IVANHOE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21210, 3 December 1938, Page 24 (Supplement)

IVANHOE

A STORY OF THE AGE OF CHIVALRY

By

SIR WALTER SCO IT

CHAPTER 23

The False Priest

“What is that?” cried Urfried to the female speaker. “Is this the way you requite the kindness which permitted you to leave your prison cell? Do you put the reverend man to use ungracious language to free himself from the importunities of a Jewess?” Rebecca had been allowed to leave her turret to nurse the wounded Ivanhoe.

“Come this way, father,” said Urfried to Cedric. “You cannot leave this castle without a guide. And you, daughter of an accursed race, go to the sick man’s chamber, and woe betide you if you again quit it without my permission!” She then conducted the unwilling Cedric into a small apartment, where she took out a stoup of wine and two flagons from a cupboard. “You are Saxon, father,” she said. “Deny it not. The sounds of my native language are sweet to my ears.”

“Do not Saxon priests visit this castle, then?” asked Cedric.

“They come not. This castle, for ten years, has opened to no priest save the debauched Normart chaplain who partook the nightly f. revels of Front-de-Boeuf, and he has been long gone to render an account of his stewardship. But you are a Saxon —a Saxon priest—and I have one question to ask of you.” “I am a Saxon,” answered Cedric, “but unworthy, surely, of the name of priest. Let me go my way. I swear I shall return or send one of our fathers more worthy to hear your confession.”

Torquil’s Daughter

Stay yet a while,” said Urfried. “The voice you hear now will soon be choked with the cold earth, and 1 would not descend to it like the beast I have lived. I was not born, father, the wretch that you now see me. Can the wrinkled decrepit hag before you forget she was once the daughter of the noble thane of Torquilstone?” “You the daughter of Torquil Wolfganger!” said Cedric, receding as he spoke. “You—you—the daughter of that noble Saxon, my father’s friend and companion in arms!” “Your father’s friend!” echoed. “Then Cedric the Saxon stands before me, for the noble Hereward ol Rotherwood had but one son.” “It does not matter who 1 am,” said Cedric. “Proceed, unhappy woman, with your tale of horror and guilt! “Do not be too hard on me,” said Ulrica, for we may now lay aside her assumed name of Urfried. “Hatred to Front-de-Boeuf and his race governed my soul most deeply. Who set at variance the elder Front-de-Boeuf and his son Reginald? * Long had 1 nursed, in secret, the unnatural hatred; and at his own board fell my oppressor by the hand of his own son. But now go your way. There is a force beleaguering this accursed castle. Hasten to lead them to the attack, and when you shall see a red Hag wave from the turret on the eastern angle of the castle, press the Normans hard. They will then have enough to do within, and vou may win the wall.”