“I will do so,” said Gurth, taking the bag under his cloak, and leaving the apartment; “and it will go hard,” he muttered, “but I content him with one-half of his own asking.” So saying, he departed, and left the Disinherited Knight to his own perplexed ruminations; which, upon more accounts than it is now possible to communicate to the reader, were of a nature peculiarly agitating and painful.

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.”