CHAPTER XIII.

THE MARRIAGE.

The consternation which ensued on the death of the Rowski, speedily sent

all his camp-followers, army, &c. to the right-about. They struck their

tents at the first news of his discomfiture; and each man laying hold

of what he could, the whole of the gallant force which had marched under

his banner in the morning had disappeared ere the sun rose.

On that night, as it may be imagined, the gates of the Castle of Cleves

were not shut. Everybody was free to come in. Wine-butts were broached

in all the courts; the pickled meat prepared in such lots for the siege

was distributed among the people, who crowded to congratulate their

beloved sovereign on his victory; and the Prince, as was customary with

that good man, who never lost an opportunity of giving a dinner-party,

had a splendid entertainment made ready for the upper classes, the whole

concluding with a tasteful display of fireworks.

In the midst of these entertainments, our old friend the Count of

Hombourg arrived at the castle. The stalwart old warrior swore by Saint

Bugo that he was grieved the killing of the Rowski had been taken out

of his hand. The laughing Cleves vowed by Saint Bendigo, Hombourg could

never have finished off his enemy so satisfactorily as the unknown

knight had just done.

But who was he? was the question which now agitated the bosom of these

two old nobles. How to find him--how to reward the champion and restorer

of the honor and happiness of Cleves? They agreed over supper that he

should be sought for everywhere. Beadles were sent round the principal

cities within fifty miles, and the description of the knight advertised,

in the Journal de Francfort and the Allgemeine Zeitung. The hand of the

Princess Helen was solemnly offered to him in these advertisements,

with the reversion of the Prince of Cleves's splendid though somewhat

dilapidated property.

“But we don't know him, my dear papa,” faintly ejaculated that young

lady. “Some impostor may come in a suit of plain armor, and pretend that

he was the champion who overcame the Rowski (a prince who had his faults

certainly, but whose attachment for me I can never forget); and how

are you to say whether he is the real knight or not? There are so many

deceivers in this world,” added the Princess, in tears, “that one

can't be too cautious now.” The fact is, that she was thinking of the

desertion of Otto in the morning; by which instance of faithlessness her

heart was wellnigh broken.

As for that youth and his comrade Wolfgang, to the astonishment of

everybody at their impudence, they came to the archers' mess that night,

as if nothing had happened; got their supper, partaking both of meat

and drink most plentifully; fell asleep when their comrades began to

describe the events of the day, and the admirable achievements of the

unknown warrior; and turning into their hammocks, did not appear on

parade in the morning until twenty minutes after the names were called.

When the Prince of Cleves heard of the return of these deserters he was

in a towering passion. “Where were you, fellows,” shouted he, “during

the time my castle was at its utmost need?”

Otto replied, “We were out on particular business.”

“Does a soldier leave his post on the day of battle, sir?” exclaimed the

Prince. “You know the reward of such--Death! and death you merit. But

you are a soldier only of yesterday, and yesterday's victory has made me

merciful. Hanged you shall not be, as you merit--only flogged, both

of you. Parade the men, Colonel Tickelstern, after breakfast, and give

these scoundrels five hundred apiece.”

You should have seen how young Otto bounded, when this information was

thus abruptly conveyed to him. “Flog ME!” cried he. “Flog Otto of--”

“Not so, my father,” said the Princess Helen, who had been standing by

during the conversation, and who had looked at Otto all the while with

the most ineffable scorn. “Not so: although these PERSONS have forgotten

their duty” (she laid a particularly sarcastic emphasis on the word

persons), “we have had no need of their services, and have luckily found

OTHERS more faithful. You promised your daughter a boon, papa; it is the

pardon of these two PERSONS. Let them go, and quit a service they have

disgraced; a mistress--that is, a master--they have deceived.”

“Drum 'em out of the castle, Ticklestern; strip their uniforms from

their backs, and never let me hear of the scoundrels again.” So saying,

the old Prince angrily turned on his heel to breakfast, leaving the two

young men to the fun and derision of their surrounding comrades.

The noble Count of Hombourg, who was taking his usual airing on the

ramparts before breakfast, came up at this juncture, and asked what was

the row? Otto blushed when he saw him and turned away rapidly; but the

Count, too, catching a glimpse of him, with a hundred exclamations of

joyful surprise seized upon the lad, hugged him to his manly breast,

kissed him most affectionately, and almost burst into tears as he

embraced him. For, in sooth, the good Count had thought his godson long

ere this at the bottom of the silver Rhine.

The Prince of Cleves, who had come to the breakfast-parlor window, (to

invite his guest to enter, as the tea was made,) beheld this strange

scene from the window, as did the lovely tea-maker likewise, with

breathless and beautiful agitation. The old Count and the archer

strolled up and down the battlements in deep conversation. By the

gestures of surprise and delight exhibited by the former, 'twas easy to

see the young archer was conveying some very strange and pleasing

news to him; though the nature of the conversation was not allowed to

transpire.

“A godson of mine,” said the noble Count, when interrogated over his

muffins. “I know his family; worthy people; sad scapegrace; ran away;

parents longing for him; glad you did not flog him; devil to pay,” and

so forth. The Count was a man of few words, and told his tale in this

brief, artless manner. But why, at its conclusion, did the gentle Helen

leave the room, her eyes filled with tears? She left the room once more

to kiss a certain lock of yellow hair she had pilfered. A dazzling,

delicious thought, a strange wild hope, arose in her soul!

When she appeared again, she made some side-handed inquiries regarding

Otto (with that gentle artifice oft employed by women); but he was gone.

He and his companion were gone. The Count of Hombourg had likewise taken

his departure, under pretext of particular business. How lonely the

vast castle seemed to Helen, now that HE was no longer there. The

transactions of the last few days; the beautiful archer-boy; the offer

from the Rowski (always an event in a young lady's life); the siege

of the castle; the death of her truculent admirer: all seemed like a

fevered dream to her: all was passed away, and had left no trace behind.

No trace?--yes! one: a little insignificant lock of golden hair, over

which the young creature wept so much that she put it out of curl;

passing hours and hours in the summer-house, where the operation had

been performed.

On the second day (it is my belief she would have gone into a

consumption and died of languor, if the event had been delayed a day

longer,) a messenger, with a trumpet, brought a letter in haste to the

Prince of Cleves, who was, as usual, taking refreshment. “To the High

and Mighty Prince,” &c. the letter ran. “The Champion who had the honor

of engaging on Wednesday last with his late Excellency the Rowski of

Donnerblitz, presents his compliments to H. S. H. the Prince of Cleves.

Through the medium of the public prints the C. has been made acquainted

with the flattering proposal of His Serene Highness relative to a union

between himself (the Champion) and her Serene Highness the Princess

Helen of Cleves. The Champion accepts with pleasure that polite

invitation, and will have the honor of waiting upon the Prince and

Princess of Cleves about half an hour after the receipt of this letter.”

“Tol lol de rol, girl,” shouted the Prince with heartfelt joy. (Have you

not remarked, dear friend, how often in novel-books, and on the stage,

joy is announced by the above burst of insensate monosyllables?) “Tol

lol de rol. Don thy best kirtle, child; thy husband will be here anon.”

And Helen retired to arrange her toilet for this awful event in the life

of a young woman. When she returned, attired to welcome her defender,

her young cheek was as pale as the white satin slip and orange sprigs

she wore.

She was scarce seated on the dais by her father's side, when a huge

flourish of trumpets from without proclaimed the arrival of THE

CHAMPION. Helen felt quite sick: a draught of ether was necessary to

restore her tranquillity.

The great door was flung open. He entered,--the same tall warrior, slim,

and beautiful, blazing in shining steel. He approached the Prince's

throne, supported on each side by a friend likewise in armor. He knelt

gracefully on one knee.

“I come,” said he in a voice trembling with emotion, “to claim, as per

advertisement, the hand of the lovely Lady Helen.” And he held out a

copy of the Allgemeine Zeitung as he spoke.

“Art thou noble, Sir Knight?” asked the Prince of Cleves.

“As noble as yourself,” answered the kneeling steel.

“Who answers for thee?”

“I, Karl, Margrave of Godesberg, his father!” said the knight on the

right hand, lifting up his visor.

“And I--Ludwig, Count of Hombourg, his godfather!” said the knight on

the left, doing likewise.

The kneeling knight lifted up his visor now, and looked on Helen.

“I KNEW IT WAS,” said she, and fainted as she saw Otto the Archer.

But she was soon brought to, gentles, as I have small need to tell ye.

In a very few days after, a great marriage took place at Cleves under

the patronage of Saint Bugo, Saint Buffo, and Saint Bendigo. After the

marriage ceremony, the happiest and handsomest pair in the world drove

off in a chaise-and-four, to pass the honeymoon at Kissingen. The Lady

Theodora, whom we left locked up in her convent a long while since, was

prevailed upon to come back to Godesberg, where she was reconciled to

her husband. Jealous of her daughter-in-law, she idolized her son,

and spoiled all her little grandchildren. And so all are happy, and my

simple tale is done.

I read it in an old, old book, in a mouldy old circulating library.

'Twas written in the French tongue, by the noble Alexandre Dumas; but

'tis probable that he stole it from some other, and that the other had

filched it from a former tale-teller. For nothing is new under the sun.

Things die and are reproduced only. And so it is that the forgotten tale

of the great Dumas reappears under the signature of

THERESA MACWHIRTER.

WHISTLEBINKIE, N.B., December 1.

REBECCA AND ROWENA.

A ROMANCE UPON ROMANCE.

BY MR. MICHAEL ANGELO TITMARSH.

CHAPTER I.

THE OVERTURE.--COMMENCEMENT OF THE BUSINESS.

Well-beloved novel-readers and gentle patronesses of romance, assuredly

it has often occurred to every one of you, that the books we delight

in have very unsatisfactory conclusions, and end quite prematurely with

page 320 of the third volume. At that epoch of the history it is well

known that the hero is seldom more than thirty years old, and the

heroine by consequence some seven or eight years younger; and I would

ask any of you whether it is fair to suppose that people after the above

age have nothing worthy of note in their lives, and cease to exist as

they drive away from Saint George's, Hanover Square? You, dear young

ladies, who get your knowledge of life from the circulating library, may

be led to imagine that when the marriage business is done, and Emilia

is whisked off in the new travelling-carriage, by the side of the

enraptured Earl; or Belinda, breaking away from the tearful embraces

of her excellent mother, dries her own lovely eyes upon the throbbing

waistcoat of her bridegroom--you may be apt, I say, to suppose that all

is over then; that Emilia and the Earl are going to be happy for the

rest of their lives in his lordship's romantic castle in the North, and

Belinda and her young clergyman to enjoy uninterrupted bliss in their

rose-trellised parsonage in the West of England: but some there be among

the novel-reading classes--old experienced folks--who know better than

this. Some there be who have been married, and found that they have

still something to see and to do, and to suffer mayhap; and that

adventures, and pains, and pleasures, and taxes, and sunrises and

settings, and the business and joys and griefs of life go on after, as

before the nuptial ceremony.

