This wandering race, sever'd from other men,
Boast yet their intercourse with human arts;
The seas, the woods, the deserts, which they haunt,
Find them acquainted with their secret treasures:
And unregarded herbs, and flowers, and blossoms,
Display undreamt-of powers when gather'd by them.
The Jew
Our history must needs retrograde for the space of a few pages,
to inform the reader of certain passages material to his
understanding the rest of this important narrative. His own
intelligence may indeed have easily anticipated that, when
Ivanhoe sunk down, and seemed abandoned by all the world, it was
the importunity of Rebecca which prevailed on her father to have
the gallant young warrior transported from the lists to the house
which for the time the Jews inhabited in the suburbs of Ashby.
It would not have been difficult to have persuaded Isaac to this
step in any other circumstances, for his disposition was kind and
grateful. But he had also the prejudices and scrupulous timidity
of his persecuted people, and those were to be conquered.
"Holy Abraham!" he exclaimed, "he is a good youth, and my heart
bleeds to see the gore trickle down his rich embroidered
hacqueton, and his corslet of goodly price---but to carry him to
our house!---damsel, hast thou well considered?---he is a
Christian, and by our law we may not deal with the stranger and
Gentile, save for the advantage of our commerce."
"Speak not so, my dear father," replied Rebecca; "we may not
indeed mix with them in banquet and in jollity; but in wounds and
in misery, the Gentile becometh the Jew's brother."
"I would I knew what the Rabbi Jacob Ben Tudela would opine on
it," replied Isaac;---"nevertheless, the good youth must not
bleed to death. Let Seth and Reuben bear him to Ashby."
"Nay, let them place him in my litter," said Rebecca; "I will
mount one of the palfreys."
"That were to expose thee to the gaze of those dogs of Ishmael
and of Edom," whispered Isaac, with a suspicious glance towards
the crowd of knights and squires. But Rebecca was already busied
in carrying her charitable purpose into effect, and listed not
what he said, until Isaac, seizing the sleeve of her mantle,
again exclaimed, in a hurried voice---"Beard of Aaron!---what if
the youth perish!---if he die in our custody, shall we not be
held guilty of his blood, and be torn to pieces by the
multitude?"
"He will not die, my father," said Rebecca, gently extricating
herself from the grasp of Isaac "he will not die unless we
abandon him; and if so, we are indeed answerable for his blood to
God and to man."
"Nay," said Isaac, releasing his hold, "it grieveth me as much to
see the drops of his blood, as if they were so many golden
byzants from mine own purse; and I well know, that the lessons of
Miriam, daughter of the Rabbi Manasses of Byzantium whose soul is
in Paradise, have made thee skilful in the art of healing, and
that thou knowest the craft of herbs, and the force of elixirs.
Therefore, do as thy mind giveth thee---thou art a good damsel, a
blessing, and a crown, and a song of rejoicing unto me and unto
my house, and unto the people of my fathers."
The apprehensions of Isaac, however, were not ill founded; and
the generous and grateful benevolence of his daughter exposed
her, on her return to Ashby, to the unhallowed gaze of Brian de
Bois-Guilbert. The Templar twice passed and repassed them on the
road, fixing his bold and ardent look on the beautiful Jewess;
and we have already seen the consequences of the admiration which
her charms excited when accident threw her into the power of that
unprincipled voluptuary.
Rebecca lost no time in causing the patient to be transported to
their temporary dwelling, and proceeded with her own hands to
examine and to bind up his wounds. The youngest reader of
romances and romantic ballads, must recollect how often the
females, during the dark ages, as they are called, were initiated
into the mysteries of surgery, and how frequently the gallant
knight submitted the wounds of his person to her cure, whose
eyes had yet more deeply penetrated his heart.
