*'! r ■■^■'■■^'■^■\,^ Cr' 1 r ■«■■ It 'fn'mv'.'il-L 1 >•:# ^>r^« . . . .' . . . .22 VII. — THE SEISTENOB 25 VIII. — THE CHILDB OE GOEESBEBG 26 IS. — THE LADY OE WIUDEOK 36 X. — THE BATTLE OF THE BOWMEN 42 XI. — THE MAKTTB OF LOVE 48 Xn. — THE CHAMPION 54 XIII. — THE MAEBIAGE . . . 60 REBECCA AND ROWENA . CHAPIEE I. — THE OVEET0EE. — COMMENCEMENT OE THE BUSINESS . . 09 C — THE LAST DAYS OF THE LION 82 IIL — ST. GEOBGE FOE ENGLAND 90 IV.— IVANHOE EEDIVIVnS 98 V. — IVANHOE TO THE EESOCE 105 Vr. — rVAjNHOE THE WIDOWEB 113 Vir. — THE END OF BHE PEEEORtrTANCE 121 B 2 A LEGEND OF THE EHINE. CHAPTER I. SIB LUBWIG OF HOMBOITKG. It was iu the good old days of chivalry, when every mountaiii that bathes its shadow in the Rhine had its castle — not inhabited as now by a few rats and owls, nor covered with moss and wall- flowers, and funguses, and creeping ivy — no, no ! where the ivy now clusters there grew strong portcullis and bars of steel ; where the wall-flower now quivers in the rampart there were silken banners embroidered with wonderful heraldry ; men-at-arms marched where now you shall only see a bank of moss or a hideous black champignon ; and in place of the rats and owlets, I warrant me there were ladies and knights to revel in the great halls, and to feast and to dance, and to make love there» ' They are passed away : — those old knights and ladies : their golden hair first changed to silver, and then the silver dropped oif and disappeared for ever ; their elegant legs, so sUm and active in the dance, became swollen and gouty, and then, from being swollen and gouty, dwindled down to bare bone shanks ; the roses left their cheeks, and then their cheeks disappeared, and left their skulls, and then their skulls powdered into dust, and aU sign of them was gone. And as it was with them so shall it be with us. Ho, seneschal ! fill me a cup of liquor ! put sugar in it, good fellow, yea, and a little hot water — a very little, for my soul is sad, as I think of those days and knights of old. They, too, have revelled and feasted, and where are they? — gone ? — ^nay, not altogether gone ; for doth not the eye catch 6 A LEGEND OF THE EHINE. glimpses of them as they walk yonder in the gray limbo of romance, shining faintly in their coats of steel, wandeijng by the side of long-haired ladies, ■with long-tailed gowns that little pages carry ? Tes ; one sees them : the poet sees them still in the far- off Cloudland, and hears the ring of their clarions as they hasten to battle or tourney — and the dim echoes of their lutes chanting of love and fair ladies ! Gracious privilege of poesy ! It is as the Dervish's collyrium to the eyes, and causes them to see treasures that to the sight of donkeys are invisible. Blessed treasures of fancy ! I would not change ye ; no, not for many donkey-loads of gold. * * * Pill again, jolly seneschal, thou brave wag ; chalk me up the produce on the hostel door — surely the spirits of old are mixed up in the wondrous liquor, and gentle visions of by-gone princes and princesses, look blandly down on us from the cloudy perfume of the pipe. Do you know in what year the fairies left the Ehine ? — long before Murray's Guide-Book was wrote — long before squat steamboats, with snorting funnels, came paddling down the stream. Do you not know that once upon a time the appearance of eleven thousand British virgins was considered at Cologne as a wonder ? Now there come twenty thousand such annually, accompanied by their ladies'-maids. But of them we will say no more — let us back to those who -rf-ent before them. Many, many hundred thousand years ago, and at the exact period when chivalry was in fuU bloom, there occurred a little history upon the banks of the E,hiue, which has been already written in a book, and hence must be positively true. 'Tis a story of knights and ladies— of love and battle, and virtue rew-arded, a story of princes and noble lords, moreover the best of company.' G-entles, an ye will, ye shall hear it. Pair dames and damsels, may your loves be as happy as those of the heroine of this romaunt. On the cold and rainy evening of Thursday, the 26th of October, in the year previously indicated, such travellers as might have chanced to be abroad in that bitter night, might have re- marked a fellow-wayfarer journeying on the road from Oberwinter to Q-odesberg. He was a man not tall in stature, but of the most athletic proportions, and Time, which had browned and furrowed his cheek, and sprinkled his locks with gray, declared pretty clearly that He must have been acquainted with the warrior for A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. 7 some fifty good years. He was armed in mail, and rode a ' powerful and active batile-hor&e, which (though the way the pair had come that day was long and weary indeed,) yet supported the warrior, his armour and luggage, with seeming ease. As it was in a friend's country, the knight did not tliink fit to wear his heavy destrier, or helmet, which hung at his saddle-bow over his port- manteau. Both were marked with the coronet of a count ; and from the crown which surmounted the helmet, rose the .crest of his Imightly race, an arm proper lifting a naked sword. At his right hand and convenient to the warrior's grasp, hung his mangonel or mace— a terrific weapon which had shattered the brains of mauy a'turbaned soldan ; while over his broad and ample chest there fell the triangular shield of the period, whereon were emblazoned his arms — argent, a gules-wavy, on a saltire reversed of the second ; the latter device was awarded for a daring exploit before Ascalon, by the Emperor Maximilian, and a reference to the German Peerage of that day, or a knowledge of high families which .every gentleman then possessed, would have sufilced to show at once that the rider we have described was .of the noble house of Hombourg. It was, in fact, the gallant knight Sir Ludwig of Hombourg — his rank as a count, and chamberlain of the Emperor of Austria, was marked by the cap of maintenance with the peacock's feather which he wore (when not armed for battle), and his princely blood was denoted by the oiled silk umbrella which he carried (a very meet protection against the pitiless storm), and which, as it is known, in the middle ages, none but princes were justified in using. A bag, fastened with a brazen padlock, and made of the costly produce of the Persian looms, (then extremely rare in Europe,) told that he had travelled in Eastern climes. This, too, was evident from the inscription writ on card or parchment and sewed on the bag. It first ran " CountLudwig de Hombourgh Jerusalem ; " but the name of jthe Holy City had been dashed out with the pen, and that of " Godesberg " substituted — so far indeed had the cavalier trar veiled ! — and it is needless to state that the bag in question •contained such remaining 'articles of the toilet, as the high-born noble deemed unnecessary to place in his valise. " By Saint Bugo of Katzenellenbdgen ! " said the good knight. 