LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 24

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      I’ll woo her as the lion woos his bride.

      Douglas

      While the scenes we have described were passing in other parts of the castle, the Jewess Rebecca awaited her fate in a distant and sequestered turret. Hither she had been led by two of her disguised ravishers, and on being thrust into the little cell, she found herself in the presence of an old sibyl, who kept murmuring to herself a Saxon rhyme, as if to beat time to the revolving dance which her spindle was performing upon the floor. The hag raised her head as Rebecca entered, and scowled at the fair Jewess with the malignant envy with which old age and ugliness, when united with evil conditions, are apt to look upon youth and beauty.

      “Thou must up and away, old house-cricket,” said one of the men; “our noble master commands it — Thou must e’en leave this chamber to a fairer guest.”

      “Ay,” grumbled the hag, “even thus is service requited. I have known when my bare word would have cast the best man-at-arms among ye out of saddle and out of service; and now must I up and away at the command of every groom such as thou.”

      “Good Dame Urfried,” said the other man, “stand not to reason on it, but up and away. Lords’ hests must be listened to with a quick ear. Thou hast had thy day, old dame, but thy sun has long been set. Thou art now the very emblem of an old war-horse turned out on the barren heath — thou hast had thy paces in thy time, but now a broken amble is the best of them — Come, amble off with thee.”

      “Ill omens dog ye both!” said the old woman; “and a kennel be your burying-place! May the evil demon Zernebock tear me limb from limb, if I leave my own cell ere I have spun out the hemp on my distaff!”

      “Answer it to our lord, then, old housefiend,” said the man, and retired; leaving Rebecca in company with the old woman, upon whose presence she had been thus unwillingly forced.

      “What devil’s deed have they now in the wind?” said the old hag, murmuring to herself, yet from time to time casting a sidelong and malignant glance at Rebecca; “but it is easy to guess — Bright eyes, black locks, and a skin like paper, ere the priest stains it with his black unguent — Ay, it is easy to guess why they send her to this lone turret, whence a shriek could no more be heard than at the depth of five hundred fathoms beneath the earth. — Thou wilt have owls for thy neighbours, fair one; and their screams will be heard as far, and as much regarded, as thine own. Outlandish, too,” she said, marking the dress and turban of Rebecca — “What country art thou of? — a Saracen? or an Egyptian? — Why dost not answer? — thou canst weep, canst thou not speak?”

      “Be not angry, good mother,” said Rebecca.

      “Thou needst say no more,” replied Urfried “men know a fox by the train, and a Jewess by her tongue.”

      “For the sake of mercy,” said Rebecca, “tell me what I am to expect as the conclusion of the violence which hath dragged me hither! Is it my life they seek, to atone for my religion? I will lay it down cheerfully.”

      “Thy life, minion?” answered the sibyl; “what would taking thy life pleasure them? — Trust me, thy life is in no peril. Such usage shalt thou have as was once thought good enough for a noble Saxon maiden. And shall a Jewess, like thee, repine because she hath no better? Look at me — I was as young and twice as fair as thou, when Front-de-Boeuf, father of this Reginald, and his Normans, stormed this castle. My father and his seven sons defended their inheritance from story to story, from chamber to chamber — There was not a room, not a step of the stair, that was not slippery with their blood. They died — they died every man; and ere their bodies were cold, and ere their blood was dried, I had become the prey and the scorn of the conqueror!”

      “Is there no help? — Are there no means of escape?” said Rebecca — “Richly, richly would I requite thine aid.”

      “Think not of it,” said the hag; “from hence there is no escape but through the gates of death; and it is late, late,” she added, shaking her grey head, “ere these open to us — Yet it is comfort to think that we leave behind us on earth those who shall be wretched as ourselves. Fare thee well, Jewess! — Jew or Gentile, thy fate would be the same; for thou hast to do with them that have neither scruple nor pity. Fare thee well, I say. My thread is spun out — thy task is yet to begin.”

      “Stay! stay! for Heaven’s sake!” said Rebecca; “stay, though it be to curse and to revile me — thy presence is yet some protection.”

      “The presence of the mother of God were no protection,” answered the old woman. “There she stands,” pointing to a rude image of the Virgin Mary, “see if she can avert the fate that awaits thee.”

      She left the room as she spoke, her features writhed into a sort of sneering laugh, which made them seem even more hideous than their habitual frown. She locked the door behind her, and Rebecca might hear her curse every step for its steepness, as slowly and with difficulty she descended the turret-stair.

      Rebecca was now to expect a fate even more dreadful than that of Rowena; for what probability was there that either softness or ceremony would be used towards one of her oppressed race, whatever shadow of these might be preserved towards a Saxon heiress? Yet had the Jewess this advantage, that she was better prepared by habits of thought, and by natural strength of mind, to encounter the dangers to which she was exposed. Of a strong and observing character, even from her earliest years, the pomp and wealth which her father displayed within his walls, or which she witnessed in the houses of other wealthy Hebrews, had not been able to blind her to the precarious circumstances under which they were enjoyed. Like Damocles at his celebrated banquet, Rebecca perpetually beheld, amid that gorgeous display, the sword which was suspended over the heads of her people by a single hair. These reflections had tamed and brought down to a pitch of sounder judgment a temper, which, under other circumstances, might have waxed haughty, supercilious, and obstinate.

      From her father’s example and injunctions, Rebecca had learnt to bear herself courteously towards all who approached her. She could not indeed imitate his excess of subservience, because she was a stranger to the meanness of mind, and to the constant state of timid apprehension, by which it

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