APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/authors/scott/ivanhoe/CHAP01

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               IVANHOE.



               CHAPTER I.

   Thus communed these; while to their lowly dome,
   The full-fed swine return'd with evening home;
   Compell'd, reluctant, to the several sties,
   With din obstreperous, and ungrateful cries.
                              Pope's _Odyssey_.

  In that pleasant district of merry England which
is watered by the river Don, there extended in ancient
times a large forest, covering the greater part
of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between
Sheffield and the pleasant town of Doncaster.  The
remains of this extensive wood are still to be seen
at the noble seats of Wentworth, of Warncliffe
Park, and around Rotherham.  Here haunted of
yore the fabulous Dragon of Wantley; here were
fought many of the most desperate battles during
the Civil Wars of the Roses; and here also flourished
in ancient times those bands of gallant outlaws,
whose deeds have been rendered so popular
in English song.

  Such being our chief scene, the date of our story
refers to a period towards the end of the reign of
Richard I., when his return from his long captivity
had become an event rather wished than hoped
for by his despairing subjects, who were in the
meantime subjected to every species of subordinate
oppression.  The nobles, whose power had become
exorbitant during the reign of Stephen, and whom
the prudence of Henry the Second had scarce reduced
to some degree of subjection to the crown,
had now resumed their ancient license in its utmost
extent; despising the feeble interference of the
English Council of State, fortifying their castles,
increasing the number of their dependants, reducing
all around them to a state of vassalage, and
striving by every means in their power, to place
themselves each at the head of such forces as might
enable him to make a figure in the national convulsions
which appeared to be impending.

  The situation of the inferior gentry, or Franklins,
as they were called, who, by the law and spirit
of the English constitution, were entitled to hold
themselves independent of feudal tyranny, became
now unusually precarious.  If, as was most generally
the case, they placed themselves under the
protection of any of the petty kings in their vicinity,
accepted of feudal offices in his household, or
bound themselves by mutual treaties of alliance
and protection, to support him in his enterprises,
they might indeed purchase temporary repose; but
it must be with the sacrifice of that independence
which was so dear to every English bosom, and at
the certain hazard of being involved as a party in
whatever rash expedition the ambition of their protector
might lead him to undertake.  On the other
hand, such and so multiplied were the means of
vexation and oppression possessed by the great
Barons, that they never wanted the pretext, and
seldom the will, to harass and pursue, even to the
very edge of destruction, any of their less powerful
neighbours, who attempted to separate themselves
from their authority, and to trust for their protection,
during the dangers of the times, to their own
inoffensive conduct, and to the laws of the land.

  A circumstance which greatly tended to enhance
the tyranny of the nobility, and the sufferings of
the inferior classes, arose from the consequences
of the Conquest by Duke William of Normandy.
Four generations had not sufficed to blend the hostile
blood of the Normans and Anglo-Saxons, or to
unite, by common language and mutual interests,
two hostile races, one of which still felt the elation
of triumph, while the other groaned under all the
consequences of defeat.  The power bad been completely
placed in the hands of the Norman nobility,
by the event of the battle of Hastings, and it had
been used, as our histories assure us, with no moderate
hand.  The whole race of Saxon princes and
nobles had been extirpated or disinherited, with
few or no exceptions; nor were the numbers great
who possessed land in the country of their fathers,
even as proprietors of the second, or of yet inferior
classes.  The royal policy had long been to weaken,
by every means, legal or illegal, the strength of a
part of the population which was justly considered
as nourishing the most inveterate antipathy to their
victor.  All the monarchs of the Norman race had
shown the most marked predilection for their Norman
subjects; the laws of the chase, and many
others equally unknown to the milder and more
free spirit of the Saxon constitution, had been fixed
upon the necks of the subjugated inhabitants, to add
weight, as it were, to the feudal chains with which
they were loaded.  At court, and in the castles of
the great nobles, where the pomp and state of a court
was emulated, Norman-French was the only language
employed; in courts of law, the pleadings
and judgments were delivered in the same tongue.
In short, French was the language of honour, of
chivalry, and even of justice, while the far more
manly and expressive Anglo-Saxon was abandoned
to the use of rustics and hinds, who knew no other.
Still, however, the necessary intercourse between
the lords of the soil, and those oppressed inferior
beings by whom that soil was cultivated, occasioned
the gradual formation of a dialect, compounded
betwixt the French and the Anglo-Saxon, in which
they could render themselves mutually intelligible
to each other; and from this necessity arose by
degrees the structure of our present English language,
in which the speech of the victors and the
vanquished have been so happily blended together;
and which has since been so richly improved by
importations from the classical languages, and from
those spoken by the southern nations of Europe.

  This state of things I have thought it necessary
to premise for the information of the general reader,
who might be apt to forget, that, although no great
historical events, such as war or insurrection, mark
the existence of the Anglo-Saxons as a separate
people subsequent to the reign of William the Second;
yet the great national distinctions betwixt
them and their conquerors, the recollection of what
they had formerly been, and to what they were
now reduced, continued down to the reign of Edward
the Third, to keep open the wounds which
the Conquest had inflicted, and to maintain a line
of separation betwixt the descendants of the victor
Normans and the vanquished Saxons.

--

  The sun was setting upon one of the rich grassy
glades of that forest, which we have mentioned in
the beginning of the chapter.  Hundreds of broad-headed,
short-stemmed, wide-branched oaks, which
had witnessed perhaps the stately march of the Roman
soldiery, flung their gnarled arms over a thick
carpet of the most delicious green sward; in some
places they were intermingled with beeches, hollies,
and copsewood of various descriptions, so closely
as totally to intercept the level beams of the sinking
sun; in others they receded from each other,
forming those long sweeping vistas, in the intricacy
of which the eye delights to lose itself, while imagination
considers them as the paths to yet wilder
scenes of silvan solitude.  Here the red rays of
the sun shot a broken and discoloured light, that
partially hung upon the shattered boughs and mossy
trunks of the trees, and there they illuminated in
brilliant patches the portions of turf to which they
made their way. A considerable open space, in the
midst of this glade, seemed formerly to have been
dedicated to the rites of Druidical superstition;
for, on the summit of a hillock, so regular as to
seem artificial, there still remained part of a circle
of rough unhewn stones, of large dimensions.  Seven
stood upright; the rest had been dislodged from
their places, probably by the zeal of some convert
to Christianity, and lay, some prostrate near their
former site, and others on the side of the hill.  One
large stone only had found its way to the bottom,
and in stopping the course of a small brook, which
glided smoothly round the foot of the eminence,
gave, by its opposition, a feeble voice of murmur
to the placid and elsewhere silent streamlet.

  The human figures which completed this landscape,
were in number two, partaking, in their dress
and appearance, of that wild and rustic character,
which belonged to the woodlands of the West-Riding
of Yorkshire at that early period.  The
eldest of these men had a stern, savage, and wild
aspect.  His garment was of the simplest form
imaginable, being a close jacket with sleeves, composed
of the tanned skin of some animal, on which
the hair had been originally left, but which had
been worn of in so many places, that it would
have been difficult to distinguish from the patches
that remained, to what creature the fur had belonged.
This primeval vestment reached from the
throat to the knees, and served at once all the
usual purposes of body-clothing; there was no wider
opening at the collar, than was necessary to
admit the passage of the head, from which it may
be inferred, that it was put on by slipping it over
the head and shoulders, in the manner of a modern
shirt, or ancient hauberk.  Sandals, bound with
thongs made of boars' hide, protected the feet, and
a roll of thin leather was twined artificially round
the legs, and, ascending above the calf, left the
knees bare, like those of a Scottish Highlander.
To make the jacket sit yet more close to the body,
it was gathered at the middle by a broad leathern
belt, secured by a brass buckle; to one side of
which was attached a sort of scrip, and to the other
a ram's horn, accoutred with a mouthpiece, for the
purpose of blowing.  In the same belt was stuck
one of those long, broad, sharp-pointed, and two-edged
knives, with a buck's-horn handle, which
were fabricated in the neigbbourhood, and bore
even at this early period the name of a Sheffield
whittle.  The man had no covering upon his head,
which was only defended by his own thick hair,
matted and twisted together, and scorched by the
influence of the sun into a rusty dark-red colour,
forming a contrast with the overgrown beard upon
his cheeks, which was rather of a yellow or amber
hue. One part of his dress only remains, but it is
too remarkable to be suppressed; it was a brass
ring, resembling a dog's collar, but without any
opening, and soldered fast round his neck, so loose
as to form no impediment to his breathing, yet so
tight as to be incapable of being removed, excepting
by the use of the file.  On this singular gorget
was engraved, in Saxon characters, an inscription
of the following purport:---``Gurth, the son of
Beowulph, is the born thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood.''

  Beside the swine-herd, for such was Gurth's occupation,
was seated, upon one of the fallen Druidical
monuments, a person about ten years younger
in appearance, and whose dress, though resembling
his companion's in form, was of better materials,
and of a more fantastic appearance.  His jacket
had been stained of a bright purple hue, upon
which there had been some attempt to paint grotesque
ornaments in different colours.  To the
jacket he added a short cloak, which scarcely reached
half way down his thigh; it was of crimson
cloth, though a good deal soiled, lined with bright
yellow; and as he could transfer it from one shoulder
to the other, or at his pleasure draw it all
around him, its width, contrasted with its want of
longitude, formed a fantastic piece of drapery.  He
had thin silver bracelets upon his arms, and on his
neck a collar of the same metal bearing the inscription,
``Wamba, the son of Witless, is the thrall of
Cedric of Rotherwood.'' This personage had the
same sort of sandals with his companion, but instead
of the roll of leather thong, his legs were
cased in a sort of gaiters, of which one was red
and the other yellow.  He was provided also with
a cap, having around it more than one bell, about
the size of those attached to hawks, which jingled
as he turned his head to one side or other; and as
he seldom remained a minute in the same posture,
the sound might be considered as incessant. Around
the edge of this cap was a stiff bandeau of leather,
cut at the top into open work, resembling a coronet,
while a prolonged bag arose from within it,
and fell down on one shoulder like an old-fashioned
nightcap, or a jelly-bag, or the head-gear of a
modern hussar.  It was to this part of the cap that
the bells were attached; which circumstance, as
well as the shape of his head-dress, and his own
half-crazed, half-cunning expression of countenance,
sufficiently pointed him out as belonging to
the race of domestic clowns or jesters, maintained
in the houses of the wealthy, to help away the
tedium of those lingering hours which they were
obliged to spend within doors.  He bore, like his
companion, a scrip, attached to his belt, but had
neither horn nor knife, being probably considered
as belonging to a class whom it is esteemed dangerous
to intrust with edge-tools.  In place of these,
he was equipped with a sword of lath, resembling
that with which Harlequin operates his wonders
upon the modern stage.

  The outward appearance of these two men formed
scarce a stronger contrast than their look and
demeanour.  That of the serf, or bondsman, was
sad and sullen; his aspect was bent on the ground
with an appearance of deep dejection, which might
be almost construed into apathy, had not the fire
which occasionally sparkled in his red eye manifested
that there slumbered, under the appearance of
sullen despondency, a sense of oppression, and a disposition
to resistance.  The looks of Wamba, on
the other hand, indicated, as usual with his class,
a sort of vacant curiosity, and fidgetty impatience
of any posture of repose, together with the utmost
self-satisfaction respecting his own situation, and
the appearance which he made.  The dialogue which
they maintained between them, was carried on in
Anglo-Saxon, which, as we said before, was universally
spoken by the inferior classes, excepting
the Norman soldiers, and the immediate personal
dependants of the great feudal nobles.  But to give
their conversation in the original would convey but
little information to the modern reader, for whose
benefit we beg to offer the following translation:

  ``The curse of St Withold upon these infernal
porkers!'' said the swine-herd, after blowing his
horn obstreperously, to collect together the scattered
herd of swine, which, answering his call with
notes equally melodious, made, however, no haste
to remove themselves from the luxurious banquet
of beech-mast and acorns on which they had fattened,
or to forsake the marshy banks of the rivulet,
where several of them, half plunged in mud,
lay stretched at their ease, altogether regardless of
the voice of their keeper.  ``The curse of St Withold
upon them and upon me!'' said Gurth; ``if the two-legged
wolf snap not up some of them ere nightfall,
I am no true man.  Here, Fangs! Fangs!'' he
ejaculated at the top of his voice to a ragged wolfish-looking
dog, a sort of lurcher, half mastiff, half
greyhound, which ran limping about as if with the
purpose of seconding his master in collecting the
refractory grunters; but which, in fact, from misapprehension
of the swine-herd's signals, ignorance
of his own duty, or malice prepense, only drove
them hither and thither, and increased the evil which
he seemed to design to remedy.  ``A devil draw
the teeth of him,'' said Gurth, ``and the mother of
mischief confound the Ranger of the forest, that cuts
the foreclaws off our dogs, and makes them unfit
for their trade!* Wamba, up and help me an thou

*   Note A.  The Ranger of the Forest, that cuts the fore-claws
*   off our dogs.

beest a man; take a turn round the back o' the
hill to gain the wind on them; and when thous't
got the weather-gage, thou mayst drive them before
thee as gently as so many innocent lambs.''

  ``Truly,'' said Wamba, without stirring from the
spot, ``I have consulted my legs upon this matter,
and they are altogether of opinion, that to carry
my gay garments through these sloughs, would be
an act of unfriendship to my sovereign person and
royal wardrobe; wherefore, Gurth, I advise thee
to call off Fangs, and leave the herd to their destiny,
which, whether they meet with bands of travelling
soldiers, or of outlaws, or of wandering
pilgrims, can be little else than to be converted into
Normans before morning, to thy no small ease
and comfort.''

  ``The swine turned Normans to my comfort!''
quoth Gurth; ``expound that to me, Wamba, for
my brain is too dull, and my mind too vexed, to
read riddles.''

  ``Why, how call you those grunting brutes running
about on their four legs?'' demanded Wamba.

  ``Swine, fool, swine,'' said the herd, ``every fool
knows that.''

  ``And swine is good Saxon,'' said the Jester;
``but how call you the sow when she is flayed, and
drawn, and quartered, and hung up by the heels,
like a traitor?''

  ``Pork,'' answered the swine-herd.

  ``I am very glad every fool knows that too,'' said
Wamba, ``and pork, I think, is good Norman-French;
and so when the brute lives, and is in the
charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon
name; but becomes a Norman, and is called pork,
when she is carried to the Castle-hall to feast among
the nobles what dost thou think of this, friend
Gurth, ha?''

  ``It is but too true doctrine, friend Wamba, however
it got into thy fool's pate.''

  ``Nay, I can tell you more,'' said Wamba, in the
same tone; ``there is old Alderman Ox continues
to hold his Saxon epithet, while he is under the
charge of serfs and bondsmen such as thou, but becomes
Beef, a fiery French gallant, when he arrives
before the worshipful jaws that are destined to
consume him.  Mynheer Calf, too, becomes Monsieur
de Veau in the like manner; he is Saxon when
he requires tendance, and takes a Norman name
when he becomes matter of enjoyment.''

  ``By St Dunstan,'' answered Gurth, ``thou speakest
but sad truths; little is left to us but the air
we breathe, and that appears to have been reserved
with much hesitation, solely for the purpose of
enabling us to endure the tasks they lay upon our
shoulders.  The finest and the fattest is for their
board; the loveliest is for their couch; the best
and bravest supply their foreign masters with soldiers,
and whiten distant lands with their bones,
leaving few here who have either will or the power
to protect the unfortunate Saxon.  God's blessing
on our master Cedric, he hath done the work of a
man in standing in the gap; but Reginald Front-de-B<oe>uf
is coming down to this country in person,
and we shall soon see how little Cedric's trouble
will avail him.---Here, here,'' he exclaimed again,
raising his voice, ``So ho! so ho! well done, Fangs!
thou hast them all before thee now, and bring'st
them on bravely, lad.''

  ``Gurth,'' said the Jester, ``I know thou thinkest
me a fool, or thou wouldst not be so rash in
putting thy head into my mouth.  One word to
Reginald Front-de-B<oe>uf, or Philip de Malvoisin,
that thou hast spoken treason against the Norman,
---and thou art but a cast-away swineherd,---thou
wouldst waver on one of these trees as a terror to
all evil speakers against dignities.''

  ``Dog, thou wouldst not betray me,'' said Gurth,
``after having led me on to speak so much at disadvantage?''

  ``Betray thee!'' answered the Jester; ``no, that
were the trick of a wise man; a fool cannot half so
well help himself---but soft, whom have we here?''
he said, listening to the trampling of several horses
which became then audible.

  ``Never mind whom,'' answered Gurth, who had
now got his herd before him, and, with the aid of
Fangs, was driving them down one of the long dim
vistas which we have endeavoured to describe.

  ``Nay, but I must see the riders,'' answered
Wamba; ``perhaps they are come from Fairy-land
with a message from King Oberon.''

  ``A murrain take thee,'' rejoined the swine-herd;
``wilt thou talk of such things, while a terrible
storm of thunder and lightning is raging within a
few miles of us? Hark, how the thunder rumbles!
and for summer rain, I never saw such broad downright
flat drops fall out of the clouds; the oaks, too,
notwithstanding the calm weather, sob and creak
with their great boughs as if announcing a tempest.
Thou canst play the rational if thou wilt; credit
me for once, and let us home ere the storm begins
to rage, for the night will be fearful.''

  Wamba seemed to feel the force of this appeal,
and accompanied his companion, who began his
journey after catching up a long quarter-staff which
lay upon the grass beside him.  This second Eum<ae>us
strode hastily down the forest glade, driving
before him, with the assistance of Fangs, the whole
herd of his inharmonious charge.



                 CHAPTER II.

   A Monk there was, a fayre for the maistrie,
   An outrider that loved venerie;
   A manly man, to be an Abbot able,
   Full many a daintie horse had he in stable:
   And whan he rode, men might his bridle hear
   Gingeling in a whistling wind as dear,
   And eke as loud, as doth the chapell bell,
   There as this lord was keeper of the cen.
                                   Chaucer.

  Notwithstanding the occasional exhortation
and chiding of his companion, the noise of the
horsemen's feet continuing to approach, Wamba
could not be prevented from lingering occasionally
on the road, upon every pretence which occurred;
now catching from the hazel a cluster of half-ripe
nuts, and now turning his head to leer after a cottage
maiden who crossed their path.  The horsemen,
therefore, soon overtook them on the road.

  Their numbers amounted to ten men, of whom
the two who rode foremost seemed to be persons
of considerable importance, and the others their
attendants.  It was not difficult to ascertain the
condition and character of one of these personages.
He was obviously an ecclesiastic of high rank; his
dress was that of a Cistercian Monk, but composed
of materials much finer than those which the
rule of that order admitted.  His mantle and hood
were of the best Flanders cloth, and fell in ample,
and not ungraceful folds, around a handsome,
though somewhat corpulent person.  His countenance
bore as little the marks of self-denial, as his
habit indicated contempt of worldly splendour.  His
features might have been called good, had there not
lurked under the pent-house of his eye, that sly
epicurean twinkle which indicates the cautious voluptuary.
In other respects, his profession and situation
had taught him a ready command over his
countenance, which he could contract at pleasure into
solemnity, although its natural expression was
that of good-humoured social indulgence.  In defiance
of conventual rules, and the edicts of popes
and councils, the sleeves of this dignitary were lined
and turned up with rich furs, his mantle secured at
the throat with a golden clasp, and the whole dress
proper to his order as much refined upon and ornamented,
as that of a quaker beauty of the present
day, who, while she retains the garb and costume
of her sect continues to give to its simplicity, by
the choice of materials and the mode of disposing
them, a certain air of coquettish attraction, savouring
but too much of the vanities of the world.

  This worthy churchman rode upon a well-fed
ambling mule, whose furniture was highly decorated,
and whose bridle, according to the fashion of
the day, was ornamented with silver bells.  In his
seat he had nothing of the awkwardness of the
convent, but displayed the easy and habitual grace
of a well-trained horseman.  Indeed, it seemed
that so humble a conveyance as a mule, in however
good case, and however well broken to a pleasant
and accommodating amble, was only used by the
gallant monk for travelling on the road.  A lay
brother, one of those who followed in the train,
had, for his use on other occasions, one of the most
handsome Spanish jennets ever bred at Andalusia,
which merchants used at that time to import, with
great trouble and risk, for the use of persons of
wealth and distinction.  The saddle and housings
of this superb palfrey were covered by a long foot-cloth,
which reached nearly to the ground, and on
which were richly embroidered, mitres, crosses, and
other ecclesiastical emblems.  Another lay brother
led a sumpter mule, loaded probably with his superior's
baggage; and two monks of his own order,
of inferior station, rode together in the rear, laughing
and conversing with each other, without taking
much notice of the other members of the cavalcade.

  The companion of the church dignitary was a
man past forty, thin, strong, tall, and muscular; an
athletic figure, which long fatigue and constant
exercise seemed to have left none of the softer part
of the human form, having reduced the whole to
brawn, bones, and sinews, which had sustained a
thousand toils, and were ready to dare a thousand
more.  His head was covered with a scarlet cap,
faced with fur---of that kind which the French call
_mortier_, from its resemblance to the shape of an
inverted mortar.  His countenance was therefore
fully displayed, and its expression was calculated to
impress a degree of awe, if not of fear, upon strangers.
High features, naturally strong and powerfully
expressive, had been burnt almost into Negro
blackness by constant exposure to the tropical sun,
and might, in their ordinary state, be said to slumber
after the storm of passion had passed away; but the
projection of the veins of the forehead, the readiness
with which the upper lip and its thick black moustaches
quivered upon the slightest emotion, plainly
intimated that the tempest might be again and easily
awakened.  His keen, piercing, dark eyes, told
in every glance a history of difficulties subdued,
and dangers dared, and seemed to challenge opposition
to his wishes, for the pleasure of sweeping it
from his road by a determined exertion of courage
and of will; a deep scar on his brow gave additional
sternness to his countenance, and a sinister expression
to one of his eyes, which had been slightly
injured on the same occasion, and of which the vision,
though perfect, was in a slight and partial degree
distorted.

  The upper dress of this personage resembled
that of his companion in shape, being a long monastic
mantle; but the colour, being scarlet, showed
that he did not belong to any of the four regular
orders of monks.  On the right shoulder of the
mantle there was cut, in white cloth, a cross of a
peculiar form.  This upper robe concealed what at
first view seemed rather inconsistent with its form,
a shirt, namely, of linked mail, with sleeves and
gloves of the same, curiously plaited and interwoven,
as flexible to the body as those which are now
wrought in the stocking-loom, out of less obdurate
materials.  The fore-part of his thighs, where the
folds of his mantle permitted them to be seen, were
also covered with linked mail; the knees and feet
were defended by splints, or thin plates of steel,
ingeniously jointed upon each other; and mail hose,
reaching from the ankle to the knee, effectually protected
the legs, and completed the rider's defensive
armour.  In his girdle he wore a long and double-edged
dagger, which was the only offensive weapon
about his person.