8 A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. ' shivering, " 'tis colder here than at Damascus ! Marry, I am so hungry I could eat one of Saladin's camels. Shall I be at Godesberg in time for dinner ? " And taking out his horologe, (which hung in a small side pocket of his embroidered surcoat,) the crusader consoled himself by finding that it was but seven of the night, and that he vrould reach Godesberg ere the warder had sounded the second gong. His opinion was borne out by the result. His good steed, which could trot at a pinch fourteen leagues in the hour, brought him to this famous castle, just as the warder was giving the first welcome signal which told that the princely family of Count Karl Margrave of Godesberg were about to prepare for their usual repast, at eight o'clock. Crowds of pages and horsekeepers were in the Court, when the portcullis being raised, and amidst the respectful salutes of the sentinels, the most ancient friend of the . house of Godesberg entered into its castle yard. The under- butler stepped forward to take his bridle-rein. " "Welcome, Sir Count, from the Holy Land," exclaimed the faithful old man. " Welcome, Sir Count, from the Holy Land," cried the rest of the servants in the hall; and a stable was speedily found for the count's horse, Streithengst, and it was not before the gallant soldier had seen that true animal well cared for, that he entered the castle itself, and was conducted to his chamber. Wax candles burning bright on the mantel, flowers in china vases, every variety of soap, and a flask of the precious essence, manufactured at the neighbouring city of Cologne, were displayed on his toilet- table ; a cheering fire " crackled in the hearth," and showed that the good knight's coming had been looked and cared for. The serving-maidens, bringing him hot-water for his ablutions, smiling asked, "would he have his couch warmed at eve?" One might have been sure from their blushes that the tough old soldier made an arch reply. The family tonsor came to know whether the noble count had need of his skill. " By Sainij Bugo," said the knight, as seated in an easy settle by the fire, the tonsor rid his chin of its stubbly growth, and lightly passed the tongs and pomatum through "the sable sUver" of his hair; " By Saint Bugo, this is better than my dungeon at Grand Cairo. How is mj godson Otto, master barber ; and the lady , . ■ A LEGEND OP THE EHINE. 9 countess, his mother; >and the noble Count Karl, my dear brother-in-arms ? " . • " They are well," said the tonsor, with a sigh. " By Saint Bugo, I'm glad on't ; but why that sigh ? " " Things are not as they have been with my good lord," answered the hairdresser, " ever since Count Gottfried's arrival." "He here," roared Sir Ludwig. "Good never came where Gottfried was!" and the while he donned a pair of silken hose, that showed admirably the proportions of his lower limbs, and exchanged his coat of mail for the spotless vest and black surcoat coUared with velvet of Genoa, which was the fitting costume for " knight in ladye's bower," — the knight entered into a conversation with the barber, who explained to him with the usual garrulousness af his tribe, what was the present position of the noble family of Godesberg. This will be narrated in the next chapter. CHA.PTEE II, THE GODESBEEGERS. 'Tis needless to state that the gallant warrior Ludwig, of Hombourg, found in the bosom of his friend's family a cordial welcome. The brother-in-arms of the Margrave Karl, he was the esteemed friend of the margravine, -the exalted and beautiful Theodora, of Boppum, and (albeit no theologian, and although the first princes of Christendom coveted such an honour,) he was selected to stand as sponsor for the margrave's son Otto, the only child of his house. It was now seventeen years since the count and countess had been united : and although Heaven had not blessed their couch with more than one child, it may be said of that one, that it was a prize, and that surely never lighted on the earth a more dehghtful vision. When Count Ludwig, hastening to the holy wars,- had quitted his beloved godchild, he had left him a boy ; he now found him, as the latter rushed into his arms, grown to be one of the 10 A LEGEND OF THE KHINE. . , finest youDg men in Germany : tall and excessively graceful in proporticn, Tvith the blush of health mantling upon his cheek, that was likewise adorned with the first down of manhood, and with magnificent golden ringlets, such as a Eowland might envy, curling oyer his brow and his shoulders. His eyes alternately beamed with the fire of daring, or melted with the moist glance of benevolence. Well might a mother be proud of such a . boy ! Well miglit the brave Ludwig exclaim, as he clasped the youth to his breast, " By St. Bugo, of Katzenellenbogen, Otto ! thou art fit to be one of Coeur de Lion's grenadiers ; " — and it was the fact, the " childe " of Godesberg measured sis feet three. He was habited for the evening meal in the costly,' though simple attire of the nobleman of the period — and his costume a good deal resembled that of the old knight whose toilet we have just described; with the difference of colour, however. The pourpoint worn by young Otto, of Godesberg, was of blue, hand- somely decorated with buttons of carved and embossed gold : his haut-de-cliausses or leggings were of the stufi" of Nanquin, then brought by the Lombard argosies at an immense price from China. The neighbouring country of Holland had supplied his wrist and bosom with the most costly laces ; and thus attired, with an opera- hat placed on one side of his head, ornamented with a single flower (that brilliant one, the tulip), the boy rushed into his godfather's dressing-room, and warned him that the banquet was ready. It was indeed : a frown had gathered on tlie dark brows of the Lady Theodora, and her bosom heaved with an emotion akin to indignation — for she feared lest the soups in the refectory and the splendid fish now smoking there were getting cold — she feared not for herself, but for her lord's sake. " Godesberg," whispered she to Count Ludwig, as trembling on his arm they descended from the drawing-room, " Godesberg is sadly changed of late." " By St. Bugo ! " said the burly knight, starting ; " these are the very words the barber spake ! " The lady heaved a sigh, and placed herself before the soup-tureen. For some time the good knight Ludwig of Hombourg was too much occupied in ladling out the forced-meat balls and rich calves'- head of which the delicious pottage was formed (in ladling them out, did we say ? ay, marry, and in eating them too,) to look at A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. • H his brother-in-arms at the bottom of the table, where he sat with his son on h,is left-hand, and the Baron Gottfried on his fight. The margrave was indeed changed. " By St. Bugo," whispered Ludwig to the countess, " your husband is as surly as a bear that hath been wounded o' the head." Tears falling into her soup- plate were her only reply. The soup, the turbot, the haunch of mutton Count Ludwig remarked that the margrave sent all away untasted. '-' The boteler will serve ye with wine, Hombourg," said the margrave gloomily from the end of the table ; not even an invita- ■ tion to drink ! how different was this from the old times ! But when in compliance with this order the boteler proceeded to hand round the mantling vintage of the Cape to the assembled party, and to fill young Otto's goblet, (which the latter held up with the eagerness of youth,) the margrave's rage knew no bounds. He rushed at his son ; he dashed the wine-cup over his spotless vest ; and giving him three or four heavy blows which would have knocked down a bonassus, but only caused the young childe to blush; " Tom take wine!" roared out the margrave; " you dare to help yourself ! Who the d-v-1 gave you leave to help yourself? " and the terrible blows were reiterated over the delicate ears of the boy. " Ludwig ! Ludwig ! " shrieked the margravine. " Hold your prate, madam," roared the prince. " By St. Buffo, mayn't a father beat his own child ? " " His own child ! " repeated the margrave with a burst, almost a shriek of indescribable agony. " Ah, what did I say ? " Sir Ludwig looked about him in amaze ; Sir Gottfried (at the margrave's right-hand) smiled ghastlily ; the young Otto was too much agitated by the recent conflict to wear any expression but that of extreme discomfiture; but the poor margravine turned her head aside and blushed, red almost as the lobster which flanked the turbot before her. In'those rude old times, 'tis known such table quarrels were by no means unusual amongst gallant knights ; and Ludwig, who had oft seen the margrave cast a leg of mutton at an offending servitor, or empty a sauce-boat in the direction of the margravine, thought this was but one of the usual outbreaks of his worthy 12 -' A LEGEND OF THE EHINE. though irascible friend, and -wisely determined to change the converse. "How is my friend," said he, "the good knight, Sir Hilde- hrandt?" " By Saint Buffo, this is too much ! " screamed the margrave, and actually rushed from the room. " By Saint Bugo," said his friend, " gallant knights, gentle