by Walter Scott
“What profane mummery is this?” said the Prior. “Friend, if thou be’st indeed of the church, it were a better deed to show me how I may escape from these men’s hands than to stand ducking and grinning here like a morris-dancer.”2
“Truly, reverend father,” said the Friar, “I know but one mode in which thou mayst escape. This is St. Andrew’s day with us: we are taking our tithes.”eu
“But not of the church, then, I trust, my good brother?” said the Prior.
“Of church and lay,” said the Friar; “and therefore, Sir Prior, facite vobis amicos de mammone iniquitatis—make yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, for no other friendship is like to serve your turn.”
“I love a jolly woodsman at heart,” said the Prior, softening his tone; “come, ye must not deal too hard with me. I can well of woodcraft, and can wind a horn clear and lustily, and hollo till every oak rings again. Come, ye must not deal too hard with me.”
“Give him a horn,” said the outlaw; “we will prove the skill he boasts of.”
The Prior Aymer winded a blast accordingly. The captain shook his head.
“Sir Prior,” he said, “thou blowest a merry note, but it may not ransom thee; we cannot afford, as the legend on a good knight’s shield hath it, to set thee free for a blast. Moreover, I have found thee; thou art one of those who, with new French graces and trali-ras, disturb the ancient English bugle notes. Prior, that last flourish on the recheat hath added fifty crowns to thy ransom, for corrupting the true old manly blasts of venerie.”
“Well, friend,” said the Abbot, peevishly, “thou art ill to please with thy woodcraft. I pray thee be more comformable in this matter of my ransom. At a word—since I must needs, for once, hold a candle to the devilev—what ransom am I to pay for walking on Watling Street without having fifty men at my back?”
“Were it not well,” said the lieutenant of the gang apart to the captain, “that the Prior should name the Jew’s ransom, and the Jew name the Prior’s?”
“Thou art a mad knave,” said the captain, “but thy plan transcends! Here, Jew, step forth. Look at that holy Father Aymer, Prior of the rich Abbey of Jorvaulx,3 and tell us at what ransom we should hold him? Thou knowest the income of his convent, I warrant thee.”
“O, assuredly,” said Isaac. “I have trafficked with the good fathers, and bought wheat and barley, and fruits of the earth, and also much wool. O, it is a rich abbey-stede, and they do live upon the fat, and drink the sweet wines upon the lees, these good fathers of Jorvaulx. Ah, if an outcast like me had such a home to go to, and such incomings by the year and by the month, I would pay much gold and silver to redeem my captivity.”
“Hound of a Jew!” exclaimed the Prior, “no one knows better than thy own cursed self that our holy house of God is indebted for the finishing of our chancel—”
“And for the storing of your cellars in the last season with the due allowance of Gascon wine,” interrupted the Jew; “but that—that is small matters.”
“Hear the infidel dog!” said the churchman; “he jangles as if our holy community did come under debts for the wines we have a license to drink Propter necessitatem et ad frigus depellendum.ew The circumcised villain blesphemeth the holy church, and Christian men listen and rebuke him not!”
“All this helps nothing,” said the leader. “Isaac, pronounce what he may pay, without flaying both hide and hair.”
“An six hundred crowns,” said Isaac, “the good Prior might well pay to your honoured valours, and never sit less soft in his stall.”
“Six hundred crowns,” said the leader, gravely; “I am contented—thou hast well spoken, Isaac—six hundred crowns. It is a sentence, Sir Prior.”
“A sentence!—a sentence!” exclaimed the band; “Solomon had not done it better.”
“Thou hearest thy doom, Prior,” said the leader.
“Ye are mad, my masters,” said the Prior; “where am I to find such a sum? If I sell the very pyx and candlesticks on the altar at Jorvaulx, I shall scarce raise the half; and it will be necessary for that purpose that I go to Jorvaulx myself; ye may retain as borrows my two priests.”
“That will be but blind trust,” said the outlaw; “we will retain thee, Prior, and send them to fetch thy ransom. Thou shalt not want a cup of wine and a collop of venison the while; and if thou lovest woodcraft, thou shalt see such as your north country never witnessed.”
“Or, if so please you,” said Isaac, willing to curry favour with the outlaws, “I can send to York for the six hundred crowns, out of certain monies in my hands, if so be that the most reverend Prior present will grant me a quittance.”