But the Jews, both male and female, possessed and practised the
medical science in all its branches, and the monarchs and
powerful barons of the time frequently committed themselves to
the charge of some experienced sage among this despised people,
when wounded or in sickness. The aid of the Jewish physicians
was not the less eagerly sought after, though a general belief
prevailed among the Christians, that the Jewish Rabbins were
deeply acquainted with the occult sciences, and particularly with
the cabalistical art, which had its name and origin in the
studies of the sages of Israel. Neither did the Rabbins disown
such acquaintance with supernatural arts, which added nothing
(for what could add aught?) to the hatred with which their nation
was regarded, while it diminished the contempt with which that
malevolence was mingled. A Jewish magician might be the subject
of equal abhorrence with a Jewish usurer, but he could not be
equally despised. It is besides probable, considering the
wonderful cures they are said to have performed, that the Jews
possessed some secrets of the healing art peculiar to themselves,
and which, with the exclusive spirit arising out of their
condition, they took great care to conceal from the Christians
amongst whom they dwelt.
The beautiful Rebecca had been heedfully brought up in all the
knowledge proper to her nation, which her apt and powerful mind
had retained, arranged, and enlarged, in the course of a progress
beyond her years, her sex, and even the age in which she lived.
Her knowledge of medicine and of the healing art had been
acquired under an aged Jewess, the daughter of one of their most
celebrated doctors, who loved Rebecca as her own child, and was
believed to have communicated to her secrets, which had been left
to herself by her sage father at the same time, and under the
same circumstances. The fate of Miriam had indeed been to fall a
sacrifice to the fanaticism of the times; but her secrets had
survived in her apt pupil.
Rebecca, thus endowed with knowledge as with beauty, was
universally revered and admired by her own tribe, who almost
regarded her as one of those gifted women mentioned in the sacred
history. Her father himself, out of reverence for her talents,
which involuntarily mingled itself with his unbounded affection,
permitted the maiden a greater liberty than was usually indulged
to those of her sex by the habits of her people, and was, as we
have just seen, frequently guided by her opinion, even in
preference to his own.
When Ivanhoe reached the habitation of Isaac, he was still in a
state of unconsciousness, owing to the profuse loss of blood
which had taken place during his exertions in the lists. Rebecca
examined the wound, and having applied to it such vulnerary
remedies as her art prescribed, informed her father that if fever
could be averted, of which the great bleeding rendered her little
apprehensive, and if the healing balsam of Miriam retained its
virtue, there was nothing to fear for his guest's life, and that
he might with safety travel to York with them on the ensuing day.
Isaac looked a little blank at this annunciation. His charity
would willingly have stopped short at Ashby, or at most would
have left the wounded Christian to be tended in the house where
he was residing at present, with an assurance to the Hebrew to
whom it belonged, that all expenses should be duly discharged.
To this, however, Rebecca opposed many reasons, of which we shall
only mention two that had peculiar weight with Isaac. The one
was, that she would on no account put the phial of precious
balsam into the hands of another physician even of her own tribe,
lest that valuable mystery should be discovered; the other, that
this wounded knight, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, was an intimate
favourite of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, and that, in case the monarch
should return, Isaac, who had supplied his brother John with
treasure to prosecute his rebellious purposes, would stand in no
small need of a powerful protector who enjoyed Richard's favour.
"Thou art speaking but sooth, Rebecca," said Isaac, giving way to
these weighty arguments---"it were an offending of Heaven to
betray the secrets of the blessed Miriam; for the good which
Heaven giveth, is not rashly to be squandered upon others,
whether it be talents of gold and shekels of silver, or whether
it be the secret mysteries of a wise physician---assuredly they
should be preserved to those to whom Providence hath vouchsafed
them. And him whom the Nazarenes of England call the Lion's
Heart, assuredly it were better for me to fall into the hands of
a strong lion of Idumea than into his, if he shall have got
assurance of my dealing with his brother. Wherefore I will lend
ear to thy counsel, and this youth shall journey with us unto
York, and our house shall be as a home to him until his wounds
shall be healed. And if he of the Lion Heart shall return to the
land, as is now noised abroad, then shall this Wilfred of Ivanhoe
be unto me as a wall of defence, when the king's displeasure
shall burn high against thy father. And if he doth not return,
this Wilfred may natheless repay us our charges when he shall
gain treasure by the strength of his spear and of his sword, even
as he did yesterday and this day also. For the youth is a good
youth, and keepeth the day which he appointeth, and restoreth
that which he borroweth, and succoureth the Israelite, even the
child of my father's house, when he is encompassed by strong
thieves and sons of Belial."