sirs, what ails my good lord margrave ? " " Perhaps his nose bleeds,'' said Gottfried, with a sneer. "Ah, my kind friend," said the margravine with uncontrollable emotion, " I fear some of you have passed from the frying-pan into ' the fire ; " and making the signal of departure to the ladies, they rose and retired to coffee in the drawing-room. The margrave presently came back again, somewhat more col- lected than be had been. " Otto," he said sternly, " go join the ladies ; it becomes not a young boy to remain in the company of gallant knights after dinner." The noble childe with manifest unwillingness quitted the room, and the margrave, taking his lady's place at the head of the table, whispered to Sir Ludwig, " Hildebrandt will be here to-night to an evening party, given in honour of your return from Palestine. My good friend — my true friend — my old companion in arms, Sir Gottfried! you had best see that the fiddlers be not drunk, and that the crumpets be gotten ready." Sir Gottfried, obsequiously taking his patron's hint, bowed and left the room. " Toil shall know all soon, dear Ludwig," said the margrave, with a heartrending look. " Ton marked Gottfried, who left the room anon? " "I did." " You look incredulous concerning his worth ; but I tell thee, Ludwig, that yonder Gottfried is a good fellow, and my fast friend. "Why should he not be ? He is my near relation, heir to my property ; should I (here the margrave's countenance assumed its former expression of excruciating agony), should I have no son." " But I never saw the boy in better health," replied Sir Ludwig. "Nevertheless, ha ha! it may chance that I shall soon have no son." The margrave had crushed many a cup of wine during dinner, ♦ ■ A LEGfEND OF THE UHINE. ' 13 and Sir Ludwig thought naturally that his gallant friend had drunken rather deeply. He proceeded in this respect to imitate him ; for the stern soldier of those days neither shrunk before the Paynim nor the punch-bowl, and many a rousing night had our crusader enjoyed in Syria with lion-hearted Kichard ; with his coadjutor, Grodfrey of Bouillon ; nay, with the dauntless Saladin himself. " Tou knew Gottfried in Palestine ? " asked the margrave. " I did." " "Why did ye not greet him thep, as ancient comrades should, with the warm grasp of friendship ? It is not because Sir Gott- fried is poor ? Tou know well that he is of race as noble as thine own, my early friend ! " "I care not for his race nor for his poverty," replied the blunt crusader. " "What says the Minnesinger ? ' Marry, that, the rank is but the stamp of the guinea ; the man is the gold.' And I tell thee, Karl of Godesberg, that yonder Gottfried is base metal." "By St. Buffo, thou beliest him, dear Ludwig." " By Saint Bugo, dear Karl, I say sooth. The fellow was known i' the camp of the crusaders — disreputably known. Ere he joined us in Palestine, he had sojourned in Constantinople, and learned, the arts of the Greek. He is a cogger of dice, I tell thee — a chanter of horseflesh. He, won five .thousand marks from bluff Eichard of England, the night before the storming of Ascalon, and I caught him with false trumps in his pocket. He warranted a bay mare to Conrad of Mont Serrat, and the rogue had fired her." "Ha, mean ye that Sir Gottfried is a leg?" cried Sir Karl, knitting his brows. " Now, by my blessed patron. Saint Buffo of Bonn, had any other but Ludwig of Homboxirg so said, I would have cloven him from skull to chine." " By Saint Bugo of Katzenellenbogen, I wiU prove my words on Sir Gottfried's body — not on thine, old brother in arms. And to do the knave justice, he is a good lance. Holy Bugo ! but he did good service at Acre ! But his character was such that, spite of his bravery, he was dismissed the army, nor ever allowed to sell his captain's commission." "I have, heard of it," said the margrave ; " Gottfried hath told me of it. 'Twas about some silly quarrel over the wine-cup — a 14 A LEGEND OF THE EHINE; • mere silly jape, believe me. Hugo de Brodenol would have no black bottle on the board. Grottfried was wroth, and to say sooth, flung the black bottle at the county's head. Hence his dismis- sion and abrupt return. But you know not," continued the mar- grave with a heavy sigh, " of what use that worthy Gottfried has bpen to me. He has uncloaked a traitor to me." . " Not yet" answered Hombourg satirically. " By Saint Buffo ! a deep-dyed dastard a dangerous, damnable traitor! — a nest of traitors. Hildebrandt is a traitor — Otto is a traitor — and Theodora (oh, Heaven !) she — she is another." The old prince burst into tears at the word, and was almost choked with emotion. " What means this passion, dear friend ? " cried Sir Ludwig, seriously alarmed. " Mark, Ludwig ; mark Hildebrandt and Theodora together ; mark Hildebrandt and Otto together. Like, like I tell thee as two peas. O holy saints, that I should be born to suffer this ! — to have all my affections wrenched out of my bosom, and to be left alone in my old age ! But, hark ! the guests are arriving. An ye will not empty another ilask of clarefc, let us join the ladyes i' the withdrawing chamber. "When there, mark Hildebrandt and Olto." CHAPTEfi III. TUE I'ESTITAL. The festival was indeed begun. Coming on horseback, or iu their caroches, knights and ladies of the highest rank were assem- bled in the grand saloon of G-odesberg, which was splendidly illuminated to receive them. Servitors, in rich liveries, (they • were attired in doublets of the sky-blue broad-cloath of Tpres, and hose of the richest yellow sammit — the colours of the house of G-odesberg,) bore about various refreshments on trays of silver cakes, baked in the oven, and swimming in melted butter • mancliets of bread, smeared with the same delicious condiment A LEGEND OP THE EHINE. 15 and carved so tliiu tbat you might have 'expected them to take wing, and fly to the ceiling; coffee, introduced by Peter the Hermit, after his excursion into Arabia, and tea such as only Boheamia coilld produce, circulated amidst the festive throng, and were eagerly devoured by the gaests. The margrave's gloom was unheeded by them — how little indeed is tlio smiling crowd aware of the pangs that are lurking ia the breasts of those who bid them to the feast ! The margravine was pale ; but woman knows how to deceive ; she was more than ordinarily courteous to her friends, and laughed, though the laugh was hollow, and talked, though the talk was loathsome to her. " The two are together," said the margrave, clutching his friend's shoulder. " Noiv look." Sir Ludwig turned towards a quadrille, and there, sure enough, were Sir Hildebrandt and young Otto standing side by side in the daiiee. Two eggs were not more like ! The reason of the margrave's horrid suspicion at once flashed across his friend's mind. " 'Tis clear as the staff of«a pike," said the poor margrave, mournfully. " Come, brother, away from the scene ; let us go play a game at cribbage ! " and retiring to the margravine's hoiidoir, the two warriors sat down to the game. But though 'tis an interesting one, and though the margrave won, yet he could not keep his attention on the cards : so agitated was his mind by the dreadful secret which weighed upon it. In the midst of their play, the obsequious Gottfried came to whisper a word in his patron's ear, which threw the latter into such a fury, that apoplexy was apprehended by the two lookers on. But tlie margrave mastered his emotion. " At what time, did you say ? " sdid he to Grottfried. " At day-break, at the outer gate." " I wiU be there." " And so will I too," thought Count Ludwig, the good knight of Hombourg. 