  He rode, not a mule, like his companion, but a
strong hackney for the road, to save his gallant war-horse,
which a squire led behind, fully accoutred
for battle, with a chamfrom or plaited head-piece
upon his bead, having a short spike projecting from
the front.  On one side of the saddle hung a short
battle-axe, richly inlaid with Damascene carving;
on the other the rider's plumed head-piece and hood
of mail, with a long two-handed sword, used by the
chivalry of the period.  A second squire held aloft
his master's lance, from the extremity of which
fluttered a small banderole, or streamer, bearing a
cross of the same form with that embroidered upon
his cloak.  He also carried his small triangular
shield, broad enough at the top to protect the
breast, and from thence diminishing to a point.  It
was covered with a scarlet cloth, which prevented
the device from being seen.

  These two squires were followed by two attendants,
whose dark visages, white turbans, and the
Oriental form of their garments, showed them to
be natives of some distant Eastern country.* The

*   Note B.  Negro Slaves.

whole appearance of this warrior and his retinue
was wild and outlandish; the dress of his squires
was gorgeous, and his Eastern attendants wore silver
collars round their throats, and bracelets of the
same metal upon their swarthy arms and legs, of
which the former were naked from the elbow, and
the latter from mid-leg to ankle.  Silk and embroidery
distinguished their dresses, and marked the
wealth and importance of their master; forming,
at the same time, a striking contrast with the martial
simplicity of his own attire.  They were armed
with crooked sabres, having the hilt and baldric
inlaid with gold, and matched with Turkish daggers
of yet more costly workmanship.  Each of
them bore at his saddle-bow a bundle of darts or
javelins, about four feet in length, having sharp
steel heads, a weapon much in use among the Saracens,
and of which the memory is yet preserved
in the martial exercise called _El Jerrid_, still practised
in the Eastern countries.

  The steeds of these attendants were in appearance
as foreign as their riders.  They were of Saracen
origin, and consequently of Arabian descent;
and their fine slender limbs, small fetlocks, thin
manes, and easy springy motion, formed a marked
contrast with the large-jointed heavy horses, of
which the race was cultivated in Flanders and in
Normandy, for mounting the men-at-arms of the
period in all the panoply of plate and mail; and
which, placed by the side of those Eastern coursers,
might have passed for a personification of substance
and of shadow.

  The singular appearance of this cavalcade not
only attracted the curiosity of Wamba, but excited
even that of his less volatile companion.  The monk
he instantly knew to be the Prior of Jorvaulx Abbey,
well known for many miles around as a lover
of the chase, of the banquet, and, if fame did him
not wrong, of other worldly pleasures still more inconsistent
with his monastic vows.

  Yet so loose were the ideas of the times respecting
the conduct of the clergy, whether secular or
regular, that the Prior Aymer maintained a fair
character in the neighbourhood of his abbey.  His
free and jovial temper, and the readiness with which
he granted absolution from all ordinary delinquencies,
rendered him a favourite among the nobility
and principal gentry, to several of whom he was allied
by birth, being of a distinguished Norman family.
The ladies, in particular, were not disposed
to scan too nicely the morals of a man who was a
professed admirer of their sex, and who possessed
many means of dispelling the ennui which was too
apt to intrude upon the halls and bowers of an ancient
feudal castle.  The Prior mingled in the sports
of the field with more than due eagerness, and was
allowed to possess the best-trained hawks, and the
fleetest greyhounds in the North Riding; circumstances
which strongly recommended him to the
youthful gentry.  With the old, be had another
part to play, which, when needful, he could sustain
with great decorum.  His knowledge of books, however
superficial, was sufficient to impress upon their
ignorance respect for his supposed learning; and
the gravity of his deportment and language, with
the high tone which he exerted in setting forth the
authority of the church and of the priesthood, impressed
them no less with an opinion of his sanctity.
Even the common people, the severest critics
of the conduct of their betters, had commiseration
with the follies of Prior Aymer.  He was generous;
and charity, as it is well known, covereth a multitude
of sins, in another sense than that in which it
is said to do so in  Scripture.  The  revenues  of  the
monastery, of which a large part was at his disposal,
while they gave him the means of supplying his
own very considerable expenses, afforded also those
largesses which he bestowed among the peasantry,
and with which he frequently relieved the distresses
of the oppressed.  If Prior Aymer rode hard in
the chase, or remained long at the banquet,---if
Prior Aymer was seen, at the early peep of dawn,
to enter the postern of the abbey, as he glided home
from some rendezvous which had occupied the hours
of darkness, men only shrugged up their shoulders,
and reconciled themselves to his irregularities, by
recollecting that the same were practised by many
of his brethren who had no redeeming qualities
whatsoever to atone for them.  Prior Aymer, therefore,
and his character, were well known to our
Saxon serfs, who made their rude obeisance, and
received his ``_benedicite, mes filz_," in return.

  But the singular appearance of his companion
and his attendants, arrested their attention and excited
their wonder, and they could scarcely attend
to the Prior of Jorvaulx' question, when he demanded
if they knew of any place of harbourage in the
vicinity; so much were they surprised at the half
monastic, half military appearance of the swarthy
stranger, and at the uncouth dress and arms of his
Eastern attendants.  It is probable, too, that the
language in which the benediction was conferred,
and the information asked, sounded ungracious,
though not probably unintelligible, in the ears of
the Saxon peasants.

  ``I asked you, my children,'' said the Prior,
raising his voice, and using the lingua Franca, or
mixed language, in which the Norman and Saxon
races conversed with each other, ``if there be in
this neighbourhood any good man, who, for the love
of God, and devotion to Mother Church, will give
two of her humblest servants, with their train, a
night's hospitality and refreshment?''

  This he spoke with a tone of conscious importance,
which formed a strong contrast to the modest
terms which he thought it proper to employ.

  ``Two of the humblest servants of Mother
Church!'' repeated Wamba to himself,---but, fool
as he was, taking care not to make his observation
audible; ``I should like to see her seneschals, her
chief butlers, and other principal domestics!''

  After this internal commentary on the Prior's
speech, he raised his eyes, and replied to the question
which had been put.

  ``If the reverend fathers,'' he said, ``loved good
cheer and soft lodging, few miles of riding would
carry them to the Priory of Brinxworth, where their
quality could not but secure them the most honourable
reception; or if they preferred spending
a penitential evening, they might turn down yonder
wild glade, which would bring them to the hermitage
of Copmanhurst, where a pious anchoret
would make them sharers for the night of the shelter
of his roof and the benefit of his prayers.''

  The Prior shook his head at both proposals.

  ``Mine honest friend,'' said he, ``if the jangling
of thy bells bad not dizzied thine understanding,
thou mightst know _Clericus clericum non decimat_;
that is to say, we churchmen do not exhaust each
other's hospitality, but rather require that of the
laity, giving them thus an opportunity to serve God
in honouring and relieving his appointed servants.''

  ``It is true,'' replied Wamba, ``that I, being but
an ass, am, nevertheless, honoured to hear the bells
as well as your reverence's mule; notwithstanding,
I did conceive that the charity of Mother Church
and her servants might be said, with other charity,
to begin at home.''

  ``A truce to thine insolence, fellow,'' said the
armed rider, breaking in on his prattle with a high
and stern voice, ``and tell us, if thou canst, the road
to---How call'd you your Franklin, Prior Aymer?''

  ``Cedric,'' answered the Prior; ``Cedric the Saxon.
---Tell me, good fellow, are we near his dwelling,
and can you show us the road?''

  ``The road will be uneasy to find,'' answered
Gurth, who broke silence for the first time, d`` and
the family of Cedric retire early to rest.''

  ``Tush, tell not me, fellow,'' said the military
rider; ``'tis easy for them to arise and supply the
wants of travellers such as we are, who will not
stoop to beg the hospitality which we have a right
to command.''

  ``I know not,'' said Gurth, sullenly, ``if I should
show the way to my master's house, to those who
demand as a right, the shelter which most are fain
to ask as a favour.''

  ``Do you dispute with me, slave!'' said the soldier;
and, setting spurs to his horse, he caused him
make a demivolte across the path, raising at the
same time the riding rod which he held in his hand,
with a purpose of chastising what he considered as
the insolence of the peasant.

  Gurth darted at him a savage and revengeful
scowl, and with a fierce, yet hesitating motion, laid
his hand on the haft of his knife; but the interference
of Prior Aymer, who pushed his mule betwixt
his companion and the swineherd, prevented
the meditated violence.

  ``Nay, by St Mary, brother Brian, you must
not think you are now in Palestine, predominating
over heathen Turks and infidel Saracens; we islanders
love not blows, save those of holy Church, who
chasteneth whom she loveth.---Tell me, good fellow,''
said he to Wamba, and seconded his speech
by a small piece of silver coin, ``the way to Cedric
the Saxon's; you cannot be ignorant of it, and it
is your duty to direct the wanderer even when his
character is less sanctified than ours.''

  ``In truth, venerable father,'' answered the Jester,
``the Saracen head of your right reverend companion
has frightened out of mine the way home---I
am not sure I shall get there to-night myself.''

  ``Tush,'' said the Abbot, ``thou canst tell us if
thou wilt.  This reverend brother has been all his
life engaged in fighting among the Saracens for the
recovery of the Holy Sepulchre; he is of the order
of Knights Templars, whom you may have heard
of; he is half a monk, half a soldier.''

  ``If he is but half a monk,'' said the Jester, ``he
should not be wholly unreasonable with those whom
he meets upon the road, even if they should be in
no hurry to answer questions that no way concern
them.''

  ``I forgive thy wit,'' replied the Abbot, ``on
condition thou wilt show me the way to Cedric's
mansion.''

  ``Well, then,'' answered Wamba, ``your reverences
must hold on this path till you come to a
sunken cross, of which scarce a cubit's length remains
above ground; then take the path to the left,
for there are four which meet at Sunken Cross, and
I trust your reverences will obtain shelter before
the storm comes on.''

  The Abbot thanked his sage adviser; and the
cavalcade, setting spurs to their horses, rode on as
men do who wish to reach their inn before the
bursting of a night-storm.  As their horses' hoofs
died away, Gurth said to his companion, ``If they
follow thy wise direction, the reverend fathers will
hardly reach Rotherwood this night.''

  ``No,'' said the Jester, grinning, ``but they may
reach Sheffield if they have good luck, and that is
as fit a place for them.  I am not so bad a woodsman
as to show the dog where the deer lies, if I
have no mind he should chase him.''

  ``Thou art right,'' said Gurth; ``it were ill that
Aymer saw the Lady Rowena; and it were worse,
it may be, for Cedric to quarrel, as is most likely
he would, with this military monk.  But, like good
servants let us hear and see, and say nothing.''

  We return to the riders, who had soon left the
bondsmen far behind them, and who maintained the
following conversation in the Norman-French language,
usually employed by the superior classes,
with the exception of the few who were still inclined
to boast their Saxon descent.

  ``What mean these fellows by their capricious
insolence?'' said the Templar to the Benedictine,
``and why did you prevent me from chastising it?''

  ``Marry, brother Brian,'' replied the Prior,
``touching the one of them, it were hard for me
to render a reason for a fool speaking according
to his folly; and the other churl is of that savage,
fierce, intractable race, some of whom, as I have
often told you, are still to be found among the descendants
of the conquered Saxons, and whose supreme
pleasure it is to testify, by all means in their
power, their aversion to their conquerors.''

  ``I would soon have beat him into courtesy,''
observed Brian; ``I am accustomed to deal with
such spirits: Our Turkish captives are as fierce
and intractable as Odin himself could have been;
yet two months in my household, under the management
of my master of the slaves, has made
them humble, submissive, serviceable, and observant
of your will.  Marry, sir, you must beware
of the poison and the dagger; for they use either
with free will when you give them the slightest
opportunity.''

  ``Ay, but,'' answered Prior Aymer, ``every land
has its own manners and fashions; and, besides
that beating this fellow could procure us no information
respecting the road to Cedric's house, it
would have been sure to have established a quarrel
betwixt you and him had we found our way
thither.  Remember what I told you; this wealthy
Franklin is proud, fierce, jealous, and irritable; a
withstander of the nobility, and even of his neighbours,
Reginald Front-de-B<oe>uf, and Philip Malvoisin,
who are no babes to strive with.  He stands
up so sternly for the privileges of his race, and is
so proud of his uninterrupted descent from Hereward,
a renowned champion of the Heptarchy,
that he is universally called Cedric the Saxon; and
makes a boast of his belonging to a people from
whom many others endeavour to hide their descent,
lest they should encounter a share of the _vae victis_,
or severities imposed upon the vanquished.''

  ``Prior Aymer,'' said the Templar, ``you are a
man of gallantry, learned in the study of beauty,
and as expert as a troubadour in all matters concerning
the arrets of love; but I shall expect much
beauty in this celebrated Rowena, to counterbalance
the self-denial and forbearance which I must exert,
if I am to court the favour of such a seditious churl
as you have described her father Cedric.''

  ``Cedric is not her father,'' replied the Prior,
``and is but of remote relation; she is descended
from higher blood than even he pretends to, and is
but distantly connected with him by birth.  Her
guardian, however, he is, self-constitued as I believe;
but his ward is as dear to him as if she were
his own child.  Of her beauty you shall soon be
judge; and if the purity of her complexion, and
the majestic, yet soft expression of a mild blue eye,
do not chase from your memory the black-tressed
girls of Palestine, ay, or the houris of old Mahound's
paradise, I am an infidel, and no true son
of the church.''

  ``Should your boasted beauty,'' said the Templar,
``be weighed in the balance and found wanting,
you know our wager?''

  ``My gold collar,'' answered the Prior, ``against
ten buts of Chian wine;---they are mine as securely
as if they were already in the convent vaults,
under the key of old Dennis the cellarer.''

  ``And I am myself to be judge,'' said the Templar,
``and am only to be convicted on my own
admission, that I have seen no maiden so beautiful
since Pentecost was a twelvemonth.  Ran it not
so?---Prior, your collar is in danger; I will wear
it over my gorget in the lists of Ashby-de-la-Zouche.''

  ``Win it fairly,'' said the Prior, ``and wear it
as ye will; I will trust your giving true response,
on your word as a knight and as a churchman.
Yet, brother, take my advice, and file your tongue
to a little more courtesy than your habits of predominating
over infidel captives and Eastern bondsmen
have accustomed you.  Cedric the Saxon, if
offended,---and he is noway slack in taking offence,
---is a man who, without respect to your knighthood,
my high office, or the sanctity of either,
would clear his house of us, and send us to lodge
with the larks, though the hour were midnight.
And be careful how you look on Rowena, whom
he cherishes with the most jealous care; an he take
the least alarm in that quarter we are but lost men.
It is said he banished his only son from his family
for lifting his eyes in the way of affection towards
this beauty, who may be worshipped, it seems, at
a distance, but is not to be approached with other
thoughts than such as we bring to the shrine of the
Blessed Virgin.''

  ``Well, you have said enough,'' answered the
Templar; ``I will for a night put on the needful
restraint, and deport me as meekly as a maiden;
but as for the fear of his expelling us by violence,
myself and squires, with Hamet and Abdalla, will
warrant you against that disgrace.  Doubt not
that we shall be strong enough to make good our
quarters.''

  ``We must not let it come so far,'' answered the
Prior; ``but here is the clown's sunken cross, and
the night is so dark that we can hardly see which
of the roads we are to  follow.  He  bid  us  turn,  I
think to the left.''

  ``To the right,'' said Brian,  ``to  the  best  of  my
remembrance.''

  ``To the left, certainly, the left; I remember his
pointing with his wooden sword.''

  ``Ay, but he held his sword in his left hand,
and so pointed across his body with it,'' said the
Templar.

  Each maintained his  opinion  with  sufficient  obstinacy,
as is usual in all such cases; the attendants
were appealed to, but they had not been near
enough to hear Wamba's directions.  At length
Brian remarked, what had at first escaped him in
the twilight; ``Here is some one either asleep, or
lying dead at the foot of this cross---Hugo, stir him
with the but-end of thy lance.''

  This was no sooner done than the figure arose,
exclaiming in good French, ``Whosoever thou art,
it is discourteous in you to disturb my thoughts.''

  ``We did but wish to ask you,'' said the Prior,
``the road to Rotherwood, the abode of Cedric the
Saxon.''

  ``I myself am bound thither,'' replied the stranger;
``and if I had a horse, I would be your guide,
for the way is somewhat intricate, though perfectly
well known to me.''

  ``Thou shalt have both thanks and reward, my
friend,'' said the Prior, ``if thou wilt bring us to
Cedric's in safety.''

  And he caused one of his attendants to mount
his own led horse, and give that upon which he had
hitherto ridden to the stranger, who was to serve
for a guide.

  Their conductor pursued an opposite road from
that which Wamba had recommended, for the purpose
of misleading them.  The path soon led deeper
into the woodland, and crossed more than one brook,
the approach to which was rendered perilous by
the marshes through which it flowed; but the stranger
seemed to know, as if by instinct, the soundest
ground and the safest points of passage; and by
dint of caution and attention, brought the party
safely into a wilder avenue than any they had yet
seen; and, pointing to a large low irregular building
at the upper extremity, he said to the Prior,
``Yonder is Rotherwood, the dwelling of Cedric
the Saxon.''

  This was a joyful intimation to Aymer, whose
nerves were none of the strongest, and who had
suffered such agitation and alarm in the course of
passing through the dangerous bogs, that he had
not yet had the curiosity to ask his guide a single
question.  Finding himself now at his ease and
near shelter, his curiosity began to awake, and he
demanded of the guide who and what he was.

  ``A Palmer, just returned from the Holy Land,''
was the answer.

  ``You had better have tarried there to fight
for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre,'' said the
Templar.

  ``True, Reverend Sir Knight,'' answered the
Palmer, to whom the appearance of the Templar
seemed perfectly familiar; ``but when those who
are under oath to recover the holy city, are found
travelling at such a distance from the scene of their
duties, can you wonder that a peaceful peasant like
me should decline the task which they have abandoned?''

  The Templar would have made an angry reply,
but was interrupted by the Prior, who again expressed
his astonishment, that their guide, after
such long absence, should be so perfectly acquainted
with the passes of the forest.

  ``I was born a native of these parts,'' answered
their guide, and as he made the reply they stood
before the mansion of Cedric;---a low irregular
building, containing several court-yards or enclosures,
extending over a considerable space of ground,
and which, though its size argued the inhabitant to
be a person of wealth, differed entirely from the
tall, turretted, and castellated buildings in which
the Norman nobility resided, and which had become
the universal style of architecture throughout
England.

  Rotherwood was not, however, without defences;
no habitation, in that disturbed period, could have
been so, without the risk of being plundered and
burnt before the next morning.  A deep fosse, or
ditch, was drawn round the whole building, and
filled with water from a neighbouring stream.  A
double stockade, or palisade, composed of pointed
beams, which the adjacent forest supplied, defended
the outer and inner bank of the trench.  There
was an entrance from the west through the outer
stockade, which communicated by a drawbridge,
with a similar opening in the interior defences.
Some precautions had been taken to place those
entrances under the protection of projecting angles,
by which they might be flanked in case of need by
archers or slingers.

  Before this entrance the Templar wound his horn
loudly; for the rain, which had long threatened,
began now to descend with great violence.



                CHAPTER III.

  Then (sad relief!) from the bleak coast that hears
  The German Ocean roar, deep-blooming, strong,
  And yellow hair'd, the blue-eyed Saxon came.

                                                                                                                        Thomson's _Liberty_.


  In a hall, the height of which was greatly disproportioned
to its extreme length and width, a
long oaken table, formed of planks rough-hewn
from the forest, and which had scarcely received
any polish, stood ready prepared for the evening
meal of Cedric the Saxon. The roof, composed of
beams and rafters, had nothing to divide the apartment
from the sky excepting the planking and
thatch; there was a huge fireplace at either end of
the hall, but as the chimneys were constructed in
a very clumsy manner, at least as much of the
smoke found its way into the apartment as escaped
by the proper vent.  The constant vapour which
this occasioned, had polished the rafters and beams
of the low-browed hall, by encrusting them with a
black varnish of soot. On the sides of the apartment
hung implements of war and of the chase,
and there were at each corner folding doors, which
gave access to other parts of the extensive building.

  The  other  appointments  of  the  mansion  partook
of the rude simplicity of the Saxon period, which
Cedric piqued himself upon maintaining.  The
floor was composed of earth mixe with lime, trodden
into a hard substance, such as is often employed
in flooring our modern barns.  For about one
quarter of the length of the apartment, the floor
was raised by a step, and this space, which was called
the dais, was occupied only by the principal members
of the family, and visitors of distinction.  For
this purpose, a table richly covered with scarlet cloth
was placed transversely across the platform, from
the middle of which ran the longer and lower board,
at which the domestics and inferior persons fed,
down towards the bottom of the hall.  The whole
resembled the form of the letter T, or some of those
ancient dinner-tables, which, arranged on the same
principles, may be still seen in the antique Colleges
of Oxford or Cambridge.  Massive chairs and settles
of carved oak were placed upon the dais, and
over these seats and the more elevated table was
fastened a canopy of cloth, which served in some
degree to protect the dignitaries who occupied that
distinguished station from the weather, and especially
from the rain, which in some places found its
way through the ill-constructed roof.

  The walls of this upper end of the hall, as far as
the dais extended, were covered with hangings or
curtains, and upon the floor there was a carpet, both
of which were adorned with some attempts at tapestry,
or embroidery, executed with brilliant or
rather gaudy colouring.  Over the lower range of
table, the roof, as we have noticed, had no covering;
the rough plastered walls were left bare, and
the rude earthen floor was uncarpeted; the board
was uncovered by a cloth, and rude massive benches
supplied the place of chairs.

  In the centre of the upper table, were placed two
chairs more elevated than the rest, for the master
and mistress of the family, who presided over the
scene of hospitality, and from doing so derived their
Saxon title of honour, which signifies ``the Dividers
of Bread.''

  To each of these chairs was added a footstool,
curiously carved and inlaid with ivory, which mark
of distinction was peculiar to them.  One of these
seats was at present occupied by Cedric the Saxon,
who, though but in rank a thane, or, as the Normans
called him, a Franklin, felt, at the delay of
his evening meal, an irritable impatience, which
might have become an alderman, whether of ancient
or of modern times.

  It appeared, indeed, from the countenance of this
proprietor, that he was of a frank, but hasty and
choleric temper.  He was not above the middle
stature, but broad-shouldered, long-armed, and
powerfully made, like one accustomed to endure
the fatigue of war or of the chase; his face was
broad, with large blue eyes, open and frank features,
fine teeth, and a well formed head, altogether expressive
of that sort of good-humour which often
lodges with a sudden and hasty temper.  Pride and
jealousy there was in his eye, for his life had been
spent in asserting rights which were constantly
liable to invasion; and the prompt, fiery, and resolute
disposition of the man, had been kept constantly
upon the alert by the circumstances of his situation.
His long yellow hair was equally divided on
the top of his head and upon his brow, and combed
down on each side to the length of his shoulders;
it had but little tendency to grey, although Cedric
was approaching to his sixtieth year.