Therefore I say, it is an unfair advantage which the novelist takes of

hero and heroine, as of his inexperienced reader, to say good-by to the

two former, as soon as ever they are made husband and wife; and I have

often wished that additions should be made to all works of fiction which

have been brought to abrupt terminations in the manner described; and

that we should hear what occurs to the sober married man, as well as to

the ardent bachelor; to the matron, as well as to the blushing spinster.

And in this respect I admire (and would desire to imitate,) the noble

and prolific French author, Alexandre Dumas, who carries his heroes from

early youth down to the most venerable old age; and does not let them

rest until they are so old, that it is full time the poor fellows should

get a little peace and quiet. A hero is much too valuable a gentleman to

be put upon the retired list, in the prime and vigor of his youth; and

I wish to know what lady among us would like to be put on the shelf, and

thought no longer interesting, because she has a family growing up, and

is four or five and thirty years of age? I have known ladies at sixty,

with hearts as tender and ideas as romantic as any young misses of

sixteen. Let us have middle-aged novels then, as well as your extremely

juvenile legends: let the young ones be warned that the old folks have

a right to be interesting: and that a lady may continue to have a heart,

although she is somewhat stouter than she was when a school-girl, and a

man his feelings, although he gets his hair from Truefitt's.

Thus I would desire that the biographies of many of our most illustrious

personages of romance should be continued by fitting hands, and that

they should be heard of, until at least a decent age.--Look at Mr.

James's heroes: they invariably marry young. Look at Mr. Dickens's:

they disappear from the scene when they are mere chits. I trust these

authors, who are still alive, will see the propriety of telling us

something more about people in whom we took a considerable interest,

and who must be at present strong and hearty, and in the full vigor

of health and intellect. And in the tales of the great Sir Walter (may

honor be to his name), I am sure there are a number of people who are

untimely carried away from us, and of whom we ought to hear more.

My dear Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York, has always, in my mind, been

one of these; nor can I ever believe that such a woman, so admirable, so

tender, so heroic, so beautiful, could disappear altogether before such

another woman as Rowena, that vapid, flaxen-headed creature, who is,

in my humble opinion, unworthy of Ivanhoe, and unworthy of her place as

heroine. Had both of them got their rights, it ever seemed to me that

Rebecca would have had the husband, and Rowena would have gone off to

a convent and shut herself up, where I, for one, would never have taken

the trouble of inquiring for her.

But after all she married Ivanhoe. What is to be done? There is no help

for it. There it is in black and white at the end of the third volume

of Sir Walter Scott's chronicle, that the couple were joined together in

matrimony. And must the Disinherited Knight, whose blood has been fired

by the suns of Palestine, and whose heart has been warmed in the company

of the tender and beautiful Rebecca, sit down contented for life by the

side of such a frigid piece of propriety as that icy, faultless, prim,

niminy-piminy Rowena? Forbid it fate, forbid it poetical justice! There

is a simple plan for setting matters right, and giving all parties their

due, which is here submitted to the novel-reader. Ivanhoe's history MUST

have had a continuation; and it is this which ensues. I may be wrong in

some particulars of the narrative,--as what writer will not be?--but

of the main incidents of the history, I have in my own mind no sort of

doubt, and confidently submit them to that generous public which likes

to see virtue righted, true love rewarded, and the brilliant Fairy

descend out of the blazing chariot at the end of the pantomime, and make

Harlequin and Columbine happy. What, if reality be not so, gentlemen and

ladies; and if, after dancing a variety of jigs and antics, and jumping

in and out of endless trap-doors and windows, through life's shifting

scenes, no fairy comes down to make US comfortable at the close of the

performance? Ah! let us give our honest novel-folks the benefit of their

position, and not be envious of their good luck.

No person who has read the preceding volumes of this history, as the

famous chronicler of Abbotsford has recorded them, can doubt for a

moment what was the result of the marriage between Sir Wilfrid of

Ivanhoe and Lady Rowena. Those who have marked her conduct during

her maidenhood, her distinguished politeness, her spotless modesty of

demeanor, her unalterable coolness under all circumstances, and her

lofty and gentlewomanlike bearing, must be sure that her married conduct

would equal her spinster behavior, and that Rowena the wife would be a

pattern of correctness for all the matrons of England.

Such was the fact. For miles around Rotherwood her character for piety

was known. Her castle was a rendezvous for all the clergy and monks of

the district, whom she fed with the richest viands, while she pinched

herself upon pulse and water. There was not an invalid in the three

Ridings, Saxon or Norman, but the palfrey of the Lady Rowena might

be seen journeying to his door, in company with Father Glauber, her

almoner, and Brother Thomas of Epsom, her leech. She lighted up all the

churches in Yorkshire with wax-candles, the offerings of her piety. The

bells of her chapel began to ring at two o'clock in the morning; and

all the domestics of Rotherwood were called upon to attend at matins,

at complins, at nones, at vespers, and at sermon. I need not say that

fasting was observed with all the rigors of the Church; and that those

of the servants of the Lady Rowena were looked upon with most favor

whose hair-shirts were the roughest, and who flagellated themselves with

the most becoming perseverance.

Whether it was that this discipline cleared poor Wamba's wits or cooled

his humor, it is certain that he became the most melancholy fool in

England, and if ever he ventured upon a pun to the shuddering poor

servitors, who were mumbling their dry crusts below the salt, it was

such a faint and stale joke that noboby dared to laugh at the innuendoes

of the unfortunate wag, and a sickly smile was the best applause he

could muster. Once, indeed, when Guffo, the goose-boy (a half-witted

poor wretch), laughed outright at a lamentably stale pun which Wamba

palmed upon him at supper-time, (it was dark, and the torches being

brought in, Wamba said, “Guffo, they can't see their way in the

argument, and are going TO THROW A LITTLE LIGHT UPON THE SUBJECT,”) the

Lady Rowena, being disturbed in a theological controversy with Father

Willibald, (afterwards canonized as St. Willibald, of Bareacres, hermit

and confessor,) called out to know what was the cause of the unseemly

interruption, and Guffo and Wamba being pointed out as the culprits,

ordered them straightway into the court-yard, and three dozen to be

administered to each of them.

“I got you out of Front-de-Boeufs castle,” said poor Wamba, piteously,

appealing to Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, “and canst thou not save me from

the lash?”

“Yes, from Front-de-Boeuf's castle, WHERE YOU WERE LOCKED UP WITH THE

JEWESS IN THE TOWER!” said Rowena, haughtily replying to the timid

appeal of her husband. “Gurth, give him four dozen!”

And this was all poor Wamba got by applying for the mediation of his

master.

In fact, Rowena knew her own dignity so well as a princess of the

royal blood of England, that Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, her consort, could

scarcely call his life his own, and was made, in all things, to feel the

inferiority of his station. And which of us is there acquainted with the

sex that has not remarked this propensity in lovely woman, and how often

the wisest in the council are made to be as fools at HER board, and the

boldest in the battle-field are craven when facing her distaff?

“Where you were locked up with the Jewess in the tower,” was a

remark, too, of which Wilfrid keenly felt, and perhaps the reader will

understand, the significancy. When the daughter of Isaac of York brought

her diamonds and rubies--the poor gentle victim!--and, meekly laying

them at the feet of the conquering Rowena, departed into foreign lands

to tend the sick of her people, and to brood over the bootless passion

which consumed her own pure heart, one would have thought that the heart

of the royal lady would have melted before such beauty and humility, and

that she would have been generous in the moment of her victory.

But did you ever know a right-minded woman pardon another for being

handsome and more love-worthy than herself? The Lady Rowena did

certainly say with mighty magnanimity to the Jewish maiden, “Come and

live with me as a sister,” as the former part of this history shows; but

Rebecca knew in her heart that her ladyship's proposition was what

is called BOSH (in that noble Eastern language with which Wilfrid the

Crusader was familiar), or fudge, in plain Saxon; and retired with a

broken, gentle spirit, neither able to bear the sight of her rival's

happiness, nor willing to disturb it by the contrast of her own

wretchedness. Rowena, like the most high-bred and virtuous of women,

never forgave Isaac's daughter her beauty, nor her flirtation with

Wilfrid (as the Saxon lady chose to term it); nor, above all, her

admirable diamonds and jewels, although Rowena was actually in

possession of them.

In a word, she was always flinging Rebecca into Ivanhoe's teeth. There

was not a day in his life but that unhappy warrior was made to remember

that a Hebrew damsel had been in love with him, and that a Christian

lady of fashion could never forgive the insult. For instance, if Gurth,

the swineherd, who was now promoted to be a gamekeeper and verderer,

brought the account of a famous wild-boar in the wood, and proposed a

hunt, Rowena would say, “Do, Sir Wilfrid, persecute these poor pigs: you

know your friends the Jews can't abide them!” Or when, as it oft would

happen, our lion-hearted monarch, Richard, in order to get a loan or a

benevolence from the Jews, would roast a few of the Hebrew capitalists,

or extract some of the principal rabbis' teeth, Rowena would exult and

say, “Serve them right, the misbelieving wretches! England can never be

a happy country until every one of these monsters is exterminated!” or

else, adopting a strain of still more savage sarcasm, would exclaim,

“Ivanhoe my dear, more persecution for the Jews! Hadn't you better

interfere, my love? His Majesty will do anything for you; and, you know,

the Jews were ALWAYS SUCH FAVORITES OF YOURS,” or words to that effect.

But, nevertheless, her ladyship never lost an opportunity of wearing

Rebecca's jewels at court, whenever the Queen held a drawing-room; or

at the York assizes and ball, when she appeared there: not of course

because she took any interest in such things, but because she considered

it her duty to attend, as one of the chief ladies of the county.

