike forbid either to pass over it. Farewell—yet, ere I go indulge me
one request. The bridal-veil hangs over thy face; deign to raise it,
and let me see the features of which fame speaks so highly.”
“They are scarce worthy of being looked upon,” said Rowena; “but,
expecting the same from my visitant, I remove the veil.”
She took it off accordingly; and, partly from the consciousness of
beauty, partly from bashfulness, she blushed so intensely, that cheek,
brow, neck, and bosom, were suffused with crimson. Rebecca blushed
also, but it was a momentary feeling; and, mastered by higher emotions,
past slowly from her features like the crimson cloud, which changes
colour when the sun sinks beneath the horizon.
“Lady,” she said, “the countenance you have deigned to show me will
long dwell in my remembrance. There reigns in it gentleness and
goodness; and if a tinge of the world’s pride or vanities may mix with
an expression so lovely, how should we chide that which is of earth for
bearing some colour of its original? Long, long will I remember your
features, and bless God that I leave my noble deliverer united with—”
She stopped short—her eyes filled with tears. She hastily wiped them,
and answered to the anxious enquiries of Rowena—“I am well, lady—well.
But my heart swells when I think of Torquilstone and the lists of
Templestowe.—Farewell. One, the most trifling part of my duty, remains
undischarged. Accept this casket—startle not at its contents.”
Rowena opened the small silver-chased casket, and perceived a carcanet,
or neck lace, with ear-jewels, of diamonds, which were obviously of
immense value.
“It is impossible,” she said, tendering back the casket. “I dare not
accept a gift of such consequence.”
“Yet keep it, lady,” returned Rebecca.—“You have power, rank, command,
influence; we have wealth, the source both of our strength and
weakness; the value of these toys, ten times multiplied, would not
influence half so much as your slightest wish. To you, therefore, the
gift is of little value,—and to me, what I part with is of much less.
Let me not think you deem so wretchedly ill of my nation as your
commons believe. Think ye that I prize these sparkling fragments of
stone above my liberty? or that my father values them in comparison to
the honour of his only child? Accept them, lady—to me they are
valueless. I will never wear jewels more.”
“You are then unhappy!” said Rowena, struck with the manner in which
Rebecca uttered the last words. “O, remain with us—the counsel of holy
men will wean you from your erring law, and I will be a sister to you.”
“No, lady,” answered Rebecca, the same calm melancholy reigning in her
soft voice and beautiful features—“that—may not be. I may not change
the faith of my fathers like a garment unsuited to the climate in which
I seek to dwell, and unhappy, lady, I will not be. He, to whom I
dedicate my future life, will be my comforter, if I do His will.”
“Have you then convents, to one of which you mean to retire?” asked
Rowena.
“No, lady,” said the Jewess; “but among our people, since the time of
Abraham downwards, have been women who have devoted their thoughts to
Heaven, and their actions to works of kindness to men, tending the
sick, feeding the hungry, and relieving the distressed. Among these
will Rebecca be numbered. Say this to thy lord, should he chance to
enquire after the fate of her whose life he saved.”
There was an involuntary tremour on Rebecca’s voice, and a tenderness
of accent, which perhaps betrayed more than she would willingly have
expressed. She hastened to bid Rowena adieu.
“Farewell,” she said. “May He, who made both Jew and Christian, shower
down on you his choicest blessings! The bark that waits us hence will
be under weigh ere we can reach the port.”
She glided from the apartment, leaving Rowena surprised as if a vision
had passed before her. The fair Saxon related the singular conference
to her husband, on whose mind it made a deep impression. He lived long
and happily with Rowena, for they were attached to each other by the
bonds of early affection, and they loved each other the more, from the
recollection of the obstacles which had impeded their union. Yet it
would be enquiring too curiously to ask, whether the recollection of
Rebecca’s beauty and magnanimity did not recur to his mind more
frequently than the fair descendant of Alfred might altogether have
approved.
Ivanhoe distinguished himself in the service of Richard, and was graced
with farther marks of the royal favour. He might have risen still
higher, but for the premature death of the heroic Cœur-de-Lion, before
the Castle of Chaluz, near Limoges. With the life of a generous, but
rash and romantic monarch, perished all the projects which his ambition
and his generosity had formed; to whom may be applied, with a slight
alteration, the lines composed by Johnson for Charles of Sweden—
His fate was destined to a foreign strand,
A petty fortress and an “humble” hand;
He left the name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a TALE.
NOTE TO CHAPTER I.
Note A.—The Ranger or the Forest, that cuts the foreclaws off our dogs.
A most sensible grievance of those aggrieved times were the Forest
Laws. These oppressive enactments were the produce of the Norman
Conquest, for the Saxon laws of the chase were mild and humane; while
those of William, enthusiastically attached to the exercise and its
rights, were to the last degree tyrannical. The formation of the New
Forest, bears evidence to his passion for hunting, where he reduced
many a happy village to the condition of that one commemorated by my
friend, Mr William Stewart Rose:
“Amongst the ruins of the church
The midnight raven found a perch,
A melancholy place;
The ruthless Conqueror cast down,
Woe worth the deed, that little town,
To lengthen out his chase.”
The disabling dogs, which might be necessary for keeping flocks and
herds, from running at the deer, was called “lawing”, and was in
general use. The Charter of the Forest designed to lessen those evils,
declares that inquisition, or view, for lawing dogs, shall be made
every third year, and shall be then done by the view and testimony of
lawful men, not otherwise; and they whose dogs shall be then found
unlawed, shall give three shillings for mercy, and for the future no
man’s ox shall be taken for lawing. Such lawing also shall be done by
the assize commonly used, and which is, that three claws shall be cut
off without the ball of the right foot. See on this subject the
Historical Essay on the Magna Charta of King John, (a most beautiful
volume), by Richard Thomson.
NOTE TO CHAPTER II.
Note B.—Negro Slaves.
The severe accuracy of some critics has objected to the complexion of
the slaves of Brian de Bois-Guilbert, as being totally out of costume
and propriety. I remember the same objection being made to a set of
sable functionaries, whom my friend, Mat Lewis, introduced as the
guards and mischief-doing satellites of the wicked Baron, in his Castle
Spectre. Mat treated the objection with great contempt, and averred in
reply, that he made the slaves black in order to obtain a striking