  His dress was a tunic of forest green, furred at
the throat and cuffs with what was called minever;
a kind of fur inferior in quality to ermine, and
formed, it is believed, of the skin of the grey squirrel.
This doublet hung unbuttoned over a close
dress of scarlet which sate tight to his body; he
had breeches of the same, but they did not reach
below the lower part of the thigh, leaving the knee
exposed.  His feet had sandals of the same fashion
with the peasants, but of finer materials, and secured
in the front with golden clasps.  He had
bracelets of gold upon his arms, and a broad collar
of the same precious metal around his neck.  About
his waist he wore a richly-studded belt, in which
was stuck a short straight two-edged sword, with a
sharp point, so disposed as to hang almost perpendicularly
by his side.  Behind his seat was hung a
scarlet cloth cloak lined with fur, and a cap of the
same materials richly embroidered, which completed
the dress of the opulent landholder when he chose
to go forth.  A short boar-spear, with a broad and
bright steel head, also reclined against the back of
his chair, which served him, when he walked abroad,
for the purposes of a staff or of a weapon, as chance
might require.

  Several domestics, whose dress held various proportions
betwixt the richness of their master's, and
the coarse and simple attire of Gurth the swine-herd,
watched the looks and waited the commands of the
Saxon dignitary.  Two or three servants of a superior
order stood behind their master upon the
dais; the rest occupied the lower part of the hall.
Other attendants there were of a different description;
two or three large and shaggy greyhounds,
such as were then employed in hunting the stag
and wolf; as many slow-hounds of a large bony
breed, with thick necks, large beads, and long ears;
and one or two of the smaller dogs, now called terriers,
which waited with impatience the arrival of
the supper; but, with the sagacious knowledge of
physiognomy peculiar to their race, forbore to intrude
upon the moody silence of their master, apprehensive
probably of a small white truncheon
which lay by Cedric's trencher, for the purpose of
repelling the advances of his four-legged dependants.
One grisly old wolf-dog alone, with the liberty
of an indulged favourite, had planted himself
close by the chair of state, and occasionally ventured
to solicit notice by putting his large hairy
head upon his master's knee, or pushing his nose
into his hand.  Even he was repelled by the stem
command, ``Down, Balder, down! I am not in the
humour for foolery.''

  In fact, Cedric, as we have observed, was in no
very placid state of mind.  The Lady Rowena,
who had been absent to attend  an evening mass at
a distant church, had but just returned, and was
changing her garments, which had been wetted by
the storm.  There were as yet no tidings of Gurth
and his charge, which should long since have been
driven home from the forest and such was the insecurity
of the period, as to render it probable that
the delay might be explained by some depreciation
of the outlaws, with whom the adjacent forest
abounded, or by the violence of some neighbouring
baron, whose consciousness of strength made him
equally negligent of the laws of property.  The
matter was of consequence, for great part of the domestic
wealth of the Saxon proprietors consisted in
numerous herds of swine, especially in forest-land,
where those animals easily found their food.

  Besides these subjects of anxiety, the Saxon
thane was impatient for the presence of his favourite
clown Wamba, whose jests, such as they were,
served for a sort of seasoning to his evening meal,
and to the deep draughts of ale and wine with which
he was in the habit of accompanying it.  Add to all
this, Cedric had fasted since noon, and his usual
supper hour was long past, a cause of irritation
common to country squires, both in ancient and
modern times.  His displeasure was expressed in
broken sentences, partly muttered to himself, partly
addressed to the domestics who stood around; and
particularly to his cupbearer, who offered him from
time to time, as a sedative, a silver goblet filled with
wine---``Why tarries the Lady Rowena?''

  ``She is but changing her head-gear,'' replied a
female attendant, with as much confidence as the
favourite lady's-maid usually answers the master of
a modern family; ``you would not wish her to sit
down to the banquet in her hood and kirtle? and
no lady within the shire can be quicker in arraying
herself than my mistress.''

  This undeniable argument produced a sort of acquiescent
umph! on the part of the Saxon, with
the addition, ``I wish her devotion may choose fair
weather for the next visit to St John's Kirk;---
but what, in the name of ten devils,'' continued he,
turning to the cupbearer, and raising his voice as
if happy to have found a channel into which he
might divert his indignation without fear or control---
``what, in the name of ten devils, keeps
Gurth so long afield? I suppose we shall have an
evil account of the herd; he was wont to be a faithful
and cautious drudge, and I had destined him
for something better; perchance I might even have
made him one of my warders.''*

*  The original has _Cnichts_, by which the Saxons seem to
*  have designated a class of military attendants, sometimes free,
*  sometimes bondsmen, but always ranking above an ordinary
*  domestic, whether in the royal household or in those of the
*  aldermen and thanes.  But the term cnicht, now spelt knight,
*  having been received into the English language as equivalent
*  to the Norman word chevalier, I have avoided using it in its
*  more ancient sense, to prevent confusion.              L. T.

  Oswald the cupbearer modestly suggested, ``that
it was scarce an hour since the tolling of the curfew;''
an ill-chosen apology, since it turned upon
a topic so harsh to Saxon ears.

  ``The foul fiend,'' exclaimed Cedric, ``take the
curfew-bell, and the tyrannical bastard by whom it
was devised, and the heartless slave who names it
with a Saxon tongue to a Saxon ear! The curfew!''
he added, pausing, ``ay, the curfew; which compels
true men to extinguish their lights, that thieves
and robbers may work their deeds in darkness!---
Ay, the curfew;---Reginald Front-de-B<oe>uf and
Philip de Malvoisin know the use of the curfew as
well as William the Bastard himself, or e'er a Norman
adventurer that fought at Hastings.  I shall
hear, I guess, that my property has been swept off
to save from starving the hungry banditti, whom
they cannot support but by theft and robbery.  My
faithful slave is murdered, and my goods are taken
for a prey---and Wamba---where is Wamba? Said
not some one he had gone forth with Gurth?''

  Oswald replied in the affirmative.

  `` Ay? why this is better and better! he is carried
off too, the Saxon fool, to serve the Norman
lord.  Fools are we all indeed that serve them, and
fitter subjects for their scorn and laughter, than if
we were born with but half our wits.  But I will
be avenged,'' he added, starting from his char in
impatience at the supposed injury, and catching
hold of his boar-spear; ``I will go with my complaint
to the great council; I have friends, I have
followers---man to man will I appeal the Norman
to the lists; let him come in his plate and his mail,
and all that can render cowardice bold; I have sent
such a javelin as this through a stronger fence than
three of their war shields!---Haply they think me
old; but they shall find, alone and childless as I
am, the blood of Hereward is in the veins of Cedric.
---Ah, Wilfred, Wilfred!'' he exclaimed in a lower
tone, ``couldst thou have ruled thine unreasonable
passion, thy father had not been left in his age like
the solitary oak that throws out its shattered and
unprotected branches against the full sweep of the
tempest!'' The reflection seemed to conjure into
sadness his irritated feelings.  Replacing his javelin,
he resumed his seat, bent his looks downward,
and appeared to be absorbed in melancholy reflection.

  From his musing, Cedric was suddenly awakened
by the blast of a born, which was replied to by
the clamorous yells and barking of all the dogs in
the hall, and some twenty or thirty which were
quartered in other parts of the building.  It cost
some exercise of the white truncheon, well seconded
by the exertions of the domestics, to silence this
canine clamour.

  ``To the gate, knaves!'' said the Saxon, hastily,
as soon as the tumult was so much appeased that
the dependants could hear his voice.  ``See what
tidings that horn tells us of---to announce, I ween,
some hership* and robbery which has been done

*    Pillage.

upon my lands.''

  Returning in less than three minutes, a warder
announced ``that the Prior Aymer of Jorvaulx,
and the good knight Brian de Bois-Guilbert, commander
of the valiant and venerable order of Knights
Templars, with a small retinue, requested hospitality
and lodging for the night, being on their way
to a tournament which was to be held not far from
Ashby-de-la-Zouche,  on  the  second   day   from   the
present.''

  ``Aymer, the Prior Aymer? Brian de Bois-Guilbert?''
---muttered Cedric; ``Normans both;---
but Norman or Saxon, the hospitality of Rotherwood
must not be impeached; they are welcome,
since they have chosen to halt---more welcome
would they have been to have ridden further on
their way---But it were unworthy to murmur for
a night's lodging and a night's food; in the quality
of guests, at least, even Normans must suppress
their insolence.---Go, Hundebert,'' he added, to a
sort of major-domo who stood behind him with a
white wand; ``take six of the attendants, and introduce
the strangers to the guests' lodging.  Look
after their horses and mules, and see their train lack
nothing.  Let them have change of vestments if
they require it, and fire, and water to wash, and
wine and ale; and bid the cooks add what they
hastily can to our evening meal; and let it be put
on the board when those strangers are ready to
share it.  Say to them, Hundebert, that Cedric
would himself bid them welcome, but he is under a
vow never to step more than three steps from the
dais of his own hall to meet any who shares not the
blood of Saxon royalty.  Begone! see them carefully
tended; let them not say in their pride, the
Saxon churl has shown at once his poverty and his
avarice.''

  The major-domo departed with several attendants,
to execute his master's commands.  ``The
Prior Aymer!'' repeated Cedric, looking to Oswald,
``the brother, if I mistake not, of Giles de
Mauleverer, now lord of Middleham?''

  Oswald made a respectful sign of assent.  ``His
brother sits in the seat, and usurps the patrimony,
of a better race, the race of Ulfgar of Middleham;
but what Norman lord doth not the same? This
Prior is, they say, a free and jovial priest, who
loves the wine-cup and the bugle-horn better than
bell and book: Good; let him come, he shall be
welcome.  How named ye the Templar?''

  ``Brian de Bois-Guilbert.''

  ``Bois-Guilbert,'' said Cedric, still in the musing,
half-arguing tone, which the habit of living among
dependants had accustomed him to employ, and
which resembled a man who talks to himself rather
than to those around him---``Bois-Guilbert? that
name has been spread wide both for good and evil.
They say he is valiant as the bravest of his order;
but stained with their usual vices, pride, arrogance,
cruelty, and voluptuousness; a hard-hearted
man, who knows neither fear of earth, nor awe
of heaven.  So say the few warriors who have returned
from Palestine.---Well; it is but for one
night; he shall be welcome too.---Oswald, broach
the oldest wine-cask; place the best mead, the
mightiest ale, the richest morat, the most sparkling
cider, the most odoriferous pigments, upon the
board; fill the largest horns*---Templars and Abbots

*   These were drinks used by the Saxons, as we are informed
*   by Mr Turner: Morat was made of honey flavoured with the
*   juice of mulberries; Pigment was a sweet and rich liquor, composed
*   of wine highly spiced, and sweetened also with honey;
*   the other liquors need no explanation.              L. T.

love good wines and good measure.---Elgitha,
let thy Lady Rowena, know we shall not this night
expect her in the hall, unless such be her especial
pleasure.''

  ``But it will be her especial pleasure,'' answered
Elgitha, with great readiness, ``for she is ever desirous
to hear the latest news from Palestine.''

  Cedric darted at the forward damsel a glance of
hasty resentment; but Rowena, and whatever belonged
to her, were privileged and secure from his
anger.  He only replied, ``Silence, maiden; thy
tongue outruns thy discretion.  Say my message
to thy mistress, and let her do her pleasure.  Here,
at least, the descendant of Alfred still reigns a
princess.'' Elgitha left the apartment.

  ``Palestine!'' repeated the Saxon; ``Palestine!
how many ears are turned to the tales which dissolute
crusaders, or hypocritical pilgrims, bring from
that fatal land! I too might ask---I too might enquire---
I too might listen with a beating heart to
fables which the wily strollers devise to cheat us
into hospitality---but no---The son who has disobeyed
me is no longer mine; nor will I concern
myself more for his fate than for that of the most
worthless among the millions that ever shaped the
cross on their shoulder, rushed into excess and
blood-guiltiness, and called it an accomplishment
of the will of God.''

  He knit his brows, and fixed his eyes for an instant
on the ground; as he raised them, the folding
doors at the bottom of the hall were cast wide,
and, preceded by the major-domo with his wand,
and four domestics bearing blazing torches, the
guests of the evening entered the apartment.



                 CHAPTER IV.

   With sheep and shaggy goats the porkers bled,
   And the proud steer was on the marble spread;
   With fire prepared, they deal the morsels round,
   Wine rosy bright the brimming goblets crown'd.
     -     -     -     -     -     -     -
   Disposed apart, Ulysses shares the treat;
   A trivet table and ignobler seat,
   The Prince assigns---
                                _Odyssey, Book_ 21.


  The Prior Aymer had taken the opportunity
afforded him, of changing his riding robe for one
of yet more costly materials, over which he wore a
cope curiously embroidered.  Besides the massive
golden signet ring, which marked his ecclesiastical
dignity, his fingers, though contrary to the canon,
were loaded with precious gems; his sandals were
of the finest leather which was imported from
Spain; his beard trimmed to as small dimensions
as his order would possibly permit, and his shaven
crown concealed by a scarlet cap richly embroidered.

  The appearance of the Knight Templar was also
changed; and, though less studiously bedecked with
ornament, his dress was as rich, and his appearance
far more commanding, than that of his companion.
He had exchanged his shirt of mail for an under
tunic of dark purple silk, garnished with furs, over
which flowed his long robe of spotless white, in
ample folds.  The eight-pointed cross of his order
was cut on the shoulder of his mantle in black velvet.
The high cap no longer invested his brows,
which were only shaded by short and thick curled
hair of a raven blackness, corresponding to his unusually
swart complexion.  Nothing could be more
gracefully majestic than his step and manner, had
they not been marked by a predominant air of
haughtiness, easily acquired by the exercise of unresisted
authority.

  These two dignified persons were followed by
their respective attendants, and at a more humble
distance by their guide, whose figure had nothing
more remarkable than it derived from the usual
weeds of a pilgrim.  A cloak or mantle of coarse
black serge, enveloped his whole body.  It was in
shape something like the cloak of a modern hussar,
having similar flaps for covering the arms, and was
called a _Sclaveyn_, or _Sclavonian_.  Coarse sandals,
bound with thongs, on his bare feet; a broad and
shadowy hat, with cockle-shells stitched on its brim,
and a long staff shod with iron, to the upper end
of which was attached a branch of palm, completed
the palmer's attire.  He followed modestly the last
of the train which entered the hall, and, observing
that the lower table scarce afforded room sufficient
for the domestics of Cedric and the retinue of his
guests, he withdrew to a settle placed beside and
almost under one of the large chimneys, and seemed
to employ himself in drying his garments, until
the retreat of some one should make room at the
board, or the hospitality of the steward should
supply him with refreshments in the place he had
chosen apart.

  Cedric rose to receive his guests with an air of
dignified hospitality, and, descending from the dais,
or elevated part of his hall, made three steps towards
them, and then awaited their approach.

  ``I grieve,'' he said, ``reverend Prior, that my
vow binds me to advance no farther upon this floor
of my fathers, even to receive such guests as you,
and this valiant Knight of the Holy Temple.  But
my steward has expounded to you the cause of my
seeming discourtesy.  Let me also pray, that you
will excuse my speaking to you in my native language,
and that you will reply in the same if your
knowledge of it permits; if not, I sufficiently understand
Norman to follow your meaning.''

  ``Vows,'' said the Abbot, ``must be unloosed,
worthy Franklin, or permit me rather to say, worthy
Thane, though the title is antiquated.  Vows
are the knots which tie us to Heaven---they are the
cords which bind the sacrifice to the horns of the
altar,---and are therefore,---as I said before,---to be
unloosened and discharged, unless our holy Mother
Church shall pronounce the contrary.  And respecting
language, I willingly hold communication in
that spoken by my respected grandmother, Hilda
of Middleham, who died in odour of sanctity, little
short, if we may presume to say so, of her glorious
namesake, the blessed Saint Hilda of Whitby, God
be gracious to her soul!''

  When the Prior had ceased what he meant as a
conciliatory harangue, his companion said briefly
and emphatically, ``I speak ever French, the language
of King Richard and his nobles; but I understand
English sufficiently to communicate with
the natives of the country.''

  Cedric darted at the speaker one of those hasty
and impatient glances, which comparisons between
the two rival nations seldom failed to call forth;
but, recollecting the duties of hospitality, he suppressed
further show of resentment, and, motioning
with his hand, caused his guests to assume two
seats a little lower than his own, but placed close
beside him, and gave a signal that the evening meal
should be placed upon the board.

  While the attendants hastened to obey Cedric's
commands, his eye distinguished Gurth the swineherd,
who, with his companion Wamba, had just
entered the hall.  ``Send these loitering knaves up
hither,'' said the Saxon, impatiently.  And when
the culprits came before the dais,---``How comes
it, villains! that you have loitered abroad so late
as this? Hast thou brought home thy charge, sirrah
Gurth, or hast thou left them to robbers and
marauders?''

  ``The herd is safe, so please ye,'' said Gurth.

  ``But it does not please me, thou knave,'' said
Cedric, ``that I should be made to suppose otherwise
for two hours, and sit here devising vengeance
against my neighbours for wrongs they have not
done me.  I tell thee, shackles and the prison-house
shall punish the next offence of this kind.''

  Gurth, knowing his master's irritable temper, attempted
no exculpation; but the Jester, who could
presume upon Cedric's tolerance, by virtue of his
privileges as a fool, replied for them both; ``In
troth, uncle Cedric, you are neither wise nor reasonable
to-night.''

  ``How, sir?'' said his master; ``you shall to the
porter's lodge, and taste of the discipline there, if
you give your foolery such license.''

  ``First let your wisdom tell me,'' said Wamba,
``is it just and reasonable to punish one person for
the fault of another?''

  ``Certainly not, fool,'' answered Cedric.

  ``Then why should you shackle poor Gurth, uncle,
for the fault of his dog Fangs? for I dare be
sworn we lost not a minute by the way, when we
had got our herd together, which Fangs did not
manage until we heard the vesper-bell.''

  ``Then hang up Fangs,'' said Cedric, turning
hastily towards the swineherd, ``if the fault is his,
and get thee another dog.''

  ``Under favour, uncle,'' said the Jester, ``that
were still somewhat on the bow-hand of fair justice;
for it was no fault of Fangs that he was lame
and could not gather the herd, but the fault of
those that struck off two of his fore-claws, an operation
for which, if the poor fellow had been consulted,
he would scarce have given his voice.''

  ``And who dared to lame an animal which belonged
to my bondsman?'' said the Saxon, kindling
in wrath.

  ``Marry,  that  did  old   Hubert,''   said   Wamba,
``Sir Philip de Malvoisin's keeper of the chase.
He caught Fangs strolling in the forest, and said he
chased the deer contrary to his master's right, as
warden of the walk.''

  ``The foul fiend take Malvoisin,'' answered the
Saxon, ``and his keeper both! I will teach them
that the wood was disforested in terms of the great
Forest Charter.  But enough of this.  Go to, knave,
go to thy place---and thou, Gurth, get thee another
dog, and should the keeper dare to touch it, I will
mar his archery; the curse of a coward on my head,
if I strike not off the forefinger of his right hand!
---he shall draw bowstring no more.---I crave your
pardon, my worthy guests.  I am beset here with
neighbours that match your infidels, Sir Knight, in
Holy Land.  But your homely fare is before you;
feed, and let welcome make amends for hard fare.''

  The feast, however, which was spread upon the
board, needed no apologies from the lord of the
mansion.  Swine's flesh, dressed in several modes,
appeared on the lower part of the board, as also
that of fowls, deer, goats, and hares, and various
kinds of fish, together with huge loaves and cakes
of bread, and sundry confections made of fruits and
honey.  The smaller sorts of wild-fowl, of which
there was abundance, were not served up in platters,
but brought in upon small wooden spits or
broaches, and offered by the pages and domestics
who bore them, to each guest in succession, who cut
from them such a portion as he pleased.  Beside
each person of rank was placed a goblet of silver;
the  lower   board   was   accommodated   with   large
drinking horns.

  When the repast was about to commence, the
major-domo, or steward, suddenly raising his wand,
said aloud,---``Forbear!---Place for the Lady
Rowena.'' A side-door at the upper end of the hali
now opened behind the banquet table, and Rowena,
followed by four female attendants, entered the
apartment.  Cedric, though surprised, and perhaps
not altogether agreeably so, at his ward appearing
in public on this occasion, hastened to meet her,
and to conduct her, with respectful ceremony, to
the elevated seat at his own right hand, appropriated
to the lady of the mansion.  All stood up to
receive her; and, replying to their courtesy by a
mute gesture of salutation, she moved gracefully
forward to assume her place at the board.  Ere she
had time to do so, the Templar whispered to the
Prior, ``I shall wear no collar of gold of yours at
the tournament.  The Chian wine is your own.''

  ``Said I not so?'' answered the Prior; ``but
check your raptures, the Franklin observes you.''

  Unheeding this remonstrance, and accustomed
only to act upon the immediate impulse of his own
wishes, Brian de Bois-Guilbert kept his eyes riveted
on the Saxon beauty, more striking perhaps to
his imagination, because differing widely from those
of the Eastern sultanas.

  Formed in the best proportions of her sex,
Rowena was tall in stature, yet not so much so as
to attract observation on account of superior height.
Her complexion was exquisitely fair, but the noble
cast of her head and features  prevented  the  insipidity
which sometimes attaches to fair beauties.  Her
clear blue eye, which sate enshrined beneath a graceful
eyebrow  of  brown  sufficiently  marked  to  give
expression to the forehead,  seemed  capable  to  kindle
as well as melt, to command  as  well  as  to  beseech.
If  mildness  were  the  more  natural  expression
of such a combination of features, it was plain,
that in the present instance, the exercise of habitual
superiority, and the reception of general homage,
had given to the Saxon lady a loftier character,
which mingled with and qualified that bestowed
by nature.  Her profuse hair, of a colour betwixt
brown and flaxen, was arranged in a fanciful and
graceful manner in numerous ringlets, to form which
art had probably aided nature.  These locks were
braided with gems, and, being worn at full length,
intimated the noble birth and free-born condition
of the maiden.  A golden chain, to which was attached
a small reliquary of the same metal, hung
round her neck.  She wore bracelets on her arms,
which were bare.  Her dress was an under-gown
and kirtle of pale sea-green silk, over which hung
a long loose robe, which reached to the ground,
having very wide sleeves, which came down, however,
very little below the elbow.  This robe was
crimson, and manufactured out of the very finest
wool.  A veil of silk, interwoven with gold, was
attached to the upper part of it, which could be, at
the wearer's pleasure, either drawn over the face
and bosom after the Spanish fashion, or disposed
as a sort of drapery round the shoulders.

  When Rowena perceived the Knight Templar's
eyes bent on her with an ardour, that, compared
with the dark caverns under which they moved,
gave them the effect of lighted charcoal, she drew
with dignity the veil around her face, as an intimation
that the determined freedom of his glance
was disagreeable.  Cedric saw the motion and its
cause.  ``Sir Templar,'' said he, ``the cheeks of
our Saxon maidens have seen too little of the sun
to enable them to bear the fixed glance of a crusader.''

  ``If I have offended,'' replied Sir Brian, ``I crave
your pardon,---that is, I crave the Lady Rowena's
pardon,---for my humility will carry me no lower.''

  ``The Lady Rowena,'' said the Prior, ``has
punished us all, in chastising the boldness of my
friend.  Let me hope she will be less cruel to the
splendid train which are to meet at the tournament.''

