by Walter Scott
But there was less equivocal testimony, which the credulity of the assembly, or of the greater part, greedily swallowed, however incredible. One of the soldiers had seen her work a cure upon a wounded man brought with them to the castle of Torquilstone. “She did,” he said, “make certain signs upon the wound, and repeated certain mysterious words, which he blessed God he understood not, when the iron head of a square crossbow bolt disengaged itself from the wound, the bleeding was stanched, the wound was closed, and the dying man was, within the quarter of an hour, walking upon the ramparts, and assisting the witness in managing a mangonel, or machine for hurling stones.” This legend was probably founded upon the fact that Rebecca had attended on the wounded Ivanhoe when in the castle of Torquilstone. But it was the more difficult to dispute the accuracy of the witness, as, in order to produce real evidence in support of his verbal testimony, he drew from his pouch the very bolt-head which, according to his story, had been miraculously extracted from the wound; and as the iron weighed a full ounce, it completely confirmed the tale, however marvellous.
His comrade had been a witness from a neighbouring battlement of the scene betwixt Rebecca and Bois-Guilbert, when she was upon the point of precipitating herself from the top of the tower. Not to be behind his companion, this fellow stated that he had seen Rebecca perch herself upon the parapet of the turret, and there take the form of a milk-white swan, under which appearance she flitted three times round the castle of Torquilstone; then again settle on the turret, and once more assume the female form.
Less than one half of this weighty evidence would have been sufficient to convict any old woman, poor and ugly, even though she had not been a Jewess. United with that fatal circumstance, the body of proof was too weighty for Rebecca’s youth, though combined with the most exquisite beauty.
The Grand Master had collected the suffrages, and now in a solemn tone demanded of Rebecca what she had to say against the sentence of condemnation which he was about to pronounce.
“To invoke your pity,” said the lovely Jewess, with a voice somewhat tremulous with emotion, “would, I am aware, be as useless as I should hold it mean. To state, that to relieve the sick and wounded of another religion cannot be displeasing to the acknowledged Founder of both our faiths, were also unavailing; to plead, that many things which these men—whom may Heaven pardon!—have spoken against me are impossible, would avail me but little, since you believe in their possibility; and still less would it advantage me to explain that the peculiarities of my dress, language, and manners are those of my people—I had wellnigh said of my country, but, alas! we have no country. Nor will I even vindicate myself at the expense of my oppressor, who stands there listening to the fictions and surmises which seem to convert the tyrant into the victim. God be judge between him and me! but rather would I submit to ten such deaths as your pleasure may denounce against me than listen to the suit which that man of Belial has urged upon me—friendless, defenceless, and his prisoner. But he is of your own faith, and his lightest affirmance would weigh down the most solemn protestations of the distressed Jewess. I will not therefore return to himself the charge brought against me; but to himself—yes, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, to thyself I appeal, whether these accusations are not false? as monstrous and calumnious as they are deadly?”
There was a pause; all eyes turned to Brian de Bois-Guilbert. He was silent.
“Speak,” she said, “if thou art a man; if thou art a Christian, speak! I conjure thee, by the habit which thou dost wear—by the name thou dost inherit—by the knighthood thou dost vaunt—by the honour of thy mother—by the tomb and the bones of thy father—I conjure thee to say, are these things true?”
“Answer her, brother,” said the Grand Master, “if the Enemy, with whom thou dost wrestle will give thee power.”
In fact, Bois-Guilbert seemed agitated by contending passions, which almost convulsed his features, and it was with a constrained voice that at last he replied, looking to Rebecca—“The scroll!—the scroll!”
“Ay,” said Beaumanoir, “this is indeed testimony! The victim of her witcheries can only name the fatal scroll, the spell inscribed on which is, doubtless, the cause of his silence.”
But Rebecca put another interpretation on the words extorted as it were from Bois-Guilbert, and glancing her eye upon the slip of parchment which she continued to hold in her hand, she read written thereupon in the Arabian character, “Demand a champion!” The murmuring commentary which ran through the assembly at the strange reply of Bois-Guilbert gave Rebecca leisure to examine and instantly to destroy the scroll unobserved. When the whisper had ceased, the Grand Master spoke.
“Rebecca, thou canst derive no benefit from the evidence of this unhappy knight, for whom, as we well perceive, the Enemy is yet too powerful. Hast thou aught else to say?”
“There is yet one chance of life left to me,” said Rebecca, “even by your own fierce laws. Life has been miserable—miserable, at least, of late—but I will not cast away the gift of God while He affords me the means of defending it. I deny this charge: I maintain my innocence, and I declare the falsehood of this accusation. I challenge the privilege of trial by combat,2 and will appear by my champion.”
“And who, Rebecca,” replied the Grand Master, “will lay lance in rest for a sorceress? who will be the champion of a Jewess?”
“God will raise me up a champion,” said Rebecca. “It cannot be that in merry England, the hospitable, the generous, the free, where so many are ready to peril their lives for honour, there will not be found one to fight for justice. But it is enough that I challenge the trial by combat: there lies my gage.”