Thus Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, having attained the height of his wishes,

was, like many a man when he has reached that dangerous elevation,

disappointed. Ah, dear friends, it is but too often so in life! Many a

garden, seen from a distance, looks fresh and green, which, when

beheld closely, is dismal and weedy; the shady walks melancholy and

grass-grown; the bowers you would fain repose in, cushioned with

stinging-nettles. I have ridden in a caique upon the waters of the

Bosphorus, and looked upon the capital of the Soldan of Turkey. As seen

from those blue waters, with palace and pinnacle, with gilded dome and

towering cypress, it seemeth a very Paradise of Mahound: but, enter

the city, and it is but a beggarly labyrinth of rickety huts and dirty

alleys, where the ways are steep and the smells are foul, tenanted by

mangy dogs and ragged beggars--a dismal illusion! Life is such, ah,

well-a-day! It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness

and a deceit.

Perhaps a man with Ivanhoe's high principles would never bring himself

to acknowledge this fact; but others did for him. He grew thin, and

pined away as much as if he had been in a fever under the scorching sun

of Ascalon. He had no appetite for his meals; he slept ill, though he

was yawning all day. The jangling of the doctors and friars whom

Rowena brought together did not in the least enliven him, and he would

sometimes give proofs of somnolency during their disputes, greatly to

the consternation of his lady. He hunted a good deal, and, I very much

fear, as Rowena rightly remarked, that he might have an excuse for being

absent from home. He began to like wine, too, who had been as sober as a

hermit; and when he came back from Athelstane's (whither he would

repair not unfrequently), the unsteadiness of his gait and the unnatural

brilliancy of his eye were remarked by his lady: who, you may be sure,

was sitting up for him. As for Athelstane, he swore by St. Wullstan that

he was glad to have escaped a marriage with such a pattern of propriety;

and honest Cedric the Saxon (who had been very speedily driven out of

his daughter-in-law's castle) vowed by St. Waltheof that his son had

bought a dear bargain.

So Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe became almost as tired of England as his royal

master Richard was, (who always quitted the country when he had squeezed

from his loyal nobles, commons, clergy, and Jews, all the money which he

could get,) and when the lion-hearted Prince began to make war against

the French King, in Normandy and Guienne, Sir Wilfrid pined like a true

servant to be in company of the good champion, alongside of whom he

had shivered so many lances, and dealt such woundy blows of sword and

battle-axe on the plains of Jaffa or the breaches of Acre. Travellers

were welcome at Rotherwood that brought news from the camp of the good

King: and I warrant me that the knight listened with all his might when

Father Drono, the chaplain, read in the St. James's Chronykyll (which

was the paper of news he of Ivanhoe took in) of “another glorious

triumph”--“Defeat of the French near Blois”--“Splendid victory at Epte,

and narrow escape of the French King:” the which deeds of arms the

learned scribes had to narrate.

However such tales might excite him during the reading, they left the

Knight of Ivanhoe only the more melancholy after listening: and the more

moody as he sat in his great hall silently draining his Gascony wine.

Silently sat he and looked at his coats-of-mail hanging vacant on the

wall, his banner covered with spider-webs, and his sword and axe rusting

there. “Ah, dear axe,” sighed he (into his drinking-horn)--“ah, gentle

steel! that was a merry time when I sent thee crashing into the pate of

the Emir Abdul Melik as he rode on the right of Saladin. Ah, my sword,

my dainty headsman? my sweet split-rib? my razor of infidel beards! is

the rust to eat thine edge off, and am I never more to wield thee in

battle? What is the use of a shield on a wall, or a lance that has a

cobweb for a pennon? O Richard, my good king, would I could hear once

more thy voice in the front of the onset! Bones of Brian the Templar?

would ye could rise from your grave at Templestowe, and that we might

break another spear for honor and--and--” . . .

“And REBECCA,” he would have said; but the knight paused here in rather

a guilty panic: and her Royal Highness the Princess Rowena (as she chose

to style herself at home) looked so hard at him out of her china-blue

eyes, that Sir Wilfrid felt as if she was reading his thoughts, and was

fain to drop his own eyes into his flagon.

In a word, his life was intolerable. The dinner hour of the twelfth

century, it is known, was very early; in fact, people dined at ten

o'clock in the morning: and after dinner Rowena sat mum under her

canopy, embroidered with the arms of Edward the Confessor, working with

her maidens at the most hideous pieces of tapestry, representing the

tortures and martyrdoms of her favorite saints, and not allowing a soul

to speak above his breath, except when she chose to cry out in her own

shrill voice when a handmaid made a wrong stitch, or let fall a ball of

worsted. It was a dreary life. Wamba, we have said, never ventured to

crack a joke, save in a whisper, when he was ten miles from home; and

then Sir Wilfrid Ivanhoe was too weary and blue-devilled to laugh; but

hunted in silence, moodily bringing down deer and wild-boar with shaft

and quarrel.

Then he besought Robin of Huntingdon, the jolly outlaw, nathless, to

join him, and go to the help of their fair sire King Richard, with a

score or two of lances. But the Earl of Huntingdon was a very different

character from Robin Hood the forester. There was no more conscientious

magistrate in all the county than his lordship: he was never known to

miss church or quarter-sessions; he was the strictest game-proprietor

in all the Riding, and sent scores of poachers to Botany Bay. “A man who

has a stake in the country, my good Sir Wilfrid,” Lord Huntingdon said,

with rather a patronizing air (his lordship had grown immensely fat

since the King had taken him into grace, and required a horse as strong

as an elephant to mount him)--“a man with a stake in the country

ought to stay IN the country. Property has its duties as well as its

privileges, and a person of my rank is bound to live on the land from

which he gets his living.”

“'Amen!” sang out the Reverend ---- Tuck, his lordship's domestic

chaplain, who had also grown as sleek as the Abbot of Jorvaulx, who was

as prim as a lady in his dress, wore bergamot in his handkerchief, and

had his poll shaved and his beard curled every day. And so sanctified

was his Reverence grown, that he thought it was a shame to kill the

pretty deer, (though he ate of them still hugely, both in pasties and

with French beans and currant-jelly,) and being shown a quarter-staff

upon a certain occasion, handled it curiously, and asked “what that ugly

great stick was?”

Lady Huntingdon, late Maid Marian, had still some of her old fun and

spirits, and poor Ivanhoe begged and prayed that she would come and

stay at Rotherwood occasionally, and egayer the general dulness of that

castle. But her ladyship said that Rowena gave herself such airs, and

bored her so intolerably with stories of King Edward the Confessor, that

she preferred any place rather than Rotherwood, which was as dull as if

it had been at the top of Mount Athos.

The only person who visited it was Athelstane. “His Royal Highness the

Prince” Rowena of course called him, whom the lady received with

royal honors. She had the guns fired, and the footmen turned out with

presented arms when he arrived; helped him to all Ivanhoe's favorite

cuts of the mutton or the turkey, and forced her poor husband to

light him to the state bedroom, walking backwards, holding a pair of

wax-candles. At this hour of bedtime the Thane used to be in such a

condition, that he saw two pair of candles and two Ivanhoes reeling

before him. Let us hope it was not Ivanhoe that was reeling, but only

his kinsman's brains muddled with the quantities of drink which it was

his daily custom to consume. Rowena said it was the crack which the

wicked Bois Guilbert, “the Jewess's OTHER lover, Wilfrid my dear,”

gave him on his royal skull, which caused the Prince to be disturbed so

easily; but added, that drinking became a person of royal blood, and was

but one of the duties of his station.

Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe saw it would be of no avail to ask this man to

bear him company on his projected tour abroad; but still he himself was

every day more and more bent upon going, and he long cast about for some

means of breaking to his Rowena his firm resolution to join the King.

He thought she would certainty fall ill if he communicated the news too

abruptly to her: he would pretend a journey to York to attend a grand

jury; then a call to London on law business or to buy stock; then he

would slip over to Calais by the packet, by degrees as it were; and

so be with the King before his wife knew that he was out of sight of

Westminster Hall.

“Suppose your honor says you are going as your honor would say Bo! to a

goose, plump, short, and to the point,” said Wamba the Jester--who was

Sir Wilfrid's chief counsellor and attendant--“depend on't her Highness

would bear the news like a Christian woman.”

“Tush, malapert! I will give thee the strap,” said Sir Wilfrid, in a

fine tone of high-tragedy indignation. “Thou knowest not the delicacy

of the nerves of high-born ladies. An she faint not, write me down

Hollander.”

“I will wager my bauble against an Irish billet of exchange that she

will let your honor go off readily: that is, if you press not the matter

too strongly,” Wamba answered, knowingly. And this Ivanhoe found to his

discomfiture: for one morning at breakfast, adopting a degage air, as he

sipped his tea, he said, “My love, I was thinking of going over to pay

his Majesty a visit in Normandy.” Upon which, laying down her muffin,

(which, since the royal Alfred baked those cakes, had been the chosen

breakfast cate of noble Anglo-Saxons, and which a kneeling page tendered

to her on a salver, chased by the Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini,)--“When

do you think of going, Wilfrid my dear?” the lady said; and the moment

the tea-things were removed, and the tables and their trestles put away,

she set about mending his linen, and getting ready his carpet-bag.

So Sir Wilfrid was as disgusted at her readiness to part with him as he

had been weary of staying at home, which caused Wamba the Fool to say,

“Marry, gossip, thou art like the man on ship-board, who, when the

boatswain flogged him, did cry out 'Oh!' wherever the rope's-end fell on

him: which caused Master Boatswain to say, 'Plague on thee, fellow, and

a pize on thee, knave, wherever I hit thee there is no pleasing thee.'”

“And truly there are some backs which Fortune is always belaboring,”

thought Sir Wilfrid with a groan, “and mine is one that is ever sore.”

So, with a moderate retinue, whereof the knave Wamba made one, and

a large woollen comforter round his neck, which his wife's own white

fingers had woven, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe left home to join the King his

master. Rowena, standing on the steps, poured out a series of prayers

and blessings, most edifying to hear, as her lord mounted his charger,

which his squires led to the door. “It was the duty of the British

female of rank,” she said, “to suffer all--ALL in the cause of her

sovereign. SHE would not fear loneliness during the campaign: she would

bear up against widowhood, desertion, and an unprotected situation.”

