common for matrons and maidens of noble families to assume the veil, and take shelter in convents, not as called thither by the vocation of God, but solely to preserve their honour from the unbridled wickedness of man. Such and so licentious were the times, as announced by the public declaration of the assembled clergy, recorded by Eadmer; and we need add nothing more to vindicate the probability of the scenes which we have detailed, and are about to detail, upon the more apocryphal authority of the Wardour MS. CHAPTER X. I'll woo her as the lion wooes 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 sybil, who kept murmuring to herself a Saxon rhyme, as if to bear 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; 66 our noble master commands it—Thou must 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 out of saddle and out of service; and now must ye 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 sún 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 themCome, 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 can'st weep, can'st thou not speak ?” "Be not angry, good mother," said Rebecca. "Thou need'st 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.” 66 at me Thy life, minion ?" answered the sybil; "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 -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 storey to storey, 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 !" |