*See Hume, Giraldus Cambrensis, The Monk of Croyland, andPinnock's Catechism.
Ah, where was Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, the unconquerable champion, to defend the castle against the royal party? A few thrusts from his lance would have spitted the leading warriors of the King's host: a few cuts from his sword would have put John's forces to rout. But the lance and sword of Ivanhoe were idle on this occasion. “No, be hanged to me!” said the knight, bitterly, “THIS is a quarrel in which I can't interfere. Common politeness forbids. Let yonder ale-swilling Athelstane defend his—ha, ha—WIFE; and my Lady Rowena guard her—ha, ha, ha—SON.” And he laughed wildly and madly; and the sarcastic, way in which he choked and gurgled out the words “wife” and “son” would have made you shudder to hear.
When he heard, however, that, on the fourth day of the siege, Athelstane had been slain by a cannon-ball, (and this time for good, and not to come to life again as he had done before,) and that the widow (if so the innocent bigamist may be called) was conducting the defence of Rotherwood herself with the greatest intrepidity, showing herself upon the walls with her little son, (who bellowed like a bull, and did not like the fighting at all,) pointing the guns and encouraging the garrison in every way—better feelings returned to the bosom of the Knight of Ivanhoe, and summoning his men, he armed himself quickly and determined to go forth to the rescue.
He rode without stopping for two days and two nights in the direction of Rotherwood, with such swiftness and disregard for refreshment, indeed, that his men dropped one by one upon the road, and he arrived alone at the lodge-gate of the park. The windows were smashed; the door stove in; the lodge, a neat little Swiss cottage, with a garden where the pinafores of Mrs. Gurth's children might have been seen hanging on the gooseberry-bushes in more peaceful times, was now a ghastly heap of smoking ruins: cottage, bushes, pinafores, children lay mangled together, destroyed by the licentious soldiery of an infuriate monarch! Far be it from me to excuse the disobedience of Athelstane and Rowena to their sovereign; but surely, surely this cruelty might have been spared.
Gurth, who was lodge-keeper, was lying dreadfully wounded and expiring at the flaming and violated threshold of his lately picturesque home. A catapult and a couple of mangonels had done his business. The faithful fellow, recognizing his master, who had put up his visor and forgotten his wig and spectacles in the agitation of the moment, exclaimed, “Sir Wilfrid! my dear master—praised be St. Waltheof—there may be yet time—my beloved mistr—master Athelst . . .” He sank back, and never spoke again.
Ivanhoe spurred on his horse Bavieca madly up the chestnut avenue. The castle was before him; the western tower was in flames; the besiegers were pressing at the southern gate; Athelstane's banner, the bull rampant, was still on the northern bartizan. “An Ivanhoe, an Ivanhoe!” he bellowed out, with a shout that overcame all the din of battle: “Nostre Dame a la rescousse!” And to hurl his lance through the midriff of Reginald de Bracy, who was commanding the assault—who fell howling with anguish—to wave his battle-axe over his own head, and cut off those of thirteen men-at-arms, was the work of an instant. “An Ivanhoe, an Ivanhoe!” he still shouted, and down went a man as sure as he said “hoe!”
“Ivanhoe! Ivanhoe!” a shrill voice cried from the top of the northern bartizan. Ivanhoe knew it.
“Rowena my love, I come!” he roared on his part. “Villains! touch but a hair of her head, and I . . .”
Here, with a sudden plunge and a squeal of agony, Bavieca sprang forward wildly, and fell as wildly on her back, rolling over and over upon the knight. All was dark before him; his brain reeled; it whizzed; something came crashing down on his forehead. St. Waltheof and all the saints of the Saxon calendar protect the knight! . . .
When he came to himself, Wamba and the lieutenant of his lances were leaning over him with a bottle of the hermit's elixir. “We arrived here the day after the battle,” said the fool; “marry, I have a knack of that.”
“Your worship rode so deucedly quick, there was no keeping up with your worship,” said the lieutenant.
“The day—after—the bat—” groaned Ivanhoe. “Where is the Lady Rowena?”
“The castle has been taken and sacked,” the lieutenant said, and pointed to what once WAS Rotherwood, but was now only a heap of smoking ruins. Not a tower was left, not a roof, not a floor, not a single human being! Everything was flame and ruin, smash and murther!
Of course Ivanhoe fell back fainting again among the ninety-seven men-at-arms whom he had slain; and it was not until Wamba had applied a second, and uncommonly strong dose of the elixir that he came to life again. The good knight was, however, from long practice, so accustomed to the severest wounds, that he bore them far more easily than common folk, and thus was enabled to reach York upon a litter, which his men constructed for him, with tolerable ease.
Rumor had as usual advanced before him; and he heard at the hotel where he stopped, what had been the issue of the affair at Rotherwood. A minute or two after his horse was stabbed, and Ivanhoe knocked down, the western bartizan was taken by the storming-party which invested it, and every soul slain, except Rowena and her boy; who were tied upon horses and carried away, under a secure guard, to one of the King's castles—nobody knew whither: and Ivanhoe was recommended by the hotel-keeper (whose house he had used in former times) to reassume his wig and spectacles, and not call himself by his own name any more, lest some of the King's people should lay hands on him. However, as he had killed everybody round about him, there was but little danger of his discovery; and the Knight of the Spectacles, as he was called, went about York quite unmolested, and at liberty to attend to his own affairs.