She took her embroidered glove from her hand, and flung it down before the Grand Master with an air of mingled simplicity and dignity which excited universal surprise and admiration.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
There I throw my gage,
To prove it on thee to the extremest point
Of martial daring.
Richard II1
Even Lucas Beaumanoir himself was affected by the mien and appearance of Rebecca. He was not originally a cruel or even a severe man; but with passions by nature cold, and with a high, though mistaken, sense of duty, his heart had been gradually hardened by the ascetic life which he pursued, the supreme power which he enjoyed, and the supposed necessity of subduing infidelity and eradicating heresy which he conceived peculiarly incumbent on him. His features relaxed in their usual severity as he gazed upon the beautiful creature before him, alone, unfriended, and defending herself with so much spirit and courage. He crossed himself twice, as doubting whence arose the unwonted softening of a heart which on such occasions used to resemble in hardness the steel of his sword. At length he spoke.
“Damsel,” he said, “if the pity I feel for thee arise from any practice thine evil arts have made on me, great is thy guilt. But I rather judge it the kinder feelings of nature, which grieves that so goodly a form should be a vessel of perdition. Repent, my daughter, confess thy witchcrafts, turn thee from thine evil faith, embrace this holy emblem, and all shall yet be well with thee here and hereafter. In some sisterhood of the strictest order shalt thou have time for prayer and fitting penance, and that repentance not to be repented of. This do and live: what has the law of Moses done for thee that thou shouldest die for it?”
“It was the law of my fathers,” said Rebecca; “it was delivered in thunders and in storms upon the mountain of Sinai, in cloud and in fire. This, if ye are Christians, ye believe. It is, you say, recalled; but so my teachers have not taught me.”
“Let our chaplain,” said Beaumanoir, “stand forth, and tell this obstinate infidel—”
“Forgive the interruption,” said Rebecca, meekly; “I am a maiden, unskilled to dispute for my religion; but I can die for it, if it be God’s will. Let me pray your answer to my demand of a champion.”
“Give me her glove,” said Beaumanoir. “This is indeed,” he continued, as he looked at the flimsy texture and sl
ender fingers, “a slight and frail gage for a purpose so deadly! Seest thou, Rebecca, as this thin and light glove of thine is to one of our heavy steel gauntlets, so is thy cause to that of the Temple, for it is our order which thou hast defied.”
“Cast my innocence into the scale,” answered Rebecca, “and the glove of silk shall outweigh the glove of iron.”
“Then thou dost persist in thy refusal to confess thy guilt, and in that bold challenge which thou hast made?”
“I do persist, noble sir,” answered Rebecca.
“So be it then, in the name of Heaven,” said the Grand Master; “and may God show the right!”
“Amen,” replied the preceptors around him, and the word was deeply echoed by the whole assembly.
“Brethren,” said Beaumanoir, “you are aware that we might well have refused to this woman the benefit of the trial by combat; but, though a Jewess and an unbeliever, she is also a stranger and defenceless, and God forbid that she should ask the benefit of our mild laws and that it should be refused to her. Moreover, we are knights and soldiers as well as men of religion, and shame it were to us, upon any pretence, to refuse proffered combat. Thus, therefore, stands the case. Rebecca, the daughter of Isaac of York, is, by many frequent and suspicious circumstances, defamed of sorcery practised on the person of a noble knight of our holy order, and hath challenged the combat in proof of her innocence. To whom, reverend brethren, is it your opinion that we should deliver the gage of battle, naming him, at the same time, to be our champion on the field?”
“To Brian de Bois-Guilbert, whom it chiefly concerns,” said the preceptor of Goodalricke, “and who, moreover, best knows how the truth stands in this matter.”
“But if,” said the Grand Master, “our brother Brian be under the influence of a charm or a spell—we speak but for the sake of precaution, for to the arm of none of our holy order would we more willingly confide this or a more weighty cause.”
“Reverend father,” answered the preceptor of Goodalricke, “no spell can affect the champion who comes forward to fight for the judgment of God.”
“Thou sayest right, brother,” said the Grand Master. “Albert Malvoisin, give this gage of battle to Brian de Bois-Guilbert. It is our charge to thee, brother,” he continued, addressing himself to Bois-Guilbert, “that thou do thy battle manfully, nothing doubting that the good cause shall triumph. And do thou, Rebecca, attend, that we assign thee the third day from the present to find a champion.”
“That is but brief space,” answered Rebecca, “for a stranger, who is also of another faith, to find one who will do battle, wagering life and honour for her cause, against a knight who is called an approved soldier.”
“We may not extend it,” answered the Grand Master; “the field must be foughten in our own presence, and divers weighty causes call us on the fourth day from hence.”
“God’s will be done!” said Rebecca; “I put my trust in Him, to whom an instant is as effectual to save as a whole age.”
“Thou hast spoken well, damsel,” said the Grand Master; “but well know we who can array himself like an angel of light. It remains but to name a fitting place of combat, and, if it so hap, also of execution. Where is the preceptor of this house?”