  ``Our going thither,'' said Cedric, ``is uncertain.
I love not these vanities, which were unknown to
my fathers when England was free.''

  ``Let us hope, nevertheless,'' said the Prior, ``our
company may determine you to travel thitherward;
when the roads are so unsafe, the escort of Sir
Brian de Bois-Guilbert is not to be despised.''

  ``Sir Prior,'' answered the Saxon, ``wheresoever
I have travelled in this land, I have hitherto found
myself, with the assistance of my good sword and
faithful followers, in no respect needful of other
aid.  At present, if we indeed journey to Ashby-de-la-Zouche,
we do so with my noble neighbour
and countryman Athelstane of Coningsburgh, and
with such a train as would set outlaws and feudal
enemies at defiance.---I drink to you, Sir Prior,
in this cup of wine, which I trust your taste will
approve, and I thank you for your courtesy.  Should
you be so rigid in adhering to monastic rule,'' he
added, ``as to prefer your acid preparation of milk,
I hope you will not strain courtesy to do me reason.''

  ``Nay,'' said the Priest, laughing, ``it is only in
our abbey that we confine ourselves to the _lac dulce_
or the _lac acidum_ either.  Conversing with, the
world, we use the world's fashions, and therefore
I answer your pledge in this honest wine, and leave
the weaker liquor to my lay-brother.''

  ``And I,'' said the Templar, filling his goblet,
``drink wassail to the fair Rowena; for since her
namesake introduced the word into England, has
never been one more worthy of such a tribute.  By
my faith, I could pardon the unhappy Vortigern,
had he half the cause that we now witness, for
making shipwreck of his honour and his kingdom.''

  ``I will spare your courtesy, Sir Knight,'' said
Rowena with dignity, and without unveiling herself;
``or rather I will tax it so far as to require
of you the latest news from Palestine, a theme
more agreeable to our English ears than the compliments
which your French breeding teaches.''

  ``I have little of importance to say, lady,'' answered
Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, ``excepting the
confirmed tidings of a truce with Saladin.''

  He was interrupted by Wamba, who had taken
his appropriated seat upon a chair, the back of
which was decorated with two ass's ears, and which
was placed about two steps behind that of his master,
who, from time to time, supplied him with victuals
from his own trencher; a favour, however,
which the Jester shared with the favourite dogs,
of whom, as we have already noticed, there were
several in attendance.  Here sat Wamba, with a
small table before him, his heels tucked up against
the bar of the chair, his cheeks sucked up so as to
make his jaws resemble a pair of nut-crackers, and
his eyes half-shut, yet watching with alertness every
opportunity to exercise his licensed foolery.

  ``These truces with the infidels,'' he exclaimed,
without caring how suddenly he interrupted the
stately Templar, ``make an old man of me!''

  ``Go to, knave, how so?'' said Cedric, his features
prepared to receive favourably the expected
jest.

  ``Because,'' answered Wamba, ``I remember
three of them in my day, each of which was to endure
for the course of fifty years; so that, by computation,
I must be at least a hundred and fifty
years old.''

  ``I will warrant you against dying of old age,
however,'' said the Templar, who now recognised
his friend of the forest; ``I will assure you from
all deaths but a violent one, if you give such directions
to wayfarers, as you did this night to the
Prior and me.''

  ``How, sirrah!'' said Cedric, ``misdirect travellers?
We must have  you whipt; you are at least
as much rogue as fool.''

  ``I pray thee, uncle,'' answered the Jester, ``let
my folly, for once, protect my roguery.  I did but
make a mistake between my right hand and my
left; and he might have pardoned a greater, who
took a fool for his counsellor and guide.''

  Conversation was here interrupted by the entrance
of the porter's page, who announced that
there was a stranger at the gate, imploring admittance
and hospitality,

  ``Admit him,'' said Cedric, ``be he who or what
he may;---a night like that which roars without,
compels even wild animals to herd with tame, and
to seek the protection of man, their mortal foe, rather
than perish by the elements.  Let his wants
be ministered to with all care---look to it, Oswald.''

  And the steward left the banqueting hall to see
the commands of his patron obeyed.



                 CHAPTER V.

     Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,
  senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt
  with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by
  the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and
  summer, as a Christian is?
                                   _Merchant of Venice_.

  Oswald, returning, whispered into the ear of
his master, ``It is a Jew, who calls himself Isaac
of York; is it fit I should marshall him into the
hall?''

  ``Let Gurth do thine office, Oswald,'' said Wamba
with his usual effrontery; ``the swineherd will
be a fit usher to the Jew.''

  ``St Mary,'' said the Abbot, crossing himself,
``an unbelieving Jew, and admitted into this presence!''

  ``A dog Jew,'' echoed the Templar, ``to approach
a defender of the Holy Sepulchre?''

  ``By my faith,'' said Wamba, ``it would seem
the Templars love the Jews' inheritance better than
they do their company.''

  ``Peace, my worthy guests,'' said Cedric; ``my
hospitality must not be bounded by your dislikes.
If Heaven bore with the whole nation of stiff-necked
unbelievers for more years than a layman can number,
we may endure the presence of one Jew for a
few hours.  But I constrain no man to converse or
to feed with him.---Let him have a board and a
morsel apart,---unless,'' he said smiling, ``these
turban'd strangers will admit his society.''

  ``Sir Franklin,'' answered the Templar, ``my
Saracen slaves are true Moslems, and scorn as much
as any Christian to hold intercourse with a Jew.''

  ``Now, in faith,'' said Wamba, ``I cannot see
that the worshippers of Mahound and Termagaunt
have so greatly the advantage over the people once
chosen of Heaven.''

  ``He shall sit with thee, Wamba,'' said Cedric;
``the fool and the knave will be well met.''

  ``The fool,'' answered Wamba, raising the relics
of a gammon of bacon, ``will take care to erect a
bulwark against the knave.''

  ``Hush,'' said Cedric, ``for here he comes.''

  Introduced with little ceremony, and advancing
with fear and hesitation, and many a bow of deep
humility, a tall thin old man, who, however, had
lost by the habit of stooping much of his actual
height, approached the lower end of the board.  His
features, keen and regular, with an aquiline nose,
and piercing black eyes; his high and wrinkled
forehead, and long grey hair and beard, would have
been considered as handsome, had they not been the
marks of a physiognomy peculiar to a race, which,
during those dark ages, was alike detested by the
credulous and prejudiced vulgar, and persecuted by
the greedy and rapacious nobility, and who, perhaps,
owing to that very hatred and persecution,
had adopted a national character, in which there
was much, to say the least, mean and unamiable.

  The Jew's dress, which appeared to have suffered
considerably from the storm, was a plain russet
cloak of many folds, covering a dark purple tunic.
He had large boots lined with fur, and a belt around
his waist, which sustained a small knife, together
with a case for writing materials, but no weapon.
He wore a high square yellow cap of a peculiar
fashion, assigned to his nation to distinguish them
from Christians, and which he doffed with great
humility at the door of the hall.

  The reception of this person in the ball of Cedric
the Saxon, was such as might have satisfied
the most prejudiced enemy of the tribes of Israel.
Cedric himself coldly nodded in answer to the Jew's
repeated salutations, and signed to him to take
place at the lower end of the table, where, however,
no one offered to make room for him.  On the contrary,
as he passed along the file, casting a timid
supplicating glance, and turning towards each of
those who occupied the lower end of the board, the
Saxon domestics squared their shoulders, and continued
to devour their supper with great perseverance,
paying not the least attention to the wants
of the new guest.  The attendants of the Abbot
crossed themselves, with looks of pious horror, and
the very heathen Saracens, as Isaac drew near them,
curled up their whiskers with indignation, and laid
their hands on their poniards, as if ready to rid
themselves by the most desperate means from the
apprehended contamination of his nearer approach.

  Probably the same motives which induced Cedric
to open his hall to this son of a rejected people,
would have made him insist on his attendants
receiving Isaac with more courtesy.  But the Abbot
had, at this moment, engaged him in a most
interesting discussion on the breed and character
of his favourite hounds, which he would not have
interrupted for matters of much greater importance
than that of a Jew going to bed supperless.  While
Isaac thus stood an outcast in the present society,
like his people among the nations, looking in vain
for welcome or resting place, the pilgrim who sat
by the chimney took compassion upon him, and resigned
his seat, saying briefly, ``Old man, my garments
are dried, my hunger is appeased, thou art
both wet and fasting.'' So saying, he gathered together,
and brought to a flame, the decaying brands
which lay scattered on the ample hearth; took from
the larger board a mess of pottage and seethed kid,
placed it upon the small table at which he had himself
supped, and, without waiting the Jew's thanks,
went to the other side of the hall;---whether from
unwillingness to hold more close communication
with the object of his benevolence, or from a wish
to draw near to the upper end of the table, seemed
uncertain.

  Had there been painters in those days capable
to execute such a subject, the Jew, as he bent his
withered form, and expanded his chilled and trembling
hands over the fire, would have formed no
bad emblematical personification of the Winter season.
Having dispelled the cold, he turned eagerly
to the smoking mess which was placed before him,
and ate with a haste and an apparent relish, that
seemed to betoken long abstinence from food.

  Meanwhile the Abbot and Cedric continued their
discourse upon hunting; the Lady Rowena seemed
engaged in conversation with one of her attendant
females; and the haughty Templar, whose eye
wandered from the Jew to the Saxon beauty, revolved
in his mind thoughts which appeared deeply
to interest him.

  ``I marvel, worthy Cedric,'' said the Abbot, as
their discourse proceeded, ``that, great as your predilection
is for your own manly language, you do
not receive the Norman-French into your favour,
so far at least as the mystery of wood-craft and
hunting is concerned.  Surely no tongue is so rich
in the various phrases which the field-sports demand,
or furnishes means to the experienced woodman
so well to express his jovial art.''

  `Good Father Aymer,'' said the Saxon, ``be it
known to you, I care not for those over-sea refinements,
without which I can well enough take my
pleasure in the woods.  I can wind my horn, though
I call not the blast either a _recheate_ or a _morte_---I
can cheer my dogs on the prey, and I can flay and
quarter the animal when it is brought down, without
using the newfangled jargon of _curee, arbor,
nombles_, and all the babble of the fabulous Sir Tristrem.''*

*  There was no language which the Normans more formally
*  separated from that of common life than the terms of the chase.
*  The objects of their pursuit, whether bird or animal, changed
*  their name each year, and there were a hundred conventional
*  terms, to be ignorant of which was to be without one of the distinguishing
*  marks of a gentleman.  The reader may consult Dame
*  Juliana Berners' book on the subject.  The origin of this science
*  was imputed to the celebrated Sir Tristrem, famous for his tragic
*  intrigue with the beautiful Ysolte.  As the Normans reserved
*  the amusement of hunting strictly to themselves, the terms
*  of this formal jargon were all taken from the French language.

  ``The French,'' said the Templar, raising his
voice with the presumptuous and authoritative tone
which he used upon all occasions, ``is not only the
natural language of the chase, but that of love and
of war, in which ladies should be won and enemies
defied.''

  ``Pledge me in a cup of wine, Sir Templar,''
said Cedric, ``and fill another to the Abbot, while
I look back some thirty years to tell you another
tale.  As Cedric the Saxon then was, his plain English
tale needed no garnish from French troubadours,
when it was told in the ear of beauty; and
the field of Northallerton, upon the day of the Holy
Standard, could tell whether the Saxon war-cry was
not heard as far within the ranks of the Scottish host
as the _cri de guerre_ of the boldest Norman baron.
To the memory of the brave who fought there!---
Pledge me, my guests.'' He drank deep, and went
on with increasing warmth. ``Ay, that was a day
of cleaving of shields, when a hundred banners were
bent forwards over the heads of the valiant, and
blood flowed round like water, and death was held
better than flight.  A Saxon bard had called it a
feast of the swords---a gathering of the eagles to
the prey---the clashing of bills upon shield and helmet,
the shouting of battle more joyful than the
clamour of a bridal.  But our bards are no more,''
he said; ``our deeds are lost in those of another
race---our language---our very name---is hastening
to decay, and none mourns for it save one solitary
old man---Cupbearer! knave, fill the goblets---To
the strong in arms, Sir Templar, be their race or
language what it will, who now bear them best in
Palestine among the champions of the Cross!''

  ``It becomes not one wearing this badge to answer,''
said Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert; ``yet to
whom, besides the sworn Champions of the Holy
Sepulchre, can the palm be assigned among the
champions of the Cross?''

  ``To the Knights Hospitallers,'' said the Abbot;
``I have a brother of their order.''

  ``I impeach not their fame,'' said the Templar;
``nevertheless------''

  ``I think, friend Cedric,'' said Wamba, interfering,
``that had Richard of the Lion's Heart
been wise enough to have taken a fool's advice, he
might have staid at home with his merry Englishmen,
and left the recovery of Jerusalem to those
same Knights who had most to do with the loss of
it.''

  ``Were there, then, none in the English army,''
said the Lady Rowena, ``whose names are worthy
to be mentioned with the Knights of the Temple,
and of St John?''

  `` Forgive me, lady,'' replied De Bois-Guilbert;
``the English monarch did, indeed, bring to Palestine
a host of gallant warriors, second only to those
whose breasts have been the unceasing bulwark of
that blessed land.''

  ``Second to =none=,'' said the Pilgrim, who had
stood near enough to hear, and had listened to this
conversation with marked impatience.  All turned
toward the spot from whence this unexpected asseveration
was heard.  ``I say,'' repeated the Pilgrim
in a firm and strong voice, ``that the English
chivalry were second to =none= who ever drew sword
in defence of the Holy Land.  I say besides, for I
saw it, that King Richard himself, and five of his
knights, held a tournament after the taking of St
John-de-Acre, as challengers against all comers.  I
say that, on that day, each knight ran three courses,
and cast to the ground three antagonists.  I add,
that seven of these assailants were Knights of the
Temple---and Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert well
knows the truth of what I tell you.''

  It is impossible for language to describe the
bitter scowl of rage which rendered yet darker the
swarthy countenance of the Templar.  In the extremity
of his resentment and confusion, his quivering
fingers griped towards the handle of his
sword, and perhaps only withdrew, from the consciousness
that no act of violence could be safely
executed in that place and presence.  Cedric, whose
feelings were all of a right onward and simple kind,
and were seldom occupied by more than one object
at once, omitted, in the joyous glee with which be
heard of the glory of his countrymen, to remark the
angry confusion of his guest; ``I would give thee
this golden bracelet, Pilgrim,'' he said, ``couldst thou
tell me the names of those knights who upheld so
gallantly the renown of merry England.''

  ``That will I do blithely,'' replied the Pilgrim,
``and without guerdon; my oath, for a time, prohibits
me from touching gold.''

  ``I will wear the bracelet for you, if you will,
friend Palmer,'' said Wamba.

  ``The first in honour as in arms, in renown as
in place,'' said the Pilgrim, ``was the brave Richard,
King of England.''

  ``I forgive him,'' said Cedric; ``I forgive him
his descent from the tyrant Duke William.''

  ``The Earl of Leicester was the second,'' continued
the Pilgrim; ``Sir Thomas Multon of Gilsland
was the third.''

  ``Of Saxon descent, he at least,'' said Cedric,
with exultation.

  ``Sir Foulk Doilly the fourth,'' proceeded the
Pilgrim.

  ``Saxon also, at least by the mother's side,'' continued
Cedric, who listened with the utmost eagerness,
and forgot, in part at least, his hatred to the
Normans, in the common triumph of the King of
England and his islanders.  ``And who was the
fifth?'' he demanded.

  ``The fifth was Sir Edwin Turneham.''

  ``Genuine Saxon, by the soul of Hengist!''
shouted Cedric---``And the sixth?'' he continued
with eagerness---``how name you the sixth?''

  ``The sixth,'' said the Palmer, after a pause, in
which he seemed to recollect himself, ``was a young
knight of lesser renown and lower rank, assumed
into that honourable company, less to aid their enterprise
than to make up their number---his name
dwells not in my memory.''

  ``Sir Palmer,'' said Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert
scornfully, ``this assumed forgetfulness, after so
much has been remembered, comes too late to serve
your purpose.  I will myself tell the name of the
knight before whose lance fortune and my horse's
fault occasioned my falling---it was the Knight of
Ivanhoe; nor was there one of the six that, for his
years, had more renown in arms.---Yet this will I
say, and loudly---that were he in England, and
durst repeat, in this week's tournament, the challenge
of St John-de-Acre, I, mounted and armed as
I now am, would give him every advantage of weapons,
and abide the result.''

  ``Your challenge would soon be answered,'' replied
the Palmer, ``were your antagonist near you.
As the matter is, disturb not the peaceful hall with
vaunts of the issue of the conflict, which you well
know cannot take place.  If Ivanhoe ever returns
from Palestine, I will be his surety that he meets
you.''

  ``A goodly security!'' said the Knight Templar;
``and what do you proffer as a pledge?''

  ``This reliquary,'' said the Palmer, taking a small
ivory box from his bosom, and crossing himself,
``containing a portion of the true cross, brought
from the Monastery of Mount Carmel.''

  The Prior of Jorvaulx crossed himself and repeated
a pater noster, in which all devoutly joined,
excepting the Jew, the Mahomedans, and the Templar;
the latter of whom, without vailing his bonnet,
or testifying any reverence for the alleged sanctity
of the relic, took from his neck a gold chain,
which he flung on the board, saying---``Let Prior
Aymer hold my pledge and that of this nameless
vagrant, in token that when the Knight of Ivanhoe
comes within the four seas of Britain, he underlies
the challenge of Brian de Bois-Guilbert, which, if
he answer not, I will proclaim him as a coward on
the walls of every Temple Court in Europe.''

  ``It will not need,'' said the Lady Rowena, breaking
silence; ``My voice shall be heard, if no other
in this hall is raised in behalf of the absent Ivanhoe.
I affirm he will meet fairly every honourable challenge.
Could my weak warrant add security to the
inestimable pledge of this holy pilgrim, I would
pledge name and fame that Ivanhoe gives this proud
knight the meeting he desires.''

  A crowd of conflicting emotions seemed to have
occupied Cedric, and kept him silent during this
discussion.  Gratified pride, resentment, embarrassment,
chased each other over his broad and open
brow, like the shadow of clouds drifting over a harvest-field;
while his attendants, on whom the name
of the sixth knight seemed to produce an effect
almost electrical, hung in suspense upon their master's
looks.  But when Rowena spoke, the sound of
her voice seemed to startle him from his silence.

  ``Lady,'' said Cedric, ``this beseems not; were
further pledge necessary, I myself, offended, and
justly offended, as I am, would yet gage my honour
for the honour of Ivanhoe.  But the wager of battle
is complete, even according to the fantastic fashions
of Norman chivalry---Is it not, Father Aymer?''

  ``It is,'' replied the Prior; ``and the blessed
relic and rich chain will I bestow safely in the
treasury of our convent, until the decision of this,
warlike challenge.''

  Having thus spoken, he crossed himself again and
again, and after many genuflections and muttered
prayers, he delivered the reliquary to Brother Ambrose,
his attendant monk, while he himself swept
up with less ceremony, but perhaps with no less
internal satisfaction, the golden chain, and bestowed
it in a pouch lined with perfumed leather, which
opened under his arm.  ``And now, Sir Cedric,'' he
said, ``my ears are chiming vespers with the strength
of your good wine---permit us another pledge to
the welfare of the Lady Rowena, and indulge us
with liberty to pass to our repose.''

  ``By the rood of Bromholme,'' said the Saxon,
``you do but small credit to your fame, Sir Prior!
Report speaks you a bonny monk, that would hear
the matin chime ere he quitted his bowl; and, old
as I am, I feared to have shame in encountering
you.  But, by my faith, a Saxon boy of twelve, in
my time, would not so soon have relinquished his
goblet.''

  The Prior had his own reasons, however, for persevering
in the course of temperance which he had
adopted.  He was not only a professional peacemaker,
but from practice a hater of all feuds and
brawls.  It was not altogether from a love to his
neighbour, or to himself, or from a mixture of both.
On the present occasion, he had an instinctive apprehension
of the fiery temper of the Saxon, and
saw the danger that the reckless and presumptuous
spirit, of which his companion had already given
so many proofs, might at length produce some disagreeable
explosion.  He therefore gently insinuated
the incapacity of the native of any other country
to engage in the genial conflict of the bowl with the
hardy and strong-headed Saxons; something he
mentioned, but slightly, about his own holy character,
and ended by pressing his proposal to depart
to repose.

  The grace-cup was accordingly served round, and
the guests, after making deep obeisance to their
landlord and to the Lady Rowena, arose and mingled
in the hall, while the heads of the family, by
separate doors, retired with their attendants.

  ``Unbelieving dog,'' said the Templar to Isaac
the Jew, as he passed him in the throng, ``dost
thou bend thy course to the tournament?''

  ``I do so propose,'' replied Isaac, bowing in all
humility, ``if it please your reverend valour.''

  ``Ay,'' said the Knight, ``to gnaw the bowels of
our nobles with usury, and to gull women and boys
with gauds and toys---I warrant thee store of shekels
in thy Jewish scrap.''

  ``Not a shekel, not a silver penny, not a halfling---
so help me the God of Abraham!'' said the
Jew, clasping his hands; ``I go but to seek the
assistance of some brethren of my tribe to aid me
to pay the fine which the Exchequer of the Jews*

*   In those days the Jews were subjected to an Exchequer,
*   specially dedicated to that purpose, and which laid them under
*   the most exorbitant impositions.---L. T.

have imposed upon me---Father Jacob be my speed!
I am an impoverished wretch---the very gaberdine
I wear is borrowed from Reuben of Tadcaster.''

  The Templar smiled sourly as he replied, ``Beshrew
thee for a false-hearted liar!'' and passing
onward, as if disdaining farther conference, he communed
with his Moslem slaves in a language unknown
to the bystanders.  The poor Israelite seemed
so staggered by the address of the military monk,
that the Templar had passed on to the extremity of
the hall ere he raised his head from the humble posture
which he had assumed, so far as to be sensible
of his departure.  And when he did look around,
it was with the astonished air of one at whose feet
a thunderbolt has just burst, and who hears still
the astounding report ringing in his ears.

  The Templar and Prior were shortly after marshalled
to their sleeping apartments by the steward
and the cupbearer, each attended by two torchbearers
and two servants carrying refreshments,
while servants of inferior condition indicated to
their retinue and to the other guests their respective
places of repose.



                 CHAPTER VI.

   To buy his favour I extend this friendship:
   If he will take it, so; if not, adieu;
   And, for my love, I pray you wrong me not.
                                _Merchant of Venice_.

  As the Palmer, lighted by a domestic with a
torch, past through the intricate combination of
apartments of this large and irregular mansion, the
cupbearer coming behind him whispered in his ear,
that if he had no objection to a cup of good mead
in his apartment, there were many domestics in
that family who would gladly hear the news he had
brought from the Holy Land, and particularly that
which concerned the Knight of Ivanhoe.  Wamba
presently appeared to urge the same request, observing
that a cup after midnight was worth three
after curfew.  Without disputing a maxim urged
by such grave authority, the Palmer thanked them
for their courtesy, but observed that he had included
in his religious vow, an obligation never to
speak in the kitchen on matters which were prohibited
in the hall.  ``That vow,'' said Wamba to the
cupbearer, ``would scarce suit a serving-man.''