“He shall grant thee whatever thou dost list, Isaac,” said the captain; “and thou shalt lay down the redemption money for Prior Aymer as well as for thyself.”
“For myself! ah, courageous sirs,” said the Jew, “I am a broken and impoverished man; a beggar’s staff must be my portion through life, supposing I were to pay you fifty crowns.”
“The Prior shall judge of that matter,” replied the captain. “How say you, Father Aymer? Can the Jew afford a good ransom?”
“Can he afford a ransom?” answered the Prior. “Is he not Isaac of York, rich enough to redeem the captivity of the ten tribes of Israel who were led into Assyrian bondage? I have seen but little of him myself, but our cellarer and treasurer have dealt largely with him, and report says that his house at York is so full of gold and silver as is a shame in any Christian land. Marvel it is to all living Christian hearts that such gnawing adders should be suffered to eat into the bowels of the state, and even of the holy church herself, with foul usuries and extortions.”
“Hold, father,” said the Jew, “mitigate and assuage your choler. I pray of your reverence to remember that I force my monies upon no one. But when churchman and layman, prince and prior, knight and priest, come knocking to Isaac’s door, they borrow not his shekels with these uncivil terms. It is then, ‘Friend Isaac, will you pleasure us in this matter, and our day shall be truly kept, so God sa’ me?’—and ‘Kind Isaac, if ever you served man, show yourself a friend in this need!’ And when the day comes, and I ask my own, then what hear I but ‘Damned Jew,’ and ‘The curse of Egypt on your tribe,’ and all that may stir up the rude and uncivil populace against poor strangers!”
“Prior,” said the captain, “Jew though he be, he hath in this spoken well. Do thou, therefore, name his ransom, as he named thine, without farther rude terms.”
“None but latro famosusex—the interpretation whereof,” said the Prior, “will I give at some other time and tide—would place a Christian prelate and an unbaptized Jew upon the same bench. But since ye require me to put a price upon this caitiff, I tell you openly that ye will wrong yourselves if you take from him a penny under a thousand crowns.”
“A sentence!—a sentence!” exclaimed the chief outlaw.
“A sentence!—a sentence!” shouted his assessors; “the Christian has shown his good nurture, and dealt with us more generously than the Jew.”
“The God of my fathers help me!” said the Jew; “will ye bear to the ground an impoverished creature? I am this day childless, and will ye deprive me of the means of livelihood?”
“Thou wilt have the less to provide for, Jew, if thou art childless,” said Aymer.
“Alas! my lord,” said Isaac, “your law permits you not to know how the child of our bosom is entwined with the strings of our heart. O Rebecca! daughter of my beloved Rachael! were each leaf on that tree a zecchin, and each zecchin mine own, all that mass of wealth would I give to know whether thou art alive, and escaped the hands of the Nazarene!”
“Was not thy daughter dark-haired?” said one of the outlaws; “and wore she not a veil of twisted sendal, broidered with silver?”
“She did!—she did!” said the old man, trembling with eagerness,as formerly with fear. “The blessing of Jacob be upon thee! canst thou tell me aught of her safety?”
“It was she, then,�
� said the yeoman, “who was carried off by the proud Templar, when he broke through our ranks on yestereven. I had drawn my bow to send a shaft after him, but spared him even for the sake of the damsel, who I feared might take harm from the arrow.”
“Oh!” answered the Jew, “I would to God thou hadst shot, though the arrow had pierced her bosom! Better the tomb of her fathers than the dishonourable couch of the licentious and savage Templar. Ichabod! Ichabod! the glory hath departed from my house!”4
“Friends,” said the chief, looking round, “the old man is but a Jew, natheless his grief touches me. Deal uprightly with us, Isaac: will paying this ransom of a thousand crowns leave thee altogether penniless?”
Isaac, recalled to think of his worldly goods, the love of which, by dint of inveterate habit, contended even with his parental affection, grew pale, stammered, and could not deny there might be some small surplus.