We wish to be brief in narrating this part of the gallant hero's existence; for his life was one of feeling rather than affection, and the description of mere sentiment is considered by many well-informed persons to be tedious. What WERE his sentiments now, it may be asked, under the peculiar position in which he found himself? He had done his duty by Rowena, certainly: no man could say otherwise. But as for being in love with her any more, after what had occurred, that was a different question. Well, come what would, he was determined still to continue doing his duty by her;—but as she was whisked away the deuce knew whither, how could he do anything? So he resigned himself to the fact that she was thus whisked away.
He, of course, sent emissaries about the country to endeavor to find out where Rowena was: but these came back without any sort of intelligence; and it was remarked, that he still remained in a perfect state of resignation. He remained in this condition for a year, or more; and it was said that he was becoming more cheerful, and he certainly was growing rather fat. The Knight of the Spectacles was voted an agreeable man in a grave way; and gave some very elegant, though quiet, parties, and was received in the best society of York.
It was just at assize-time, the lawyers and barristers had arrived, and the town was unusually gay; when, one morning, the attorney, whom we have mentioned as Sir Wilfrid's man of business, and a most respectable man, called upon his gallant client at his lodgings, and said he had a communication of importance to make. Having to communicate with a client of rank, who was condemned to be hanged for forgery, Sir Roger de Backbite, the attorney said, he had been to visit that party in the condemned cell; and on the way through the yard, and through the bars of another cell, had seen and recognized an old acquaintance of Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe—and the lawyer held him out, with a particular look, a note, written on a piece of whity-brown paper.
What were Ivanhoe's sensations when he recognized the handwriting of Rowena!—he tremblingly dashed open the billet, and read as follows:—
“MY DEAREST IVANHOE,—For I am thine now as erst, and my first love was ever—ever dear to me. Have I been near thee dying for a whole year, and didst thou make no effort to rescue thy Rowena? Have ye given to others—I mention not their name nor their odious creed—the heart that ought to be mine? I send thee my forgiveness from my dying pallet of straw.—I forgive thee the insults I have received, the cold and hunger I have endured, the failing health of my boy, the bitterness of my prison, thy infatuation about that Jewess, which made our married life miserable, and which caused thee, I am sure, to go abroad to look after her. I forgive thee all my wrongs, and fain would bid thee farewell. Mr. Smith hath gained over my gaoler—he will tell thee how I may see thee. Come and console my last hour by promising that thou wilt care for my boy—HIS boy who fell like a hero (when thou wert absent) combating by the side of ROWENA.”
The reader may consult his own feelings, and say whether Ivanhoe was likely to be pleased or not by this letter: however, he inquired of Mr. Smith, the solicitor, what was the plan which that gentleman had devised for the introduction to Lady Rowena, and was informed that he was to get a barrister's gown and wig, when the gaoler would introduce him into the interior of the prison. These decorations, knowing several gentlemen of the Northern Circuit, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe easily procured, and with feelings of no small trepidation, reached the cell, where, for the space of a year, poor Rowena had been immured.
If any person have a doubt of the correctness, of the historical exactness of this narrative, I refer him to the “Biographie Universelle” (article Jean sans Terre), which says, “La femme d'un baron auquel on vint demander son fils, repondit, 'Le roi pense-t-il que je confierai mon fils a un homme qui a egorge son neveu de sa propre main?' Jean fit enlever la mere et l'enfant, et la laissa MOURIR DE FAIM dans les cachots.”
I picture to myself, with a painful sympathy, Rowena undergoing this disagreeable sentence. All her virtues, her resolution, her chaste energy and perseverance, shine with redoubled lustre, and, for the first time since the commencement of the history, I feel that I am partially reconciled to her. The weary year passes—she grows weaker and more languid, thinner and thinner! At length Ivanhoe, in the disguise of a barrister of the Northern Circuit, is introduced to her cell, and finds his lady in the last stage of exhaustion, on the straw of her dungeon, with her little boy in her arms. She has preserved his life at the expense of her own, giving him the whole of the pittance which her gaolers allowed her, and perishing herself of inanition.
There is a scene! I feel as if I had made it up, as it were, with this lady, and that we part in peace, in consequence of my providing her with so sublime a death-bed. Fancy Ivanhoe's entrance—their recognition—the faint blush upon her worn features—the pathetic way in which she gives little Cedric in charge to him, and his promises of protection.
“Wilfrid, my early loved,” slowly gasped she, removing her gray hair from her furrowed temples, and gazing on her boy fondly, as he nestled on Ivanhoe's knee—“promise me, by St. Waltheof of Templestowe—promise me one boon!”
“I do,” said Ivanhoe, clasping the boy, and thinking it was to that little innocent the promise was intended to apply.
“By St. Waltheof?”
“By St. Waltheof!”
“Promise me, then,” gasped Rowena, staring wildly at him, “that you never will marry a Jewess?”
