In another point of view, however, the Jew's haste proved somewhat more than good speed. The rapidity with which he insisted on travelling, bred several disputes between him and the party whom he had hired to attend him as a guard. These men were Saxons, and not free by any means from the national love of ease and good living which the Normans stigmatized as laziness and gluttony. Reversing Shylock's position, they had accepted the employment in hopes of feeding upon the wealthy Jew, and were very much displeased when they found themselves disappointed, by the rapidity with which he insisted on their proceeding. They remonstrated also upon the risk of damage to their horses by these forced marches. Finally there arose betwixt Isaac and his satellites a deadly feud, concerning the quantity of wine and ale to be allowed for consumption at each meal. And thus it happened, that when the alarm of danger approached, and that which Isaac feared was likely to come upon him, he was deserted by the discontented mercenaries on whose protection he had relied, without using the means necessary to secure their attachment. In this deserted condition the Jew, with his daughter and her wounded patient, were found by Cedric, as has already been noticed, and soon afterwards fell into the power of De Bracy and his confederates. Little notice was at first taken of the horse-litter, and it might have remained behind but for the curiosity of De Bracy, who looked into it under the impression that it might contain the object of his enterprize, for Rowena had not unveiled herself. But De Bracy's astonishment was considerable, when he discovered that the litter contained a wounded man, who, conceiving himself to have fallen into the power of Saxon outlaws, with whom his name might be a protection for himself and his friends, frankly avowed himself to be Wilfrid of Ivanhoe. The ideas of chivalrous honour, which, amidst his wildness and levity, never utterly abandoned De Bracy, prohibited him from doing the knight any injury in his defenceless condition, and equally interdicted his betraying him to Frontde-Boeuf, who would have no scruples to put to death, under any circumstances, the rival claimant of the feof of Ivanhoe. On the other hand, to liberate a rival preferred by the Lady Rowena, as the events of the tournament, and indeed Wilfrid's previous banishment from his father's house, had made matter of notoriety, was a pitch far above the flight of De Bracy's generosity. A middle course betwixt good and evil was all which he found himself capable of adopting, and he commanded two of his own squires to keep close by the litter, and to suffer no one to approach it. If questioned, they were directed by their master to say, that the empty litter of the Lady Rowena was employed to transport one of their comrades who had been wounded in the scuffle. On arriving at Torquilstone, while the Knight Templar and the lord of that castle were each intent upon their own schemes, the one on the Jew's treasure and the other on his daughter, De Bracy's squires conveyed Ivanhoe, still under the name of a wounded comrade, to a distant apartment. This explanation was accordingly returned by De Bracy's squires to Front-de-Bœuf, when he questioned them why they did not make for the battlements upon the alarm. « A wounded companion!» he replied in great wrath and astonishment. «No wonder that churls and yeomen wax so presumptuous as even to lay leaguer before castles, and that clowns and swineherds send defiances to nobles, since men-atarms have turned sick men's nurses, and Free Companions are grown keepers of dying folk's curtains, when the castle is about to be assailed. -To the battlements, ye loitering villains!» he exclaimed, raising his stentorian voice till the arches around rung again, « to the battlements, or I will splinter your bones with this truncheon!» The men sulkily replied, « that they desired nothing better than to go to the battlements, providing Front-de-Bœuf would bear them out with their master, who had commanded them to tend the dying man."> <<The dying man, knaves!» rejoined the Baron; << I promise thee we shall all be dying men an we stand not to it the more stoutly. But I will relieve the guard upon this caitiff companion of yours. Here, Urfried-hag-fiend of a Saxon witch-hearest me not?-tend me this bed-ridden fellow, since he must needs be tended, whilst these knaves use their weapons.-Here be two arblasts, comrade, with windlaces and quarrells* -to the barbican with you, and see you each bolt through a Saxon brain.» drive The men, who, like most of their description, were fond of enterprize, and detested inaction, went joyfully to the scene of danger as they were commanded, and thus the charge of Ivanhoe was transferred to Urfried, or Ulrica. But she, whose brain was burning with remembrance of injuries and with hopes of vengeance, was readily induced to devolve upon Rebecca the care of her patient. * The arblast was a cross-bow, the windlace the machine used in bending that weapon, and the quarrell, so called from its square or diamond shaped head, was the bolt adapted to it, CHAPTER XV. Ascend the watch-tower yonder, valiant soldier, A MOMENT of peril is often also a moment of open-hearted kindness and affection. We are thrown off our guard by the general agitation of our feelings, and betray the intensity of those, which, at more tranquil moments, our prudence at least conceals if it cannot altogether suppress them. In finding herself once more by the side of Ivanhoe, Rebecca was astonished at the keen sensation of pleasure which she experienced, even in a moment when all around them both was danger, if not despair. As she felt his pulse and enquired after his health, there was a softness in her touch and in her accents, implying a kinder interest than she would herself have been pleased to have voluntarily expressed. Her voice faultered and her hand trembled, and it was only the cold question of Ivanhoe, «Is it you, gentle maiden?» which recalled her to herself, and reminded her the sensations which she felt were not and could not be mutual. A sigh escaped, |