  The cupbearer shrugged up his shoulders in displeasure.
``I thought to have lodged him in the
solere chamber,'' said he; ``but since he is so unsocial
to Christians, e'en let him take the next stall
to Isaac the Jew's.---Anwold,'' said he to the torchbearer,
``carry the Pilgrim to the southern cell.---
I give you good-night,'' he added, ``Sir Palmer,
with small thanks for short courtesy.''

  ``Good-night, and Our Lady's benison,'' said the
Palmer, with composure; and his guide moved forward.

  In a small antechamber, into which several doors
opened, and which was lighted by a small iron lamp,
they met a second interruption from the waiting-maid
of Rowena, who, saying in a tone of authority,
that her mistress desired to speak with the
Palmer, took the torch from the hand of Anwold,
and, bidding him await her return, made a sign to
the Palmer to follow.  Apparently he did not think
it proper to decline this invitation as he had done
the former; for, though his gesture indicated some
surprise at the summons, he obeyed it without answer
or remonstrance.

  A short passage, and an ascent of seven steps,
each of which was composed of a solid beam of oak,
led him to the apartment of the Lady Rowena, the
rude magnificence of which corresponded to the
respect which was paid to her by the lord of the
mansion.  The walls were covered with embroidered
hangings, on which different-coloured silks, interwoven
with gold and silver threads, had been
employed with all the art of which the age was capable,
to represent the sports of hunting and hawking.
The bed was adorned with the same rich
tapestry, and surrounded with curtains dyed with
purple.  The seats had also their stained coverings,
and one, which was higher than the rest, was
accommodated with a footstool of ivory, curiously
carved.

  No fewer than four silver candelabras, holding
great waxen torches, served to illuminate this apartment.
Yet let not modern beauty envy the magnificence
of a Saxon princess.  The walls of the
apartment were so ill finished and so full of crevices,
that the rich hangings shook in the night blast,
and, in despite of a sort of screen intended to protect
them from the wind, the flame of the torches
streamed sideways into the air, like the unfurled
pennon of a chieftain.  Magnificence there was,
with some rude attempt at taste; but of comfort
there was little, and, being unknown, it was unmissed.

  The Lady Rowena, with three of her attendants
standing at her back, and arranging her hair ere
she lay down to rest, was seated in the sort of throne
already mentioned, and looked as if born to exact
general homage.  The Pilgrim acknowledged her
claim to it by a low genuflection.

  ``Rise, Palmer,'' said she graciously.  ``The defender
of the absent has a right to favourable reception
from all who value truth, and honour manhood.''
She then said to her train, ``Retire, excepting
only Elgitha; I would speak with this holy
Pilgrim.''

  The maidens, without leaving the apartment,
retired to its further extremity, and sat down on a
small bench against the wall, where they remained
mute as statues, though at such a distance that
their whispers could not have interrupted the conversation
of their mistress.

  ``Pilgrim,'' said the lady, after a moment's pause,
during which she seemed uncertain how to address
him, ``you this night mentioned a name---I mean,''
she said, with a degree of effort, ``the name of
Ivanhoe, in the halls where by nature and kindred
it should have sounded most acceptably; and yet,
such is the perverse course of fate, that of many
whose hearts must have throbbed at the sound, I,
only, dare ask you where, and in what condition,
you left him of whom you spoke?---We heard,
that, having remained in Palestine, on account of
his impaired health, after the departure of the English
army, he had experienced the persecution of the
French faction, to whom the Templars are known
to be attached.''

  ``I know little of the Knight of Ivanhoe,'' answered
the Palmer, with a troubled voice.  ``I
would I knew him better, since you, lady, are interested
in his fate.  He hath, I believe, surmounted
the persecution of his enemies in Palestine, and
is on the eve of returning to England, where you,
lady, must know better than I, what is his chance
of happiness.''

  The Lady Rowena sighed deeply, and asked
more particularly when the Knight of Ivanhoe
might be expected in his native country, and whether
he would not be exposed to great dangers by
the road.  On the first point, the Palmer professed
ignorance; on the second, he said that the voyage
might be safely made by the way of Venice and
Genoa, and from thence through France to England.
``Ivanhoe,'' he said, ``was so well acquainted
with the language and manners of the French,
that there was no fear of his incurring any hazard
during that part of his travels.''

  ``Would to God,'' said the Lady Rowena, ``he
were here safely arrived, and able to bear arms in
the approaching tourney, in which the chivalry of
this land are expected to display their address and
valour.  Should Athelstane of Coningsburgh obtain
the prize, Ivanhoe is like to hear evil tidings
when he reaches England.---How looked he, stranger,
when you last saw him? Had disease laid her
hand heavy upon his strength and comeliness?''

  ``He was darker,'' said the Palmer, ``and thinner,
than when he came from Cyprus in the train
of C<oe>ur-de-Lion, and care seemed to sit heavy on
his brow; but I approached not his presence, because
he is unknown to me.''

  ``He will,'' said the lady, ``I fear, find little in
his native land to clear those clouds from his countenance.
Thanks, good Pilgrim, for your information
concerning the companion of my childhood.
---Maidens,'' she said, ``draw near---offer the sleeping
cup to this holy man, whom I will no longer
detain from repose.''

  One of the maidens presented a silver cup, containing
a rich mixture of wine and spice, which
Rowena barely put to her lips.  It was then offered
to the Palmer, who, after a low obeisance, tasted
a few drops.

  ``Accept this alms, friend,'' continued the lady,
offering a piece of gold, ``in acknowledgment of
thy painful travail, and of the shrines thou hast
visited.''

  The Palmer received the boon with another low
reverence, and followed Edwina out of the apartment.

  In the anteroom he found his attendant Anwold,
who, taking the torch from the hand of the waiting-maid,
conducted him with more haste than ceremony
to an exterior and ignoble part of the building,
where a number of small apartments, or rather
cells, served for sleeping places to the lower order
of domestics, and to strangers of mean degree.

  ``In which of these sleeps the Jew?'' said the
Pilgrim.

  ``The unbelieving dog,'' answered Anwold,
kennels in the cell next your holiness.---St Dunstan,
how it must be scraped and cleansed ere it be
again fit for a Christian!''

  ``And where sleeps Gurth the swineherd?'' said
the stranger.

  ``Gurth,'' replied the bondsman, ``sleeps in the
cell on your right, as the Jew on that to your left;
you serve to keep the child of circumcision separate
from the abomination of his tribe.  You might have
occupied a more honourable place had you accepted
of Oswald's invitation.''

  ``It is as well as it is,'' said the Palmer; ``the
company, even of a Jew, can hardly spread contamination
through an oaken partition.''

  So saying, he entered the cabin  allotted  to  him,
and taking the torch from the domestic's hand,
thanked him, and wished him good-night.  Having
shut the door of his cell, he placed the torch in a
candlestick made of wood, and looked around his
sleeping apartment, the furniture of which was of
the most simple kind. It consisted of a rude wooden
stool, and still ruder hutch or bed-frame, stuffed
with clean straw, and accommodated with two or
three sheepskins by way of bed-clothes.

  The Palmer, having extinguished his torch, threw
himself, without taking off any part of his clothes,
on this rude couch, and slept, or at least retained
his recumbent posture, till the earliest sunbeams
found their way through the little grated window,
which served at once to admit both air and light
to his uncomfortable cell.  He then started up, and
after repeating his matins, and adjusting his dress,
he left it, and entered that of Isaac the Jew, lifting
the latch as gently as he could.

  The inmate was lying in troubled slumber upon
a couch similar to that on which the Palmer himself
had passed the night.  Such parts of his dress
as the Jew had laid aside on the preceding evening,
were disposed carefully around his person, as
if to prevent the hazard of their being carried off
during his slumbers.  There was a trouble on his
brow amounting almost to agony.  His hands and
arms moved convulsively, as if struggling with the
nightmare; and besides several ejaculations in Hebrew,
the following were distinctly heard in the
Norman-English, or mixed language of the country:
``For the sake of the God of Abraham, spare
an unhappy old man! I am poor, I am penniless
---should your irons wrench my limbs asunder, I
could not gratify you!''

  The Palmer awaited not the end of the Jew's
vision, but stirred him with his pilgrim's staff.  The
touch probably associated, as is usual, with some
of the apprehensions excited by his dream; for the
old man started up, his grey hair standing almost
erect upon his head, and huddling some part of his
garments about him, while he held the detached
pieces with the tenacious grasp of a falcon, he fixed
upon the Palmer his keen black eyes, expressive
of wild surprise and of bodily apprehension.

  ``Fear nothing from me, Isaac,'' said the Palmer,
``I come as your friend.''

  ``The God of Israel requite you,'' said the Jew,
greatly relieved; ``I dreamed---But Father Abraham
be praised, it was but a dream.'' Then, collecting
himself, he added in his usual tone, ``And
what may it be your pleasure to want at so early
an hour with the poor Jew?''

  ``It is to tell you,'' said the Palmer, ``that if
you leave not this mansion instantly, and travel
not with some haste, your journey may prove a
dangerous one.''

  ``Holy father!'' said the Jew, ``whom could it
interest to endanger so poor a wretch as I am?''

  ``The purpose you can best guess,'' said the Pilgrim;
``but rely on this, that when the Templar
crossed the hall yesternight, he spoke to his Mussulman
slaves in the Saracen language, which I well
understand, and charged them this morning to watch
the journey of the Jew, to seize upon him when at
a convenient distance from the mansion, and to conduct
him to the castle of Philip de Malvoisin, or to
that of Reginald Front-de-B<oe>uf.''

  It is impossible to describe the extremity of terror
which seized upon the Jew at this information,
and seemed at once to overpower his whole faculties.
His arms fell down to his sides, and his head
drooped on his breast, his knees bent under his
weight, every nerve and muscle of his frame seemed
to collapse and lose its energy, and he sunk at
the foot of the Palmer, not in the fashion of one
who intentionally stoops, kneels, or prostrates himself
to excite compassion, but like a man borne
down on all sides by the pressure of some invisible
force, which crushes him to the earth without the
power of resistance.

  ``Holy God of Abraham!'' was his first exclamation,
folding and elevating his wrinkled hands,
but without raising his grey head from the pavement;
``Oh, holy Moses! O, blessed Aaron! the
dream is not dreamed for nought, and the vision
cometh not in vain! I feel their irons already tear
my sinews! I feel the rack pass over my body like
the saws, and harrows, and axes of iron over the
men of Rabbah, and of the cities of the children of
Ammon!''

  ``Stand up, Isaac, and hearken to me,'' said the
Palmer, who viewed the extremity of his distress
with a compassion in which contempt was largely
mingled; ``you have cause for your terror, considering
how your brethren have been used, in order
to extort from them their hoards, both by princes
and nobles; but stand up, I say, and I will point
out to you the means of escape.  Leave this mansion
instantly, while its inmates sleep sound after
the last night's revel.  I will guide you by the secret
paths of the forest, known as well to me as to
any forester that ranges it, and I will not leave you
till you are under safe conduct of some chief or
baron going to the tournament, whose good-will
you have probably the means of securing.''

  As the ears of Isaac received the hopes of escape
which this speech intimated, he began gradually,
and inch by inch, as it were, to raise himself up
from the ground, until he fairly rested upon his
knees, throwing back his long grey hair and beard,
and fixing his keen black eyes upon the Palmer's
face, with a look expressive at once of hope and
fear, not unmingled with suspicion.  But when he
heard the concluding part of the sentence, his original
terror appeared to revive in full force, and he
dropt once more on his face, exclaiming, ``_I_ possess
the means of securing good-will! alas! there
is but one road to the favour of a Christian, and
how can the poor Jew find it, whom extortions
have already reduced to the misery of Lazarus?''
Then, as if suspicion had overpowered his other
feelings, he suddenly exclaimed, ``For the love of
God, young man, betray me not---for the sake of
the Great Father who made us all, Jew as well as
Gentile, Israelite and Ishmaelite---do me no treason!
I have not means to secure the good-will of a
Christian beggar, were he rating it at a single penny.''
As he spoke these last words, he raised himself,
and grasped the Palmer's mantle with a look
of the most earnest entreaty.  The pilgrim extricated
himself, as if there were contamination in the
touch.

  ``Wert thou loaded with all the wealth of thy
tribe,'' he said, ``what interest have I to injure
thee?---In this dress I am vowed to poverty, nor
do I change it for aught save a horse and a coat of
mail.  Yet think not that I care for thy company,
or propose myself advantage by it; remain here if
thou wilt---Cedric the Saxon may protect thee.''

  ``Alas!'' said the Jew, ``he will not let me travel
in his train---Saxon or Norman will be equally
ashamed of the poor Israelite; and to travel by
myself through the domains of Philip de Malvoisin
and Reginald Front-de-B<oe>uf---Good youth, I
will go with you!---Let us haste---let us gird up
our loins---let us flee!---Here is thy staff, why wilt
thou tarry?''

  ``I tarry not,'' said the Pilgrim, giving way to
the urgency of his companion; ``but I must secure
the means of leaving this place---follow me.''

  He led the way to the adjoining cell, which, as
the reader is apprised, was occupied by Gurth the
swineherd.---``Arise, Gurth,'' said the Pilgrim,
``arise quickly.  Undo the postern gate, and let
out the Jew and me.''

  Gurth, whose occupation, though now held so
mean, gave him as much consequence in Saxon
England as that of Eumaeus in Ithaca, was offended
at the familiar and commanding tone assumed
by the Palmer.  ``The Jew leaving Rotherwood,''
said he, raising himself on his elbow, and looking
superciliously at him without quitting his pallet,
``and travelling in company with the Palmer to
boot---''

  ``I should as soon have dreamt,'' said Wamba,
who entered the apartment at the instant, ``of his
stealing away with a gammon of bacon.''

  ``Nevertheless,'' said Gurth, again laying down
his head on the wooden log which served him for
a pillow, ``both Jew and Gentile must be content
to abide the opening of the great gate---we suffer
no visitors to depart by stealth at these unseasonable
hours.''

  ``Nevertheless,'' said the Pilgrim, in a commanding
tone, ``you will not, I think, refuse me that
favour.''

  So saying, he stooped over the bed of the recumbent
swineherd, and whispered something in his
ear in Saxon.  Gurth started up as if electrified.
The Pilgrim, raising his finger in an attitude as if
to express caution, added, ``Gurth, beware---thou
are wont to be prudent.  I say, undo the postern---
thou shalt know more anon.''

  With hasty alacrity Gurth obeyed him, while
and the Jew followed, both wondering at
the sudden change in the swineherd's demeanour.
``My mule, my mule!'' said the Jew, as soon as
they stood without the postern.

  ``Fetch him his mule,'' said the Pilgrim; ``and,
hearest thou,---let me have another, that I may
bear him company till he is beyond these parts---I
will return it safely to some of Cedric's train at
Ashby.  And do thou''---he whispered the rest in
Gurth's ear.

  ``Willingly, most willingly shall it be done,''
said Gurth, and instantly departed to execute the
commission.

  ``I wish I knew,'' said Wamba, when his comrade's
back was turned, ``what you Palmers learn
in the Holy Land.''

  ``To say our orisons, fool,'' answered the Pilgrim,
``to repent our sins, and to mortify ourselves with
fastings, vigils, and long prayers.''

  ``Something more potent than that,'' answered
the Jester; ``for when would repentance or prayer
make Gurth do a courtesy, or fasting or vigil persuade
him to lend you a mule?---l trow you might
as well have told his favourite black boar of thy
vigils and penance, and wouldst have gotten as civil
an answer.''

  ``Go to,'' said the Pilgrim, ``thou art but a
Saxon fool.''

  ``Thou sayst well.'' said the Jester; ``had I
been born a Norman, as I think thou art, I would
have had luck on my side, and been next door to a
wise man.''

  At this moment Gurth appeared on the opposite
side of the moat with the mules.  The travellers
crossed the ditch upon a drawbridge of only two
planks breadth, the narrowness of which was matched
with the straitness of the postern, and with a
little wicket in the exterior palisade, which gave
access to the forest.  No sooner had they reached
the mules, than the Jew, with hasty and trembling
hands, secured behind the saddle a small bag of
blue buckram, which he took from under his cloak,
containing, as be muttered, ``a change of raiment
---only a change of raiment.'' Then getting upon
the animal with more alacrity and haste than could
have been anticipated from his years, he lost no
time in so disposing of the skirts of his gabardine
as to conceal completely from observation the burden
which he had thus deposited _en croupe_.

  The Pilgrim mounted with more deliberation,
reaching, as he departed, his hand to Gurth, who
kissed it with the utmost possible veneration.  The
swineherd stood gazing after the travellers until
they were lost under the boughs of the forest path,
when he was disturbed from his reverie by the voice
of Wamba.

  ``Knowest thou,'' said the Jester, ``my good
friend Gurth, that thou art strangely courteous and
most unwontedly pious on this summer morning?
I would I were a black Prior or a barefoot Palmer,
to avail myself of thy unwonted zeal and courtesy
---certes, I would make more out of it than a kiss
of the hand.''

  ``Thou art no fool thus far, Wamba,'' answered
Gurth, ``though thou arguest from appearances,
and the wisest of us can do no more---But it is time
to look after my charge.''

  So saying, he turned back to the mansion, attended
by the Jester.

  Meanwhile the travellers continued to press on
their journey with a dispatch which argued the extremity
of the Jew's fears, since persons at his age
are seldom fond of rapid motion, The Palmer, to
whom every path and outlet in the wood appeared
to be familiar, led the way through the most devious
paths, and more than once excited anew the
suspicion of the Israelite, that he intended to betray
him into some ambuscade of his enemies.

  His doubts might have been indeed pardoned;
for, except perhaps the flying fish, there was no
race existing on the earth, in the air, or the waters,
who were the object of such an unintermitting, general,
and relentless persecution as the Jews of this
period.  Upon the slightest and most unreasonable
pretences, as well as upon accusations the most absurd
and groundless, their persons and property
were exposed to every turn of popular fury; for
Norman, Saxon, Dane, and Briton, however adverse
these races were to each other, contended
which should look with greatest detestation upon a
people, whom it was accounted a point of religion
to hate, to revile, to despise, to plunder, and to persecute.
The kings of the Norman race, and the
independent nobles, who followed their example in
all acts of tyranny, maintained against this devoted
people a persecution of a more regular, calculated,
and self-interested kind.  It is a well-known story
of King John, that he confined a wealthy Jew in
one of the royal castles, and daily caused one of his
teeth to be torn out, until, when the jaw of the
unhappy Israelite was half disfurnished, he consented
to pay a large sum, which it was the tyrant's
object to extort from him.  The little ready money
which was in the country was chiefly in possession
of this persecuted people, and the nobility hesitated
not to follow the example of their sovereign, in
wringing it from them by every species of oppression,
and even personal torture.  Yet the passive
courage inspired by the love of gain, induced the
Jews to dare the various evils to which they were
subjected, in consideration of the immense profits
which they were enabled to realize in a country
naturally so wealthy as England.  In spite of every
kind of discouragement, and even of the special
court of taxations already mentioned, called the
Jews' Exchequer, erected for the very purpose of
despoiling and distressing them, the Jews increased,
multiplied, and accumulated huge sums, which they
transferred from one hand to another by means of
bills of exchange---an invention for which commerce
is said to be indebted to them, and which enabled
them to transfer their wealth from land to land,
that when threatened with oppression in one country,
their treasure might be secured in another.

  The obstinacy and avarice of the Jews being thus
in a measure placed in opposition to the fanaticism
that tyranny of those under whom they lived, seemed
to increase in proportion to the persecution with
which they were visited; and the immense wealth
they usually acquired in commerce, while it frequently
placed them in danger, was at other times
used to extend their influence, and to secure to
them a certain degree of protection.  On these
terms they lived; and their character, influenced
accordingly, was watchful, suspicious, and timid---
yet obstinate, uncomplying, and skilful in evading
the dangers to which they were exposed.

  When the travellers had pushed on at a rapid rate
through many devious paths, the Palmer at length
broke silence.

  ``That large decayed oak,'' he said, ``marks the
boundaries over which Front-de-B<oe>uf claims authority---
we are long since far from those of Malvoisin.
There is now no fear of pursuit.''

  ``May the wheels of their chariots be taken off,''
said the Jew, ``like those of the host of Pharaoh,
that they may drive heavily!---But leave me not,
good Pilgrim---Think but of that fierce and savage
Templar, with his Saracen slaves---they will regard
neither territory, nor manor, nor lordship.''

  ``Our road,'' said the Palmer, ``should here separate;
for it beseems not men of my character and
thine to travel together longer than needs must be.
Besides, what succour couldst thou have from me,
a peaceful Pilgrim, against two armed heathens?''

  ``O good youth,'' answered the Jew, ``thou
canst defend me, and I know thou wouldst.  Poor
as I am, I will requite it---not with money, for
money, so help me my Father Abraham, I have
none---but------''

  ``Money and recompense,'' said the Palmer, interrupting
him, ``I have already said I require not
of thee.  Guide thee I can; and, it may be, even
in some sort defend thee; since to protect a Jew
against a Saracen, can scarce be accounted unworthy
of a Christian.  Therefore, Jew, I will see thee
safe under some fitting escort.  We are now not
far from the town of Sheffield, where thou mayest
easily find many of thy tribe with whom to take
refuge.''

  ``The blessing of Jacob be upon thee, good
youth!'' said the Jew; ``in Sheffield I can harbour
with my kinsman Zareth, and find some means of
travelling forth with safety.''

  ``Be it so,'' said the Palmer; ``at Sheffield then
we part, and half-an-hour's riding will bring us in
sight of that town.''

  The half hour was spent in perfect silence on
both parts; the Pilgrim perhaps disdaining to address
the Jew, except in case of absolute necessity,
and the Jew not presuming to force a conversation
with a person whose journey to the Holy Sepulchre
gave a sort of sanctity to his character.  They
paused on the top of a gently rising bank, and the
Pilgrim, pointing to the town of Sheffield, which
lay beneath them, repeated the words, ``Here, then,
we part.''

  ``Not till you have had the poor Jew's thanks,''
said Isaac; ``for I presume not to ask you to go
with me to my kinsman Zareth's, who might aid
me with some means of repaying your good offices.''

  ``I have already said,'' answered the Pilgrim,
``that I desire no recompense. If among the huge
list of thy debtors, thou wilt, for my sake, spare
the gyves and the dungeon to some unhappy Christian
who stands in thy danger, I shall hold this
morning's service to thee well bestowed.''

  ``Stay, stay,'' said the Jew, laying hold of his
garment; ``something would I do more than this,
something for thyself.---God knows the Jew is poor
---yes, Isaac is the beggar of his tribe---but forgive
me should I guess what thou most lackest at this
moment.''

  ``If thou wert to guess truly,'' said the Palmer,
``it is what thou canst not supply, wert thou as
wealthy as thou sayst thou art poor.'

  ``As I say?'' echoed the Jew; ``O! believe it,
I say but the truth; I am a plundered, indebted,
distressed man.  Hard hands have wrung from me
my goods, my money, my ships, and all that I possessed---
Yet I can tell thee what thou lackest, and,
it may be, supply it too.  Thy wish even now is
for a horse and armour.''

