This wandering race, sever'd from other men,
Boast yet their intercourse with human arts;
The seas, the woods, the deserts, which they haunt,
Find them acquainted with their secret treasures:
And unregarded herbs, and flowers, and blossoms,
Display undreamt-of powers when gather'd by them.
--The Jew

Our history must needs retrograde for the space of a few pages, to
inform the reader of certain passages material to his understanding the
rest of this important narrative. His own intelligence may indeed have
easily anticipated that, when Ivanhoe sunk down, and seemed abandoned by
all the world, it was the importunity of Rebecca which prevailed on her
father to have the gallant young warrior transported from the lists to
the house which for the time the Jews inhabited in the suburbs of Ashby.

It would not have been difficult to have persuaded Isaac to this step in
any other circumstances, for his disposition was kind and grateful. But
he had also the prejudices and scrupulous timidity of his persecuted
people, and those were to be conquered.

"Holy Abraham!" he exclaimed, "he is a good youth, and my heart bleeds
to see the gore trickle down his rich embroidered hacqueton, and his
corslet of goodly price--but to carry him to our house!--damsel, hast
thou well considered?--he is a Christian, and by our law we may not deal
with the stranger and Gentile, save for the advantage of our commerce."