Albert Malvoisin, still holding Rebecca’s glove in his hand, was speaking to Bois-Guilbert very earnestly, but in a low voice.
“How!” said the Grand Master, “will he not receive the gage?”
“He will—he doth, most reverend father,” said Malvoisin, slipping the glove under his own mantle. “And for the place of combat, I hold the fittest to be the lists of St. George belonging to this preceptory, and used by us for military exercise.”
“It is well,” said the Grand Master. “Rebecca, in those lists shalt thou produce thy champion; and if thou failest to do so, or if thy champion shall be discomfited by the judgment of God, thou shalt then die the death of a sorceress, according to doom. Let this our judgment be recorded, and the record read aloud that no one may pretend ignorance.”
One of the chaplains who acted as clerks to the chapter immediately engrossed the order in a huge volume, which contained the proceedings of the Templar Knights when solemnly assembled on such occasions; and when he had finished writing, the other read aloud the sentence of the Grand Master, which, when translated from the Norman-French in which it was couched, was expressed as follows:—
“Rebecca, a Jewess, daughter of Isaac of York, being attainted of sorcery, seduction, and other damnable practices, practised on a knight of the most holy order of the Temple of Zion, doth deny the same, and saith that the testimony delivered against her this day is false, wicked, and disloyal; and that by lawful essoinefq of her body, as being unable to combat in her own behalf, she doth offer, by a champion instead thereof, to avouch her case, he performing his loyal devoir in all knightly sort, with such arms as to gage of battle do fully appertain, and that at her peril and cost. And therewith she proffered her gage. And the gage having been delivered to the noble lord and knight, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, of the holy order of the Temple of Zion, he was appointed to do this battle in behalf of his order and himself, as injured and impaired by the practices of the appellant. Wherefore the most reverend father and puissant lord, Lucas Marquis of Beaumanoir, did allow of the said challenge, and of the said essoine of the appellant’s body, and assigned the third day for the said combat, the place being the inclosure called the lists of St. George, near to the preceptory of Templestowe. And the Grand Master appointed the appellant to appear there by her champion, on pain of doom, as a person convicted of sorcery or seduction; and also the defendant so to appear, under the penalty of being held and adjudged recreant in case of default; and the noble lord and most reverend father aforesaid appointed the battle to be done in his own presence, and according to all that is commendable and profitable in such case. And may God aid the just cause!”
“Amen!” said the Grand Master; and the word was echoed by all around. Rebecca spoke not, but she looked up to Heaven, and, folding her hands, remained for a minute without change of attitude. She then modestly reminded the Grand Master that she ought to be permitted some opportunity of free communication with her friends, for the purpose of making her condition known to them, and procuring, if possible, some champion to fight in her behalf.
“It is just and lawful,” said the Grand Master; “choose what messenger thou shalt trust, and he shall have free communication with thee in thy prison-chamber.”
“Is there,” said Rebecca, “any one here who, either for love of a good cause or for ample hire, will do the errand of a distressed being?”
All were silent; for none thought it safe, in the presence of the Grand Master, to avow any interest in the calumniated prisoner, lest he should be suspected of leaning towards Judaism. Not even the prospect of reward, far less any feelings of compassion alone, could surmount this apprehension.
Rebecca stood for a few moments in indescribable anxiety, and then exclaimed, “Is it really thus? And in English land am I to be deprived of the poor chance of safety which remains to me, for want of an act of charity which would not be refused to the worst criminal?”
Higg, the son of Snell, at length replied, “I am but a maimed man, but that I can at all stir or move was owing to her charitable assistance. I will do thine errand,” he added, addressing Rebecca, “as well as a crippled object can, and happy were my limbs fleet enough to repair the mischief done by my tongue. Alas! when I boasted of thy charity, I little thought I was leading thee into danger!”
“God,” said Rebecca, “is the disposer of all. He can turn back the captivity of Judah, even by the weakest instrument. To execute His message the snail is as sure a messenger as the falcon. Seek out Isaac of York—here is that will pay for horse and man—let him have this scroll. I know not if it be of Heaven the spirit which inspires me, but most truly do I judge that I am not to die this death, and that a champion will be raised up for me. Farewell! Life and death are in thy has
te.”
The peasant took the scroll, which contained only a few lines in Hebrew. Many of the crowd would have dissuaded him from touching a document so suspicious; but Higg was resolute in the service of his benefactress. “She had saved his body,” he said, “and he was confident she did not mean to peril his soul.”
“I will get me,” he said, “my neighbour Buthan’s good capul, and I will be at York within as brief space as man and beast may.”
But, as it fortuned, he had no occasion to go so far, for within a quarter of a mile from the gate of the preceptory he met with two riders, whom, by their dress and their huge yellow caps, he knew to be Jews; and on approaching more nearly, discovered that one of them was his ancient employer, Isaac of York. The other was the Rabbi ben Samuel [Israel]; and both had approached as near to the preceptory as they dared, on hearing that the Grand Master had summoned a chapter for the trial of a sorceress.