  The Palmer started, and turned suddenly towards
the Jew:---``What fiend prompted that
guess?'' said he, hastily.

  ``No matter,'' said the Jew, smiling, ``so that
it be a true one---and, as I can guess thy want, so
I can supply it.''

  ``But consider,'' said the Palmer, ``my character,
my dress, my vow.''

  ``I know you Christians,'' replied the Jew, ``and
that the noblest of you will take the staff and sandal
in superstitious penance, and walk afoot to visit
the graves of dead men.''

  ``Blaspheme not, Jew,'' said the Pilgrim, sternly.

  ``Forgive me,'' said the Jew; ``I spoke rashly.
But there dropt words from you last night and this
morning, that, like sparks from flint, showed the
metal within; and in the bosom of that Palmer's
gown, is hidden a knight's chain and spurs of gold.
They glanced as you stooped over my bed in the
morning.''

  The Pilgrim could not forbear smiling.  ``Were
thy garments searched by as curious an eye, Isaac,''
said he, ``what discoveries might not be made?''

  ``No more of that,'' said the Jew, changing colour;
and drawing forth his writing materials in
haste, as if to stop the conversation, he began to
write upon a piece of paper which he supported on
the top of his yellow cap, without dismounting from
his mule.  When he had finished, he delivered the
scroll, which was in the Hebrew character, to the
Pilgrim, saying, ``In the town of Leicester all men
know the rich Jew, Kirjath Jairam of Lombardy;
give him this scroll---he hath on sale six Milan harnesses,
the worst would suit a crowned head---ten
goodly steeds, the worst might mount a king, were
he to do battle for his throne.  Of these he will
give thee thy choice, with every thing else that can
furnish thee forth for the tournament: when it is
over, thou wilt return them safely---unless thou
shouldst have wherewith to pay their value to the
owner.''

  ``But, Isaac,'' said the Pilgrim, smiling, ``dost
thou know that in these sports, the arms and steed
of the knight who is unhorsed are forfeit to his victor?
Now I may be unfortunate, and so lose what
I cannot replace or repay.''

  The Jew looked somewhat astounded at this
possibility; but collecting his courage, he replied
hastily.  ``No---no---no---It is impossible---I will
not think so.  The blessing of Our Father will be
upon thee.  Thy lance will be powerful as the rod
of Moses.''

  So saying, he was turning his mule's head away,
when the Palmer, in his turn, took hold of his gaberdine.
``Nay, but Isaac, thou knowest not all
the risk.  The steed may be slain, the armour injured---
for I will spare neither horse nor man.  Besides,
those of thy tribe give nothing for nothing;
something there must be paid for their use.''

  The Jew twisted himself in the saddle, like a
man in a fit of the colic; but his better feelings
predominated over those which were most familiar
to him.  ``I care not,'' he said, ``I care not---let
me go.  If there is damage, it will cost you nothing---
if there is usage money, Kirjath Jairam
will forgive it for the sake of his kinsman Isaac.
Fare thee well!---Yet hark thee, good youth,'' said
he, turning about, ``thrust thyself not too forward
into this vain hurly-burly---I speak not for endangering
the steed, and coat of armour, but for the
sake of thine own life and limbs.''

  ``Gramercy for thy caution,'' said the Palmer,
again smiling; ``I will use thy courtesy frankly,
and it will go hard with me but I will requite it.''

  They parted, and took different roads for the
town of Sheffield.



                CHAPTER VII.

  Knights, with a long retinue of their squires,
  In gaudy liveries march and quaint attires;
  One laced the helm, another held the lance,
  A third the shining buckler did advance.
  The courser paw'd the ground with restless feet,
  And snorting foam'd and champ'd the golden bit.
  The smiths and armourers on palfreys ride,
  Files in their hands, and hammers at their side;
  And nails for loosen'd spears, and thongs for shields provide.
  The yeomen guard the streets in seemly bands;
  And clowns come crowding on, with cudgels in their hands.
                                 _Palamon and Arcite_.


  The condition of the English nation was at this
time sufficiently miserable.  King Richard was absent
a prisoner, and in the power of the perfidious
and cruel Duke of Austria.  Even the very place
of his captivity was uncertain, and his fate but very
imperfectly known to the generality of his subjects,
who were, in the meantime, a prey to every species
of subaltern oppression.

  Prince John, in league with Philip of France,
C<oe>ur-de-Lion's mortal enemy, was using every
species of influence with the Duke of Austria, to
prolong the captivity of his brother Richard, to
whom he stood indebted for so many favours.  In
the meantime, he was strengthening his own faction
in the kingdom, of which he proposed to dispute
the succession, in case of the King's death,
with the legitimate heir, Arthur Duke of Brittany,
son of Geoffrey Plantagenet, the elder brother of
John.  This usurpation, it is well known, he afterwards
effected.  His own character being light,
profligate, and perfidious, John easily attached to
his person and faction, not only all who had reason
to dread the resentment of Richard for criminal proceedings
during his absence, but also the numerous
class of ``lawless resolutes,'' whom the crusades had
turned back on their country, accomplished in the
vices of the East, impoverished in substance, and
hardened in character, and who placed their hopes
of harvest in civil commotion.

  To these causes of public distress and apprehension,
must be added, the multitude of outlaws, who,
driven to despair by the oppression of the feudal
nobility, and the severe exercise of the forest laws,
banded together in large gangs, and, keeping possession
of the forests and the wastes, set at defiance
the justice and magistracy of the country.  The
nobles themselves, each fortified within his own
castle, and playing the petty sovereign over his
own dominions, were the leaders of bands scarce
less lawless and oppressive than those of the avowed
depredators.  To maintain these retainers, and
to support the extravagance and magnificence which
their pride induced them to affect, the nobility borrowed
sums of money from the Jews at the most
usurious interest, which gnawed into their estates
like consuming cankers, scarce to be cured unless
when circumstances gave them an opportunity of
getting free, by exercising upon their creditors some
act of unprincipled violence.

  Under the various burdens imposed by this unhappy
state of affairs, the people of England suffered
deeply for the present, and had yet more
dreadful cause to fear for the future.  To augment
their misery, a contagious disorder of a dangerous
nature spread through the land; and, rendered
more virulent by the uncleanness, the indifferent
food, and the wretched lodging of the lower classes,
swept off many whose fate the survivors were tempted
to envy, as exempting them from the evils which
were to come.

  Yet amid these accumulated distresses, the poor
as well as the rich, the vulgar as well as the noble,
in the event of a tournament, which was the grand
spectacle of that age, felt as much interested as the
half-starved citizen of Madrid, who has not a real
left to buy provisions for his family, feels in the
issue of a bull-feast.  Neither duty nor infirmity
could keep youth or age from such exhibitions.
The Passage of Arms, as it was called, which was
to take place at Ashby, in the county of Leicester,
as champions of the first renown were to take the
field in the presence of Prince John himself, who
was expected to grace the lists, had attracted universal
attention, and an immense confluence of persons
of all ranks hastened upon the appointed morning
to the place of combat.

  The scene was singularly romantic.  On the verge
of a wood, which approached to within a mile of
the town of Ashby, was an extensive meadow, of
the finest and most beautiful green turf, surrounded
on one side by the forest, and fringed on the
other by straggling oak-trees, some of which had
grown to an immense size.  The ground, as if fashioned
on purpose for the martial display which
was intended, sloped gradually down on all sides
to a level bottom, which was enclosed for the lists
with strong palisades, forming a space of a quarter
of a mile in length, and about half as broad.  The
form of the enclosure was an oblong square, save
that the corners were considerably rounded off, in
order to afford more convenience for the spectators.
The openings for the entry of the combatants were
at the northern and southern extremities of the lists,
accessible by strong wooden gates, each wide enough
to admit two horsemen riding abreast.  At each of
these portals were stationed two heralds, attended
by six trumpets, as many pursuivants, and a strong
body of men-at-arms for maintaining order, and
ascertaining the quality of the knights who proposed
to engage in this martial game.

  On a platform beyond the southern entrance,
formed by a natural elevation of the ground, were
pitched five magnificent pavilions, adorned with
pennons of russet and black, the chosen colours of
the five knights challengers.  The cords of the tents
were of the same colour.  Before each pavilion was
suspended the shield of the knight by whom it was
occupied, and beside it stood his squire, quaintly
disguised as a salvage or silvan man, or in some
other fantastic dress, according to the taste of his
master, and the character he was pleased to assume
daring the game.* The central pavilion, as the

*  This sort of masquerade is supposed to have occasioned the
*  introduction of supporters into the science of heraldry.

place of honour, had been assigned to Brian be Bois-Guilbert,
whose renown in all games of chivalry,
no less than his connexions with the knights who
had undertaken this Passage of Arms, had occasioned
him to be eagerly received into the company
of the challengers, and even adopted as their chief
and leader, though he had so recently joined them.
On one side of his tent were pitched those of Reginald
Front-de-B<oe>uf and Richard de Malvoisin,
and on the other was the pavilion of Hugh de
Grantmesnil, a noble baron in the vicinity, whose
ancestor had been Lord High Steward of England
in the time of the Conqueror, and his son William
Rufus.  Ralph de Vipont, a knight of St John of
Jerusalem, who had some ancient possessions at a
place called Heather, near Ashby-de-la-Zouche,
occupied the fifth pavilion.  From the entrance
into the lists, a gently sloping passage, ten yards
in breadth, led up to the platform on which the
tents were pitched.  It was strongly secured by a
palisade on each side, as was the esplanade in front
of the pavilions, and the whole was guarded by men-at-arms.

  The northern access to the lists terminated in a
similar entrance of thirty feet in breadth, at the
extremity of which was a large enclosed space for
such knights as might be disposed to enter the lists
with the challengers, behind which were placed
tents containing refreshments of every kind for
their accommodation, with armourers, tarriers, and
other attendants, in readiness to give their services
wherever they might be necessary.

  The exterior of the lists was in part occupied by
temporary galleries, spread with tapestry and carpets,
and accommodated with cushions for the convenience
of those ladies and nobles who were expected
to attend the tournament.  A narrow space,
betwixt these galleries and the lists, gave accommodation
for yeomanry and spectators of a better
degree than the mere vulgar, and might be compared
to the pit of a theatre.  The promiscuous
multitude arranged themselves upon large banks
of turf prepared for the purpose, which, aided by
the natural elevation of the ground, enabled them
to overlook the galleries, and obtain a fair view
into the lists.  Besides the accommodation which
these stations afforded, many hundreds had perched
themselves on the branches of the trees which
surrounded the meadow; and even the steeple of
a country church, at some distance, was crowded
with spectators.

  It only remains to notice respecting the general
arrangement, that one gallery in the very centre
of the eastern side of the lists, and consequently
exactly opposite to the spot where the shock of the
combat was to take place, was raised higher than
the others, more richly decorated, and graced by a
sort of throne and canopy, on which the royal arms
were emblazoned.  Squires, pages, and yeomen in
rich liveries, waited around this place of honour,
which was designed for Prince John and his attendants.
Opposite to this royal gallery was another,
elevated to the same height, on the western
side of the lists; and more gaily, if less sumptuously
decorated, than that destined for the Prince himself.
A train of pages and of young maidens, the
most beautiful who could be selected, gaily dressed
in fancy habits of green and pink, surrounded a
throne decorated in the same colours.  Among pennons
and flags bearing wounded hearts, burning
hearts, bleeding hearts, bows and quivers, and all
the commonplace emblems of the triumphs of Cupid,
a blazoned inscription informed the spectators,
that this seat of honour was designed for _La
Royne de la Beault<e'> et des Amours_.  But who was
to represent the Queen of Beauty and of Love on
the present occasion no one was prepared to guess.

  Meanwhile, spectators of every description thronged
forward to occupy their respective stations, and
not without many quarrels concerning those which
they were entitled to hold.  Some of these were settled
by the men-at-arms with brief ceremony; the
shafts of their battle-axes, and pummels of their
swords, being readily employed as arguments to
convince the more refractory.  Others, which involved
the rival claims of more elevated persons,
were determined by the heralds, or by the two
marshals of the field, William de Wyvil, and Stephen
de Martival, who, armed at all points, rode
up and down the lists to enforce and preserve good
order among the spectators.

  Gradually the galleries became filled with knights
and nobles, in their robes of peace, whose long and
rich-tinted mantles were contrasted with the gayer
and more splendid habits of the ladies, who, in a
greater proportion than even the men themselves,
thronged to witness a sport, which one would have
thought too bloody and dangerous to afford their
sex much pleasure.  The lower and interior space
was soon filled by substantial yeomen and burghers,
and such of the lesser gentry, as, from modesty,
poverty, or dubious title, durst not assume any
higher place.  It was of course amongst these that
the most frequent disputes for precedence occurred.

  ``Dog of an unbeliever,'' said an old man, whose
threadbare tunic bore witness to his poverty, as
his sword, and dagger, and golden chain intimated
his pretensions to rank,---``whelp of a she-wolf !
darest thou press upon a Christian, and a Norman
gentleman of the blood of Montdidier ?''

  This rough expostulation was addressed to no
other than our acquaintance Isaac, who, richly and
even magnificently dressed in a gaberdine ornamented
with lace and lined with fur, was endeavouring
to make place in the foremost row beneath
the gallery for his daughter, the beautiful Rebecca,
who had joined him at Ashby, and who was now
hanging on her father's arm, not a little terrified
by the popular displeasure which seemed generally
excited by her parent's presumption.  But Isaac,
though we have seen him sufficiently timid on other
occasions, knew well that at present he had nothing
to fear.  It was not in places of general resort, or
where their equals were assembled, that any avaricious
or malevolent noble durst offer him injury.
At such meetings the Jews were under the protection
of the general law; and if that proved a weak
assurance, it usually happened that there were
among the persons assembled some barons, who, for
their own interested motives, were ready to act as
their protectors.  On the present occasion, Isaac
felt more than usually confident, being aware that
Prince John was even then in the very act of negotiating
a large loan from the Jews of York, to be
secured upon certain jewels and lands. Isaac's own
share in this transaction was considerable, and he
well knew that the Prince's eager desire to bring
it to a conclusion would ensure him his protection
in the dilemma in which he stood.

  Emboldened by these considerations, the Jew
pursued his point, and jostled the Norman Christian,
without respect either to his descent, quality,
or religion.  The complaints of the old man, however,
excited the indignation of the bystanders.
One of these, a stout well-set yeoman, arrayed in
Lincoln green, having twelve arrows stuck in his
belt, with a baldric and badge of silver, and a bow
of six feet length in his hand, turned short round,
and while his countenance, which his constant exposure
to weather had rendered brown as a hazel
nut, grew darker with anger, he advised the Jew
to remember that all the wealth he had acquired
by sucking the blood of his miserable victims had
but swelled him like a bloated spider, which might
be overlooked while he kept in a comer, but would
be crushed if it ventured into the light.  This intimation,
delivered in Norman-English with a firm
voice and a stern aspect, made the Jew shrink back;
and he would have probably withdrawn himself altogether
from a vicinity so dangerous, had not the
attention of every one been called to the sudden
entrance of Prince John, who at that moment entered
the lists, attended by a numerous and gay
train, consisting partly of laymen, partly of churchmen,
as light in their dress, and as gay in their demeanour,
as their companions.  Among the latter
was the Prior of Jorvaulx, in the most gallant trim
which a dignitary of the church could venture to exhibit.
Fur and gold were not spared in his garments;
and the points of his boots, out-heroding the
preposterous fashion of the time, turned up so very
far, as to be attached, not to his knees merely, but
to his very girdle, and effectually prevented him
from putting his foot into the stirrup.  This, however,
was a slight inconvenience to the gallant Abbot,
who, perhaps, even rejoicing in the opportunity
to display his accomplished horsemanship before
so many spectators, especially of the fair sex,
dispensed with the use of these supports to a timid
rider.  The rest of Prince John's retinue consisted
of the favourite leaders of his mercenary troops,
some marauding barons and profligate attendants
upon the court, with several Knights Templars and
Knights of St John.

  It may be here remarked, that the knights of
these two orders were accounted hostile to King
Richard, having adopted the side of Philip of France
in the long train of disputes which took place in
Palestine betwixt that monarch and the lion-hearted
King of England.  It was the well-known consequence
of this discord that Richard's repeated victories
had been rendered fruitless, his romantic attempts
to besiege Jerusalem disappointed, and the
fruit of all the glory which he had acquired had
dwindled into an uncertain truce with the Sultan
Saladin.  With the same policy which had dictated
the conduct of their brethren in the Holy Land, the
Templars and Hospitallers in England and Normandy
attached themselves to the faction of Prince
John, having little reason to desire the return of
Richard to England, or the succession of Arthur,
his legitimate heir.  For the opposite reason, Prince
John hated and contemned the few Saxon families
of consequence which subsisted in England, and
omitted no opportunity of mortifying and affronting
them; being conscious that his person and pretensions
were disliked by them, as well as by the
greater part of the English commons, who feared
farther innovation upon their rights and liberties,
from a sovereign of John's licentious and tyrannical
disposition.

  Attended by this gallant equipage, himself well
mounted, and splendidly dressed in crimson and
in gold, bearing upon his hand a falcon, and having
his head covered by a rich fur bonnet, adorned with
a circle of precious stones, from which his long
curled hair escaped and overspread his shoulders,
Prince John, upon a grey and high-mettled palfrey,
caracoled within the lists at the head of his jovial
party, laughing loud with his train, and eyeing with
all the boldness of royal criticism the beauties who
adorned the lofty galleries.

  Those who remarked in the physiognomy of the
Prince a dissolute audacity, mingled with extreme
haughtiness and indifference to, the feelings of
others could not yet deny to his countenance that
sort of comeliness which belongs to an open set of
features, well formed by nature, modelled by art
to the usual rules of courtesy, yet so far frank and
honest, that they seemed as if they disclaimed to
conceal the natural workings of the soul.  Such an
expression is often mistaken for manly frankness,
when in truth it arises from the reckless indifference
of a libertine disposition, conscious of superiority
of birth, of wealth, or of some other adventitious
advantage, totally unconnected with personal
merit.  To those who did not think so deeply, and
they were the greater number by a hundred to one,
the splendour of Prince John's _rheno_, (_i.e_. fur tippet,)
the richness of his cloak, lined with the most
costly sables, his maroquin boots and golden spurs,
together with the grace with which he managed
his palfrey, were sufficient to merit clamorous applause.

  In his joyous caracole round the lists, the attention
of the Prince was called by the commotion,
not yet subsided, which had attended the ambitious
movement of Isaac towards the higher places of
the assembly.  The quick eye of Prince John instantly
recognised the Jew, but was much more
agreeably attracted by the beautiful daughter of
Zion, who, terrified by the tumult, clung close to
the arm of her aged father.

  The figure of Rebecca might indeed have compared
with the proudest beauties of England, even
though it had been judged by as shrewd a connois-
seur as Prince John.  Her form was exquisitely
symmetrical, and was shown to advantage by a sort
of Eastern dress, which she wore according to the
fashion of the females of her nation.  Her turban
of yellow silk suited well with the darkness of her
complexion. The brilliancy of her eyes, the superb
arch of her eyebrows, her well-formed aquiline
nose, her teeth as white as pearl, and the profusion
of her sable tresses, which, each arranged in its
own little spiral of twisted curls, fell down upon as
much of a lovely neck and bosom as a simarre of
the richest Persian silk, exhibiting flowers in their
natural colours embossed upon a purple ground,
permitted to be visible---all these constituted a
combination of loveliness, which yielded not to the
most beautiful of the maidens who surrounded her.
It is true, that of the golden and pearl-studded
clasps, which closed her vest from the throat to the
waist, the three uppermost were left unfastened on
account of the heat, which something enlarged the
prospect to which we allude.  A diamond necklace,
with pendants of inestimable value, were by this
means also made more conspicuous.  The feather
of an ostrich, fastened in her turban by an agraffe
set with brilliants, was another distinction of the
beautiful Jewess, scoffed and sneered at by the
proud dames who sat above her, but secretly envied
by those who affected to deride them.

  ``By the bald scalp of Abraham,'' said Prince
John, ``yonder Jewess must be the very model of
that perfection, whose charms drove frantic the
wisest king that ever lived ! What sayest thou,
Prior Aymer?---By the Temple of that wise king,
which our wiser brother Richard proved unable to
recover, she is the very Bride of the Canticles !''

  ``The Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley,''
---answered the Prior, in a sort of snuffling
tone; ``but your Grace must remember she is still
but a Jewess.''

  ``Ay!'' added Prince John, without heeding
him, ``and there is my Mammon of unrighteousness
too---the Marquis of Marks, the Baron of
Byzants, contesting for place with penniless dogs,
whose threadbare cloaks have not a single cross
in their pouches to keep the devil from dancing
there.  By the body of St Mark, my prince of supplies,
with his lovely Jewess, shall have a place in
the gallery!---What is she,Isaac? Thy wife or thy
daughter, that Eastern houri that thou lockest under
thy arm as thou wouldst thy treasure-casket?''

  ``My daughter Rebecca, so please your Grace,''
answered Isaac, with a low congee, nothing embarrassed
by the Prince's salutation, in which, however,
there was at least as much mockery as courtesy.

  ``The wiser man thou,'' said John, with a peal
of laughter, in which his gay followers obsequiously
joined.  ``But, daughter or wife, she should be
preferred according to her beauty and thy merits.
---Who sits above there?'' he continued, bending
his eye on the gallery.  ``Saxon churls, lolling at
their lazy length!---out upon them!---let them sit
close, and make room for my prince of usurers and
his lovely daughter.  I'll make the hinds know they
must share the high places of the synagogue with
those whom the synagogue properly belongs to.''

  Those who occupied the gallery to whom this
injurious and unpolite speech was addressed, were
the family of Cedric the Saxon, with that of his
ally and kinsman, Athelstane of Coningsburgh, a
personage, who, on account of his descent from the
last Saxon monarchs of England, was held in the
highest respect by all the Saxon natives of the
north of England.  But with the blood of this ancient
royal race, many of their infirmities had descended
to Athelstane.  He was comely in countenance,
bulky and strong in person, and in the flower
of his age---yet inanimate in expression, dull-eyed,
heavy-browed, inactive and sluggish in all his motions,
and so slow in resolution, that the soubriquet
of one of his ancestors was conferred upon him,
and he was very generally called Athelstane the
Unready.  His friends, and he had many, who, as
well as Cedric, were passionately attached to him,
contended that this sluggish temper arose not from
want of courage, but from mere want of decision;
others alleged that his hereditary vice of drunkenness
had obscured his faculties, never of a very
acute order, and that the passive courage and meek
good-nature which remained behind, were merely
the dregs of a character that might have been deserving
of praise, but of which all the valuable parts
had flown off in the progress of a long course of
brutal debauchery.

  It was to this person, such as we have described
him, that the Prince addressed his imperious command
to make place for Isaac and Rebecca. Athelstane,
utterly confounded at an order which the
manners and feelings of the times rendered so injuriously
insulting, unwilling to obey, yet undetermined
how to resist, opposed only the _vis inerti<ae>_
to the will of John; and, without stirring or making
any motion whatever of obedience, opened his
large grey eyes, and stared at the Prince with an
astonishment which had in it something extremely
ludicrous.  But the impatient John regarded it in
no such light.

