But he was a couple of hundred
leagues off, at Chalus, when the circumstance happened; tied down in his
bed as crazy as a Bedlamite, and raving ceaselessly in the Hebrew tongue
(which he had caught up during a previous illness in which he was tended
by a maiden of that nation) about a certain Rebecca Ben Isaacs, of whom,
being a married man, he never would have thought, had he been in his
sound senses. During this delirium, what were politics to him, or he to
politics? King John or King Arthur was entirely indifferent to a man
who announced to his nurse-tenders, the good hermits of Chalus before
mentioned, that he was the Marquis of Jericho, and about to marry
Rebecca the Queen of Sheba. In a word, he only heard of what had
occurred when he reached England, and his senses were restored to him.
Whether was he happier, sound of brain and entirely miserable, (as any
man would be who found so admirable a wife as Rowena married again,)
or perfectly crazy, the husband of the beautiful Rebecca? I don't know
which he liked best.
Howbeit the conduct of King John inspired Sir Wilfrid with so thorough
a detestation of that sovereign, that he never could be brought to take
service under him; to get himself presented at St. James's, or in any
way to acknowledge, but by stern acquiescence, the authority of the
sanguinary successor of his beloved King Richard.
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