16 A LEGEMD OF THE RHINE. CHAPTER lY. THE FLIGHT. How often does man, proud man, make calculations for the future, and think he can bend stern fate to his will ! Alas, we are but creatures in its hands ! How many a slip between the lip and the lifted wine-eup ! How often, though seemingly with a choice of couches to repose upon, do we find ourselves dashed to earth ; and then we are fain to say the grapes are sour, because we cannot attain them ; or worse, to yield to anger in consequence of our own fault. Sir Ludwig, the Hombourger, was not at the outer gate at day-break. He slept until ten of the clock. The previous night's potations had been heavy, the day's journey had been long and rough. The knight slept as a soldier would, to whom a feather-bed is a rarity, and who wakes not till he hears the blast of the reveille. He looked up as he woke. At his bed-side sat the margrave. He had been there for hours watching his slumbering comrade. Watching? — no, not watching, but awake by his side, brooding over thoughts unutterably bitter — over feelings inexpressibly wretched. " What's o'clock ? " was the first natural exclamation of the Hombourger. " I believe it is five o'clock," said his friend. It was ten. It might have been twelve, two, half-past four, twenty minutes to six, the margrave would still have said, " I believe it is five o'cloeh." The wretched take no count of time, it flies with unequal pinions, indeed, for tJiem. " Is breakfast over ? " inquired the crusader. " Ask the butler," said the margrave, nodding his head wildly, rolling his eyes wildly, smiling wildly. " Gracious Bugo ! " said the knight of Hombourg, " what has ailed thee, my friend ? It is ten o'clock by my horologe. Tour regular hour is nine. Tou are not — no, by Heavens ! you are not shaved ! Tou wear the tights and silken hose of last evening's A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. . 17 banquet. Tour collar is all rumpled — 'tis that of yesterday. You Jiave not heen to hed ? "What has chanced, brother of mine, what has chanced ? " " A common chance, Louis of Hombourg," said the margrave, " one that chances every day. A false woman, a false friend, a broken heart. This has chanced. I have not been to bed." "What mean ye ? " cried Count Ludwig, deeply affected. " A false friend ? J am not a false friend — a false woman. Surely ■ the lovely Theodora, your wife." * " • * * " I have no wife, Louis, now ; I have no wife and no son." ******** In accents broken by grief, the margrave explained what had occurred. Gottfried's information was but too correct. There was a cause for the likeness between Otto and Sir Hildebrandt ; a fatal cause ! Hildebrandt and Theodora had met at dawn at the outer gate. The margrave had seen them. They walked long together ; they embraced. Ah ! how the husband's, the father's, feelings were harrowed at that embrace ! They parted ; and then the margrave, coming forward, coldly signified to his lady that she was to retire to a convent for life, and gave orders that the boy should be sent too, to take the vows at a monastery. Both sentences had been executed. Otto, in a boat, and guarded by a company of his father's men-at-arms, was on the river going towards Cologne to the monastery of Saint Buffo there. The lady Theodora, under the guard of Sir Gottfried and an attendant, were on their way to the convent of Nonnenwerth, which many of our readers have seen — the beautiful Green Island Convent, laved by the bright waters of the Ehine ! "What road did Gottfried take ? " asked the knight of Hom- bourg, grinding his teeth. "Ton cannot overtake him," said the margrave. " My good Gottfried, he is my only comfort, now : he is my kinsman, and shall be my heir. He will be back anon." " Will he so ? " thought Sir Ludwig. " I will ask him a few questions ere he return." And springing from his couch, he began forthwith to put on his usual morning dress of complete armour ; and, after a hasty ablution, donned not his cap of main- tenance, but his helmet of battle. He rang the bell violently. 18 A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. " A. cup of coffee, straight," said he, to the servitor, who answered the summons ; " bid the cook pack me a sausage and bread in paper, and the groom saddle Streithengst ; we hare far to ride." The various orders were obeyed. The horse was brought ; the refreshments disposed of; the clattering steps of the departing steed were heard in the court-yard ; but the margrave took no notice of his friend, and sate, plunged in silent grief, quite motionless by the empty bed-side. CHAPTEE V. THE TEAIIOk's DOOM. The Hombourger led his horse down the winding path which conducts from the hill and castle of Godesberg into the beautiful green plain below. "WTio has not seen that lovely plain, and who that has seen it has not loved it ? A thousand sunny vineyards and cornfields stretch around in peaceful luxuriance ; the mighty Ehine floats by it in silver magnificence, and on the opposite bank rise the seven mountains robed in majestic purple, the monarchs of the royal scene. A pleasing poet. Lord Byron, in describing this very scene, has mentioned that " peasant giris, with dark blue eyes, and hands that offer cake and wine " are perpetually crowding round the traveller in this delicious district, and profiEering to him their rustic presents. This was no doubt the case in former days, when the noble bard wrote his elegant poems — in the happy ancient days ! when maidens were as yet generous, and men kindly ! Now the degenerate peasantry of the district are much more inclined to ask than to give, and their blue eyes seem to have disappeared with their generosity. But as it was a long time ago that the events of our story occurred, 'tis probable that the good knight Ludwig of Homboiirg was greeted upon his path by this fascinating peasantry, though we know not how he accepited their welcome. He continued his ride across the flat green country, until h« came to Eolandseck, A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. 19 whence he could command the Island of Nonnenwerth (that lies in. the Ehine opposite that place), and all who went to it or passed from it. Over the entrance of a little cavern in one of the rocka hanging abore] the Ehine-stream at Eolandseck, and covered with odorife- rous cactuses and silvery magnolia, the traveller of the present day may perceive a rude broken image of a saint ; that image repre- sented the venerable Saint Buffo of Bonn, the patron of the Margrave, and Sir Ludwig kneeling on the greensward, and reciting a censer, an ave, and a couple of acolytes before it, felt encouraged to think that the deed he meditated was about to be performed imder the very eyes of his friend's sanctified patron. His devotion done (and the knight of those days was as pious as lie was brave), Sir Louis, the gallant Hombourger, exclaimed with a loud voice : — " Ho ! hermit ! holy hermit, art thou in thy cell ? " " Who calls the poor servant of Heaven and Saint Buffo ? " exclaimed a voice from the cavern ; and presently, from beneath the wreaths of geranium and magnolia, appeared an intensely venerable, ancient, and majestic head — ^'twas that, we need not say, of Saint Buffo's solitary. A silver beard hanging to his knees gave his person an appearance of great respectability ; his body was robed in simple brown serge, and girt with a knotted cord : bis ancient feet Were only defended from the prickles and stones by the rudest sandals, and his bald and polished head was bare. " Holy hermit," said the knight, in a grave voi^je, " make ready thy ministry, for there is some one about to die." " Where, son ? " « Here, father." " Is he here, now ? " "Perhaps," said the stout warrior, crossing himself, "but not so if right prevail." At this moment he caught sight of a ferry- boat putting off from Nonnenwerth, with a knight on board. Ludwig knew at once by the sinople reversed, and the truncated gules on his sniW)at, that it was Sir Gottfried of Godesberg. " Be ready, father," said the good knight, pointing towards the advancing boat ; and, waving his hand by way of respect, to the reterend hermit, and without a farther word, he vaulted into his 2 20 A LEGEND OP THE RHINE. saddle, and rode back for a few score of paces, where he wheeled round, and remained steady. His great lance and pennon rose in the air. His armour glistened in the sun ; the chest and head of his battle-horse were similarly covered with steel. As Sir Grottfried, likewise armed and mounted (for his horse had been left at the ferry hard by), advanced up the road, he almost started at the figure before him — a glistening tower of steel. " Are you the lord of this pass, Sir Knight ? " said Sir Grottfried, haughtily, " or do you hold it against all comers, in honour of your lady-love? " "I am not the lord of this pass. I do not hold it against all comers. I hold it but against one, and he is a liar and a traitor." " As the matter concerns me not, I pray you let me pass," said Gottfried. " The matter does concern thee, Gottfried of Godesberg. Liar and traitor ! art thou coward, too ? " " Holy Saint Buffo ! 