  ``The Saxon porker,'' he said, ``is either asleep
or minds me not---Prick him with your lance, De
Bracy,'' speaking to a knight who rode near him,
the leader of a band of Free Companions, or Condottieri;
that is, of mercenaries belonging to no
particular nation, but attached for the time to any
prince by whom they were paid.  There was a murmur
even among the attendants of Prince John;
but De Bracy, whose profession freed him from all
scruples, extended his long lance over the space
which separated the gallery from the lists, and
would have executed the commands of the Prince
before Athelstane the Unready had recovered presence
of mind sufficient even to draw back his person
from the weapon, had not Cedric, as prompt
as his companion was tardy, unsheathed, with the
speed of lightning, the short sword which he wore,
and at a single blow severed the point of the lance
from the handle.  The blood rushed into the countenance
of Prince John.  He swore one of his deepest
oaths, and was about to utter some threat corresponding
in violence, when he was diverted from
his purpose, partly by his own attendants, who
gathered around him conjuring him to be patient,
partly by a general exclamation of the crowd, uttered
in loud applause of the spirited conduct of
Cedric.  The Prince rolled his eyes in indignation,
as if to collect some safe and easy victim; and
chancing to encounter the firm glance of the same
archer whom we have already noticed, and who
seemed to persist in his gesture of applause, in spite
of the frowning aspect which the Prince bent upon
him, he demanded his reason for clamouring thus.

  ``I always add my hollo,'' said the yeoman,
``when I see a good shot, or a gallant blow.''

  ``Sayst thou?'' answered the Prince; ``then
thou canst hit the white thyself, I'll warrant.''

  ``A woodsman's mark, and at woodsman's distance,
I can hit,'' answered the yeoman.

  ``And Wat Tyrrel's mark, at a hundred yards,''
said a voice from behind, but by whom uttered
could not be discerned.

  This allusion to the fate of William Rufus, his
Relative, at once incensed and alarmed Prince
John.  He satisfied himself, however, with commanding
the men-at-arms, who surrounded the
lists, to keep an eye on the braggart, pointing to
the yeoman.

  ``By St Grizzel,'' he added, ``we will try his
own skill, who is so ready to give his voice to the
feats of others!''

  ``I shall not fly the trial,'' said the yeoman, with
the composure which marked his whole deportment.

  ``Meanwhile, stand up, ye Saxon churls,'' said
the fiery Prince; ``for, by the light of Heaven,
since I have said it, the Jew shall have his seat
amongst ye!''

  ``By no means, an it please your Grace!---it is
not fit for such as we to sit with the rulers of the
land,'' said the Jew; whose ambition for precedence
though it had led him to dispute Place with
the extenuated and impoverished descendant of the
line of Montdidier, by no means stimulated him
to an intrusion upon the privileges of the wealthy
Saxons.

  ``Up, infidel dog when I command you,'' said
Prince John, ``or I will have thy swarthy hide
stript off, and tanned for horse-furniture.''

  Thus urged, the Jew began to ascend the steep
and narrow steps which led up to the gallery.

  ``Let me see,'' said the Prince, ``who dare stop
him,'' fixing his eye on Cedric, whose attitude intimated
his intention to hurl the Jew down headlong.

  The catastrophe was prevented by the clown
Wamba, who, springing betwixt his master and
Isaac, and exclaiming, in answer to the Prince's defiance,
``Marry, that will I!'' opposed to the beard
of the Jew a shield of brawn, which he plucked
from beneath his cloak, and with which, doubtless,
he had furnished himself, lest the tournament should
have proved longer than his appetite could endure
abstinence.  Finding the abomination of his tribe
opposed to his very nose, while the Jester, at the
same time, flourished his wooden sword above his
head, the Jew recoiled, missed his footing, and rolled
down the steps,---an excellent jest to the spectators,
who set up a loud laughter, in which Prince
John and his attendants heartily joined.

  ``Deal me the prize, cousin Prince,'' said Wamba;
``I have vanquished my foe in fair fight with
sword and shield,'' he added, brandishing the brawn
in one hand and the wooden sword in the other.

  ``Who, and what art thou, noble champion?''
said Prince John, still laughing.

  ``A fool by right of descent,'' answered the
Jester; ``I am Wamba, the son of Witless, who
was the son of Weatherbrain, who was the son of
an Alderman.''

  ``Make room for the Jew in front of the lower
ring,'' said Prince John, not unwilling perhaps to,
seize an apology to desist from his original purpose;
``to place the vanquished beside the victor
were false heraldry.''

  ``Knave upon fool were worse,'' answered the
Jester, ``and Jew upon bacon worst of all.''

  ``Gramercy! good fellow,'' cried Prince John,
``thou pleasest me---Here, Isaac, lend me a handful
of byzants.''

  As the  Jew,  stunned  by  the  request,  afraid  to
refuse, and unwilling to comply, fumbled in the
furred bag which hung by his girdle, and was perhaps
endeavouring to ascertain how few coins might
pass for a handful, the Prince stooped from his
jennet and settled Isaac's doubts by snatching the
pouch itself from his side; and flinging to Wamba
a couple of the gold pieces which it contained, he
pursued his career round the lists, leaving the Jew
to the derision of those around him, and himself
receiving as much applause from the spectators as
if he had done some honest and honourable action.



                    CHAPTER VIII.

     At this the challenger with fierce defy
     His trumpet sounds; the challenged makes reply:
     With clangour rings the field, resounds the vaulted sky.
     Their visors closed, their lances in the rest,
     Or at the helmet pointed or the crest,
     They vanish from the barrier, speed the race,
     And spurring see decrease the middle space.
                                 _ Palamon and Arcite_.

  In the midst of Prince John's cavalcade, he suddenly
stopt, and appealing to the Prior of Jorvaulx,
declared the principal business of the day had been
forgotten.

  ``By my halidom,'' said he, ``we have forgotten,
Sir Prior, to name the fair Sovereign of Love and
of Beauty, by whose white hand the palm is to be
distributed.  For my part, I am liberal in my ideas,
and I care not if I give my vote for the black-eyed
Rebecca.''

  ``Holy Virgin,'' answered the Prior, turning up
his eyes in horror, ``a Jewess!---We should deserve
to be stoned out of the lists; and I am not yet old
enough to be a martyr.  Besides, I swear by my
patron saint, that she is far inferior to the lovely
Saxon, Rowena.''

  ``Saxon or Jew,'' answered the Prince, ``Saxon
or Jew, dog or hog, what matters it? I say, name
Rebecca, were it only to mortify the Saxon churls.''

  A  murmur  arose  even  among   his   own   immediate
attendants.

  ``This passes a jest, my lord,'' said De Bracy;
``no knight here will lay lance in rest if such an insult
is attempted.''

  ``It is the mere wantonness of insult,'' said one
of the oldest and most important of Prince John's
followers, Waldemar Fitzurse, ``and if your Grace
attempt it, cannot but prove ruinous to your projects.''

  ``I entertained you, sir,'' said John, reining up
his palfrey haughtily, ``for my follower, but not for
my counsellor.''

  ``Those who follow your Grace in the paths
which you tread,'' said Waldemar, but speaking in
a low voice, ``acquire the right of counsellors; for
your interest and safety are not more deeply gaged
than their own.''

  From the tone in which this was spoken, John
saw the necessity of acquiescence ``I did but jest,''
he said; ``and you turn upon me like so many adders!
Name whom you will, in the fiend's name,
and please yourselves.''

  ``Nay, nay,'' said De Bracy, ``let the fair sovereign's
throne remain unoccupied, until the conqueror
shall be named, and then let him choose the lady
by whom it shall be filled.  It will add another grace
to his triumph, and teach fair ladies to prize the love
of valiant knights, who can exalt them to such distinction.''

  ``If Brian de  Bois-Guilbert  gain  the  prize,''  said
the Prior, `` I will gage my rosary that I name the
Sovereign of Love and Beauty.''

  ``Bois-Guilbert,'' answered De  Bracy,  ``is  a  good
lance; but there are others around these lists, Sir
Prior, who will not fear to encounter him.''

  ``Silence, sirs,'' said Waldemar, ``and let the
Prince assume his seat.  The knights and spectators
are alike impatient, the time advances, and
highly fit it is that the sports should commence.''

  Prince John, though not yet a monarch, had in
Waldemar Fitzurse all the inconveniences of a favourite
minister, who, in serving his sovereign, must
always do so in his own way.  The Prince acquiesced,
however, although his disposition was precisely
of that kind which is apt to be obstinate upon
trifles, and, assuming his throne, and being surrounded
by his followers, gave signal to the heralds
to proclaim the laws of the tournament, which were
briefly as follows:

  First, the five challengers were to undertake all
comers.

  Secondly, any knight proposing to combat, might,
if he pleased, select a special antagonist from among
the challengers, by touching his shield.  If he did
so with the reverse of his lance, the trial of skill
was made with what were called the arms of courtesy,
that is, with lances at whose extremity a piece
of round flat board was fixed, so that no danger
was encountered, save from the shock of the horses
and riders.  But if the shield was touched with the
sharp end of the lance, the combat was understood
to be at _outrance_, that is, the knights were to fight
with sharp weapons, as in actual battle.

  Thirdly, when the knights present had accomplished
their vow, by each of them breaking five
lances, the Prince was to declare the victor in the
first day's tourney, who should receive as prize a warhorse
of exquisite beauty and matchless strength;
and in addition to this reward of valour, it was now
declared, he should have the peculiar honour of
naming the Queen of Love and Beauty, by whom
the prize should be given on the ensuing day.

  Fourthly, it was announced, that, on the second
day, there should be a general tournament, in which
all the knights present, who were desirous to win
praise, might take part; and being divided into two
bands of equal numbers, might fight it out manfully,
until the signal was given by Prince John to
cease the combat.  The elected Queen of Love and
Beauty was then to crown the knight whom the
Prince should adjudge to have borne himself best
in this second day, with a coronet composed of thin
gold plate, cut into the shape of a laurel crown.  On
this second day the knightly games ceased.  But
on that which was to follow, feats of archery, of
bull-baiting, and other popular amusements, were
to be practised, for the more immediate amusement
of the populace.  In this manner did Prince John
endeavour to lay the foundation of a popularity,
which he was perpetually throwing down by some
inconsiderate act of wanton aggression upon the
feelings and prejudices of the people.

  The lists now presented a most splendid spectacle.
The sloping galleries were crowded with all
that was noble, great, wealthy, and beautiful in the
northern and midland parts of England; and the
contrast of the various dresses of these dignified
spectators, rendered the view as gay as it was rich,
while the interior and lower space, filled with the
substantial burgesses and yeomen of merry England,
formed, in their more plain attire, a dark fringe, or
border, around this circle of brilliant embroidery,
relieving, and, at the same time, setting off its
splendour.

  The heralds finished their proclamation with their
usual cry of ``Largesse, largesse, gallant knights!''
and gold and silver pieces were showered on them
from the galleries, it being a high point of chivalry
to exhibit liberality towards those whom the age
accounted at once the secretaries and the historians
of honour.  The bounty of the spectators was acknowledged
by the customary shouts of ``Love of
Ladies---Death of Champions---Honour to the Generous---
Glory to the Brave!'' To which the more
humble spectators added their acclamations, and a
numerous band of trumpeters the flourish of their
martial instruments.  When these sounds had ceased,
the heralds withdrew from the lists in gay and
glittering procession, and none remained within
them save the marshals of the field, who, armed
cap-a-pie, sat on horseback, motionless as statues,
at the opposite ends of the lists.  Meantime, the
enclosed space at the northern extremity of the
lists, large as it was, was now completely crowded
with knights desirous to prove their skill against
the challengers, and, when viewed from the galleries,
presented the appearance of a sea of waving
plumage, intermixed with glistening helmets, and
tall lances, to the extremities of which were, in
many cases, attached small pennons of about a
span's breadth, which, fluttering in the air as the
breeze caught them, joined with the restless motion
of the feathers to add liveliness to the scene.

  At length the barriers were opened, and five
knights, chosen by lot, advanced slowly into the
area; a single champion riding in front, and the other
four following in pairs.  All were splendidly armed,
and my Saxon authority (in the Wardour Manuscript)
records at great length their devices, their
colours, and the embroidery of their horse trappings.
It is unnecessary to be particular on these subjects.
To borrow lines from a contemporary poet, who has
written but too little---

      ``The knights are dust,
        And their good swords are rust,
        Their souls are with the saints, we trust.''*

*   These lines are part of an unpublished poem. by Coleridge,
*   whose Muse so often tantalizes with fragments which indicate
*   her powers, while the manner in which she flings them from
*   her betrays her caprice, yet whose unfinished sketches display
*   more talent than the laboured masterpieces of others.

Their escutcheons have long mouldered from the
walls of their castles.  Their castles themselves are
but green mounds and shattered ruins---the place
that once knew them, knows them no more---nay,
many a race since theirs has died out and been forgotten
in the very land which they occupied, with
all the authority of feudal proprietors and feudal
lords.  What, then, would it avail the reader to know
their names, or the evanescent symbols of their
martial rank!

  Now, however, no whit anticipating the oblivion
which awaited their names and feats, the champions
advanced through the lists, restraining their
fiery steeds, and compelling them to move slowly,
while, at the same time, they exhibited their paces,
together with the grace and dexterity of the riders.
As the procession entered the lists, the sound of a
wild Barbaric music was heard from behind the
tents of the challengers, where the performers were
concealed.  It was of Eastern origin, having been
brought from the Holy Land; and the mixture of
the cymbals and bells seemed to bid welcome at
once, and defiance, to the knights as they advanced.
With the eyes of an immense concourse of spectators
fixed upon them, the five knights advanced up
the platform upon which the tents of the challengers
stood, and there separating themselves, each
touched slightly, and with the reverse of his lance,
the shield of the antagonist to whom he wished to
oppose himself.  The lower orders of spectators in
general---nay, many of the higher class, and it is
even said several of the ladies, were rather disappointed
at the champions choosing the arms of courtesy.
For the same sort of persons, who, in the
present day, applaud most highly the deepest tragedies,
were then interested in a tournament exactly
in proportion to the danger incurred by the
champions engaged.

  Having intimated their more pacific purpose, the
champions retreated to the extremity of the lists,
where they remained drawn up in a line; while the
challengers, sallying each from his pavilion, mounted
their horses, and, headed by Brian de Bois-Guilbert,
descended from the platform, and opposed
themselves individually to the knights who had
touched their respective shields.

  At the flourish of clarions and trumpets, they
started out against each other at full gallop; and
such was the superior dexterity or good fortune of
the challengers, that those opposed to Bois-Guilbert,
Malvoisin, and Front-de-B<oe>uf, rolled on the
ground.  The antagonist of Grantmesnil, instead
of bearing his lance-point fair against the crest or
the shield of his enemy, swerved so much from the
direct line as to break the weapon athwart the person
of his opponent---a circumstance which was accounted
more disgraceful than that of being actually
unhorsed; because the latter might happen from
accident, whereas the former evinced awkwardness
and want of management of the weapon and
of the horse.  The fifth knight alone maintained
the honour of his party, and parted fairly with the
Knight of St John, both splintering their lances
without advantage on either side.

  The shouts of the multitude, together with the
acclamations of the heralds, and the clangour of the
trumpets, announced the triumph of the victors and
the defeat of the vanquished.  The former retreated
to their pavilions, and the latter, gathering themselves
up as they could, withdrew from the lists in
disgrace and dejection, to agree with their victors
concerning the redemption of their arms and their
horses, which, according to the laws of the tournament,
they had forfeited.  The fifth of their number
alone tarried in the lists long enough to be
greeted by the applauses of the spectators, amongst
whom he retreated, to the aggravation, doubtless,
of his companions' mortification.

  A second and a third party of knights took the
field; and although they had various success, yet,
upon the whole, the advantage decidedly remained
with the challengers, not one of whom lost his seat
or swerved from his charge---misfortunes which befell
one or two of their antagonists in each encounter.
The spirits, therefore, of those opposed to
them, seemed to be considerably damped by their
continued success.  Three knights only appeared on
the fourth entry, who, avoiding the shields of Bois-Guilbert
and Front-de-B<oe>uf, contented themselves
with touching those of the three other knights, who
had not altogether manifested the same strength
and dexterity.  This politic selection did not alter
the fortune of the field, the challengers were still
successful: one of their antagonists was overthrown,
and both the others failed in the _attaint_,* that is,

*   This term of chivalry, transferred to the law, gives  the
*   phrase of being attainted of treason.

in striking the helmet and shield of their antagonist
firmly and strongly, with the lance held in a
direct line, so that the weapon might break unless
the champion was overthrown.

  After this fourth encounter, there was a considerable
pause; nor did it appear that any one was
very desirous of renewing the contest The spectators
murmured among themselves; for, among
the challengers, Malvoisin and Front-de-B<oe>uf were
unpopular from their characters, and the others, except
Grantmesnil, were disliked as strangers and
foreigners.

  But none shared the general feeling of dissatisfaction
so keenly as Cedric the Saxon, who saw, in
each advantage gained by the Norman challengers,
a repeated triumph over the honour of England.
His own education had taught him no skill in the
games of chivalry, although, with the arms of his
Saxon ancestors, he had manifested himself, on
many occasions, a brave and determined soldier.
He looked anxiously to Athelstane, who had learned
the accomplishments of the age, as if desiring
that he should make some personal effort to recover
the victory which was passing into the hands
of the Templar and his associates.  But, though
both stout of heart, and strong of person, Athelstane
had a disposition too inert and unambitious to make
the exertions which Cedric seemed to expect from
him.

  ``The day is against England, my lord,'' said
Cedric, in a marked tone; ``are you not tempted
to take the lance?''

  ``I shall tilt to-morrow"  answered  Athelstane,
``in the _m<e^>l<e'>e_; it is not worth while for me to arm
myself to-day.''

  Two things displeased Cedric in this speech.  It
contained the Norman word _me<e^>l<e'>e_, (to express the
general conflict,) and it evinced some indifference
to the honour of the country; but it was spoken
by Athelstane, whom he held in such profound
respect, that he would not trust himself to canvass
his motives or his foibles.  Moreover, he had no
time to make any remark, for Wamba thrust in his
word, observing, ``It was better, though scarce
easier, to be the best man among a hundred, than
the best man of two.''

  Athelstane took the observation as a serious compliment;
but Cedric, who better understood the
Jester's meaning, darted at him a severe and menacing
look; and lucky it was for Wamba, perhaps,
that the time and place prevented his receiving,
notwithstanding his place and service, more
sensible marks of his master's resentment.

  The pause in the tournament was still uninterrupted,
excepting by the voices of the heralds exclaiming---
``Love of ladies, splintering of lances!
stand forth gallant knights, fair eyes look upon
your deeds!''

  The music also of the challengers breathed from
time to time wild bursts expressive of triumph or
defiance, while the clowns grudged a holiday which
seemed to pass away in inactivity; and old knights
and nobles lamented in whispers the decay of martial
spirit, spoke of the triumphs of their younger
days, but agreed that the land did not now supply
dames of such transcendent beauty as had animated
the jousts of former times.  Prince John began to
talk to his attendants about making ready the banquet,
and the necessity of adjudging the prize to
Brian de Bois-Guilbert, who had, with a single
spear, overthrown two knights, and foiled a third.

  At length, as the Saracenic music of the challengers
concluded one of those long and high flourishes
with which they had broken the silence of
the lists, it was answered by a solitary trumpet,
which breathed a note of defiance from the northern
extremity.  All eyes were turned to see the new
champion which these sounds announced, and no
sooner were the barriers opened than he paced into
the lists.  As far as could be judged of a man
sheathed in armour, the new adventurer did not
greatly exceed the middle size, and seemed to be
rather slender than strongly made.  His suit of
armour was formed of steel, richly inlaid  with gold,
and the device on his shield was a young oak-tree
pulled up by the roots, with the Spanish word Desdichado,
signifying Disinherited.  He was mounted
on a gallant black horse, and as he passed through
the lists he gracefully saluted the Prince and the
ladies by lowering his lance.  The dexterity with
which he managed his steed, and something of
youthful grace which he displayed in his manner,
won him the favour of the multitude, which some of
the lower classes expressed by calling out, ``Touch
Ralph de Vipont's shield---touch the Hospitallers
shield; he has the least sure seat, he is your cheapest
bargain.''

  The champion, moving onward amid these well-meant
hints, ascended the platform by the sloping
alley which led to it from the lists, and, to the astonishment
of all present, riding straight up to the
central pavilion, struck with the sharp end of his
spear the shield of Brian de Bois-Guilbert until it
rung again.  All stood astonished at his presumption,
but none more than the redoubted Knight
whom he had thus defied to mortal combat, and
who, little expecting so rude a challenge, was standing
carelessly at the door of the pavilion.

  ``Have you confessed yourself, brother,'' said the
Templar, ``and have you heard mass this morning,
that you peril your life so frankly?''

  ``I am fitter to meet death than thou art,'' answered
the Disinherited Knight; for by this name
the stranger had recorded himself in the books of
the tourney.

  ``Then take your place in the lists,'' said Bois-Guilbert,
``and look your last upon the sun; for
this night thou shalt sleep in paradise.''

  ``Gramercy for thy courtesy,'' replied the Disinherited
Knight, ``and to requite it, I advise thee
to take a fresh horse and a new lance, for by my
honour you will need both.''

  Having expressed himself thus confidently, he
reined his horse backward down the slope which
he had ascended, and compelled him in the same
manner to move backward through the lists, till he
reached the northern extremity, where he remained
stationary, in expectation of his antagonist.  This
feat of horsemanship again attracted the applause
of the multitude.

  However incensed at his adversary for the precautions
which he recommended, Brian de Bois-Guilbert
did not neglect his advice; for his honour
was too nearly concerned, to permit his neglecting
any means which might ensure victory over his presumptuous
opponent.  He changed his horse for a
proved and fresh one of great strength and spirit.
He chose a new and a tough spear, lest the wood
of the former might have been strained in the previous
encounters he had sustained.  Lastly, he laid
aside his shield, which had received some little
damage, and received another from his squires.  His
first had only borne the general device of his rider,
representing two knights riding upon one horse,
an emblem expressive of the original humility and
poverty of the Templars, qualities which they had
since exchanged for the arrogance and wealth that
finally occasioned their suppression.  Bois-Guilbert's
new shield bore a raven in full flight, holding
in its claws a skull, and bearing the motto, _Gare le
Corbeau_.

  When the two champions stood opposed to each
other at the two extremities of the lists, the public
expectation was strained to the highest pitch.  Few
augured the possibility that the encounter could
terminate well for the Disinherited Knight, yet
his courage and gallantry secured the general good
wishes of the spectators.

  The trumpets had no sooner given the signal,
than the champions vanished from their posts with
the speed of lightning, and closed in the centre of
the lists with the shock of a thunderbolt.  The
lances burst into shivers up to the very grasp, and
it seemed at the moment that both knights had fallen,
for the shock had made each horse recoil backwards
upon its haunches.  The address of the riders
recovered their steeds by use of the bridle and spur;
and having glared on each other for an instant with
eyes which seemed to flash fire through the bars of
their visors, each made a demi-volte, and, retiring
to the extremity of the lists, received a fresh lance
from the attendants.