“Well, go to, what though there be,” said the outlaw, “we will not reckon with thee too closely. Without treasure thou mayst as well hope to redeem thy child from the clutches of Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert as to shoot a stag-royal with a headless shaft. We will take thee at the same ransom with Prior Aymer, or rather at one hundred crowns lower, which hundred crowns shall be mine own peculiar loss, and not light upon this worshipful community; and so we shall avoid the heinous offense of rating a Jew merchant as high as a Christian prelate, and thou wilt have six [five] hundred crowns remaining to treat for thy daughter’s ransom. Templars love the glitter of silver shekels as well as the sparkle of black eyes. Hasten to make thy crowns chink in the ear of De Bois-Guilbert, ere worse comes of it. Thou wilt find him, as our scouts have brought notice, at the next preceptory house of his order. Said I well, my merry mates?”
The yeomen expressed their wonted acquiescence in their leader’s opinion; and Isaac, relieved of one half of his apprehensions, by learning that his daughter lived, and might possibly be ransomed, threw himself at the feet of the generous outlaw, and, rubbing his beard against his buskins, sought to kiss the hem of his green cassock. The captain drew himself back, and extricated himself from the Jew’s grasp, not without some marks of contempt.
“Nay, beshrew thee, man, up with thee! I am English born, and love no such Eastern prostrations. Kneel to God, and not to a poor sinner like me.”
“Ay, Jew,” said Prior Aymer, “kneel to God, as represented in the servant of His altar, and who knows, with thy sincere repentance and due gifts to the shrine of St. Robert, what grace thou mayst acquire for thyself and thy daughter Rebecca? I grieve for the maiden, for she is of fair and comely countenance: I beheld her in the lists of Ashby. Also Brian de Bois-Guilbert is one with whom I may do much: bethink thee how thou mayst deserve my good word with him.”
“Alas! alas!” said the Jew, “on every hand the spoilers arise against me: I am given as a prey unto the Assyrian, and a prey unto him of Egypt.”
“And what else should be the lot of thy accursed race?” answered the Prior; “for what saith Holy Writ, verbum Domini projecerunt, et sapientia est nulla in eis—they have cast forth the Word of the Lord, and there is no wisdom in them—propterea dabo mulieres eorum exteris—I will give their women to strangers, that is to the Templar, as in the present matter—et thesauros eorum hœredibus alienis—and their treasures to others, as in the present case to these honest gentlemen.”
Isaac groaned deeply, and began to wring his hands, and to relapse into his state of desolation and despair. But the leader of the yeomen led him aside.
“Advise thee well, Isaac,” said Locksley, “what thou wilt do in this matter; my counsel to thee is to make a friend of this churchman. He is vain, Isaac, and he is covetous; at least he needs money to supply his profusion. Thou canst easily gratify his greed; for think not that I am blinded by thy pretexts of poverty. I am intimately acquainted, Isaac, with the very iron chest in which thou dost keep thy money-bags. What! know I not the great stone beneath the apple-tree, that leads into the vaulted chamber under thy garden at York?” The Jew grew as pale as death. “But fear nothing from me,” continued the yeoman, “for we are of old acquainted. Dost thou not remember the sick yeoman whom thy fair daughter Rebecca redeemed from the gyves at York, and kept him in thy house till his health was restored, when thou didst dismiss him recovered, and with a piece of money? Usurer as thou art, thou didst never place coin at better interest than that poor silver mark, for it has this day saved thee five hundred crowns.”
“And thou art he whom we called Diccon Bend-the-Bow?” said Isaac; “I thought ever I knew the accent of thy voice.”
“I am Bend-the-Bow,” said the captain, “and Locksley, and have a good name besides all these.”
“But thou art mistaken, good Bend-the-Bow, concerning that same vaulted apartment. So help me Heaven, as there is nought in it but some merchandises which I will gladly part with to you—one hundred yards of Lincoln green to make doublets to thy men, and a hundred staves of Spanish yew to make bows, and one hundred silken bowstrings, tough, round, and sound—these will I send thee for thy good-will, honest Diccon, an thou wilt keep silence about the vault, my good Diccon.”
“Silent as a dormouse,” said the outlaw; “and never trust me but I am grieved for thy daughter. But I may not help it. The Templar’s lances are too strong for my archery in the open field; they would scatter us like dust. Had I but known it was Rebecca when she was borne off, something might have been done; but now thou must needs proceed by policy. Come, shall I treat for thee with the Prior?”
