“Daughter,” answered Cedric, much embarrassed, “my time in this castle will not permit me to exercise the duties of mine office⁠—I must presently forth⁠—there is life and death upon my speed.”

“Yet, father, let me entreat you by the vow you have taken on you,” replied the suppliant, “not to leave the oppressed and endangered without counsel or succour.”

“May the fiend fly away with me, and leave me in Ifrin with the souls of Odin and of Thor!” answered Cedric impatiently, and would probably have proceeded in the same tone of total departure from his spiritual character, when the colloquy was interrupted by the harsh voice of Urfried, the old crone of the turret.

“How, minion,” said she to the female speaker, “is this the manner in which you requite the kindness which permitted thee to leave thy prison-cell yonder?⁠—Puttest thou the reverend man to use ungracious language to free himself from the importunities of a Jewess?”