ou art
strangely courteous and most unwontedly pious on this summer morning? I
would I were a black Prior or a barefoot Palmer, to avail myself of thy
unwonted zeal and courtesy--certes, I would make more out of it than a
kiss of the hand."

"Thou art no fool thus far, Wamba," answered Gurth, "though thou arguest
from appearances, and the wisest of us can do no more--But it is time to
look after my charge."

So saying, he turned back to the mansion, attended by the Jester.

Meanwhile the travellers continued to press on their journey with a
dispatch which argued the extremity of the Jew's fears, since persons at
his age are seldom fond of rapid motion. The Palmer, to whom every path
and outlet in the wood appeared to be familiar, led the way through the
most devious paths, and more than once excited anew the suspicion of
the Israelite, that he intended to betray him into some ambuscade of his
enemies.

His doubts might have been indeed pardoned; for, except perhaps the
flying fish, there was no race existing on the earth, in the air, or
the waters, who were the object of such an unintermitting, general, and
relentless persecution as the Jews of this period. Upon the slightest
and most unreasonable pretences, as well as upon accusations the most
absurd and groundless, their persons and property were exposed to every
turn of popular fury; for Norman, Saxon, Dane, and Briton, however
adverse these races were to each other, contended which should look with
greatest detestation upon a people, whom it was accounted a point of
religion to hate, to revile, to despise, to plunder, and to persecute.
The kings of the Norman race, and the independent nobles, who followed
their example in all acts of tyranny, maintained against this devoted
people a persecution of a more regular, calculated, and self-interested
kind. It is a well-known story of King John, that he confined a wealthy
Jew in one of the royal castles, and daily caused one of his teeth to
be torn out, until, when the jaw of the unhappy Israelite was half
disfurnished, he consented to pay a large sum, which it was the tyrant's
object to extort from him. The little ready money which was in the
country was chiefly in possession of this persecuted people, and the
nobility hesitated not to follow the example of their sovereign, in
wringing it from them by every species of oppression, and even personal
torture. Yet the passive courage inspired by the love of gain, induced