ko
of Heydenbraten, the chief of the Order of St. John, found with the
melancholy warrior, whose lance did such good service to the cause, was,
that he did not persecute the Jews as so religious a knight should. He
let off sundry captives of that persuasion whom he had taken with his
sword and his spear, saved others from torture, and actually ransomed
the two last grinders of a venerable rabbi (that Roger de Cartright,
an English knight of the Order, was about to extort from the elderly
Israelite,) with a hundred crowns and a gimmal ring, which were all the
property he possessed. Whenever he so ransomed or benefited one of this
religion, he would moreover give them a little token or a message (were
the good knight out of money), saying, "Take this token, and remember
this deed was done by Wilfrid the Disinherited, for the services whilome
rendered to him by Rebecca, the daughter of Isaac of York!" So among
themselves, and in their meetings and synagogues, and in their restless
travels from land to land, when they of Jewry cursed and reviled all
Christians, as such abominable heathens will, they nevertheless excepted
the name of the Desdichado, or the doubly-disinherited as he now was,
the Desdichado-Doblado.

The account of all the battles, storms, and scaladoes in which Sir
Wilfrid took part, would only weary the reader; for the chopping off
one heathen's head with an axe must be very like the decapitation of any
other unbeliever. Suffice it to say, that wherever this kind of work was
to be done, and Sir Wilfrid was in the way, he was the man to perform
it. It would astonish you were you to see the account that Wamba kept of
his master's achievements, and of the Bulgarians, Bohemians, Croatians,
slain or maimed by his hand. And as, in those days, a reputation for
valor had an immense effect upon the soft hearts of women, and even
the ugliest man, were he a stout warrior, was looked upon with favor by
Beauty: so Ivanhoe, who was by no means ill-favored, though now becoming
rather elderly, made conquests over female breasts as well as over
Saracens, and had more than one direct offer of marriage made to him
by princesses, countesses, and noble ladies possessing both charms and
money, which they were anxious to place at the disposal of a champion so
renowned. It is related that the Duchess Regent of Kartoffelberg offered
him her hand, and the ducal crown of Kartoffelberg, which he had rescued
from the unbelieving Prussia