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
“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
“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