'tis a fight ! " exclaimed the old hermit (who, too, had been a gallant warrior in his day) ; and like the old war-horse that hears the trumpet's sound, and spite of his clerical profession, he prepared to look on at the combat with no ordinary eagerness, and sat down on the overhanging ledge of the rock, lighting his pipe, and affecting unconcern, but in reality most deeply interested in the event which was about to ensue. As soon as the word "coward" had been pronounced by Sir Ludwig, his opponent, uttering a curse far too horrible to be inscribed here, had wheeled back his powerful piebald, and brought his lance to the rest. "Ha! Beauseant!" cried he. " Allah hum dillah ! " 'Twas the battle-cry in Palestine of the irresistible knights-hospitallera. " Look to thyself. Sir Knight, and for mercy from Heaven ! J will give thee none." "A Bugo for Katzenellenbogen ! " exclaimed Sir Ludwig, piously; that, too, was the weU-known war-cry of his princely race. " I will give the signal," said the old hermit, waving his pipe. "Knights, are you ready? One, two, three. Los!" (let go.) At the signal, the two steeds tore up the ground like whirl- A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. 21 winds ; the two knights, two flashing perpendicular masses of steel, rapidly converged ; the two lances met upon the two shields of either, and shivered, splintered, shattered into ten hundred thousand pieces, which whirled through the air here and there, among the rocks, or in the trees, or in the river. The two horses fell back trembling on their haunches, where they remained for half a minute or so. " Holy Bufib ! a brave stroke ! " said the old hermit. " Marry, but a splinter weU nigh took oft' my nose ! " The honest hermit waved his pipe ia delight, not perceiving that one of the splinters had carried off the head of it, and rendered his favourite amuse- ment impossible. "Ha! they are to it again! Oh, my! how they go to with their great swords ! Well stricken, grey ! "Well parried, piebald ! Ha, that was a slicer ! Go it, piebald ! go it, grey! — go it, grey! go it, pye * ' *. Peccavi! peccavi ! " said the old man, here suddenly closing his eyes, and falling down on his knees. " I forgot I was a man of peace ; " and the next moment, muttering a hasty matin, he sprung down the ledge of rock, and was by the side of the combatants. The battle was over. Good knight as Sir Gottfried was, his strength and skill had not been able to overcome Sir Ludwig the Hombourger, with eight on his side. He was bleeding at every point of his armour : he had been run through the body several times, and a cut in tierce, delivered with tremendous dexterity, had cloven the crown of his helmet of Damascus steel, and passing through the cerebellum and sensorium, had split his nose almost in twain. His mouth foaming — his face almost green — his eyes fuU of blood — his brains spattered over his forehead, and several of his teeth knocked out, — the discomfited warrior presented a glfastly spectacle ; as, reeling under the effects of the last tremendous blow which the knight of Hombourg dealt. Sir Gottfried fell heavily from the saddle of his piebald charger ; the frightened animal whisked his tail wildly with a shriek and a snort, plunged out his hind legs, trampling for one moment upon the feet of the prostrate Gottfried, thereby causing him to shriek with agony, and then galloped away riderless. Away ! aye, away ! — away amid the green vineyards and golden 22 A LEGEND OP THE RHINE. cornfields ; away up tte steep mountains, where lie frightened the eagles in their eyries ; away down the clattering ravines, where the flashing cataracts tumble ; away through the dark pine forests, where the hungry wolves are howling ; away over the dreary wolds, where the wild wind walks alone ; away through the plashing quagmires, where the will-o'-the-wisps slunk frightened among the reeds ; away through light and darkness, storm and sunshine ; away by tower and town, high-road and hamlet. Once a turnpike-man would have detained him ; but, ha, ha ! he charged the 'pike, and cleared it at a bound. Once the Cologne Diligence stopped the way : he charged the Diligence, he knocked off the cap of the conductor on the roof, and yet galloped wildly, madly, .furiously, irresistibly on ! Brave horse ! gaUant steed ! snorting child of Araby ! On went the horse, over mountains, rivers, turnpikes, applewomen ; and never stopped until he reached a livery-stable in Cologne, where his master was accustomed to put him up. CHAPTER YI. THE CONFESSION. But we have forgotten, meanwhile, that prostrate individual. Having examined the wounds in his side, legs, head, and throat, the old hermit (a skilful leech) knelt down by the side of the vanquished one, and said, " Sir Knight, it is my painful duty to state to you that you are in an exceedingly dangerous condition, and will not probably survive." " Say you so, Sir Priest ? then 'tis time I make my confession — hearken you, priest, and you, Sir Knight, whoever you be." Sir Ludwig, (who, much affected by the scene, had been tying his horse up to a tree), lifted his visor and said, " Gottfried of Godesberg ! I am the friend of thy kinsman. Margrave Karl, whose happiness thou hasfc ruined ; I am the friend of his chaste and virtuous lady, whoso fair fame thou hast belied ; I am the godfather of young Count Otto, whose heritage thou wouldst have appropriated— therefore I met thee in deadly fight, and overcame thee, and have well nigh finished thee. Speak on." A LEGfEND OF THE RHINE. 23 " I have done all this," said the dying man, " and here, in my last hour, repent me. The lady Theodora is a spotless lady ; the youthful Otto the true son of his father — Sir Hildebrandt is not his father, but his toncle." " Gracious Buffo ! Celestial Bugo ! " here said the hermit and the knight of Hombourg simultaneously, clasping there hands. " Tes, his uncle, but with the leer-sinister in his 'scutcheon. Hence he could never be acknowledged by the family ; hence, too, the lady Theodora's spotless purity (though the young people had been brought up together) could never be brought to own the relationship." " May I repeat your confession ? " asked the hermit. " With the greatest pleasure in life — carry my confession to the margrave, and pray him give me pardon. "Were there — a notary- public present," slowly gasped the knight, the iilm of dissolution glazing over his eyes, " I would ask — ^you — two — gentlemen to witness it. I would gladly — sign the deposition, that is if I could wr-wr-wr-wr-ite ! " A faint shuddering smile — a quiver, a gasp, a gurgle — the blood gushed from his mouth in black volumes "* * "He wiU never sin more," said the Hermit, solemnly. " May Heaven assoilzie him ! " said Sir Ludwig. " Hermit, he was a gallant knight. He died with harness on his back, and with truth on his lips ; Ludwig of Hombourg would ask no other death." » * » * An hour afterwards the principal servants at the castle of Godesberg were rather surprised to see the noble Lord Louis trot into the court-yard of the castle, with a companion on the crupper of his saddle. 