“Take all that you have asked,” said he, “Sir Knight⁠—take ten times more⁠—reduce me to ruin and to beggary, if thou wilt⁠—nay, pierce me with thy poniard, broil me on that furnace, but spare my daughter, deliver her in safety and honour!⁠—As thou art born of woman, spare the honour of a helpless maiden⁠—She is the image of my deceased Rachel, she is the last of six pledges of her love⁠—Will you deprive a widowed husband of his sole remaining comfort?⁠—Will you reduce a father to wish that his only living child were laid beside her dead mother, in the tomb of our fathers?”

“I would,” said the Norman, somewhat relenting, “that I had known of this before. I thought your race had loved nothing save their moneybags.”

“Think not so vilely of us, Jews though we be,” said Isaac, eager to improve the moment of apparent sympathy; “the hunted fox, the tortured wildcat loves its young⁠—the despised and persecuted race of Abraham love their children!”