piercing black eyes; his high and wrinkled forehead, and long
grey hair and beard, would have been considered as handsome, had they
not been the marks of a physiognomy peculiar to a race, which, during
those dark ages, was alike detested by the credulous and prejudiced
vulgar, and persecuted by the greedy and rapacious nobility, and who,
perhaps, owing to that very hatred and persecution, had adopted a
national character, in which there was much, to say the least, mean and
unamiable.

The Jew's dress, which appeared to have suffered considerably from the
storm, was a plain russet cloak of many folds, covering a dark purple
tunic. He had large boots lined with fur, and a belt around his
waist, which sustained a small knife, together with a case for writing
materials, but no weapon. He wore a high square yellow cap of a peculiar
fashion, assigned to his nation to distinguish them from Christians, and
which he doffed with great humility at the door of the hall.

The reception of this person in the hall of Cedric the Saxon, was such
as might have satisfied the most prejudiced enemy of the tribes of
Israel. Cedric himself coldly nodded in answer to the Jew's repeated
salutations, and signed to him to take place at the lower end of the
table, where, however, no one offered to make room for him. On the
contrary, as he passed along the file, casting a timid supplicating
glance, and turning towards each of those who occupied the lower end of
the board, the Saxon domestics squared their shoulders, and continued
to devour their supper with great perseverance, paying not the least
attention to the wants of the new guest. The attendants of the Abbot
crossed themselves, with looks of pious horror, and the very heathen
Saracens, as Isaac drew near them, curled up their whiskers with
indignation, and laid their hands on their poniards, as if ready to
rid themselves by the most desperate means from the apprehended
contamination of his nearer approach.

Probably the same motives which induced Cedric to open his hall to this
son of a rejected people, would have made him insist on his attendants
receiving Isaac with more courtesy. But the Abbot had, at this moment,
engaged him in a most interesting discussion on the breed and character
of his favourite hounds, which he would not have interrupted for matters
of much greater importance than that of a Jew going to bed supperless.
While Isaac thus stood an outcast in the present society, lik