'Twas the venerable hermit of Eolandseck, who, for the sake of greater celerity, had adopted this undignified con- veyance, and whose appearance and little dumpy legs might well create hilarity among the "pampered menials" who are always found lounging about the houses of the great. He skipped off the saddle with considerable lightness, however ; and Sir Ludwig, taking the reverend man by the arm, and frowning the jeering servitors into awe, bade them lead him to the presence of his Highness the margrave. "What has chanced?" said the inquisitive servitor; "the 24 A LEGEND OF THE EHINE. riderless horse of Sir Gottfried was seen to gallop by the outer wall anon. The margrave's Grace has never quitted your Lord-' ship's chamber, and sits as one distraught.'' " Hold thy prate, knave, and lead us on." And so sayiug, the knight and his Eeverence moved into the well-known apartment, where, according to the servitor's description, the wretched margrave sate like a stone. Ludwig took one of the kind broken-hearted man's hands, the hermit seized the other, and began (but on account of his great age, with a prolixity which we shall not endeavour to imitate) to narrate the events which we have already described. Let the dear reader fancy, the while his Eeverence speaks, the glazed eyes of the margrave gradually lighting up with attention ; the flush of joy which mantles in his countenance — the start — the throb — ^the almost delirious outburst of hysteric exultation with which, when the whole truth was made known, he clasped the two messengers of glad tidings to his breast, with an energy that almost choked the aged recluse ! " Eide, ride this instant to the margravine — say I have wronged her, that it is all right, that she may come back — that I forgive her — that I apologise if you will " — and a secretary forthwith despatched a note to that effect, which was carried off by a fleet messenger. " Now write to the Superior of the monastery at Cologne, and bid him send me back my boy, my darling, my Otto — my Otto of roses ! " said the fond father, making the first play upon words he had ever attempted in his life. But what will not paternal love effect ? The secretary (smiling at the joke) wrote another letter, and another fleet messenger was despatched on another horse. " And now," said Sir Ludwig, playfully, " let us to lunch. Holy hermit, are you for a snack ? " The hermit could not say nay on an occasion so festive, and the three gentles seated themselves to a plenteous repast, for which the remains of the feast of yesterday offered, it need not be said, ample means. " They will be home by dinner-time," said the exulting father, "Ludwig! reverend hermit! "We wUl carry on till then;" and the cup passed gaUy round, and the laugh and jest circulated A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. 25 while the three happy friends sate confidentially awaiting the return of the margravine and her son. But alas ! said we not rightly at the commencement of a former chapter, that betwixt the lip and the raised wine-cup there is often many a spill ? that our hopes are high, and often, too often vain ? About three hours after the departure of the iirst mes- senger, he returned, and with an exceedingly long face knelt down and presented to the margrave a billet to the following effect ; ' ' Convent of Normenwerih, Friday Afternoon. "Sir, — I have submitted too long to your ill-usage, and am disposed to tear it no more. I wiU no longer be made the butt of your ribald satire, and the object of your coarse abuse. Last week you threatened me with your cane ! On Tuesday last you threw a wine-deoanter at me, which hit the butler it is true, but the intention was OTident. This morning, in the presence of all the servants, you called me by the most vile, abominable name, which Heaven forbid I should repeat ! Tou dismissed me from your house under a false accusation. Tou sent me to this odious convent to be immured for life. Be it so, I will not come back, because, forsooth, you relent. Anything is better than a residence with a wicked, coarse, violent, intoxicated, brutal monster like yourself. I remain here for ever, and blush to be obliged to sign myself " Theodoka von Godesbekg." " P.S. I hope you do not intend to keep all my best gowns, jewels, and wearing apparel ; and make no doubt you dismissed me from your house in order to make way for some vile hussey, whose eyes I would like to tear out. " T. T. G." CHAPTER YII. THE SENTENCE. The singular document, illustrative of the passions of women at all times, and particularly of the manners of the early ages, struck dismay into the heart of the margrave. " Are her ladyship's insinuations correct ? " asked the hermit, in a severe tone. " To correct a wife with a cane is a venial, I may say a justifiable, practice ; but to fling a bottle at her, is a ruin both to the liquor and to her." " But she sent a carving-knife at me first," said the heart-broken husband. ." Oh, jealousy, cursed jealousy, why, why did I ever listen to thy green and yellow tongue ? " " They quarrelled, but they loved each other sincerely," whis- pered Sir Ludwig to the hermit, who began to deliver forthwith a 26 A LEGEND OP THE RHINE. lecture upoa family discord and marital authority, which would have sent his two hearers to sleep, but for the arrival of the second messenger, whom the margrave had despatched to Cologne for his son. This herald wore a still longer face than that of his comrade who preceded him. " "Where is my darling ? " roared the agonised parent. " Have ye brought him with ye ? " " N — no," said the man, hesitating. "I will flog the knave soundly when he comes," cried the father, vainly endeavouring, under an appearance of sternness, to hide his inward emotion and tenderness. " Please, your highness," said the messenger, making a desperate effort, " Count Otto is not at the convent." " Know ye, knave, where he is ? " The swain solemnly said, " I do. He is there." He pointed as he spake to the broad Rhine that was seen from the casement, lighted up by the magnificent hues of sunset. " There ! How mean ye there ? " gasped the margrave, wrought to a pitch of nervous fury. " Alas ! my good lord, when he was in tlie boat which was to conduct him to the convent, he — he jumped suddenly from it, and is dr — dr — owned." " Carry that knave out and hang him ! " said the margrave, with a calmness more dreadful than any outburst of rage. " Let every man of the boat's crew be blown from the mouth of the cannon on the tower — except the coxswain, and let him be * * " What was to be done with the coxswain, no one knows ; for at that moment, and overcome by his emotion, the margrave sunk down lifeless on the floor. CHAPTER YIII. THE CHILDE OP GODESBEEG. It must be clear to the dullest intellect (if amongst our readers we dare venture to presume that a dull intellect, should be found) that the cause of the margrave's fainting fit, described in the last chapter, was a groundless apprehension, on the part of that too A LEGEND OF THE KHINE. 27 solicitous and credulous nobleman, regarding the fate of his beloved cliild. No, J'oung Otto was not drowned. "Was ever hero of romantic story done to death so early in the tale ? Toung Otto was not drowned. Had such been the case, the Lord Margrave would infallibly have died at the close of the last chapter ; and a few gloomy sentences at its close would have denoted how the lovely Lady Theodora became insane in the convent, and how Sir Ludwig determined, upon the demise of the old hermit (conse- quent upon the shock of hearing the news), to retire to the vacant hermitage, and assume the robe, the beard, the mortifications of the late venerable and solitary ecclesiastic. Otto was not drowned, and all those personages of our history are consequently alive and well. The boat containing the amazed young count — for he knew not the cause of his father's anger, ,and hence rebelled against the unjust sentence which the margrave had uttered — had not rowed many mUes, when the gallant boy rallied from his temporary sur- prise and despondency, and, determined not to be a slave in any convent of any order, determined to make a desperate effort for escape. At a moment when the men were pulling hard against the tide, and Kuno, the coxswain, was looking carefully to steer the barge between some dangerous rocks and quicksands, which are frequently met with in the majestic though dangerous river, Otto gave a sudden spring from the boat, and with one single flounce was in the boiling, frothing, swirling eddy of the stream. Fancy the