“By St. Waltheof,” cried Ivanhoe, “this is too much, Rowena!”—But he felt his hand grasped for a moment, the nerves then relaxed, the pale lips ceased to quiver—she was no more!
Having placed young Cedric at school at the hall of Dotheboyes, in Yorkshire, and arranged his family affairs, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe quitted a country which had no longer any charms for him, and in which his stay was rendered the less agreeable by the notion that King John would hang him, if ever he could lay hands on the faithful follower of King Richard and Prince Arthur.
But there was always in those days a home and occupation for a brave and pious knight. A saddle on a gallant war-horse, a pitched field against the Moors, a lance wherewith to spit a turbaned infidel, or a road to Paradise carved out by his scimitar,—these were the height of the ambition of good and religious warriors; and so renowned a champion as Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe was sure to be well received wherever blows were stricken for the cause of Christendom. Even among the dark Templars, he who had twice overcome the most famous lance of their Order was a respected though not a welcome guest: but among the opposition company of the Knights of St. John, he was admired and courted beyond measure; and always affectioning that Order, which offered him, indeed, its first rank and commanderies, he did much good service; fighting in their ranks for the glory of heaven and St. Waltheof, and slaying many thousands of the heathen in Prussia, Poland, and those savage Northern countries. The only fault that the great and gallant, though severe and ascetic Folko of Heydenbraten, the chief of the Order of St. John, found with the melancholy warrior, whose lance did such good service to the cause, was, that he did not persecute the Jews as so religious a knight should. He let off sundry captives of that persuasion whom he had taken with his sword and his spear, saved others from torture, and actually ransomed the two last grinders of a venerable rabbi (that Roger de Cartright, an English knight of the Order, was about to extort from the elderly Israelite,) with a hundred crowns and a gimmal ring, which were all the property he possessed. Whenever he so ransomed or benefited one of this religion, he would moreover give them a little token or a message (were the good knight out of money), saying, “Take this token, and remember this deed was done by Wilfrid the Disinherited, for the services whilome rendered to him by Rebecca, the daughter of Isaac of York!” So among themselves, and in their meetings and synagogues, and in their restless travels from land to land, when they of Jewry cursed and reviled all Christians, as such abominable heathens will, they nevertheless excepted the name of the Desdichado, or the doubly-disinherited as he now was, the Desdichado-Doblado.
The account of all the battles, storms, and scaladoes in which Sir Wilfrid took part, would only weary the reader; for the chopping off one heathen's head with an axe must be very like the decapitation of any other unbeliever. Suffice it to say, that wherever this kind of work was to be done, and Sir Wilfrid was in the way, he was the man to perform it. It would astonish you were you to see the account that Wamba kept of his master's achievements, and of the Bulgarians, Bohemians, Croatians, slain or maimed by his hand. And as, in those days, a reputation for valor had an immense effect upon the soft hearts of women, and even the ugliest man, were he a stout warrior, was looked upon with favor by Beauty: so Ivanhoe, who was by no means ill-favored, though now becoming rather elderly, made conquests over female breasts as well as over Saracens, and had more than one direct offer of marriage made to him by princesses, countesses, and noble ladies possessing both charms and money, which they were anxious to place at the disposal of a champion so renowned. It is related that the Duchess Regent of Kartoffelberg offered him her hand, and the ducal crown of Kartoffelberg, which he had rescued from the unbelieving Prussians; but Ivanhoe evaded the Duchess's offer, by riding away from her capital secretly at midnight and hiding himself in a convent of Knights Hospitallers on the borders of Poland. And it is a fact that the Princess Rosalia Seraphina of Pumpernickel, the most lovely woman of her time, became so frantically attached to him, that she followed him on a campaign, and was discovered with his baggage disguised as a horse-boy. But no princess, no beauty, no female blandishments had any charms for Ivanhoe: no hermit practised a more austere celibacy. The severity of his morals contrasted so remarkably with the lax and dissolute manner of the young lords and nobles in the courts which he frequented, that these young springalds would sometimes sneer and call him Monk and Milksop; but his courage in the day of battle was so terrible and admirable, that I promise you the youthful libertines did not sneer THEN; and the most reckless of them often turned pale when they couched their lances to follow Ivanhoe. Holy Waltheof! it was an awful sight to see him with his pale calm face, his shield upon his breast, his heavy lance before him, charging a squadron of heathen Bohemians, or a regiment of Cossacks! Wherever he saw the enemy, Ivanhoe assaulted him: and when people remonstrated with him, and said if he attacked such and such a post, breach, castle, or army, he would be slain, “And suppose I be?” he answered, giving them to understand that he would as lief the Battle of Life were over altogether.
While he was thus making war against the Northern infidels news was carried all over Christendom of a catastrophe which had befallen the good cause in the South of Europe, where the Spanish Christians had met with such a defeat and massacre at the hands of the Moors as had never been known in the proudest day of Saladin.