It was not until evening was nearly closed that Ivanhoe was
restored to consciousness of his situation. He awoke from a
broken slumber, under the confused impressions which are
naturally attendant on the recovery from a state of
insensibility. He was unable for some time to recall exactly to
memory the circumstances which had preceded his fall in the
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 steward Oswald said, that if nothing
occurred to renew his master's displeasure against him, he was
sure that Cedric would pardon Gurth, a faithful serf, and one who
stood high in favour, and who had but committed this error out of
the love which he bore to Cedric's son. And he said, moreover,
that he and his comrades, and especially Wamba the Jester, were
resolved to warn Gurth to make his escape by the way, in case
Cedric's ire against him could not be mitigated."
"Would to God they may keep their purpose!" said Ivanhoe; "but it
seems as if I were destined to bring ruin on whomsoever hath
shown kindness to me. My king, by whom I was honoured and
distinguished, thou seest that the brother most indebted to him
is raising his arms to grasp his crown;---my regard hath brought
restraint and trouble on the fairest of her sex;---and now my
father in his mood may slay this poor bondsman but for his love
and loyal service to me!---Thou seest, maiden, what an ill-fated
wretch thou dost labour to assist; be wise, and let me go, ere
the misfortunes which track my footsteps like slot-hounds, shall
involve thee also in their pursuit."
"Nay," said Rebecca, "thy weakness and thy grief, Sir Knight,
make thee miscalculate the purposes of Heaven. Thou hast been
restored to thy country when it most needed the assistance of a
strong hand and a true heart, and thou hast humbled the pride of
thine enemies and those of thy king, when their horn was most
highly exalted, and for the evil which thou hast sustained, seest
thou not that Heaven has raised thee a helper and a physician,
even among the most despised of the land?---Therefore, be of good
courage, and trust that thou art preserved for some marvel which
thine arm shall work before this people. Adieu---and having
taken the medicine which I shall send thee by the hand of Reuben,
compose thyself again to rest, that thou mayest be the more able
to endure the journey on the succeeding day."
Ivanhoe was convinced by the reasoning, and obeyed the
directions, of Rebecca. The drought which Reuben administered
was of a sedative and narcotic quality, and secured the patient
sound and undisturbed slumbers. In the morning his kind
physician found him entirely free from feverish symptoms, and fit
to undergo the fatigue of a journey.
He was deposited in the horse-litter which had brought him from
the lists, and every precaution taken for his travelling with
ease. In one circumstance only even the entreaties of Rebecca
were unable to secure sufficient attention to the accommodation
of the wounded knight. Isaac, like the enriched traveller of
Juvenal's tenth satire, had ever the fear of robbery before his
eyes, conscious that he would be alike accounted fair game by the
marauding Norman noble, and by the Saxon outlaw. He therefore
journeyed at a great rate, and made short halts, and shorter
repasts, so that he passed by Cedric and Athelstane who had
several hours the start of him, but who had been delayed by their
protracted feasting at the convent of Saint Withold's. Yet such
was the virtue of Miriam's balsam, or such the strength of
Ivanhoe's constitution, that he did not sustain from the hurried
journey that inconvenience which his kind physician had
apprehended.
In another point of view, however, the Jew's haste proved
somewhat more than good speed. The rapidity with which he
insisted on travelling, bred several disputes between him and the
party whom he had hired to attend him as a guard. These men were
Saxons, and not free by any means from the national love of ease
and good living which the Normans stigmatized as laziness and
gluttony. Reversing Shylock's position, they had accepted the
employment in hopes of feeding upon the wealthy Jew, and were
very much displeased when they found themselves disappointed, by
the rapidity with which he insisted on their proceeding. They
remonstrated also upon the risk of damage to their horses by
these forced marches. Finally, there arose betwixt Isaac and his
satellites a deadly feud, concerning the quantity of wine and ale
to be allowed for consumption at each meal. And thus it happened,
that when the alarm of danger approached, and that which Isaac
feared was likely to come upon him, he was deserted by the
discontented mercenaries on whose protection he had relied,
without using the means necessary to secure their attachment.