agony of the crew at the disappearance of their young lord ! All loved him ; all would have given their lives for him ; but as they did not know how to swim, of course they declined to make any useless plunges in se.arch of him, and stood on their oars in mute wonder and grief. Once, his fair head and golden ringlets were seen to arise from the water ; twice, puffing and panting, it appeared-for an instant again ; thrice, it rose but for one single moment : it was the last chance, and it sunk, sunk, sunk. Know- ing the reception they would meet with from their liege lord, the men naturally did not go home to Grodesberg, but putting in at the first creek on, the opposite bank, fled into the duke of Nassau's territory, where, as they have little to do with our tale, we will leave them. 28 A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. But they little knew how expert a swimmer was young Otto. He had disappeared, it is true ; but why ? because he Tiad dived. He calculated that his conductors would consider him drowned, and the desire of liberty lending him wings, or we had rather say fins, in this instance, the gallant boy swam on beneath the water, never lifting his head for a single moment between Godesberg and Cologne — the distance being twenty-five or thirty miles. Escaping from observation, he landed on the Deutz side of the river, repaired to a comfortable and quiet hostel there, saying he had had an accident from a boat, and thus accounting for the moisture of his habiliments, and while these were drying before a fire in his chamber went snugly to bed, where he mused, not with- out amaze, of the strange events of the day. "This morning," thought he, " a noble, and heir to a princely estate — this evening an outcast, with but a few bank-notes which my mamma luckily gave me on my birthday. What a strange entry into life is this for a young man of my family ! "Well, I have courage and reso- lution ; my first attempt in life has been a gallant and successful one ; other dangers will be conquered by similar bravery." And recommending himself, his unhappy mother, and his mistaken father to the care of their patron saint. Saint Bufib, the gallant- hearted boy fell presently into such a sleep, as only the young, the healthy, the innocent, and the extremely fatigued can enjoy. The fatigues of the day (and very few men but would be fatigued after swimming well nigh thirty miles under water) caused young Otto to sleep so profoundly, that he did not remark how, after Friday's sunset, as a natural consequence, Saturday's Phoebus illumined the world, ay, and sunk at his appointed hour. The serving-maidens of the hostel, peeping in, marked him sleeping, and blessing him for a pretty youth, tripped lightly from the chamber ; the boots tried haply twice or thrice to call him (as boots will fain), but the lovely boy, giving another snore, turned on his side, and was quite unconscious of the interruption. In a word, the youth slept for six-and-thirty hours at an elongation ; and the Sunday sun was shining, and the bells of the hundred churches of Cologne were clinking and tolling ip pious festivity, and the burghers and burgheresses of the town were troopino- to vespers and morning service when Otto woke. A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. 29 As he donned tis clothes of tlie richest Genoa velvet, the astonished boy could not at first account for his difficulty in putting them on. " Marry," said he, " these breeches that my blessed mother (tears filled his fine eyes as he thought of her), that my blessed mother had made long on purpose, are now ten inches too short for me ; "Whir-r-r ! my coat cracks i' the back, as in vain I try to buckle it round me ; and the sleeves reach no farther than my elbows ! What is this mystery ? Am I grown fat and tail in a single night ? Ah ! ah ! ah ! ah ! I have it." The young and good-humoured ChUde laughed merrily. He bethought him of the reason of his mistake : his garments had shrunk from being five-and-twenty miles under water. But one remedy presented itself to his mind ; and that we need not say was to purchase new ones. Inquiring the way to the most genteel ready-made clothes establishment in the city of Cologne, and finding it was kept in the Minoriten Strasse, by an ancestor of the celebrated Moses of London, the noble Childe hied him towards the emporium, but you may be sure did not neglect to perform his religious duties by the way. Entering the cathedral, he made straight for the shrine of Saint Bufib, and hiding himself behind a pillar there (fearing he might be recognised by the arch- bishop, or any of his father's numerous friends in Cologne), he proceeded with his devotions, as was the practice of the young nobles of the age. But though exceedingly intent upon the service, yet his eye could not refrain from wandering a little round about him, and he remarked with surprise that the whole church was filled with archers ; and he remembered, too, that he had seen in the streets numerous other bands of men similarly attired in green. On asking at the cathedral porch the cause of this assemblage, one of the green ones said (in a jape), " Marry, youngster, you must be green, not to know that we are all bound to the castle of his Grace Duke Adolf of Cleves, who gives an archery meeting once a year, and prizes for which we toxophilites muster strong." Otto, whose course hitherto had been undetermined, now imme- diately settled what to do. He straightway repaired to the ready- made emporium of Herr Moses, and bidding that gentleman furnish him with an archer's complete dress, Mosea speedily selected a suit 30 A LEGEND OF THE RHIKE. from bis vast stock, -which fitted the youth to a t, and we need not say was sold at an exceedingly moderate price. So attired (and bidding Herr Moses a cordial farewell), young Otto was a gor- geous, a noble, a soul-inspiring boy to gaze on. A coat and breeches of the most brilliant pea-green, ornamented with a pro- fusion of brass buttons, and fitting him with exquisite tightness, showed off a figure unrivaUed for slim symmetry. His feet were covered with peaked buskins of buff leather, and a belt round his slender waist of the same material, held his knife, his tobacco-pipe and pouch, and his long shining dirk, which, though the adven- turous youth had as yet only employed it to fashion wicket-bails, or to cut bread-and-cheese, he was now quite ready to use against the enemy. His personal attractions were enhanced by a neat white hat, flung carelessly and fearlessly on one side of his open smiling countenance, and his lovely hair, curling in ten thousand yellow ringlets, fell over his shoulder like golden epaulettes, and down his back as far as the waist-buttons of his coat. I warrant me, many a lovely Cblnerinn looked after the handsome Childe with anxiety, and dreamed that night of Cupid under the guise of " a bonny boy in green." So accoutred, the youth's next thought was, that he must supply himself with a bow. This he speedilj"- purchased at the most fashionable bowyer's, and of the best material and make. It was of ivory, trimmed with pink ribbon, and the cord of silk. An elegant quiver, beautifully painted and embroidered, was slung across his back, with a dozen of the finest arrows, tipped with steel of Damascus, formed of the branches of the famous TJpas- tree of Java, and feathered with the wings of the ortolan. These purchases being completed (together with that of a knapsack, dressing-case, change, &c.), our young adventurer asked where was the hostel at which the archers were wont to assemble ? and being informed that it was at the sign of the Golden Stag, hied him to that house of entertainment, where, by calling for quanti- ties of liquor and beer, he speedily made the acquaintance and acquired the good will of a company of his future comradeB, who happened to be sitting in the coffee-room. After they had eaten and drunken for all, Otto said, addressing them, " When go ye forth, gentles ? I am a stranger here, A LEGEND OF THE EHINE. 