20 лучших повестей на английском / 20 Best Short Novels

But there was always in those days a home and occupation for a brave and pious knight. A saddle on a gallant war-horse, a pitched field against the Moors, a lance wherewith to spit a turbaned infidel, or a road to Paradise carved out by his scirmitar, – these were the height of the ambition of good and religious warriors; and so renowned a champion as Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe was sure to be well received wherever blows were stricken for the cause of Christendom. Even among the dark Templars, he who had twice overcome the most famous lance of their Order was a respected though not a welcome guest: but among the opposition company of the Knights of St. John, he was admired and courted beyond measure; and always affectioning that Order, which offered him, indeed, its first rank and comanderies, he did much good service; fighting in their ranks for the glory of heaven and St. Waltheof, and slaying many thousands of the heathen in Prussia, Poland, and those savage Northern countries. The only fault that the great and gallant, though severe and ascetic Folko 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 benefitted 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 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.