Thursday, the 9th of Shaban, in the 605th year of the Hejira, is known all over the West as the amun-al-ark, the year of the battle of Alarcos, gained over the Christians by the Moslems of Andaluz, on which fatal day Christendom suffered a defeat so signal, that it was feared the Spanish peninsula would be entirely wrested away from the dominion of the Cross. On that day the Franks lost 150,000 men and 30,000 prisoners. A man-slave sold among the unbelievers for a dirhem; a donkey for the same; a sword, half a dirhem; a horse, five dirhems. Hundreds of thousands of these various sorts of booty were in the possession of the triumphant followers of Yakoobal-Mansoor. Curses on his head! But he was a brave warrior, and the Christians before him seemed to forget that they were the descendants of the brave Cid, the Kanbitoor, as the Moorish hounds (in their jargon) denominated the famous Campeador.
A general move for the rescue of the faithful in Spain—a crusade against the infidels triumphing there, was preached throughout Europe by all the most eloquent clergy; and thousands and thousands of valorous knights and nobles, accompanied by well-meaning varlets and vassals of the lower sort, trooped from all sides to the rescue. The Straits of Gibel-al-Tariff, at which spot the Moor, passing from Barbary, first planted his accursed foot on the Christian soil, were crowded with the galleys of the Templars and the Knights of St. John, who flung succors into the menaced kingdoms of the peninsula; the inland sea swarmed with their ships hasting from their forts and islands, from Rhodes and Byzantium, from Jaffa and Ascalon. The Pyrenean peaks beheld the pennons and glittered with the armor of the knights marching out of France into Spain; and, finally, in a ship that set sail direct from Bohemia, where Sir Wilfrid happened to be quartered at the time when the news of the defeat of Alarcos came and alarmed all good Christians, Ivanhoe landed at Barcelona, and proceeded to slaughter the Moors forthwith.
He brought letters of introduction from his friend Folko of Heydenbraten, the Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John, to the venerable Baldomero de Garbanzos, Grand Master of the renowned order of Saint Jago. The chief of Saint Jago's knights paid the greatest respect to a warrior whose fame was already so widely known in Christendom; and Ivanhoe had the pleasure of being appointed to all the posts of danger and forlorn hopes that could be devised in his honor. He would be called up twice or thrice in a night to fight the Moors: he led ambushes, scaled breaches, was blown up by mines; was wounded many hundred times (recovering, thanks to the elixir, of which Wamba always carried a supply); he was the terror of the Saracens, and the admiration and wonder of the Christians.
To describe his deeds, would, I say, be tedious; one day's battle was like that of another. I am not writing in ten volumes like Monsieur Alexandre Dumas, or even in three like other great authors. We have no room for the recounting of Sir Wilfrid's deeds of valor. Whenever he took a Moorish town, it was remarked, that he went anxiously into the Jewish quarter, and inquired amongst the Hebrews, who were in great numbers in Spain, for Rebecca, the daughter of Isaac. Many Jews, according to his wont, he ransomed, and created so much scandal by this proceeding, and by the manifest favor which he showed to the people of that nation, that the Master of Saint Jago remonstrated with him, and it is probable he would have been cast into the Inquisition and roasted, but that his prodigious valor and success against the Moors counterbalanced his heretical partiality for the children of Jacob.
It chanced that the good knight was present at the siege of Xixona in Andalusia, entering the breach first, according to his wont, and slaying, with his own hand, the Moorish lieutenant of the town, and several hundred more of its unbelieving defenders. He had very nearly done for the Alfaqui, or governor—a veteran warrior with a crooked scimitar and a beard as white as snow—but a couple of hundred of the Alfaqui's bodyguard flung themselves between Ivanhoe and their chief, and the old fellow escaped with his life, leaving a handful of his beard in the grasp of the English knight. The strictly military business being done, and such of the garrison as did not escape put, as by right, to the sword, the good knight, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, took no further part in the proceedings of the conquerors of that ill-fated place. A scene of horrible massacre and frightful reprisals ensued, and the Christian warriors, hot with victory and flushed with slaughter, were, it is to be feared, as savage in their hour of triumph as ever their heathen enemies had been.
Among the most violent and least scrupulous was the ferocious Knight of Saint Jago, Don Beltran de Cuchilla y Trabuco y Espada y Espelon. Raging through the vanquished city like a demon, he slaughtered indiscriminately all those infidels of both sexes whose wealth did not tempt him to a ransom, or whose beauty did not reserve them for more frightful calamities than death. The slaughter over, Don Beltran took up his quarters in the Albaycen, where the Alfaqui had lived who had so narrowly escaped the sword of Ivanhoe; but the wealth, the treasure, the slaves, and the family of the fugitive chieftain, were left in possession of the conqueror of Xixona. Among the treasures, Don Beltran recognized with a savage joy the coat-armors and ornaments of many brave and unfortunate companions-in-arms who had fallen in the fatal battle of Alarcos. The sight of those bloody relics added fury to his cruel disposition, and served to steel a heart already but little disposed to sentiments of mercy.