“My cousin Athelstane will protect thee,” said Ivanhoe, with profound

emotion, as the tears trickled down his basenet; and bestowing a chaste

salute upon the steel-clad warrior, Rowena modestly said “she hoped his

Highness would be so kind.”

Then Ivanhoe's trumpet blew: then Rowena waved her pocket-handkerchief:

then the household gave a shout: then the pursuivant of the good Knight,

Sir Wilfrid the Crusader, flung out his banner (which was argent, a

gules cramoisy with three Moors impaled sable): then Wamba gave a lash

on his mule's haunch, and Ivanhoe, heaving a great sigh, turned the tail

of his war-horse upon the castle of his fathers.

As they rode along the forest, they met Athelstane the Thane powdering

along the road in the direction of Rotherwood on his great dray-horse

of a charger. “Good-by, good luck to you, old brick,” cried the Prince,

using the vernacular Saxon. “Pitch into those Frenchmen; give it 'em

over the face and eyes; and I'll stop at home and take care of Mrs. I.”

“Thank you, kinsman,” said Ivanhoe--looking, however, not particularly

well pleased; and the chiefs shaking hands, the train of each took its

different way--Athelstane's to Rotherwood, Ivanhoe's towards his place

of embarkation.

The poor knight had his wish, and yet his face was a yard long and as

yellow as a lawyer's parchment; and having longed to quit home any time

these three years past, he found himself envying Athelstane, because,

forsooth, he was going to Rotherwood: which symptoms of discontent being

observed by the witless Wamba, caused that absurd madman to bring his

rebeck over his shoulder from his back, and to sing--

“ATRA CURA.

“Before I lost my five poor wits,

I mind me of a Romish clerk,

Who sang how Care, the phantom dark,

Beside the belted horseman sits.

Methought I saw the griesly sprite

Jump up but now behind my Knight.”

“Perhaps thou didst, knave,” said Ivanhoe, looking over his shoulder;

and the knave went on with his jingle:

“And though he gallop as he may,

I mark that cursed monster black

Still sits behind his honor's back,

Tight squeezing of his heart alway.

Like two black Templars sit they there,

Beside one crupper, Knight and Care.

“No knight am I with pennoned spear,

To prance upon a bold destrere:

I will not have black Care prevail

Upon my long-eared charger's tail,

For lo, I am a witless fool,

And laugh at Grief and ride a mule.”

And his bells rattled as he kicked his mule's sides.

“Silence, fool!” said Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, in a voice both majestic

and wrathful. “If thou knowest not care and grief, it is because thou

knowest not love, whereof they are the companions. Who can love without

an anxious heart? How shall there be joy at meeting, without tears at

parting?” (“I did not see that his honor or my lady shed many anon,”

thought Wamba the Fool; but he was only a zany, and his mind was not

right.) “I would not exchange my very sorrows for thine indifference,”

the knight continued. “Where there is a sun, there must be a shadow. If

the shadow offend me, shall I put out my eyes and live in the dark? No!

I am content with my fate, even such as it is. The Care of which thou

speakest, hard though it may vex him, never yet rode down an honest

man. I can bear him on my shoulders, and make my way through the world's

press in spite of him; for my arm is strong, and my sword is keen, and

my shield has no stain on it; and my heart, though it is sad, knows no

guile.” And here, taking a locket out of his waistcoat (which was made

of chain-mail), the knight kissed the token, put it back under the

waistcoat again, heaved a profound sigh, and stuck spurs into his horse.

As for Wamba, he was munching a black pudding whilst Sir Wilfrid

was making the above speech, (which implied some secret grief on the

knight's part, that must have been perfectly unintelligible to the

fool,) and so did not listen to a single word of Ivanhoe's pompous

remarks. They travelled on by slow stages through the whole kingdom,

until they came to Dover, whence they took shipping for Calais. And in

this little voyage, being exceedingly sea-sick, and besides elated at

the thought of meeting his sovereign, the good knight cast away that

profound melancholy which had accompanied him during the whole of his

land journey.

CHAPTER II.

THE LAST DAYS OF THE LION.

From Calais Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe took the diligence across country to

Limoges, sending on Gurth, his squire, with the horses and the rest of

his attendants: with the exception of Wamba, who travelled not only as

the knight's fool, but as his valet, and who, perched on the roof of the

carriage, amused himself by blowing tunes upon the conducteur's French

horn. The good King Richard was, as Ivanhoe learned, in the Limousin,

encamped before a little place called Chalus; the lord whereof, though a

vassal of the King's, was holding the castle against his sovereign with

a resolution and valor which caused a great fury and annoyance on the

part of the Monarch with the Lion Heart. For brave and magnanimous as

he was, the Lion-hearted one did not love to be balked any more than

another; and, like the royal animal whom he was said to resemble, he

commonly tore his adversary to pieces, and then, perchance, had leisure

to think how brave the latter had been. The Count of Chalus had found,

it was said, a pot of money; the royal Richard wanted it. As the count

denied that he had it, why did he not open the gates of his castle

at once? It was a clear proof that he was guilty; and the King was

determined to punish this rebel, and have his money and his life too.

He had naturally brought no breaching guns with him, because those

instruments were not yet invented: and though he had assaulted the place

a score of times with the utmost fury, his Majesty had been beaten

back on every occasion, until he was so savage that it was dangerous

to approach the British Lion. The Lion's wife, the lovely Berengaria,

scarcely ventured to come near him. He flung the joint-stools in his

tent at the heads of the officers of state, and kicked his aides-de-camp

round his pavilion; and, in fact, a maid of honor, who brought a

sack-posset in to his Majesty from the Queen after he came in from the

assault, came spinning like a football out of the royal tent just as

Ivanhoe entered it.

“Send me my drum-major to flog that woman!” roared out the infuriate

King. “By the bones of St. Barnabas she has burned the sack! By St.

Wittikind, I will have her flayed alive. Ha, St. George! ha, St.

Richard! whom have we here?” And he lifted up his demi-culverin, or

curtal-axe--a weapon weighing about thirteen hundredweight--and was

about to fling it at the intruder's head, when the latter, kneeling

gracefully on one knee, said calmly, “It is I, my good liege, Wilfrid of

Ivanhoe.”

“What, Wilfrid of Templestowe, Wilfrid the married man, Wilfrid the

henpecked!” cried the King with a sudden burst of good-humor, flinging

away the culverin from him, as though it had been a reed (it lighted

three hundred yards off, on the foot of Hugo de Bunyon, who was smoking

a cigar at the door of his tent, and caused that redoubted warrior to

limp for some days after). “What, Wilfrid my gossip? Art come to see

the lion's den? There are bones in it, man, bones and carcasses, and the

lion is angry,” said the King, with a terrific glare of his eyes. “But

tush! we will talk of that anon. Ho! bring two gallons of hypocras for

the King and the good Knight, Wilfrid of Ivanhoe. Thou art come in

time, Wilfrid, for, by St. Richard and St. George, we will give a grand

assault to-morrow. There will be bones broken, ha!”

“I care not, my liege,” said Ivanhoe, pledging the sovereign

respectfully, and tossing off the whole contents of the bowl of hypocras

to his Highness's good health. And he at once appeared to be taken into

high favor; not a little to the envy of many of the persons surrounding

the King.

As his Majesty said, there was fighting and feasting in plenty before

Chalus. Day after day, the besiegers made assaults upon the castle, but

it was held so stoutly by the Count of Chalus and his gallant

garrison, that each afternoon beheld the attacking-parties returning

disconsolately to their tents, leaving behind them many of their own

slain, and bringing back with them store of broken heads and maimed

limbs, received in the unsuccessful onset. The valor displayed by

Ivanhoe in all these contests was prodigious; and the way in which

he escaped death from the discharges of mangonels, catapults,

battering-rams, twenty-four pounders, boiling oil, and other artillery,

with which the besieged received their enemies, was remarkable. After

a day's fighting, Gurth and Wamba used to pick the arrows out of their

intrepid master's coat-of-mail, as if they had been so many almonds in

a pudding. 'Twas well for the good knight, that under his first coat-of

armor he wore a choice suit of Toledan steel, perfectly impervious to

arrow-shots, and given to him by a certain Jew, named Isaac of York, to

whom he had done some considerable services a few years back.

If King Richard had not been in such a rage at the repeated failures of

his attacks upon the castle, that all sense of justice was blinded in

the lion-hearted monarch, he would have been the first to acknowledge

the valor of Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, and would have given him a Peerage

and the Grand Cross of the Bath at least a dozen times in the course of

the siege: for Ivanhoe led more than a dozen storming parties, and with

his own hand killed as many men (viz, two thousand three hundred

and fifty-one) within six, as were slain by the lion-hearted monarch

himself. But his Majesty was rather disgusted than pleased by his

faithful servant's prowess; and all the courtiers, who hated Ivanhoe for

his superior valor and dexterity (for he would kill you off a couple of

hundreds of them of Chalus, whilst the strongest champions of the Kings

host could not finish more than their two dozen of a day), poisoned the

royal mind against Sir Wilfrid, and made the King look upon his feats of

arms with an evil eye. Roger de Backbite sneeringly told the King that

Sir Wilfrid had offered to bet an equal bet that he would kill more men

than Richard himself in the next assault: Peter de Toadhole said that

Ivanhoe stated everywhere that his Majesty was not the man he used to

be; that pleasures and drink had enervated him; that he could neither

ride, nor strike a blow with sword or axe, as he had been enabled to do

in the old times in Palestine: and finally, in the twenty-fifth assault,

in which they had very nearly carried the place, and in which onset

Ivanhoe slew seven, and his Majesty six, of the sons of the Count de

Chalus, its defender, Ivanhoe almost did for himself, by planting his

banner before the King's upon the wall; and only rescued himself from

utter disgrace by saving his Majesty's life several times in the course

of this most desperate onslaught.