  A loud shout from the spectators, waving of
scarfs and handkerchiefs, and general acclamations,
attested the interest taken by the spectators in this
encounter; the most equal, as well as the best performed,
which had graced the day.  But no sooner
had the knights resumed their station, than the clamour
of applause was hushed into a silence, so deep
and so dead, that it seemed the multitude wem
afraid even to breathe.

  A few minutes pause having been allowed, that
the combatants and their horses might recover
breath, Prince John with his truncheon signed to
the trumpets to sound the onset.  The champions
a second time sprung from their stations, and closed
in the centre of the lists, with the same speed, the
same dexterity, the same violence, but not the same
equal fortune as before.

  In this second encounter, the Templar aimed at
the centre of his antagonist's shield, and struck it
so fair and forcibly, that his spear went to shivers,
and the Disinherited Knight reeled in his saddle.
On the other hand, that champion had, in the beginning
of his career, directed the point of his lance
towards Bois-Guilbert's shield, but, changing his
aim almost in the moment of encounter, he addressed
it to the helmet, a mark more difficult to hit, but
which, if attained, rendered the shock more irresistible.
Fair and true he hit the Norman on the
visor, where his lance's point kept hold of the bars.
Yet, even at this disadvantage, the Templar sustained
his high reputation; and had not the girths of
his saddle burst, he might not have been unhorsed.
As it chanced, however, saddle, horse, and man,
rolled on the ground under a cloud of dust.

  To extricate himself from the stirrups and fallen
steed, was to the Templar scarce the work of a moment;
and, stung with madness, both at his disgrace
and at the acclamations with which it was hailed by
the spectators, he drew his sword and waved it in
defiance of his conqueror.  The Disinherited Knight
sprung from his steed, and also unsheathed his
sword.  The marshals of the field, however, spurred
their horses between them, and reminded them,
that the laws of the tournament did not, on the present
occasion, permit this species of encounter.

  ``We shall meet again, I trust,'' said the Templar,
casting a resentful glance at his antagonist;
``and where there are none to separate us.''

  ``If we do not,'' said the Disinherited Knight,
``the fault shall not be mine.  On foot or horseback,
with spear, with axe, or with sword, I am
alike ready to encounter thee.''

  More and angrier words would have been exchanged,
but the marshals, crossing their lances betwixt
them, compelled them to separate.  The Disinherited
Knight returned to his first station, and
Bois-Guilbert to his tent, where he remained for
the rest of the day in an agony of despair.

  Without alighting from his horse, the conqueror
called for a bowl of wine, and opening the beaver,
or lower part of his helmet, announced that he quaffed
it, ``To all true English hearts, and to the confusion
of foreign tyrants.'' He then commanded
his trumpet to sound a defiance to the challengers,
and desired a herald to announce to them, that he
should make no election, but was willing to encounter
them in the order in which they pleased to
advance against him.

  The gigantic Front-de-B<oe>uf, armed in sable armour,
was the first who took the field.  He bore
on a white shield a black bull's head, half defaced
by the numerous encounters which he had undergone,
and bearing the arrogant motto, _Cave, Adsum_.
Over this champion the Disinherited Knight obtained
a slight but decisive advantage.  Both
Knights broke their lances fairly, but Front-de-B<oe>uf,
who lost a stirrup in the encounter, was adjudged
to have the disadvantage.

  In the stranger's third encounter with Sir Philip
Malvoisin, he was equally successful; striking that
baron so forcibly on the casque, that the laces of the
helmet broke, and Malvoisin, only saved from falling
by being unhelmeted, was declared vanquished
like his companions.

  In his fourth combat with De Grantmesnil, the
Disinherited Knight showed as much courtesy as
he had hitherto evinced courage and dexterity.  De
Grantmesnil's horse, which was young and violent,
reared and plunged in the course of the career so
as to disturb the rider's aim, and the stranger, declining
to take the advantage which this accident
afforded him, raised his lance, and passing his antagonist
without touching him, wheeled his horse
and rode back again to his own end of the lists, offering
his antagonist, by a herald, the chance of a
second encounter.  This De Grantmesnil declined,
avowing himself vanquished as much by the courtesy
as by the address of his opponent.

  Ralph de Vipont summed up the list of the
stranger's triumphs, being hurled to the ground
with such force, that the blood gushed from his nose
and his mouth, and he was borne senseless from the
lists.

  The acclamations of thousands applauded the
unanimous award of the Prince and marshals, announcing
that day's honours to the Disinherited
Knight.


                 CHAPTER IX.

     --------In the midst was seen
     A lady of a more majestic mien,
     By stature and by beauty mark'd their sovereign Queen.
          *     *     *     *     *     *
     And as in beauty she surpass'd the choir,
     So nobler than the rest was her attire;
     A crown of ruddy gold enclosed her brow,
     Plain without pomp, and rich without a show;
     A branch of Agnus Castus in her hand,
     She bore aloft her symbol of command.
                             _The Flower and the Leaf_.


  William de Wyvil and Stephen de Martival,
the marshals of the field, were the first to offer
their congratulations to the victor, praying him, at
the same time, to suffer his helmet to be unlaced,
or, at least, that he would raise his visor ere they
conducted him to receive the prize of the day's
tourney from the hands of Prince John.  The Disinherited
Knight, with all knightly courtesy, declined
their request, alleging, that he could not at
this time suffer his face to be seen, for reasons
which he had assigned to the heralds when he entered
the lists.  The marshals were perfectly satisfied
by this reply; for amidst the frequent and capricious
vows by which knights were accustomed
to bind themselves in the days of chivalry, there
were none more common than those by which they
engaged to remain incognito for a certain space, or
until some particular adventure was achieved.  The
marshals, therefore, pressed no farther into the
mystery of the Disinherited Knight, but, announcing
to Prince John the conqueror's desire to remain
unknown, they requested permission to bring
him before his Grace, in order that he might receive
the reward of his valour.

  John's curiosity was excited by the mystery observed
by the stranger; and, being already displeased
with the issue of the tournament, in which the
challengers whom he favoured had been successively
defeated by one knight, he answered haughtily
to the marshals, ``By the light of Our Lady's brow,
this same knight hath been disinherited as well of
his courtesy as of his lands, since he desires to appear
before us without uncovering his face.---Wot
ye, my lords,'' be said, turning round to his train,
``who this gallant can be, that bears himself thus
proudly?''

  ``I cannot guess,'' answered De Bracy, ``nor did
I think there had been within the four seas that
girth Britain a champion that could bear down
these five knights in one day's jousting.  By my
faith, I shall never forget the force with which he
shocked De Vipont.  The poor Hospitaller was
hurled from his saddle like a stone from a sling.''

  ``Boast not of that,'' said a Knight of St John,
who was present; ``your Temple champion had no
better luck.  I saw your brave lance, Bois-Guilbert,
roll thrice over, grasping his hands full of sand at
every turn.

  De Bracy, being attached to the Templars, would
have replied, but was prevented by Prince John.
``Silence, sirs!'' he said; ``what unprofitable debate
have we here?''

  ``The victor,'' said De Wyvil, ``still waits the
pleasure of your highness.''

  ``It is our pleasure,'' answered John, ``that he
do so wait until we learn whether there is not some
one who can at least guess at his name and quality.
Should he remain there till night-fall, he has
had work enough to keep him warm.''

  ``Your Grace,'' said Waldemar Fitzurse, ``will
do less than due honour to the victor, if you compel
him to wait till we tell your highness that which
we cannot know; at least I can form no guess---
unless he be one of the good lances who accompanied
King Richard to Palestine, and who are now
straggling homeward from the Holy Land.''

  ``It may be the Earl of Salisbury,'' said De Bracy;
``he is about the same pitch.''

  ``Sir Thomas de Multon, the Knight of Gilsland,
rather,'' said Fitzurse; ``Salisbury is bigger
in the bones.'' A whisper arose among the train,
but by whom first suggested could not be ascertained.
``It might be the King---it might be
Richard C<oe>ur-de-Lion himself!''

  ``Over God's forbode!'' said Prince John, involuntarily
turning at the same time as pale as death,
and shrinking as if blighted by a flash of lightning;
``Waldemar!---De Bracy! brave knights and gentlemen,
remember your promises, and stand truly
by me!''

  ``Here is no danger impending,'' said Waldemar
Fitzurse; ``are you so little acquainted with the
gigantic limbs of your father's son, as to think they
can be held within the circumference of yonder suit
of armour?---De Wyvil and Martival, you will best
serve the Prince by bringing forward the victor to
the throne, and ending an error that has conjured
all the blood from his cheeks.---Look at him more
closely,'' he continued, ``your highness will see that
he wants three inches of King Richard's height,
and twice as much of his shoulder-breadth.  The
very horse he backs, could not have carried the
ponderous weight of King Richard through a single
course.''

  While he was yet speaking, the marshals brought
forward the Disinherited Knight to the foot of a
wooden flight of steps, which formed the ascent
from the lists to Prince John's throne.  Still discomposed
with the idea that his brother, so much
injured, and to whom he was so much indebted,
had suddenly arrived in his native kingdom, even
the distinctions pointed out by Fitzurse did not altogether
remove the Prince's apprehensions; and
while, with a short and embarrassed eulogy upon
his valour, he caused to be delivered to him the
war-horse assigned as the prize, he trembled lest
from the barred visor of the mailed form before
him, an answer might be returned, in the deep and
awful accents of Richard the Lion-hearted.

  But the Disinherited Knight spoke not a word
in reply to the compliment of the Prince, which
he only acknowledged with a profound obeisance.

  The horse was led into the lists by two grooms
richly dressed, the animal itself being fully accoutred
with the richest war-furniture; which, however,
scarcely added to the value of the noble creature
in the eyes of those who were judges.  Laying
one hand upon the pommel of the saddle, the Disinherited
Knight vaulted at once upon the back of
the steed without making use of the stirrup, and,
brandishing aloft his lance, rode twice around the
lists, exhibiting the points and paces of the horse
with the skill of a perfect horseman

  The appearance of vanity, which might otherwise
have been attributed to this display, was removed
by the propriety shown in exhibiting to the
best advantage the princely reward with which he
had been just honoured, and the Knight was again
greeted by the acclamations of all present.

  In the meanwhile, the bustling Prior of Jorvaulx
had reminded Prince John, in a whisper, that the
victor must now display his good judgment, instead
of his valour, by selecting from among the beauties
who graced the galleries a lady, who should fill the
throne of the Queen of Beauty and of Love, and
deliver the prize of the tourney upon the ensuing
day.  The Prince accordingly made a sign with
his truncheon, as the Knight passed him in his second
career around the lists.  The Knight turned
towards the throne, and, sinking his lance, until the
point was within a foot of the ground, remained
motionless, as if expecting John's commands; while
all admired the sudden dexterity with which he instantly
reduced his fiery steed from a state of violent
emotion and high excitation to the stillness of
an equestrian statue,

  ``Sir Disinherited Knight,'' said Prince John,
``since that is the only title by which we can address
you, it is now your duty, as well as privilege,
to name the fair lady, who, as Queen of Honour
and of Love, is to preside over next day's festival.
If, as a stranger in our land, you should require
the aid of other judgment to guide your own, we
can only say that Alicia, the daughter of our gallant
knight Waldemar Fitzurse, has at our court
been long held the first in beauty as in place.  Nevertheless,
it is your undoubted prerogative to confer
on whom you please this crown, by the delivery
of which to the lady of your choice, the election of
to-morrow's Queen will be formal and complete.---
Raise your lance.''

  The Knight obeyed; and Prince John placed
upon its point a coronet of green satin, having
around its edge a circlet of gold, the upper edge of
which was relieved by arrow-points and hearts placed
interchangeably, like the strawberry leaves and
balls upon a ducal crown.

  In the broad hint which he dropped respecting
the daughter of Waldemar Fitzurse, John had
more than one motive, each the offspring of a mind,
which was a strange mixture of carelessness and
presumption with low artifice and cunning.  He
wished to banish from the minds of the chivalry
around him his own indecent and unacceptable jest
respecting the Jewess Rebecca; he was desirous of
conciliating Alicia's father Waldemar, of whom he
stood in awe, and who had more than once shown
himself dissatisfied during the course of the day's
proceedings.  He had also a wish to establish himself
in the good graces of the lady; for John was
at least as licentious in his pleasures as profligate in
his ambition.  But besides all these reasons, he
was desirous to raise up against the Disinherited
Knight (towards whom he already entertained a
strong dislike) a powerful enemy in the person of
Waldemar Fitzurse, who was likely, he thought,
highly to resent the injury done to his daughter,
in case, as was not unlikely, the victor should make
another choice.

  And so indeed it proved.  For the Disinherited
Knight passed the gallery close to that of the
Prince, in which the Lady Alicia was seated in the
full pride of triumphant beauty, and, pacing forwards
as slowly as he had hitherto rode swiftly
around the lists, he seemed to exercise his right of
examining the numerous fair faces which adorned
that splendid circle.

  It was worth while to see the different conduct
of the beauties who underwent this examination,
during the time it was proceeding.  Some blushed,
some assumed an air of pride and dignity, some
looked straight forward, and essayed to seem utterly
unconscious of what was going on, some drew
back in alarm, which was perhaps affected, some
endeavoured to forbear smiling, and there were two
or three who laughed outright.  There were also
some who dropped their veils over their charms;
but, as the Wardour Manuscript says these were
fair ones of ten years standing, it may be supposed
that, having had their full share of such vanities,
they were willing to withdraw their claim, in order
to give a fair chance to the rising beauties of the
age.

  At length the champion paused beneath the balcony
in which the Lady Rowena was placed, and
the expectation of the spectators was excited to the
utmost.

  It must be owned, that if an interest displayed
in his success could have bribed the Disinherited
Knight, the part of the lists before which he paused
had merited his predilection.  Cedric the Saxon,
overjoyed at the discomfiture of the Templar,
and still more so at the, miscarriage of his two malevolent
neighbours, Front-de-B<oe>uf and Malvoisin,
had, with his body half stretched over the balcony,
accompanied the victor in each course, not
with his eyes only, but with his whole heart and
soul.  The Lady Rowena had watched the progress
of the day with equal attention, though without
openly betraying the same intense interest.  Even
the unmoved Athelstane had shown symptoms of
shaking off his apathy, when, calling for a huge
goblet of muscadine, he quaffed it to the health of
the Disinherited Knight.

  Another group, stationed under the gallery occupied
by the Saxons, had shown no less interest
in the fate of the day.

  ``Father Abraham!'' said Isaac of York, when
the first course was run betwixt the Templar and
the Disinherited Knight, ``how fiercely that Gentile
rides! Ah, the good horse that was brought
all the long way from Barbary, he takes no more
care of him than if he were a wild ass's colt---and
the noble armour, that was worth so many zecchins
to Joseph Pareira, the armourer of Milan, besides
seventy in the hundred of profits, he cares for it as
little as if he had found it in the highways!''

  ``If he risks his own person and limbs, father,''
said Rebecca, ``in doing such a dreadful battle, he
can scarce be expected to spare his horse and armour.''

  ``Child!'' replied Isaac, somewhat heated, ``thou
knowest not what thou speakest---His neck and
limbs are his own, but his horse and armour belong
to---Holy Jacob! what was I about to say!---
Nevertheless, it is a good youth---See, Rebecca!
see, he is again about to go up to battle against the
Philistine---Pray, child---pray for the safety of the
good youth,---and of the speedy horse, and the rich
armour.---God of my fathers!'' he again exclaimed,
``he hath conquered, and the uncircumcised Philistine
hath fallen before his lance,---even as Og the
King of Bashan, and Sihon, King of the Amorites,
fell before the sword of our fathers!---Surely he
shall take their gold and their silver, and their war-horses,
and their armour of brass and of steel, for
a prey and for a spoil.''

  The same anxiety did the worthy Jew display
during every course that was run, seldom failing to
hazard a hasty calculation concerning the value of
the horse and armour which was forfeited to the
champion upon each new success.  There had been
therefore no small interest taken in the success of
the Disinherited Knight, by those who occupied the
part of the lists before which he now paused.

  Whether from indecision, or some other motive
of hesitation, the champion of the day remained
stationary for more than a minute, while the eyes
of the silent audience were riveted upon his motions;
and then, gradually and gracefully sinking
the point of his lance, he deposited the coronet
Which it supported at the feet of the fair Rowena.
The trumpets instantly sounded, while the heralds
proclaimed the Lady Rowena the Queen of Beauty
and of Love for the ensuing day, menacing with
suitable penalties those who should be disobedient
to her authority.  They then repeated their cry of
Largesse, to which Cedric, in the height of his joy,
replied by an ample donative, and to which Athelstane,
though less promptly, added one equally
large.

  There was some murmuring among the damsels
of Norman descent, who were as much unused to
see the preference given to a Saxon beauty, as the
Norman nobles were to sustain defeat in the games
of chivalry which they themselves had introduced.
But these sounds of disaffection were drowned by
the popular shout of ``Long live the Lady Rowena,
the chosen and lawful Queen of Love and of Beauty!''
To which many in the lower area added,
``Long live the Saxon Princess! long live the race
of the immortal Alfred!''

  However unacceptable these sounds might be to
Prince John, and to those around him, he saw himself
nevertheless obliged to confirm the nomination
of the victor, and accordingly calling to horse, he
left his throne; and mounting his jennet, accompanied
by his train, he again entered the lists.
The Prince paused a moment beneath the gallery
of the Lady Alicia, to whom he paid his compliments,
observing, at the same time, to those around
him---``By my halidome, sirs! if the Knight's feats
in arms have shown that he hath limbs and sinews,
his choice hath no less proved that his eyes are none
of the clearest.''

  It was on this occasion, as during his whole life,
John's misfortune, not perfectly to understand the
characters of those whom he wished to conciliate.
Waldemar Fitzurse was rather offended than pleased
at the Prince stating thus broadly an opinion,
that his daughter had been slighted.

  ``I know no right of chivalry,'' he said, ``more
precious or inalienable than that of each free knight
to choose his lady-love by his own judgment.  My
daughter courts distinction from no one; and in her
own character, and in her own sphere, will never
fail to receive the full proportion of that which is
her due.''

  Prince John replied not; but, spurring his horse,
as if to give vent to his vexation, he made the animal
bound forward to the gallery where Rowena
was seated, with the crown still at her feet.

  ``Assume,'' he said, ``fair lady, the mark of your
sovereignty, to which none vows homage more sincerely
than ourself, John of Anjou; and if it please
you to-day, with your noble sire and friends, to
grace our banquet in the Castle of Ashby, we shall
learn to know the empress to whose service we devote
to-morrow.''

  Rowena remained silent, and Cedric answered
for her in his native Saxon.

  ``The Lady Rowena,'' he said, ``possesses not
the language in which to reply to your courtesy, or
to sustain her part in your festival.  I also, and the
noble Athelstane of Coningsburgh, speak only the
language, and practise only the manners, of our
fathers.  We therefore decline with thanks your
Highness's courteous invitation to the banquet.
To-morrow, the Lady Rowena will take upon her
the state to which she has been called by the free
election of the victor Knight, confirmed by the acclamations
of the people.''

  So saying, he lifted the coronet, and placed it
upon Rowena's head, in token of her acceptance of
the temporary authority assigned to her.

  ``What says he?'' said Prince John, affecting
not to understand the Saxon language, in which,
however, he was well skilled.  The purport of Cedric's
speech was repeated to him in French.  ``It
is well,'' he said; ``to-morrow we will ourself conduct
this mute sovereign to her seat of dignity.--
You, at least, Sir Knight,'' he added, turning to the
victor, who had remained near the gallery, ``will
this day share our banquet?''

  The Knight, speaking for the first time, in a
low and hurried voice, excused himself by pleading
fatigue, and the necessity of preparing for to-morrow's
encounter.

  ``It is well,'' said Prince John, haughtily; ``although
unused to such refusals, we will endeavour
to digest our banquet as we may, though ungraced
by the most successful in arms, and his elected
Queen of Beauty.''

  So saying, he prepared to leave the lists with his
glittering train, and his turning his steed for that
purpose, was the signal for the breaking up and
dispersion of the spectators.

  Yet, with the vindictive memory proper to offended
pride, especially when combined with conscious
want of desert, John had hardly proceeded
three paces, ere again, turning around, he fixed an
eye of stern resentment upon the yeoman who had
displeased him in the early part of the day, and
issued his commands to the men-at-arms who stood
near---``On your life, suffer not that fellow to
escape.''

  The yeoman stood the angry glance of the Prince
with the same unvaried steadiness which had marked
his former deportment, saying, with a smile, ``I
have no intention to leave Ashby until the day after
to-morrow---I must see how Staffordshire and
Leicestershire can draw their bows---the forests of
Needwood and Charnwood must rear good archers.''

  ``l,'' said Prince John to his attendants, but not
in direct reply,---``I will see how he can draw his
own; and woe betide him unless his skill should
prove some apology for his insolence!''

  ``It is full time,'' said De Bracy, ``that the _outrecuidance_*

*    Presumption, insolence.

of these peasants should be restrained by
some striking example.''

  Waldemar Fitzurse, who probably thought his
patron was not taking the readiest road to popularity,
shrugged up his shoulders and was silent.
Prince John resumed his retreat from the lists, and
the dispersion of the multitude became general.

  In various routes, according to the different quarters
from which they came, and in groups of various
numbers, the spectators were seen retiring over the
plain.  By far the most numerous part streamed
towards the town of Ashby, where many of the
distinguished persons were lodged in the castle, and
where others found accommodation in the town
itself.  Among these were most of the knights who
had already appeared in the tournament, or who
proposed to fight there the ensuing day, and who,
as they rode slowly along, talking over the events
of the day, were greeted with loud shouts by the
populace.  The same acclamations were bestowed
upon Prince John, although he was indebted for
them rather to the splendour of his appearance and
train, than to the popularity of his character.

  A more sincere and more general, as well as a
better-merited acclamation, attended the victor of
the day, until, anxious to withdraw himself from
popular notice, he accepted the accommodation of
one of those pavilions pitched at the extremities of
the lists, the use of which was courteously tendered
him by the marshals of the field.  On his retiring
to his tent, many who had lingered in the lists, to
look upon and form conjectures concerning him,
also dispersed.

  The signs and sounds of a tumultuous concourse
of men lately crowded together in one place, and
agitated by the same passing events, were now exchanged
for the distant hum of voices of different
groups retreating in all directions, and these speedily
died away in silence.  No other sounds were
heard save the voices of the menials who stripped
the galleries of their cushions and tapestry, in order
to put them in safety for the night, and wrangled
among themselves for the half-used bottles of
wine and relics of the refreshment which had been
served round to the spectators.

  Beyond the precincts of the lists more than one
forge was erected; and these now began to glimmer
through the twilight, announcing the toil of
the armourers, which was to continue through the
whole night, in order to repair or alter the suits of
armour to be used again on the morrow.

  A strong guard of men-at-arms, renewed at intervals,
from two hours to two hours, surrounded
the lists, and kept watch during the night.