Three days after the sack and plunder of the place, Don Beltran was seated in the hall-court lately occupied by the proud Alfaqui, lying in his divan, dressed in his rich robes, the fountains playing in the centre, the slaves of the Moor ministering to his scarred and rugged Christian conqueror. Some fanned him with peacocks' pinions, some danced before him, some sang Moor's melodies to the plaintive notes of a guzla, one—it was the only daughter of the Moor's old age, the young Zutulbe, a rosebud of beauty—sat weeping in a corner of the gilded hall: weeping for her slain brethren, the pride of Moslem chivalry, whose heads were blackening in the blazing sunshine on the portals without, and for her father, whose home had been thus made desolate.
He and his guest, the English knight Sir Wilfrid, were playing at chess, a favorite amusement with the chivalry of the period, when a messenger was announced from Valencia, to treat, if possible, for the ransom of the remaining part of the Alfaqui's family. A grim smile lighted up Don Beltran's features as he bade the black slave admit the messenger. He entered. By his costume it was at once seen that the bearer of the flag of truce was a Jew—the people were employed continually then as ambassadors between the two races at war in Spain.
“I come,” said the old Jew (in a voice which made Sir Wilfrid start), “from my lord the Alfaqui to my noble senor, the invincible Don Beltran de Cuchilla, to treat for the ransom of the Moor's only daughter, the child of his old age and the pearl of his affection.”
“A pearl is a valuable jewel, Hebrew. What does the Moorish dog bid for her?” asked Don Beltran, still smiling grimly.
“The Alfaqui offers 100,000 dinars, twenty-four horses with their caparisons, twenty-four suits of plate-armor, and diamonds and rubies to the amount of 1,000,000 dinars.”
“Ho, slaves!” roared Don Beltran, “show the Jew my treasury of gold. How many hundred thousand pieces are there?” And ten enormous chests were produced in which the accountant counted 1,000 bags of 1,000 dirhems each, and displayed several caskets of jewels containing such a treasure of rubies, smaragds, diamonds, and jacinths, as made the eyes of the aged ambassador twinkle with avarice.
“How many horses are there in my stable?” continued Don Beltran; and Muley, the master of the horse, numbered three hundred fully caparisoned; and there was, likewise, armor of the richest sort for as many cavaliers, who followed the banner of this doughty captain.
“I want neither money nor armor,” said the ferocious knight; “tell this to the Alfaqui, Jew. And I will keep the child, his daughter, to serve the messes for my dogs, and clean the platters for my scullions.”
“Deprive not the old man of his child,” here interposed the Knight of Ivanhoe; “bethink thee, brave Don Beltran, she is but an infant in years.”
“She is my captive, Sir Knight,” replied the surly Don Beltran; “I will do with my own as becomes me.”
“Take 200,000 dirhems,” cried the Jew; “more!—anything! The Alfaqui will give his life for his child!”
“Come hither, Zutulbe!—come hither, thou Moorish pearl!” yelled the ferocious warrior; “come closer, my pretty black-eyed houri of heathenesse! Hast heard the name of Beltran de Espada y Trabuco?”
“There were three brothers of that name at Alarcos, and my brothers slew the Christian dogs!” said the proud young girl, looking boldly at Don Beltran, who foamed with rage.
“The Moors butchered my mother and her little ones, at midnight, in our castle of Murcia,” Beltran said.
“Thy father fled like a craven, as thou didst, Don Beltran!” cried the high-spirited girl.
“By Saint Jago, this is too much!” screamed the infuriated nobleman; and the next moment there was a shriek, and the maiden fell to the ground with Don Beltran's dagger in her side.
“Death is better than dishonor!” cried the child, rolling on the blood-stained marble pavement. “I—I spit upon thee, dog of a Christian!” and with this, and with a savage laugh, she fell back and died.
“Bear back this news, Jew, to the Alfaqui,” howled the Don, spurning the beauteous corpse with his foot. “I would not have ransomed her for all the gold in Barbary!” And shuddering, the old Jew left the apartment, which Ivanhoe quitted likewise.
When they were in the outer court, the knight said to the Jew, “Isaac of York, dost thou not know me?” and threw back his hood, and looked at the old man.
The old Jew stared wildly, rushed forward as if to seize his hand, then started back, trembling convulsively, and clutching his withered hands over his face, said, with a burst of grief, “Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe!—no, no!—I do not know thee!”
“Holy mother! what has chanced?” said Ivanhoe, in his turn becoming ghastly pale; “where is thy daughter—where is Rebecca?”
“Away from me!” said the old Jew, tottering. “Away Rebecca is—dead!”
When the Disinherited Knight heard that fatal announcement, he fell to the ground senseless, and was for some days as one perfectly distraught with grief. He took no nourishment and uttered no word. For weeks he did not relapse out of his moody silence, and when he came partially to himself again, it was to bid his people to horse, in a hollow voice, and to make a foray against the Moors. Day after day he issued out against these infidels, and did nought but slay and slay. He took no plunder as other knights did, but left that to his followers; he uttered no war-cry, as was the manner of chivalry, and he gave no quarter, insomuch that the “silent knight” became the dread of all the Paynims of Granada and Andalusia, and more fell by his lance than by that of any the most clamorous captains of the troops in arms against them. Thus the tide of battle turned, and the Arab historian, El Makary, recounts how, at the great battle of Al Akab, called by the Spaniards Las Navas, the Christians retrieved their defeat at Alarcos, and absolutely killed half a milllion of Mahometans. Fifty thousand of these, of course, Don Wilfrid took to his own lance; and it was remarked that the melancholy warrior seemed somewhat more easy in spirits after that famous feat of arms.
