Ivanhoe - Penn State University

how thou mayst deserve my good word with him.”
“Alas! alas!” said the Jew, “on every hand the spoilers arise
against me—I am given as a prey unto the Assyrian, and a
prey unto him of Egypt.”
“And what else should be the lot of thy accursed race?” answered
the Prior; “for what saith holy writ, verbum Dominii
projecterunt, et sapientia est nulla in eis—they have cast forth
the word of the Lord, and there is no wisdom in them;
propterea dabo mulieres eorum exteris—I will give their women
to strangers, that is to the Templar, as in the present matter; et
thesauros eorum hæredibus alienis, and their treasures to others—as
in the present case to these honest gentlemen.”
Isaac groaned deeply, and began to wring his hands, and to
relapse into his state of desolation and despair. But the leader
of the yeomen led him aside.
“Advise thee well, Isaac,” said Locksley, “what thou wilt do
in this matter; my counsel to thee is to make a friend of this
churchman. He is vain, Isaac, and he is covetous; at least he
needs money to supply his profusion. Thou canst easily gratify
his greed; for think not that I am blinded by thy pretexts of
poverty. I am intimately acquainted, Isaac, with the very iron
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chest in which thou dost keep thy money-bags—What! know
I not the great stone beneath the apple-tree, that leads into
the vaulted chamber under thy garden at York?” The Jew grew
as pale as death—“But fear nothing from me,” continued the
yeoman, “for we are of old acquainted. Dost thou not remember
the sick yeoman whom thy fair daughter Rebecca
redeemed from the gyves at York, and kept him in thy house
till his health was restored, when thou didst dismiss him recovered,
and with a piece of money?—Usurer as thou art,
thou didst never place coin at better interest than that poor
silver mark, for it has this day saved thee five hundred crowns.”
“And thou art he whom we called Diccon Bend-the-Bow?”
said Isaac; “I thought ever I knew the accent of thy voice.”
“I am Bend-the-Bow,” said the Captain, “and Locksley, and
have a good name besides all these.”
“But thou art mistaken, good Bend-the-Bow, concerning
that same vaulted apartment. So help me Heaven, as there is
nought in it but some merchandises which I will gladly part
with to you—one hundred yards of Lincoln green to make
doublets to thy men, and a hundred staves of Spanish yew to
make bows, and a hundred silken bowstrings, tough, round,