wood without traveling all
night, a conviction which induced them to proceed on their way at a more
hasty pace than they had hitherto used.

The travelers had now reached the verge of the wooded country and were
about to plunge into its recesses, held dangerous at that time from the
number of outlaws whom oppression and poverty had driven to despair and
who occupied the forests in such large bands as could easily bid
defiance to the feeble police of the period. From these rovers, however,
Cedric and Athelstane accounted themselves secure, as they had in
attendance ten servants, besides Wamba and Gurth, whose aid could not be
counted upon, the one being a jester and the other a captive. It may be
added that in traveling thus late through the forest, Cedric and
Athelstane relied on their descent and character as well as their
courage. The outlaws were chiefly peasants and [v]yeomen of Saxon
descent, and were generally supposed to respect the persons and property
of their countrymen.

Before long, as the travelers journeyed on their way, they were alarmed
by repeated cries for assistance; and when they rode up to the place
whence the cries came, they were surprised to find a horse-litter placed
on the ground. Beside it sat a very beautiful young woman richly dressed
in the Jewish fashion, while an old man, whose yellow cap proclaimed him
to belong to the same nation, walked up and down with gestures of the
deepest despair and wrung his hands.

When he began to come to himself out of his agony of terror, the old
man, named Isaac of York, explained that he had hired a bodyguard of
six men at Ashby, together with mules for carrying the litter of a sick
friend. This party had undertaken to escort him to Doncaster. They had
come thus far in safety; but having received information from a
wood-cutter that a strong band of outlaws was lying in wait in the woods
before them, Isaac's [v]mercenaries had not only taken to flight, but
had carried off the horses which bore the litter and left the Jew and
his daughter without the means either of defense or of retreat. Isaac
ended by imploring the Saxons to let him travel with them. Cedric and
Athelstane were somewhat in doubt as to what to do, but the matter was
settled by Rowena's intervention.

"The man is old and feeble," she said to Cedric, "the maiden young and
beautiful, their friend sick and in peril of his life. We cannot leave
them in this extremity. Let the men unload two o