In a short time the terrible Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe had killed off so many of the Moors, that though those unbelieving miscreants poured continual reinforcements into Spain from Barbary, they could make no head against the Christian forces, and in fact came into battle quite discouraged at the notion of meeting the dreadful silent knight. It was commonly believed amongst them, that the famous Malek Ric, Richard of England, the conqueror of Saladin, had come to life again, and was battling in the Spanish hosts—that this, his second life, was a charmed one, and his body inaccessible to blow of scimitar or thrust of spear—that after battle he ate the hearts and drank the blood of many young Moors for his supper: a thousand wild legends were told of Ivanhoe, indeed, so that the Morisco warriors came half vanquished into the field, and fell an easy prey to the Spaniards, who cut away among them without mercy. And although none of the Spanish historians whom I have consulted make mention of Sir Wilfrid as the real author of the numerous triumphs which now graced the arms of the good cause, this is not in the least to be wondered at, in a nation that has always been notorious for bragging, and for the non-payment of their debts of gratitude as of their other obligations, and that writes histories of the Peninsular war with the Emperor Napoleon, without making the slightest mention of his Grace the Duke of Wellington, or of the part taken by BRITISH VALOR in that transaction. Well, it must be confessed, on the other hand, that we brag enough of our fathers' feats in those campaigns: but this is not the subject at present under consideration.
To be brief, Ivanhoe made such short work with the unbelievers, that the monarch of Aragon, King Don Jayme, saw himself speedily enabled to besiege the city of Valencia, the last stronghold which the Moors had in his dominions, and garrisoned by many thousands of those infidels under the command of their King Aboo Abdallah Mahommed, son of Yakoobal-Mansoor. The Arabian historian El Makary gives a full account of the military precautions taken by Aboo Abdallah to defend his city; but as I do not wish to make a parade of my learning, or to write a costume novel, I shall pretermit any description of the city under its Moorish governors.
Besides the Turks who inhabited it, there dwelt within its walls great store of those of the Hebrew nation, who were always protected by the Moors during their unbelieving reign in Spain; and who were, as we very well know, the chief physicians, the chief bankers, the chief statesmen, the chief artists and musicians, the chief everything, under the Moorish kings. Thus it is not surprising that the Hebrews, having their money, their liberty, their teeth, their lives, secure under the Mahometan domination, should infinitely prefer it to the Christian sway; beneath which they were liable to be deprived of every one of these benefits.
Among these Hebrews of Valencia, lived a very ancient Israelite—no other than Isaac of York before mentioned, who came into Spain with his daughter, soon after Ivanhoe's marriage, in the third volume of the first part of this history. Isaac was respected by his people for the money which he possessed, and his daughter for her admirable good qualities, her beauty, her charities, and her remarkable medical skill.
The young Emir Aboo Abdallah was so struck by her charms, that though she was considerably older than his Highness, he offered to marry her, and install her as Number 1 of his wives; and Isaac of York would not have objected to the union, (for such mixed marriages were not uncommon between the Hebrews and Moors in those days,) but Rebecca firmly yet respectfully declined the proposals of the prince, saying that it was impossible she should unite herself with a man of a creed different to her own.
Although Isaac was, probably, not over-well pleased at losing this chance of being father-in-law to a royal highness, yet as he passed among his people for a very strict character, and there were in his family several rabbis of great reputation and severity of conduct, the old gentleman was silenced by this objection of Rebecca's, and the young lady herself applauded by her relatives for her resolute behavior. She took their congratulations in a very frigid manner, and said that it was her wish not to marry at all, but to devote herself to the practice of medicine altogether, and to helping the sick and needy of her people. Indeed, although she did not go to any public meetings, she was as benevolent a creature as the world ever saw: the poor blessed her wherever they knew her, and many benefited by her who guessed not whence her gentle bounty came.
But there are men in Jewry who admire beauty, and, as I have even heard, appreciate money too, and Rebecca had such a quantity of both, that all the most desirable bachelors of the people were ready to bid for her. Ambassadors came from all quarters to propose for her. Her own uncle, the venerable Ben Solomons, with a beard as long as a cashmere goat's, and a reputation for learning and piety which still lives in his nation, quarrelled with his son Moses, the red-haired diamond-merchant of Trebizond, and his son Simeon, the bald bill-broker of Bagdad, each putting in a claim for their cousin. Ben Minories came from London and knelt at her feet; Ben Jochanan arrived from Paris, and thought to dazzle her with the latest waistcoats from the Palais Royal; and Ben Jonah brought her a present of Dutch herrings, and besought her to come back and be Mrs. Ben Jonah at the Hague.
