by Walter Scott 8 страница

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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, Coeur-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

during the game. [16]

The central pavilion, as the 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-Boeuf 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 las Beaulte 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

connoisseur 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 inertiae" 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

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