“Alas!” said the Jew, “he will not let me travel in his train. Saxon or Norman will be equally ashamed of the poor Israelite; and to travel by myself through the domains of Philip de Malvoisin and Reginald Front-de-Boeuf—Good youth, I will go with you! Let us haste—let us gird up our loins—let us flee! Here is thy staff, why wilt thou tarry?”
“I tarry not,” said the Pilgrim, giving way to the urgency of his companion; “but I must secure the means of leaving this place; follow me.”
He led the way to the adjoining cell, which, as the reader is apprised, was occupied by Gurth, the swineherd. “Arise Gurth,” said the Pilgrim—“arise quickly. Undo the postern gate, and let out the Jew and me.”
Gurth, whose occupation, though now held so mean, gave him as much consequence in Saxon England as that of Eumæus in Ithaca, was offended at the familiar and commanding tone assumed by the Palmer. “The Jew leaving Rotherwood,” said he, raising himself on his elbow and looking superciliously at him, without quitting his pallet, “and travelling in company with the Palmer to boot—”
“I should as soon have dreamt,” said Wamba, who entered the apartment at the instant, “of his stealing away with a gammon of bacon.”
“Nevertheless,” said Gurth, again laying down his head on the wooden log which served him for a pillow, “both Jew and Gentile must be content to abide the opening of the great gate; we suffer no visitors to depart by stealth at these unseasonable hours.”
“Nevertheless,” said the Pilgrim, in a commanding tone, “you will not, I think, refuse me that favour.”
So saying, he stooped over the bed of the recumbent swineherd, and whispered something in his ear in Saxon. Gurth started up as if electrified. The Pilgrim, raising his finger in an attitude as if to express caution, added, “Gurth, beware; thou art wont to be prudent. I say, undo the postern; thou shalt know more anon.”
With hasty alacrity Gurth obeyed him, while Wamba and the Jew followed, both wondering at the sudden change in the swineherd’s demeanour.
“My mule—my mule!” said the Jew, as soon as they stood without the postern.
“Fetch him his mule,” said the Pilgrim; “and, hearest thou, let me have another, that I may bear him company till he is beyond these parts. I will return it safely to some of Cedric’s train at Ashby. And do thou—” he whispered the rest in Gurth’s ear.
“Willingly—most willingly shall it be done,” said Gurth, and instantly departed to execute the commission.
“I wish I knew,” said Wamba, when his comrade’s back was turned, “what you Palmers learn in the Holy Land.”
“To say our orisons, fool,” answered the Pilgrim, “to repent our sins, and to mortify ourselves with fastings, vigils, and long prayers.”
“Something more potent than that,” answered the Jester; “for when would repentance or prayer make Gurth do a courtesy, or fasting or vigil persuade him to lend you a mule? I trow you might as well have told his favourite black boar of thy vigils and penance, and wouldst have gotten as civil an answer.”
“Go to,” said the Pilgrim, “thou art but a Saxon fool.”
“Thou sayst well,” said the Jester; “had I been born a Norman, as I think thou art, I would have had luck on my side, and been next door to a wise man.”
At this moment Gurth appeared on the opposite side of the moat with the mules. The travellers crossed the ditch upon a drawbridge of only two planks’ breadth, the narrowness of which was matched with the straitness of the postern, and with a little wicket in the exterior palisade, which gave access to the forest. No sooner had they reached the mules, than the Jew, with hasty and trembling hands, secured behind the saddle a small bag of blue buckram, which he took from under his cloak, containing, as he muttered, “a change of raiment—only a change of raiment.” Then getting upon the animal with more alacrity and haste than could have been anticipated from his years, he lost no time in so disposing of the skirts of his gaberdine as to conceal completely from observation the burden which he had thus deposited en croupe.aq
The Pilgrim mounted with more deliberation, reaching, as he departed, his hand to Gurth, who kissed it with the utmost possible veneration. The swineherd stood gazing after the travellers until they were lost under the boughs of the forest path, when he was disturbed from his reverie by the voice of Wamba.
“Knowest thou,” said the Jester, “my good friend Gurth, that thou art strangely courteous and most unwontedly pious on this summer morning? I would I were a black prior or a barefoot palmer, to avail myself of thy unwonted zeal and courtesy; certes, I would make more out of it than a kiss of the hand.”
“Thou art no fool thus far, Wamba,” answered Gurth, “though thou arguest from appearances, and the wisest of us can do no more. But it is time to look after my charge.”
So saying, he turned back to the mansion, attended by the Jester.
Meanwhile the travellers continued to press on their journey with a despatch which argued the extremity of the Jew’s fears, since persons at his age are seldom fond of rapid motion. The Palmer, to whom every path and outlet in the wood appeared to be familiar, led the way through the most devious paths, and more than once excited anew the suspicion of the Israelite that he intended to betray him into some ambuscade of his enemies.
His doubts might have been indeed pardoned; for, except perhaps the flying fish,ar there was no race existing on the earth, in the air, or the waters, who were the object of such an unintermitting, general, and relentless persecution as the Jews of this period.3 Upon the slightest and most unreasonable pretences, as well as upon accusations the most absurd and groundless, their persons and property were exposed to every turn of popular fury; for Norman, Saxon, Dane, and Briton, however adverse these races were to each other, contended which should look with greatest detestation upon a people whom it was accounted a point of religion to hate, to revile, to despise, to plunder, and to persecute. The kings of the Norman race, and the independent nobles, who followed their example in all acts of tyranny, maintained against this devoted people a persecution of a more regular, calculated, and self-interested kind. It is a well known story of King John, that he confined a wealthy Jew in one of the royal castles, and daily caused one of his teeth to be torn out, until, when the jaw of the unhappy Israelite was half disfurnished, he consented to pay a large sum, which it was the tyrant’s object to extort from him. The little ready money which was in the country was chiefly in possession of this persecuted people, and the nobility hesitated not to follow the example of their sovereign in wringing it from them by every species of oppression, and even personal torture. Yet the passive courage inspired by the love of gain induced the Jews to dare the various evils to which they were subjected, in consideration of the immense profits which they were enabled to realise in a country naturally so wealthy as England. In spite of every kind of discouragement, and even of the special court of taxations already mentioned, called the Jews’ Exchequer, erected for the very purpose of despoiling and distressing them, the Jews increased, multiplied, and accumulated huge sums, which they transferred from one hand to another by means of bills of exchange—an invention for which commerce is said to be indebted to them, and which enabled them to transfer their wealth from land to land, that, when threatened with oppression in one country, their treasure might be secured in another.