Then the luckless knight's very virtues (as, no doubt, my respected

readers know,) made him enemies amongst the men--nor was Ivanhoe liked

by the women frequenting the camp of the gay King Richard. His young

Queen, and a brilliant court of ladies, attended the pleasure-loving

monarch. His Majesty would transact business in the morning, then fight

severely from after breakfast till about three o'clock in the afternoon;

from which time, until after midnight, there was nothing but jigging

and singing, feasting and revelry, in the royal tents. Ivanhoe, who

was asked as a matter of ceremony, and forced to attend these

entertainments, not caring about the blandishments of any of the ladies

present, looked on at their ogling and dancing with a countenance as

glum as an undertaker's, and was a perfect wet-blanket in the midst

of the festivities. His favorite resort and conversation were with a

remarkably austere hermit, who lived in the neighborhood of Chalus, and

with whom Ivanhoe loved to talk about Palestine, and the Jews, and other

grave matters of import, better than to mingle in the gayest amusements

of the court of King Richard. Many a night, when the Queen and the

ladies were dancing quadrilles and polkas (in which his Majesty, who was

enormously stout as well as tall, insisted upon figuring, and in which

he was about as graceful as an elephant dancing a hornpipe), Ivanhoe

would steal away from the ball, and come and have a night's chat under

the moon with his reverend friend. It pained him to see a man of the

King's age and size dancing about with the young folks. They laughed

at his Majesty whilst they flattered him: the pages and maids of honor

mimicked the royal mountebank almost to his face; and, if Ivanhoe ever

could have laughed, he certainly would one night when the King, in

light-blue satin inexpressibles, with his hair in powder, chose to dance

the minuet de la cour with the little Queen Berangeria.

Then, after dancing, his Majesty must needs order a guitar, and begin to

sing. He was said to compose his own songs--words and music--but those

who have read Lord Campobello's “Lives of the Lord Chancellors” are

aware that there was a person by the name of Blondel, who, in fact, did

all the musical part of the King's performances; and as for the words,

when a king writes verses, we may be sure there will be plenty of people

to admire his poetry. His Majesty would sing you a ballad, of which

he had stolen every idea, to an air that was ringing on all the

barrel-organs of Christendom, and, turning round to his courtiers, would

say, “How do you like that? I dashed it off this morning.” Or, “Blondel,

what do you think of this movement in B flat?” or what not; and the

courtiers and Blondel, you may be sure, would applaud with all their

might, like hypocrites as they were.

One evening--it was the evening of the 27th March, 1199, indeed--his

Majesty, who was in the musical mood, treated the court with a quantity

of his so-called composition, until the people were fairly tired of

clapping with their hands and laughing in their sleeves. First he sang

an ORIGINAL air and poem, beginning

“Cherries nice, cherries nice, nice, come choose,

Fresh and fair ones, who'll refuse?” &c.

The which he was ready to take his affidavit he had composed the day

before yesterday. Then he sang an equally ORIGINAL heroic melody, of

which the chorus was

“Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the sea,

For Britons never, never, never slaves shall be,” &c.

The courtiers applauded this song as they did the other, all except

Ivanhoe, who sat without changing a muscle of his features, until the

King questioned him, when the knight, with a bow said “he thought he had

heard something very like the air and the words elsewhere.” His Majesty

scowled at him a savage glance from under his red bushy eyebrows; but

Ivanhoe had saved the royal life that day, and the King, therefore, with

difficulty controlled his indignation.

“Well,” said he, “by St. Richard and St. George, but ye never heard THIS

song, for I composed it this very afternoon as I took my bath after the

melee. Did I not, Blondel?”

Blondel, of course, was ready to take an affidavit that his Majesty had

done as he said, and the King, thrumming on his guitar with his great

red fingers and thumbs, began to sing out of tune and as follows:--

“COMMANDERS OF THE FAITHFUL.

“The Pope he is a happy man,

His Palace is the Vatican,

And there he sits and drains his can:

The Pope he is a happy man.

I often say when I'm at home,

I'd like to be the Pope of Rome.

“And then there's Sultan Saladin,

That Turkish Soldan full of sin;

He has a hundred wives at least,

By which his pleasure is increased:

I've often wished, I hope no sin,

That I were Sultan Saladin.

“But no, the Pope no wife may choose,

And so I would not wear his shoes;

No wine may drink the proud Paynim,

And so I'd rather not be him:

My wife, my wine, I love I hope,

And would be neither Turk nor Pope.”

“Encore! Encore! Bravo! Bis!” Everybody applauded the King's song with

all his might: everybody except Ivanhoe, who preserved his abominable

gravity: and when asked aloud by Roger de Backbite whether he had heard

that too, said firmly, “Yes, Roger de Backbite; and so hast thou if thou

darest but tell the truth.”

“Now, by St. Cicely, may I never touch gittern again,” bawled the King

in a fury, “if every note, word, and thought be not mine; may I die in

to-morrow's onslaught if the song be not my song. Sing thyself, Wilfrid

of the Lanthorn Jaws; thou could'st sing a good song in old times.” And

with all his might, and with a forced laugh, the King, who loved brutal

practical jests, flung his guitar at the head of Ivanhoe.

Sir Wilfrid caught it gracefully with one hand, and making an elegant

bow to the sovereign, began to chant as follows:--

“KING CANUTE.

“King Canute was weary-hearted; he had reigned for years a score,

Battling, struggling, pushing, fighting, killing much and robbing

more;

And he thought upon his actions, walking by the wild sea-shore.

“'Twixt the Chancellor and Bishop walked the King with steps

sedate,

Chamberlains and grooms came after, silversticks and goldsticks

great,

Chaplains, aides-de-camp, and pages,--all the officers of state.

“Sliding after like his shadow, pausing when he chose to pause,

If a frown his face contracted, straight the courtiers dropped

their jaws;

If to laugh the King was minded, out they burst in loud hee-haws.

“But that day a something vexed him, that was clear to old and

young:

Thrice his Grace had yawned at table, when his favorite gleemen

sung,

Once the Queen would have consoled him, but he bade her hold her

tongue.

“'Something ails my gracious master,' cried the Keeper of the Seal.

'Sure, my lord, it is the lampreys served at dinner, or the veal?'

'Psha!' exclaimed the angry monarch. 'Keeper, 'tis not that I

feel.

“''Tis the HEART, and not the dinner, fool, that doth my rest

impair:

Can a King be great as I am, prithee, and yet know no care?

Oh, I'm sick, and tired, and weary.'--Some one cried, 'The King's

arm-chair?'

“Then towards the lackeys turning, quick my Lord the Keeper nodded,

Straight the King's great chair was brought him, by two footmen

able-bodied;

Languidly he sank into it: it was comfortably wadded.

“'Leading on my fierce companions,' cried be, 'over storm and

brine,

I have fought and I have conquered! Where was glory like to mine?'

Loudly all the courtiers echoed: 'Where is glory like to thine?'

“'What avail me all my kingdoms? Weary am I now, and old;

Those fair sons I have begotten, long to see me dead and cold;

Would I were, and quiet buried, underneath the silent mould!

“'Oh, remorse, the writhing serpent! at my bosom tears and bites;

Horrid, horrid things I look on, though I put out all the lights;

Ghosts of ghastly recollections troop about my bed of nights.

“'Cities burning, convents blazing, red with sacrilegious fires;

Mothers weeping, virgins screaming, vainly for their slaughtered

sires.'--Such a tender conscience,' cries the Bishop, 'every

one admires.

“'But for such unpleasant bygones, cease, my gracious lord, to

search,

They're forgotten and forgiven by our Holy Mother Church;

Never, never does she leave her benefactors in the lurch.

“'Look! the land is crowned with minsters, which your Grace's

bounty raised;

Abbeys filled with holy men, where you and Heaven are daily

praised:

YOU, my lord, to think of dying? on my conscience I'm amazed!'

“'Nay, I feel,' replied King Canute, 'that my end is drawing near.'

'Don't say so,' exclaimed the courtiers (striving each to squeeze a

tear).

'Sure your Grace is strong and lusty, and may live this fifty

year.'

“'Live these fifty years!' the Bishop roared, with actions made to

suit.

'Are you mad, my good Lord Keeper, thus to speak of King Canute!

Men have lived a thousand years, and sure his Majesty will do't.

“'Adam, Enoch, Lamech, Cainan, Mahaleel, Methusela,

Lived nine hundred years apiece, and mayn't the King as well as

they?'

'Fervently,' exclaimed the Keeper, 'fervently I trust he may.'

“'HE to die?' resumed the Bishop. 'He a mortal like to US?

Death was not for him intended, though communis omnibus:

Keeper, you are irreligious, for to talk and cavil thus.

“'With his wondrous skill in healing ne'er a doctor can compete,

Loathsome lepers, if he touch them, start up clean upon their feet;

Surely he could raise the dead up, did his Highness think it meet.

“'Did not once the Jewish captain stay the sun upon the hill,

And, the while he slew the foemen, bid the silver moon stand still?

So, no doubt, could gracious Canute, if it were his sacred will.'

“'Might I stay the sun above us, good Sir Bishop?' Canute cried;

'Could I bid the silver moon to pause upon her heavenly ride?

If the moon obeys my orders, sure I can command the tide.

“'Will the advancing waves obey me, Bishop, if I make the sign?'

Said the Bishop, bowing lowly, 'Land and sea, my lord, are thine.'

Canute turned towards the ocean--'Back!' he said, 'thou foaming

brine

“'From the sacred shore I stand on, I command thee to retreat;

Venture not, thou stormy rebel, to approach thy master's seat:

Ocean, be thou still! I bid thee come not nearer to my feet!'

“But the sullen ocean answered with a louder, deeper roar,

And the rapid waves drew nearer, falling sounding on the shore;

Back the Keeper and the Bishop, back the King and courtiers bore.

“And he sternly bade them never more to kneel to human clay,

But alone to praise and worship That which earth and seas obey:

And his golden crown of empire never wore he from that day.

King Canute is dead and gone: Parasites exist alway.”

At this ballad, which, to be sure, was awfully long, and as grave as a

sermon, some of the courtiers tittered, some yawned, and some affected

to be asleep and snore outright. But Roger de Backbite thinking to curry

favor with the King by this piece of vulgarity, his Majesty fetched

him a knock on the nose and a buffet on the ear, which, I warrant me,

wakened Master Roger; to whom the King said, “Listen and be civil,

slave; Wilfrid is singing about thee.--Wilfrid, thy ballad is long, but

it is to the purpose, and I have grown cool during thy homily. Give

me thy hand, honest friend. Ladies, good night. Gentlemen, we give the

grand assault to-morrow; when I promise thee, Wilfrid, thy banner shall

not be before mine.”--And the King, giving his arm to her Majesty,

retired into the private pavilion.

CHAPTER III.

ST. GEORGE FOR ENGLAND.