Rebecca temporized as best she might. She thought her uncle was too old. She besought dear Moses and dear Simeon not to quarrel with each other, and offend their father by pressing their suit. Ben Minories from London, she said, was too young, and Jochanan from Paris, she pointed out to Isaac of York, must be a spendthrift, or he would not wear those absurd waistcoats. As for Ben Jonah, she said, she could not bear the notion of tobacco and Dutch herrings: she wished to stay with her papa, her dear papa. In fine, she invented a thousand excuses for delay, and it was plain that marriage was odious to her. The only man whom she received with anything like favor, was young Bevis Marks of London, with whom she was very familiar. But Bevis had come to her with a certain token that had been given to him by an English knight, who saved him from a fagot to which the ferocious Hospitaller Folko of Heydenbraten was about to condemn him. It was but a ring, with an emerald in it, that Bevis knew to be sham, and not worth a groat. Rebecca knew about the value of jewels too; but ah! she valued this one more than all the diamonds in Prester John's turban. She kissed it; she cried over it; she wore it in her bosom always and when she knelt down at night and morning, she held it between her folded hands on her neck. . . . Young Bevis Marks went away finally no better off than the others; the rascal sold to the King of France a handsome ruby, the very size of the bit of glass in Rebecca's ring; but he always said he would rather have had her than ten thousand pounds: and very likely he would, for it was known she would at once have a plum to her fortune.
These delays, however, could not continue for ever; and at a great family meeting held at Passover-time, Rebecca was solemnly ordered to choose a husband out of the gentlemen there present; her aunts pointing out the great kindness which had been shown to her by her father, in permitting her to choose for herself. One aunt was of the Solomon faction, another aunt took Simeon's side, a third most venerable old lady—the head of the family, and a hundred and forty-four years of age—was ready to pronounce a curse upon her, and cast her out, unless she married before the month was over. All the jewelled heads of all the old ladies in council, all the beards of all the family, wagged against her: it must have been an awful sight to witness.
At last, then, Rebecca was forced to speak. “Kinsmen!” she said, turning pale, “when the Prince Abou Abdil asked me in marriage, I told you I would not wed but with one of my own faith.”
“She has turned Turk,” screamed out the ladies. “She wants to be a princess, and has turned Turk,” roared the rabbis.
“Well, well,” said Isaac, in rather an appeased tone, “let us hear what the poor girl has got to say. Do you want to marry his royal highness, Rebecca? Say the word, yes or no.”
Another groan burst from the rabbis—they cried, shrieked, chattered, gesticulated, furious to lose such a prize; as were the women, that she should reign over them a second Esther.
“Silence,” cried out Isaac; “let the girl speak. Speak boldly, Rebecca dear, there's a good girl.”
Rebecca was as pale as a stone. She folded her arms on her breast, and felt the ring there. She looked round all the assembly, and then at Isaac. “Father,” she said, in a thrilling low steady voice, “I am not of your religion—I am not of the Prince Boabdil's religion—I—I am of HIS religion.”
“His! whose, in the name of Moses, girl?” cried Isaac.
Rebecca clasped her hands on her beating chest and looked round with dauntless eyes. “Of his,” she said, “who saved my life and your honor: of my dear, dear champion's. I never can be his, but I will be no other's. Give my money to my kinsmen; it is that they long for. Take the dross, Simeon and Solomon, Jonah and Jochanan, and divide it among you, and leave me. I will never be yours, I tell you, never. Do you think, after knowing him and hearing him speak,—after watching him wounded on his pillow, and glorious in battle” (her eyes melted and kindled again as she spoke these words), “I can mate with such as you? Go. Leave me to myself. I am none of yours. I love him—I love him. Fate divides us—long, long miles separate us; and I know we may never meet again. But I love and bless him always. Yes, always. My prayers are his; my faith is his. Yes, my faith is your faith, Wilfrid—Wilfrid! I have no kindred more,—I am a Christian!”
At this last word there was such a row in the assembly, as my feeble pen would in vain endeavor to depict. Old Isaac staggered back in a fit, and nobody took the least notice of him. Groans, curses, yells of men, shrieks of women, filled the room with such a furious jabbering, as might have appalled any heart less stout than Rebecca's; but that brave woman was prepared for all; expecting, and perhaps hoping, that death would be her instant lot. There was but one creature who pitied her, and that was her cousin and father's clerk, little Ben Davids, who was but thirteen, and had only just begun to carry a bag, and whose crying and boo-hooing, as she finished speaking, was drowned in the screams and maledictions of the elder Israelites. Ben Davids was madly in love with his cousin (as boys often are with ladies of twice their age), and he had presence of mind suddenly to knock over the large brazen lamp on the table, which illuminated the angry conclave; then, whispering to Rebecca to go up to her own room and lock herself in, or they would kill her else, he took her hand and led her out.
From that day she disappeared from among her people. The poor and the wretched missed her, and asked for her in vain. Had any violence been done to her, the poorer Jews would have risen and put all Isaac's family to death; and besides, her old flame, Prince Boabdil, would have also been exceedingly wrathful. She was not killed then, but, so to speak, buried alive, and locked up in Isaac's back-kitchen: an apartment into which scarcely any light entered, and where she was fed upon scanty portions of the most mouldy bread and water. Little Ben Davids was the only person who visited her, and her sole consolation was to talk to him about Ivanhoe, and how good and how gentle he was; how brave and how true; and how he slew the tremendous knight of the Templars, and how he married a lady whom Rebecca scarcely thought worthy of him, but with whom she prayed he might be happy; and of what color his eyes were, and what were the arms on his shield—viz, a tree with the word “Desdichado” written underneath, &c. &c. &c.: all which talk would not have interested little Davids, had it come from anybody else's mouth, but to which he never tired of listening as it fell from her sweet lips.
