We must now change the scene to the village of Ashby, or rather to a
country house in its vicinity belonging to a wealthy Israelite, with
whom Isaac, his daughter, and retinue, had taken up their quarters; the
Jews, it is well known, being as liberal in exercising the duties of
hospitality and charity among their own people, as they were alleged to
be reluctant and churlish in extending them to those whom they
termed Gentiles, and whose treatment of them certainly merited little
hospitality at their hand.
In an apartment, small indeed, but richly furnished with decorations of
an Oriental taste, Rebecca was seated on a heap of embroidered cushions,
which, piled along a low platform that surrounded the chamber, served,
like the estrada of the Spaniards, instead of chairs and stools. She
was watching the motions of her father with a look of anxious and
filial affection, while he paced the apartment with a dejected mien
and disordered step; sometimes clasping his hands together--sometimes
casting his eyes to the roof of the apartment, as one who laboured under
great mental tribulation. "O, Jacob!" he exclaimed--"O, all ye twelve
Holy Fathers of our tribe! what a losing venture is this for one who
hath duly kept every jot and tittle of the law of Moses--Fifty zecchins
wrenched from me at one clutch, and by the talons of a tyrant!"
"But, father," said Rebecca, "you seemed to give the gold to Prince John
willingly."
"Willingly? the blotch of Egypt upon him!--Willingly, saidst thou?--Ay,
as willingly as when, in the Gulf of Lyons, I flung over my merchandise
to lighten the ship, while she laboured in the tempest--robed the
seething billows in my choice silks--perfumed their briny foam with
myrrh and aloes--enriched their caverns with gold and silver work! And
was not that an hour of unutterable misery, though my own hands made the
sacrifice?"
"But it was a sacrifice which Heaven exacted to save our lives,"
answered Rebecca, "and the God of our fathers has since blessed your
store and your gettings."
"Ay," answered Isaac, "but if the tyrant lays hold on them as he did
to-day, and compels me to smile while he is robbing me?--O, daughter,
disinherited and wandering as we are, the worst evil which befalls our
race is, that when we are wronged and plundered, all the world laughs
around, and we are compelled to suppress our sense of injury, and to
smile tamely, when we would revenge bravely."
"Think not thus of it, my father," said Rebecca; "we also have
advantages. These Gentiles, cruel and oppressive as they are, are in
some sort dependent on the dispersed children of Zion, whom they despise
and persecute. Without the aid of our wealth, they could neither furnish
forth their hosts in war, nor their triumphs in peace, and the gold
which we lend them returns with increase to our coffers. We are like the
herb which flourisheth most when it is most trampled on. Even this day's
pageant had not proceeded without the consent of the despised Jew, who
furnished the means."