Whilst the royal Richard and his court were feasting in the camp outside

the walls of Chalus, they of the castle were in the most miserable

plight that may be conceived. Hunger, as well as the fierce assaults

of the besiegers, had made dire ravages in the place. The garrison's

provisions of corn and cattle, their very horses, dogs, and donkeys had

been eaten up--so that it might well be said by Wamba “that famine, as

well as slaughter, had THINNED the garrison.” When the men of Chalus

came on the walls to defend it against the scaling-parties of King

Richard, they were like so many skeletons in armor; they could hardly

pull their bowstrings at last, or pitch down stones on the heads of his

Majesty's party, so weak had their arms become; and the gigantic Count

of Chalus--a warrior as redoubtable for his size and strength as Richard

Plantagenet himself--was scarcely able to lift up his battle-axe upon

the day of that last assault, when Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe ran him

through the--but we are advancing matters.

What should prevent me from describing the agonies of hunger which the

Count (a man of large appetite) suffered in company with his heroic sons

and garrison?--Nothing, but that Dante has already done the business

in the notorious history of Count Ugolino; so that my efforts might be

considered as mere imitations. Why should I not, if I were minded to

revel in horrifying details, show you how the famished garrison drew

lots, and ate themselves during the siege; and how the unlucky lot

falling upon the Countess of Chalus, that heroic woman, taking an

affectionate leave of her family, caused her large caldron in the castle

kitchen to be set a-boiling, had onions, carrots and herbs, pepper and

salt made ready, to make a savory soup, as the French like it; and when

all things were quite completed, kissed her children, jumped into the

caldron from off a kitchen stool, and so was stewed down in her flannel

bed-gown? Dear friends, it is not from want of imagination, or from

having no turn for the terrible or pathetic, that I spare you these

details. I could give you some description that would spoil your dinner

and night's rest, and make your hair stand on end. But why harrow your

feelings? Fancy all the tortures and horrors that possibly can occur in

a beleaguered and famished castle: fancy the feelings of men who know

that no more quarter will be given them than they would get if they

were peaceful Hungarian citizens kidnapped and brought to trial by his

Majesty the Emperor of Austria; and then let us rush on to the breach

and prepare once more to meet the assault of dreadful King Richard and

his men.

On the 29th of March in the year 1199, the good King, having copiously

partaken of breakfast, caused his trumpets to blow, and advanced with

his host upon the breach of the castle of Chalus. Arthur de Pendennis

bore his banner; Wilfrid of Ivanhoe fought on the King's right hand.

Molyneux, Bishop of Bullocksmithy, doffed crosier and mitre for that

day, and though fat and pursy, panted up the breach with the most

resolute spirit, roaring out war-cries and curses, and wielding a

prodigious mace of iron, with which he did good execution. Roger de

Backbite was forced to come in attendance upon the sovereign, but took

care to keep in the rear of his august master, and to shelter behind his

huge triangular shield as much as possible. Many lords of note followed

the King and bore the ladders; and as they were placed against the wall,

the air was perfectly dark with the shower of arrows which the French

archers poured out at the besiegers, and the cataract of stones,

kettles, bootjacks, chests of drawers, crockery, umbrellas,

congreve-rockets, bombshells, bolts and arrows and other missiles

which the desperate garrison flung out on the storming-party. The King

received a copper coal-scuttle right over his eyes, and a mahogany

wardrobe was discharged at his morion, which would have felled an

ox, and would have done for the King had not Ivanhoe warded it off

skilfully. Still they advanced, the warriors falling around them like

grass beneath the scythe of the mower.

The ladders were placed in spite of the hail of death raining round: the

King and Ivanhoe were, of course, the first to mount them. Chalus stood

in the breach, borrowing strength from despair; and roaring out, “Ha!

Plantagenet, St. Barbacue for Chalus!” he dealt the King a crack across

the helmet with his battle-axe, which shore off the gilt lion and

crown that surmounted the steel cap. The King bent and reeled back; the

besiegers were dismayed; the garrison and the Count of Chalus set up a

shout of triumph: but it was premature.

As quick as thought Ivanhoe was into the Count with a thrust in tierce,

which took him just at the joint of the armor, and ran him through as

clean as a spit does a partridge. Uttering a horrid shriek, he fell

back writhing; the King recovering staggered up the parapet; the rush

of knights followed, and the union-jack was planted triumphantly on the

walls, just as Ivanhoe,--but we must leave him for a moment.

“Ha, St. Richard!--ha, St. George!” the tremendous voice of the

Lion-king was heard over the loudest roar of the onset. At every sweep

of his blade a severed head flew over the parapet, a spouting trunk

tumbled, bleeding, on the flags of the bartizan. The world hath never

seen a warrior equal to that Lion-hearted Plantagenet, as he raged

over the keep, his eyes flashing fire through the bars of his morion,

snorting and chafing with the hot lust of battle. One by one les enfans

de Chalus had fallen; there was only one left at last of all the brave

race that had fought round the gallant Count:--only one, and but a boy,

a fair-haired boy, a blue-eyed boy! he had been gathering pansies in the

fields but yesterday--it was but a few years, and he was a baby in his

mother's arms! What could his puny sword do against the most redoubted

blade in Christendom?--and yet Bohemond faced the great champion of

England, and met him foot to foot! Turn away, turn away, my dear young

friends and kind-hearted ladies! Do not look at that ill-fated poor boy!

his blade is crushed into splinters under the axe of the conqueror, and

the poor child is beaten to his knee! . . .

“Now, by St. Barbacue of Limoges,” said Bertrand de Gourdon, “the

butcher will never strike down yonder lambling! Hold thy hand, Sir King,

or, by St. Barbacue--”

Swift as thought the veteran archer raised his arblast to his shoulder,

the whizzing bolt fled from the ringing string, and the next moment

crashed quivering into the corselet of Plantagenet.

'Twas a luckless shot, Bertrand of Gourdon! Maddened by the pain of the

wound, the brute nature of Richard was aroused: his fiendish appetite

for blood rose to madness, and grinding his teeth, and with a curse too

horrible to mention, the flashing axe of the royal butcher fell down

on the blond ringlets of the child, and the children of Chalus were no

more! . . .

I just throw this off by way of description, and to show what MIGHT be

done if I chose to indulge in this style of composition; but as in the

battles which are described by the kindly chronicler, of one of whose

works this present masterpiece is professedly a continuation, everything

passes off agreeably--the people are slain, but without any unpleasant

sensation to the reader; nay, some of the most savage and blood-stained

characters of history, such is the indomitable good-humor of the great

novelist, become amiable, jovial companions, for whom one has a hearty

sympathy--so, if you please, we will have this fighting business at

Chalus, and the garrison and honest Bertrand of Gourdon, disposed of;

the former, according to the usage of the good old times, having been

hung up or murdered to a man, and the latter killed in the manner

described by the late Dr. Goldsmith in his History.

As for the Lion-hearted, we all very well know that the shaft of

Bertrand de Gourdon put an end to the royal hero--and that from that

29th of March he never robbed nor murdered any more. And we have legends

in recondite books of the manner of the King's death.

“You must die, my son,” said the venerable Walter of Rouen, as

Berengaria was carried shrieking from the King's tent. “Repent, Sir

King, and separate yourself from your children!”

“It is ill jesting with a dying man,” replied the King. “Children have I

none, my good lord bishop, to inherit after me.”

“Richard of England,” said the archbishop, turning up his fine eyes,

“your vices are your children. Ambition is your eldest child, Cruelty

is your second child, Luxury is your third child; and you have nourished

them from your youth up. Separate yourself from these sinful ones, and

prepare your soul, for the hour of departure draweth nigh.”

Violent, wicked, sinful, as he might have been, Richard of England met

his death like a Christian man. Peace be to the soul of the brave! When

the news came to King Philip of France, he sternly forbade his courtiers

to rejoice at the death of his enemy. “It is no matter of joy but of

dolor,” he said, “that the bulwark of Christendom and the bravest king

of Europe is no more.”

Meanwhile what has become of Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, whom we left in the

act of rescuing his sovereign by running the Count of Chalus through the

body?

As the good knight stooped down to pick his sword out of the corpse of

his fallen foe, some one coming behind him suddenly thrust a dagger into

his back at a place where his shirt-of-mail was open (for Sir Wilfrid

had armed that morning in a hurry, and it was his breast, not his back,

that he was accustomed ordinarily to protect); and when poor Wamba came

up on the rampart, which he did when the fighting was over,--being

such a fool that he could not be got to thrust his head into danger for

glory's sake--he found his dear knight with the dagger in his back

lying without life upon the body of the Count de Chalus whom he had anon

slain.

Ah, what a howl poor Wamba set up when he found his master killed!

How he lamented over the corpse of that noble knight and friend! What

mattered it to him that Richard the King was borne wounded to his tent,

and that Bertrand de Gourdon was flayed alive? At another time the sight

of this spectacle might have amused the simple knave; but now all his

thoughts were of his lord: so good, so gentle, so kind, so loyal, so

frank with the great, so tender to the poor, so truthful of speech, so

modest regarding his own merit, so true a gentleman, in a word, that

anybody might, with reason, deplore him.

As Wamba opened the dear knight's corselet, he found a locket round

his neck, in which there was some hair; not flaxen like that of my

Lady Rowena, who was almost as fair as an Albino, but as black, Wamba

thought, as the locks of the Jewish maiden whom the knight had rescued

in the lists of Templestowe. A bit of Rowena's hair was in Sir Wilfrid's

possession, too; but that was in his purse along with his seal of arms,

and a couple of groats: for the good knight never kept any money, so

generous was he of his largesses when money came in.

Wamba took the purse, and seal, and groats, but he left the locket of

hair round his master's neck, and when he returned to England never said

a word about the circumstance. After all, how should he know whose hair

it was? It might have been the knight's grandmother's hair for aught the

fool knew; so he kept his counsel when he brought back the sad news and

tokens to the disconsolate widow at Rotherwood.

The poor fellow would never have left the body at all, and indeed sat

by it all night, and until the gray of the morning; when, seeing two

suspicious-looking characters advancing towards him, he fled in dismay,

supposing that they were marauders who were out searching for booty

among the dead bodies; and having not the least courage, he fled from

these, and tumbled down the breach, and never stopped running as fast as

his legs would carry him, until he reached the tent of his late beloved

master.

