A damn'd cramp piece of penmanship as ever I saw in my life!
--She Stoops to Conquer
When the Templar reached the hall of the castle, he found De Bracy
already there. "Your love-suit," said De Bracy, "hath, I suppose, been
disturbed, like mine, by this obstreperous summons. But you have come
later and more reluctantly, and therefore I presume your interview has
proved more agreeable than mine."
"Has your suit, then, been unsuccessfully paid to the Saxon heiress?"
said the Templar.
"By the bones of Thomas a Becket," answered De Bracy, "the Lady Rowena
must have heard that I cannot endure the sight of women's tears."
"Away!" said the Templar; "thou a leader of a Free Company, and regard
a woman's tears! A few drops sprinkled on the torch of love, make the
flame blaze the brighter."
"Gramercy for the few drops of thy sprinkling," replied De Bracy; "but
this damsel hath wept enough to extinguish a beacon-light. Never was
such wringing of hands and such overflowing of eyes, since the days of
St Niobe, of whom Prior Aymer told us. [30] A water-fiend hath possessed
the fair Saxon."
"A legion of fiends have occupied the bosom of the Jewess," replied the
Templar; "for, I think no single one, not even Apollyon himself, could
have inspired such indomitable pride and resolution.--But where is
Front-de-Boeuf? That horn is sounded more and more clamorously."
"He is negotiating with the Jew, I suppose," replied De Bracy, coolly;
"probably the howls of Isaac have drowned the blast of the bugle.
Thou mayst know, by experience, Sir Brian, that a Jew parting with his
treasures on such terms as our friend Front-de-Boeuf is like to offer,
will raise a clamour loud enough to be heard over twenty horns and
trumpets to boot. But we will make the vassals call him."
They were soon after joined by Front-de-Boeuf, who had been disturbed in
his tyrannic cruelty in the manner with which the reader is acquainted,
and had only tarried to give some necessary directions.
"Let us see the cause of this cursed clamour," said
Front-de-Boeuf--"here is a letter, and, if I mistake not, it is in
Saxon."
He looked at it, turning it round and round as if he had had really some
hopes of coming at the meaning by inverting the position of the paper,
and then handed it to De Bracy.
"It may be magic spells for aught I know," said De Bracy, who possessed
his full proportion of the ignorance which characterised the chivalry of
the period. "Our chaplain attempted to teach me to write," he said, "but
all my letters were formed like spear-heads and sword-blades, and so the
old shaveling gave up the task."