After
a day's fighting, Gurth and Wamba used to pick the arrows out of their
intrepid master's coat-of-mail, as if they had been so many almonds in
a pudding. 'Twas well for the good knight, that under his first coat-of
armor he wore a choice suit of Toledan steel, perfectly impervious to
arrow-shots, and given to him by a certain Jew, named Isaac of York, to
whom he had done some considerable services a few years back.
If King Richard had not been in such a rage at the repeated failures of
his attacks upon the castle, that all sense of justice was blinded in
the lion-hearted monarch, he would have been the first to acknowledge
the valor of Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, and would have given him a Peerage
and the Grand Cross of the Bath at least a dozen times in the course of
the siege: for Ivanhoe led more than a dozen storming parties, and with
his own hand killed as many men (viz, two thousand three hundred
and fifty-one) within six, as were slain by the lion-hearted monarch
himself. But his Majesty was rather disgusted than pleased by his
faithful servant's prowess; and all the courtiers, who hated Ivanhoe for
his superior valor and dexterity (for he would kill you off a couple of
hundreds of them of Chalus, whilst the strongest champions of the Kings
host could not finish more than their two dozen of a day), poisoned the
royal mind against Sir Wilfrid, and made the King look upon his feats of
arms with an evil eye.
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