The news of the knight's demise, it appeared, had been known at his

quarters long before; for his servants were gone, and had ridden off

on his horses; his chests were plundered: there was not so much as a

shirt-collar left in his drawers, and the very bed and blankets had been

carried away by these FAITHFUL attendants. Who had slain Ivanhoe? That

remains a mystery to the present day; but Roger de Backbite, whose nose

he had pulled for defamation, and who was behind him in the assault at

Chalus, was seen two years afterwards at the court of King John in

an embroidered velvet waistcoat which Rowena could have sworn she had

worked for Ivanhoe, and about which the widow would have made some

little noise, but that--but that she was no longer a widow.

That she truly deplored the death of her lord cannot be questioned,

for she ordered the deepest mourning which any milliner in York could

supply, and erected a monument to his memory as big as a minster. But

she was a lady of such fine principles, that she did not allow her grief

to overmaster her; and an opportunity speedily arising for uniting the

two best Saxon families in England, by an alliance between herself

and the gentleman who offered himself to her, Rowena sacrificed her

inclination to remain single, to her sense of duty; and contracted a

second matrimonial engagement.

That Athelstane was the man, I suppose no reader familiar with life, and

novels which are a rescript of life, and are all strictly natural and

edifying, can for a moment doubt. Cardinal Pandulfo tied the knot for

them: and lest there should be any doubt about Ivanhoe's death (for his

body was never sent home after all, nor seen after Wamba ran away from

it), his Eminence procured a Papal decree annulling the former marriage,

so that Rowena became Mrs. Athelstane with a clear conscience. And who

shall be surprised, if she was happier with the stupid and boozy Thane

than with the gentle and melancholy Wilfrid? Did women never have a

predilection for fools, I should like to know; or fall in love with

donkeys, before the time of the amours of Bottom and Titania? Ah! Mary,

had you not preferred an ass to a man, would you have married Jack Bray,

when a Michael Angelo offered? Ah! Fanny, were you not a woman, would

you persist in adoring Tom Hiccups, who beats you, and comes home

tipsy from the Club? Yes, Rowena cared a hundred times more about tipsy

Athelstane than ever she had done for gentle Ivanhoe, and so great was

her infatuation about the former, that she would sit upon his knee in

the presence of all her maidens, and let him smoke his cigars in the

very drawing-room.

This is the epitaph she caused to be written by Father Drono (who piqued

himself upon his Latinity) on the stone commemorating the death of her

late lord:--

Hic est Guilfridus, belli dum vixit avidus:

Cum gladio et lancea, Normania et quoque Francia

Verbera dura dabat: per Turcos multum equitabat:

Guilbertum occidit: atque Hierosolyma vidit.

Heu! nunc sub fossa sunt tanti militis ossa,

Uxor Athelstani est conjux castissima Thani.

And this is the translation which the doggerel knave Wamba made of the

Latin lines:

“REQUIESCAT.

“Under the stone you behold,

Buried, and coffined, and cold,

Lieth Sir Wilfrid the Bold.

“Always he marched in advance,

Warring in Flanders and France,

Doughty with sword and with lance.

“Famous in Saracen fight,

Rode in his youth the good knight,

Scattering Paynims in flight.

“Brian the Templar untrue,

Fairly in tourney he slew,

Saw Hierusalem too.

“Now he is buried and gone,

Lying beneath the gray stone:

Where shall you find such a one?

“Long time his widow deplored,

Weeping the fate of her lord,

Sadly cut off by the sword.

“When she was eased of her pain,

Came the good Lord Athelstane,

When her ladyship married again.”

Athelstane burst into a loud laugh, when he heard it, at the last

line, but Rowena would have had the fool whipped, had not the Thane

interceded; and to him, she said, she could refuse nothing.

CHAPTER IV.

IVANHOE REDIVIVUS.

I trust nobody will suppose, from the events described in the last

chapter, that our friend Ivanhoe is really dead. Because we have given

him an epitaph or two and a monument, are these any reasons that he

should be really gone out of the world? No: as in the pantomime, when

we see Clown and Pantaloon lay out Harlequin and cry over him, we are

always sure that Master Harlequin will be up at the next minute alert

and shining in his glistening coat; and, after giving a box on the ears

to the pair of them, will be taking a dance with Columbine, or leaping

gayly through the clock-face, or into the three-pair-of-stairs'

window:--so Sir Wilfrid, the Harlequin of our Christmas piece, may be

run through a little, or may make believe to be dead, but will assuredly

rise up again when he is wanted, and show himself at the right moment.

The suspicious-looking characters from whom Wamba ran away were no

cut-throats and plunderers, as the poor knave imagined, but no other

than Ivanhoe's friend, the hermit, and a reverend brother of his, who

visited the scene of the late battle in order to see if any Christians

still survived there, whom they might shrive and get ready for heaven,

or to whom they might possibly offer the benefit of their skill as

leeches. Both were prodigiously learned in the healing art; and had

about them those precious elixirs which so often occur in romances, and

with which patients are so miraculously restored. Abruptly dropping his

master's head from his lap as he fled, poor Wamba caused the knight's

pate to fall with rather a heavy thump to the ground, and if the knave

had but stayed a minute longer, he would have heard Sir Wilfrid utter a

deep groan. But though the fool heard him not, the holy hermits did; and

to recognize the gallant Wilfrid, to withdraw the enormous dagger

still sticking out of his back, to wash the wound with a portion of the

precious elixir, and to pour a little of it down his throat, was with

the excellent hermits the work of an instant: which remedies being

applied, one of the good men took the knight by the heels and the other

by the head, and bore him daintily from the castle to their hermitage in

a neighboring rock. As for the Count of Chalus, and the remainder of the

slain, the hermits were too much occupied with Ivanhoe's case to mind

them, and did not, it appears, give them any elixir: so that, if they

are really dead, they must stay on the rampart stark and cold; or if

otherwise, when the scene closes upon them as it does now, they may

get up, shake themselves, go to the slips and drink a pot of porter, or

change their stage-clothes and go home to supper. My dear readers, you

may settle the matter among yourselves as you like. If you wish to kill

the characters really off, let them be dead, and have done with them:

but, entre nous, I don't believe they are any more dead than you or I

are, and sometimes doubt whether there is a single syllable of truth in

this whole story.

Well, Ivanhoe was taken to the hermits' cell, and there doctored by the

holy fathers for his hurts; which were of such a severe and dangerous

order, that he was under medical treatment for a very considerable time.

When he woke up from his delirium, and asked how long he had been ill,

fancy his astonishment when he heard that he had been in the fever for

six years! He thought the reverend fathers were joking at first, but

their profession forbade them from that sort of levity; and besides,

he could not possibly have got well any sooner, because the story would

have been sadly put out had he appeared earlier. And it proves how good

the fathers were to him, and how very nearly that scoundrel of a Roger

de Backbite's dagger had finished him, that he did not get well under

this great length of time; during the whole of which the fathers tended

him without ever thinking of a fee. I know of a kind physician in this

town who does as much sometimes; but I won't do him the ill service of

mentioning his name here.

Ivanhoe, being now quickly pronounced well, trimmed his beard, which by

this time hung down considerably below his knees, and calling for his

suit of chain-armor, which before had fitted his elegant person as tight

as wax, now put it on, and it bagged and hung so loosely about him, that

even the good friars laughed at his absurd appearance. It was impossible

that he should go about the country in such a garb as that: the very

boys would laugh at him: so the friars gave him one of their old gowns,

in which he disguised himself, and after taking an affectionate farewell

of his friends, set forth on his return to his native country. As he

went along, he learned that Richard was dead, that John reigned, that

Prince Arthur had been poisoned, and was of course made acquainted with

various other facts of public importance recorded in Pinnock's Catechism

and the Historic Page.

But these subjects did not interest him near so much as his own private

affairs; and I can fancy that his legs trembled under him, and his

pilgrim's staff shook with emotion, as at length, after many perils, he

came in sight of his paternal mansion of Rotherwood, and saw once more

the chimneys smoking, the shadows of the oaks over the grass in the

sunset, and the rooks winging over the trees. He heard the supper

gong sounding: he knew his way to the door well enough; he entered the

familiar hall with a benedicite, and without any more words took his

place.

*****

You might have thought for a moment that the gray friar trembled and his

shrunken cheek looked deadly pale; but he recovered himself presently:

nor could you see his pallor for the cowl which covered his face.

A little boy was playing on Athelstane's knee; Rowena smiling and

patting the Saxon Thane fondly on his broad bullhead, filled him a huge

cup of spiced wine from a golden jug. He drained a quart of the liquor,

and, turning round, addressed the friar:--

“And so, gray frere, thou sawest good King Richard fall at Chalus by the

bolt of that felon bowman?”

“We did, an it please you. The brothers of our house attended the good

King in his last moments: in truth, he made a Christian ending!”

“And didst thou see the archer flayed alive? It must have been rare

sport,” roared Athelstane, laughing hugely at the joke. “How the fellow

must have howled!”

“My love!” said Rowena, interposing tenderly, and putting a pretty white

finger on his lip.

“I would have liked to see it too,” cried the boy.

“That's my own little Cedric, and so thou shalt. And, friar, didst

see my poor kinsman Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe? They say he fought well at

Chalus!”

“My sweet lord,” again interposed Rowena, “mention him not.”

“Why? Because thou and he were so tender in days of yore--when you could

not bear my plain face, being all in love with his pale one?”

“Those times are past now, dear Athelstane,” said his affectionate wife,

looking up to the ceiling.

“Marry, thou never couldst forgive him the Jewess, Rowena.”

“The odious hussy! don't mention the name of the unbelieving creature,”

exclaimed the lady.

“Well, well, poor Wil was a good lad--a thought melancholy and milksop

though. Why, a pint of sack fuddled his poor brains.”

“Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe was a good lance,” said the friar. “I have heard

there was none better in Christendom. He lay in our convent after his

wounds, and it was there we tended him till he died. He was buried in

our north cloister.”

“And there's an end of him,” said Athelstane. “But come, this is dismal

talk. Where's Wamba the Jester? Let us have a song. Stir up, Wamba, and

don't lie like a dog in the fire! Sing us a song, thou crack-brained

jester, and leave off whimpering for bygones. Tush, man! There be many

good fellows left in this world.”

“There be buzzards in eagles' nests,” Wamba said, who was lying

stretched before the fire, sharing the hearth with the Thane's dogs.