In this deplorable condition the Jew, with his daughter and her
wounded patient, were found by Cedric, as has already been
noticed, and soon afterwards fell into the power of De Bracy and
his confederates. Little notice was at first taken of the
horse-litter, and it might have remained behind but for the
curiosity of De Bracy, who looked into it under the impression
that it might contain the object of his enterprise, for Rowena
had not unveiled herself. But De Bracy's astonishment was
considerable, when he discovered that the litter contained a
wounded man, who, conceiving himself to have fallen into the
power of Saxon outlaws, with whom his name might be a protection
for himself and his friends, frankly avowed himself to be Wilfred
of Ivanhoe.
The ideas of chivalrous honour, which, amidst his wildness and
levity, never utterly abandoned De Bracy, prohibited him from
doing the knight any injury in his defenceless condition, and
equally interdicted his betraying him to Front-de-Boeuf, who
would have had no scruples to put to death, under any
circumstances, the rival claimant of the fief of Ivanhoe. On the
other hand, to liberate a suitor preferred by the Lady Rowena, as
the events of the tournament, and indeed Wilfred's previous
banishment from his father's house, had made matter of notoriety,
was a pitch far above the flight of De Bracy's generosity. A
middle course betwixt good and evil was all which he found
himself capable of adopting, and he commanded two of his own
squires to keep close by the litter, and to suffer no one to
approach it. If questioned, they were directed by their master
to say, that the empty litter of the Lady Rowena was employed to
transport one of their comrades who had been wounded in the
scuffle. On arriving at Torquilstone, while the Knight Templar
and the lord of that castle were each intent upon their own
schemes, the one on the Jew's treasure, and the other on his
daughter, De Bracy's squires conveyed Ivanhoe, still under the
name of a wounded comrade, to a distant apartment. This
explanation was accordingly returned by these men to
Front-de-Boeuf, when he questioned them why they did not make for
the battlements upon the alarm.
"A wounded companion!" he replied in great wrath and
astonishment. "No wonder that churls and yeomen wax so
presumptuous as even to lay leaguer before castles, and that
clowns and swineherds send defiances to nobles, since men-at-arms
have turned sick men's nurses, and Free Companions are grown
keepers of dying folk's curtains, when the castle is about to be
assailed.---To the battlements, ye loitering villains!" he
exclaimed, raising his stentorian voice till the arches around
rung again, "to the battlements, or I will splinter your bones
with this truncheon!"
The men sulkily replied, "that they desired nothing better than
to go to the battlements, providing Front-de-Boeuf would bear
them out with their master, who had commanded them to tend the
dying man."
"The dying man, knaves!" rejoined the Baron; "I promise thee we
shall all be dying men an we stand not to it the more stoutly.
But I will relieve the guard upon this caitiff companion of
yours.---Here, Urfried---hag---fiend of a Saxon witch---hearest
me not?---tend me this bedridden fellow since he must needs be
tended, whilst these knaves use their weapons.---Here be two
arblasts, comrades, with windlaces and quarrells*
* The arblast was a cross-bow, the windlace the machine
used in bending that weapon, and the quarrell, so called
from its square or diamond-shaped head, was the bolt
adapted to it.
---to the barbican with you, and see you drive each bolt through
a Saxon brain."
The men, who, like most of their description, were fond of
enterprise and detested inaction, went joyfully to the scene of
danger as they were commanded, and thus the charge of Ivanhoe was
transferred to Urfried, or Ulrica. But she, whose brain was
burning with remembrance of injuries and with hopes of vengeance,
was readily induced to devolve upon Rebecca the care of her
patient. |