“Hear the infidel dog!” said the churchman; “he jangles as if our holy community did come under debts for the wines we have a license to drink, propter necessitatem, et ad frigus depellendum . The circumcised villain blasphemeth the holy church, and Christian men listen and rebuke him not!”

“All this helps nothing,” said the leader.⁠—“Isaac, pronounce what he may pay, without flaying both hide and hair.”

“An six hundred crowns,” said Isaac, “the good Prior might well pay to your honoured valours, and never sit less soft in his stall.”

“Six hundred crowns,” said the leader, gravely; “I am contented⁠—thou hast well spoken, Isaac⁠—six hundred crowns.⁠—It is a sentence, Sir Prior.”

“A sentence!⁠—a sentence!” exclaimed the band; “Solomon had not done it better.”

“Thou hearest thy doom, Prior,” said the leader.