What were Ivanhoe's sensations when he recognized the handwriting of Rowena!—he tremblingly dashed open the billet, and read as follows:—
“MY DEAREST IVANHOE,—For I am thine now as erst, and my first love was ever—ever dear to me. Have I been near thee dying for a whole year, and didst thou make no effort to rescue thy Rowena? Have ye given to others—I mention not their name nor their odious creed—the heart that ought to be mine? I send thee my forgiveness from my dying pallet of straw.—I forgive thee the insults I have received, the cold and hunger I have endured, the failing health of my boy, the bitterness of my prison, thy infatuation about that Jewess, which made our married life miserable, and which caused thee, I am sure, to go abroad to look after her. I forgive thee all my wrongs, and fain would bid thee farewell. Mr. Smith hath gained over my gaoler—he will tell thee how I may see thee. Come and console my last hour by promising that thou wilt care for my boy—HIS boy who fell like a hero (when thou wert absent) combating by the side of ROWENA.”
The reader may consult his own feelings, and say whether Ivanhoe was likely to be pleased or not by this letter: however, he inquired of Mr. Smith, the solicitor, what was the plan which that gentleman had devised for the introduction to Lady Rowena, and was informed that he was to get a barrister's gown and wig, when the gaoler would introduce him into the interior of the prison. These decorations, knowing several gentlemen of the Northern Circuit, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe easily procured, and with feelings of no small trepidation, reached the cell, where, for the space of a year, poor Rowena had been immured.
If any person have a doubt of the correctness, of the historical exactness of this narrative, I refer him to the “Biographie Universelle” (article Jean sans Terre), which says, “La femme d'un baron auquel on vint demander son fils, repondit, 'Le roi pense-t-il que je confierai mon fils a un homme qui a egorge son neveu de sa propre main?' Jean fit enlever la mere et l'enfant, et la laissa MOURIR DE FAIM dans les cachots.”
I picture to myself, with a painful sympathy, Rowena undergoing this disagreeable sentence. All her virtues, her resolution, her chaste energy and perseverance, shine with redoubled lustre, and, for the first time since the commencement of the history, I feel that I am partially reconciled to her. The weary year passes—she grows weaker and more languid, thinner and thinner! At length Ivanhoe, in the disguise of a barrister of the Northern Circuit, is introduced to her cell, and finds his lady in the last stage of exhaustion, on the straw of her dungeon, with her little boy in her arms. She has preserved his life at the expense of her own, giving him the whole of the pittance which her gaolers allowed her, and perishing herself of inanition.
There is a scene! I feel as if I had made it up, as it were, with this lady, and that we part in peace, in consequence of my providing her with so sublime a death-bed. Fancy Ivanhoe's entrance—their recognition—the faint blush upon her worn features—the pathetic way in which she gives little Cedric in charge to him, and his promises of protection.
“Wilfrid, my early loved,” slowly gasped she, removing her gray hair from her furrowed temples, and gazing on her boy fondly, as he nestled on Ivanhoe's knee—“promise me, by St. Waltheof of Templestowe—promise me one boon!”
“I do,” said Ivanhoe, clasping the boy, and thinking it was to that little innocent the promise was intended to apply.
“By St. Waltheof?”
“By St. Waltheof!”