So, in fact, when old Isaac of York came to negotiate with Don Beltran de Cuchilla for the ransom of the Alfaqui's daughter of Xixona, our dearest Rebecca was no more dead than you and I; and it was in his rage and fury against Ivanhoe that Isaac told that cavalier the falsehood which caused the knight so much pain and such a prodigious deal of bloodshed to the Moors: and who knows, trivial as it may seem, whether it was not that very circumstance which caused the destruction in Spain of the Moorish power?
Although Isaac, we may be sure, never told his daughter that Ivanhoe had cast up again, yet Master Ben Davids did, who heard it from his employer; and he saved Rebecca's life by communicating the intelligence, for the poor thing would have infallibly perished but for this good news. She had now been in prison four years three months and twenty-four days, during which time she had partaken of nothing but bread and water (except such occasional tit-bits as Davids could bring her—and these were few indeed; for old Isaac was always a curmudgeon, and seldom had more than a pair of eggs for his own and Davids' dinner); and she was languishing away, when the news came suddenly to revive her. Then, though in the darkness you could not see her cheeks, they began to bloom again: then her heart began to beat and her blood to flow, and she kissed the ring on her neck a thousand times a day at least; and her constant question was, “Ben Davids! Ben Davids! when is he coming to besiege Valencia?” She knew he would come: and, indeed, the Christians were encamped before the town ere a month was over.
And now, my dear boys and girls, I think I perceive behind that dark scene of the back-kitchen (which is just a simple flat, painted stone-color, that shifts in a minute,) bright streaks of light flashing out, as though they were preparing a most brilliant, gorgeous, and altogether dazzling illumination, with effects never before attempted on any stage. Yes, the fairy in the pretty pink tights and spangled muslin is getting into the brilliant revolving chariot of the realms of bliss.—Yes, most of the fiddlers and trumpeters have gone round from the orchestra to join in the grand triumphal procession, where the whole strength of the company is already assembled, arrayed in costumes of Moorish and Christian chivalry, to celebrate the “Terrible Escalade,” the “Rescue of Virtuous Innocence”—the “Grand Entry of the Christians into Valencia”—“Appearance of the Fairy Day-Star,” and “Unexampled displays of pyrotechnic festivity.” Do you not, I say, perceive that we are come to the end of our history; and, after a quantity of rapid and terrific fighting, brilliant change of scenery, and songs, appropriate or otherwise, are bringing our hero and heroine together? Who wants a long scene at the last? Mammas are putting the girls' cloaks and boas on; papas have gone out to look for the carriage, and left the box-door swinging open, and letting in the cold air: if there WERE any stage-conversation, you could not hear it, for the scuffling of the people who are leaving the pit. See, the orange-women are preparing to retire. To-morrow their play-bills will be as so much waste-paper—so will some of our masterpieces, woe is me: but lo! here we come to Scene the last, and Valencia is besieged and captured by the Christians.
Who is the first on the wall, and who hurls down the green standard of the Prophet? Who chops off the head of the Emir Aboo What-d'ye-call'im, just as the latter has cut over the cruel Don Beltran de Cuchillay &c.? Who, attracted to the Jewish quarter by the shrieks of the inhabitants who are being slain by the Moorish soldiery, and by a little boy by the name of Ben Davids, who recognizes the knight by his shield, finds Isaac of York egorge on a threshold, and clasping a large back-kitchen key? Who but Ivanhoe—who but Wilfrid? “An Ivanhoe to the rescue,” he bellows out; he has heard that news from little Ben Davids which makes him sing. And who is it that comes out of the house—trembling—panting—with her arms out—in a white dress—with her hair down—who is it but dear Rebecca? Look, they rush together, and Master Wamba is waving an immense banner over them, and knocks down a circumambient Jew with a ham, which he happens to have in his pocket. . . . As for Rebecca, now her head is laid upon Ivanhoe's heart, I shall not ask to hear what she is whispering, or describe further that scene of meeting; though I declare I am quite affected when I think of it. Indeed I have thought of it any time these five-and-twenty years—ever since, as a boy at school, I commenced the noble study of novels—ever since the day when, lying on sunny slopes of half-holidays, the fair chivalrous figures and beautiful shapes of knights and ladies were visible to me—ever since I grew to love Rebecca, that sweetest creature of the poet's fancy, and longed to see her righted.
That she and Ivanhoe were married, follows of course; for Rowena's promise extorted from him was, that he would never wed a Jewess, and a better Christian than Rebecca now was never said her catechism. Married I am sure they were, and adopted little Cedric; but I don't think they had any other children, or were subsequently very boisterously happy. Of some sort of happiness melancholy is a characteristic, and I think these were a solemn pair, and died rather early.