“In God’s name, Diccon, an thou canst, aid me to recover the child of my bosom!”
“Do not thou interrupt me with thine ill-timed avarice,” said the outlaw, “and I will deal with him in thy behalf.”
He then turned from the Jew, who followed him, however, as closely as his shadow.
“Prior Aymer,” said the captain, “come apart with me under this tree. Men say thou dost love wine and a lady’s smile better than beseems thy order, Sir Priest; but with that I have nought to do. I have heard, too, thou dost love a brace of good dogs and a fleet horse, and it may well be that, loving things which are costly to come by, thou hatest not a purse of gold. But I have never heard that thou didst love oppression or cruelty. Now, here is Isaac willing to give thee the means of pleasure and pastime in a bag containing one hundred marks of silver, if thy intercession with thine ally the Templar shall avail to procure the freedom of his daughter.”
“In safety and honour, as when taken from me,” said the Jew, “otherwise it is no bargain.”
“Peace, Isaac,” said the outlaw, “or I give up thine interest. What say you to this my purpose, Prior Aymer?”
“The matter,” quoth the Prior, “is of a mixed condition; for, if I do a good deed on the one hand, yet, on the other, it goeth to the vantage of a Jew, and in so much is against my conscience. Yet, if the Israelite will advantage the church by giving me somewhat over to the building of our dortour, I will take it on my conscience to aid him in the matter of his daughter.”
“For a score of marks to the dortour,” said the outlaw—“Be still, I say, Isaac!—or for a brace of silver candlesticks to the altar, we will not stand with you.”
“Nay, but, good Diccon Bend-the-Bow,” said Isaac, endeavouring to interpose.
“Good Jew—good beast—good earthworm!” said the yeoman, losing patience; “an thou dost go on to put thy filthy lucre in the balance with thy daughter’s life and honour, by Heaven, I will strip thee of every maravedi thou hast in the world before three days are out!”
Isaac shrunk together, and was silent.
“And what pledge am I to have for all this?” said the Prior.
“When Isaac returns successful through your mediation,” said the outlaw, “I swear by St. Hubert, I will see that he pays thee the money in good silver, or I will reckon with him for it in such sort, he had better have paid twenty such sums.”
“Well then, Jew,” said Aymer, “since I must needs meddle in
this matter, let me have the use of thy writing-tablets-though, hold—rather than use thy pen, I would fast for twenty-four hours, and where shall I find one?”
“If your holy scruples can dispense with using the Jew’s tablets, for the pen I can find a remedy,” said the yeoman; and, bending his bow, he aimed his shaft at a wild goose which was soaring over their heads, the advanced guard of a phalanx of his tribe, which were winging their way to the distant and solitary fens of Holderness. The bird came fluttering down, transfixed with the arrow.
“There, Prior,” said the captain, “are quills enow to supply all the monks of Jorvaulx for the next hundred years, an they take not to writing chronicles.”
The Prior sat down, and at great leisure indited an epistle to Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and having carefully sealed up the tablets, delivered them to the Jew, saying, “This will be thy safe-conduct to the preceptory of Templestowe, and, as I think, is most likely to accomplish the delivery of thy daughter, if it be well backed with proffers of advantage and commodity at thine own hand; for, trust me well, the good knight Bois-Guilbert is of their confraternity that do nought for nought.”
“Well, Prior,” said the outlaw, “I will detain thee no longer here than to give the Jew a quittance for the six hundred crowns at which thy ransom is fixed—I accept of him for my paymaster; and if I hear that ye boggle at allowing him in his accompts the sum so paid by him, St. Mary refuse me, an I burn not the abbey over thine head, though I hang ten years the sooner!”
With a much worse grace than that wherewith he had penned the letter to Bois-Guilbert, the Prior wrote an acquittance, discharging Isaac of York of six hundred crowns, advanced to him in his need for acquittal of his ransom, and faithfully promising to hold true compt with him for that sum.
“And now,” said Prior Aymer, “I will pray you of restitution of my mules and palfreys, and the freedom of the reverend brethren attending upon me, and also of the gymmal rings, jewels, and fair vestures of which I have been despoiled, having now satisfied you for my ransom as a true prisoner.”