“There be dead men alive, and live men dead. There be merry songs and

dismal songs. Marry, and the merriest are the saddest sometimes. I will

leave off motley and wear black, gossip Athelstane. I will turn howler

at funerals, and then, perhaps, I shall be merry. Motley is fit for

mutes, and black for fools. Give me some drink, gossip, for my voice is

as cracked as my brain.”

“Drink and sing, thou beast, and cease prating,” the Thane said.

And Wamba, touching his rebeck wildly, sat up in the chimney-side and

curled his lean shanks together and began:--

“LOVE AT TWO SCORE.

“Ho! pretty page, with dimpled chin,

That never has known the barber's shear,

All your aim is woman to win--

This is the way that boys begin--

Wait till you've come to forty year!

“Curly gold locks cover foolish brains,

Billing and cooing is all your cheer,

Sighing and singing of midnight strains

Under Bonnybells' window-panes.

Wait till you've come to forty year!

“Forty times over let Michaelmas pass,

Grizzling hair the brain doth clear;

Then you know a boy is an ass,

Then you know the worth of a lass,

Once you have come to forty year.

“Pledge me round, I bid ye declare,

All good fellows whose beards are gray:

Did not the fairest of the fair

Common grow, and wearisome, ere

Ever a month was passed away?

“The reddest lips that ever have kissed,

The brightest eyes that ever have shone,

May pray and whisper and we not list,

Or look away and never be missed,

Ere yet ever a month was gone.

“Gillian's dead, Heaven rest her bier,

How I loved her twenty years syne!

Marian's married, but I sit here,

Alive and merry at forty year,

Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine.”

“Who taught thee that merry lay, Wamba, thou son of Witless?” roared

Athelstane, clattering his cup on the table and shouting the chorus.

“It was a good and holy hermit, sir, the pious clerk of Copmanhurst,

that you wot of, who played many a prank with us in the days that we

knew King Richard. Ah, noble sir, that was a jovial time and a good

priest.”

“They say the holy priest is sure of the next bishopric, my love,”

said Rowena. “His Majesty hath taken him into much favor. My Lord of

Huntingdon looked very well at the last ball; but I never could see any

beauty in the Countess--a freckled, blowsy thing, whom they used to

call Maid Marian: though, for the matter of that, what between her

flirtations with Major Littlejohn and Captain Scarlett, really--”

“Jealous again--haw! haw!” laughed Athelstane.

“I am above jealousy, and scorn it,” Rowena answered, drawing herself up

very majestically.

“Well, well, Wamba's was a good song,” Athelstane said.

“Nay, a wicked song,” said Rowena, turning up her eyes as usual. “What!

rail at woman's love? Prefer a filthy wine cup to a true wife?

Woman's love is eternal, my Athelstane. He who questions it would be

a blasphemer were he not a fool. The well-born and well-nurtured

gentlewoman loves once and once only.”

“I pray you, madam, pardon me, I--I am not well,” said the gray friar,

rising abruptly from his settle, and tottering down the steps of the

dais. Wamba sprung after him, his bells jingling as he rose, and casting

his arms around the apparently fainting man, he led him away into the

court. “There be dead men alive and live men dead,” whispered he. “There

be coffins to laugh at and marriages to cry over. Said I not sooth, holy

friar?” And when they had got out into the solitary court, which was

deserted by all the followers of the Thane, who were mingling in the

drunken revelry in the hall, Wamba, seeing that none were by, knelt

down, and kissing the friar's garment, said, “I knew thee, I knew thee,

my lord and my liege!”

“Get up,” said Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, scarcely able to articulate: “only

fools are faithful.”

And he passed on, and into the little chapel where his father lay

buried. All night long the friar spent there: and Wamba the Jester lay

outside watching as mute as the saint over the porch.

When the morning came, Wumba was gone; and the knave being in the habit

of wandering hither and thither as he chose, little notice was taken of

his absence by a master and mistress who had not much sense of humor.

As for Sir Wilfrid, a gentleman of his delicacy of feelings could not be

expected to remain in a house where things so naturally disagreeable

to him were occurring, and he quitted Rotherwood incontinently, after

paying a dutiful visit to the tomb where his old father, Cedric, was

buried; and hastened on to York, at which city he made himself known to

the family attorney, a most respectable man, in whose hands his ready

money was deposited, and took up a sum sufficient to fit himself

out with credit, and a handsome retinue, as became a knight of

consideration. But he changed his name, wore a wig and spectacles, and

disguised himself entirely, so that it was impossible his friends or the

public should know him, and thus metamorphosed, went about whithersoever

his fancy led him. He was present at a public ball at York, which the

lord mayor gave, danced Sir Roger de Coverley in the very same set with

Rowena--(who was disgusted that Maid Marian took precedence of her)--he

saw little Athelstane overeat himself at the supper and pledge his big

father in a cup of sack; he met the Reverend Mr. Tuck at a missionary

meeting, where he seconded a resolution proposed by that eminent

divine;--in fine, he saw a score of his old acquaintances, none of whom

recognized in him the warrior of Palestine and Templestowe. Having a

large fortune and nothing to do, he went about this country performing

charities, slaying robbers, rescuing the distressed, and achieving noble

feats of arms. Dragons and giants existed in his day no more, or be

sure he would have had a fling at them: for the truth is, Sir Wilfrid

of Ivanhoe was somewhat sick of the life which the hermits of Chalus

had restored to him, and felt himself so friendless and solitary that he

would not have been sorry to come to an end of it. Ah, my dear friends

and intelligent British public, are there not others who are melancholy

under a mask of gayety, and who, in the midst of crowds, are lonely?

Liston was a most melancholy man; Grimaldi had feelings; and there are

others I wot of:--but psha!--let us have the next chapter.

CHAPTER V.

IVANHOE TO THE RESCUE.

The rascally manner in which the chicken-livered successor of Richard of

the Lion-heart conducted himself to all parties, to his relatives, his

nobles, and his people, is a matter notorious, and set forth clearly in

the Historic Page: hence, although nothing, except perhaps success, can,

in my opinion, excuse disaffection to the sovereign, or appearance in

armed rebellion against him, the loyal reader will make allowance for

two of the principal personages of this narrative, who will have to

appear in the present chapter in the odious character of rebels to their

lord and king. It must be remembered, in partial exculpation of the

fault of Athelstane and Rowena, (a fault for which they were bitterly

punished, as you shall presently hear,) that the monarch exasperated

his subjects in a variety of ways,--that before he murdered his royal

nephew, Prince Arthur, there was a great question whether he was the

rightful king of England at all,--that his behavior as an uncle, and

a family man, was likely to wound the feelings of any lady and

mother,--finally, that there were palliations for the conduct of Rowena

and Ivanhoe, which it now becomes our duty to relate.

When his Majesty destroyed Prince Arthur, the Lady Rowena, who was one

of the ladies of honor to the Queen, gave up her place at court at once,

and retired to her castle of Rotherwood. Expressions made use of by her,

and derogatory to the character of the sovereign, were carried to the

monarch's ears, by some of those parasites, doubtless, by whom it is

the curse of kings to be attended; and John swore, by St. Peter's teeth,

that he would be revenged upon the haughty Saxon lady,--a kind of oath

which, though he did not trouble himself about all other oaths, he was

never known to break. It was not for some years after he had registered

this vow, that he was enabled to keep it.

Had Ivanhoe been present at Ronen, when the King meditated his horrid

designs against his nephew, there is little doubt that Sir Wilfrid would

have prevented them, and rescued the boy: for Ivanhoe was, as we need

scarcely say, a hero of romance; and it is the custom and duty of all

gentlemen of that profession to be present on all occasions of historic

interest, to be engaged in all conspiracies, royal interviews, and

remarkable occurrences: and hence Sir Wilfrid would certainly have

rescued the young Prince, had he been anywhere in the neighborhood of

Rouen, where the foul tragedy occurred. But he was a couple of hundred

leagues off, at Chalus, when the circumstance happened; tied down in his

bed as crazy as a Bedlamite, and raving ceaselessly in the Hebrew tongue

(which he had caught up during a previous illness in which he was tended

by a maiden of that nation) about a certain Rebecca Ben Isaacs, of whom,

being a married man, he never would have thought, had he been in his

sound senses. During this delirium, what were politics to him, or he to

politics? King John or King Arthur was entirely indifferent to a man

who announced to his nurse-tenders, the good hermits of Chalus before

mentioned, that he was the Marquis of Jericho, and about to marry

Rebecca the Queen of Sheba. In a word, he only heard of what had

occurred when he reached England, and his senses were restored to him.

Whether was he happier, sound of brain and entirely miserable, (as any

man would be who found so admirable a wife as Rowena married again,)

or perfectly crazy, the husband of the beautiful Rebecca? I don't know

which he liked best.

Howbeit the conduct of King John inspired Sir Wilfrid with so thorough

a detestation of that sovereign, that he never could be brought to take

service under him; to get himself presented at St. James's, or in any

way to acknowledge, but by stern acquiescence, the authority of the

sanguinary successor of his beloved King Richard. It was Sir Wilfrid of

Ivanhoe, I need scarcely say, who got the Barons of England to league

together and extort from the king that famous instrument and palladium

of our liberties at present in the British Museum, Great Russell Street,

Bloomsbury--the Magna Charta. His name does not naturally appear in the

list of Barons, because he was only a knight, and a knight in

disguise too: nor does Athelstane's signature figure on that document.

Athelstane, in the first place, could not write; nor did he care a

pennypiece about politics, so long as he could drink his wine at home

undisturbed, and have his hunting and shooting in quiet.

It was not until the King wanted to interfere with the sport of every

gentleman in England (as we know by reference to the Historic Page that

this odious monarch did), that Athelstane broke out into open rebellion,

along with several Yorkshire squires and noblemen. It is recorded of the

King, that he forbade every man to hunt his own deer; and, in order to

secure an obedience to his orders, this Herod of a monarch wanted to

secure the eldest sons of all the nobility and gentry, as hostages for

the good behavior of their parents.

Athelstane was anxious about his game--Rowena was anxious about her

son. The former swore that he would hunt his deer in spite of all Norman

tyrants--the latter asked, should she give up her boy to the ruffian who

had murdered his own nephew?* The speeches of both were brought to

the King at York; and, furious, he ordered an instant attack upon

Rotherwood, and that the lord and lady of that castle should be brought

before him dead or alive.

*See Hume, Giraldus Cambrensis, The Monk of Croyland, and

Pinnock'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.