Текст книги "20 лучших повестей на английском / 20 Best Short Novels"

Автор книги: авторов Коллектив

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:

 
Dic est Guilfribus, belli dum dixit avidus:
Cum gladio et lancea, Normania et quoque Francia
Verbera dura dabat: per Turcos multum equitabat:
Guilbertum, occidit: atque Vicrosolvma bidit
Deu! nune 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 [782]782
  Saracen – in the Middle Ages, the term was used for all persons who professed the religion of Islam (Arabs, Turks, etc.)


[Закрыть]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

[783]783
  Redivivus= revived (Latin)


[Закрыть]

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 [784]784
  Pantaloon – in the 16th century Italian comedy del’arte, a cunning and greedy Venetian merchant


[Закрыть]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 minutes, 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 [785]785
  Catechism – a religious instruction in the form of questions and answers


[Закрыть]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 check 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 took 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, Wamba 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 or 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 renown 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 Rouen [786]786
  Rouen – a city and port on the Seine River in northwestern France; since the 3d century and for many centuries, it played an important role in the history of France.


[Закрыть], 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 [787]787
  Bedlamite – the inhabitant of Bedlam, the first asylum for mentally ill patients in England


[Закрыть], 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 [788]788
  Jericho – an ancient town in Israel, in the West Bank; the first settlement was founded about 9000 BC


[Закрыть], 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 [789]789
  the Magna Charta – the charta of liberties granted by King John of England to prevent the civil war


[Закрыть]. His name does not naturally appear in the list of Barons, because h: nor does Athelstane’s signature figure on that document. Athelstane, in the e was only a knight, and a knight in disguise too 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? – (See Hume, Giraldus Cambrensis, The Monk of Croyland, and Pinnock’s Catechism.) 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.

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 stepping 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 a 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 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.