31 bound as you to tlie arcbery meeting of Duke Adolf; an ye will admit a youth into your company 'twill gladden me upon my lonely way?" The archers replied, "You seem so young and jolly, and you spend your gold so very like a gentleman, that we'll receive you in our band with pleasure. Be ready, for we start at half-past two!" At that hour accordingly the whole joyous company prepared to move, and Otto not a little increased his popularity among them by stepping out and having a conference with the landlord, which caused the latter to come into the room where the archers were assembled previous to departure, and to say, " Gentlemen, the bill is settled ! " — words never ungrateful to an archer yet : no, marry, nor to a man of any other calling that I wot of. They marched joyously for several leagues, singing and joking, and telling of a thousand feats of love and chase and war. While thus engaged, some one remarked to Otto, that he was not dressed in the regular uniform, having no feathers in his hat. " I daresay I will find a feather," said the lad, smiling. Then another gibed because his bow was new. " See that you can use your old one as well. Master Wolfgang," said the undisturbed youth. His answers, his bearing, his gene- rosity, his beauty, and his wit, inspired all his new toxophilite friends with interest and curiosity, and they longed to see whether his skill with the bow corresponded with their secret sympathies for him. An occasion for manifesting this skill did not fail to present itself soon — as indeed it seldom does to such a hero of romance as young Otto was. Tate seems to watch over such ; events occur to them just in the nick of time ; they rescue virgins just as ogres are on the point of devouring them ; they manage to be present at court and interesting ceremonies, and to see the most interest- ing people at the most interesting moment ; directly an adventure is necessary for them, that adventure occurs, and I, for my part, have often wondered with delight (and never could penetrate the mystery of the subject) at the way in which that humblest of romance heroes, Signor Clown, when he wants anything, in the Pantomime, straightway finds it to his hand. How is it that, — 32 A LEGEND OP THE EHINE. siijjpose he wishes to dress himself up like a woman for instance, that minute a coalheaver walks in with a shovel-hat that answers for a bonnet ; at the very next instant a butcher's lad passing with a string of sausages and a bundle of bladders unconsciously helps Master Clown to a necklace and a tournure, and so on through the whole toilet ? Depend upon it there is something we do not wot of in that mysterious overcoming of circumstances by great individuals, that apt and wondrous conjuncture of the Sour and the Man ; and so, for my part, when I heard the above remark of one of the archers, that Otto had never a feather in his bonnet, I felt sure that a heron would spring up in the next sentence to supply him with an aigrette. And such indeed was the fact ; rising out of a morass by which the archers were passing, a gallant heron, arching his neck, swelling his crest, placing his legs behind him, and his beak and red eyes against the wind, rose slowly, and offered the fairest mark in the world. " Shoot, Otto," said one of the archers. " You would not shoot just now at a crow because it was a foul bird, nor at a hawk because it was a noble bird ; bring us down yon heron. It flies slowly." But Otto was busy that moment tying his shoe-string, and Eudolf, the third best of the archers, shot at the bird and missed it. " Shoot, Otto," said "Wolfgang, a youth who had taken a liking to the young archer, " the bird is getting further and further." But Otto was busy that moment whittling a willow-twig he had just cut. Max, the second best archer, shot and missed. " Then," said Wolfgang, " I must try myself; a plague on you, young pringald, you have lost a noble chance !" Wolfgang prepared himself with all his care, and shot at the bird. "It is out of distance," said ho, "and a murrain on the bird ! " Otto, who by this time had done whittling his wUlow-stick (having carved a capital caricature of Wolfgang upon it), flung the twig down and said carelessly, " Out of distance ! Pshaw ! We have two minutes yet," and fell to asking riddles and cutting A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. 33 jokes, to the which none of the archers listened, as they were all engaged, their noses in air, watching the retreating bird. " Where shall I hit him ?" said Otto. " Go to," said Eudolf, "thou canst see no. limb of him, he is no bigger than a flea." "Here goes for his right eye!" said Otto;^ and stepping for- ward in the English manner (which his godfather having learnt in Palestine, had taught him), he brought his bow-string to his ear, took a good aim, allowing for the wind and calculating, the para- bola to a nicety, whizz ! his arrow went oif. He took up the willow twig again and began carving a head of Eudolf at the other end, chatting and laughing, and singing a ballad the whUe. The archers, after standing a long time looking skywards with their noses in the air, at last brought them down from the perpen- dicular to the horizontal position, and said, " Pooh, this lad is a humbug ! The arrow's lost, let's go !" "Heads!" cried Otto, laughing. A speck was seen rapidly descending from the heavens ; it grew to be as big as a crown- piece, then as a partridge, then as a tea-kettle, and flop ! down fell a magnificent heron to the ground, flooring poor Max in its fall. " Take the arrow out of his eye, "Wolfgang," said Otto, without looking at the bird, " wipe it and put it back into my quiver." The arrow indeed was there, having penetrated right through the pupil. " Are you in league with Der Preischiitz ? " said Eudolf, quite amazed. Otto laughingly whistled the " Huntsman's Chorus," and said, " No, my friend. It was a lucky shot, only a lucky shot. I was taught shooting, look you, in the fashion of merry England, where the archers are archers indeed." And so he cut off the heron's wing for a plume for his hat ; and the archers walked on, much amazed, and saying, " What a wonderful country that merry England must be !" Par from feeling any envy at their comrade's success, the jolly archers recognised his superiority with pleasure ; and Wolfgang _and Eudolf especially held out their hands to the younker, and besought the honour of his friendship. They continued their 34 A LEGEND OP THE RHINE. walk all day, and -when night fell made choice of a good hostel you may be sure, where oyer beer, punch. Champagne, and every luxury, they drank to the health of the Duke of Cleves, and indeed each other's healths all round. Next day they resumed their march, and continued it without interruption, except to take in a supply of victuals here and there (and it was found on these occa- sions that Otto, young as he was, could eat four times as much as the oldest archer present, and drink to correspond), and these continued refreshments having given them more than ordinary strength, they determined on making rather a long march of it, and did not halt till after nightfall at the gates of the little town of "Windeck. What was to be done ? the town-gates were shut. " Is there no hostel, no castle where we can sleep ?" asked Otto of tbe sentinel at the gate. " I am so hungry that in lack of better food I think I could eat my grandmamma." The sentinel laughed at this hyperbolical expression of hunger, and said, " Tou had best go sleep at the Castle of Windeck yonder;" and adding with a peculiarly Imowing look, "Nobody will disturb you there." At that moment the moon broke out from a cloud, and showed on a hill hard by a castle indeed — but the skeleton of a castle. The roof was gone, the windows were dismantled, the towers were tumbling, and the cold moonlight pierced it through and through. One end of the building was, however, still covered in, and stood looking still more frowning, vast, and gloomy, even than the other part of the edifice. " There is a lodging, certainly," said Otto to the sentinel, who pointed towards the castle with his bartizan ; " but tell me, good fellow, what are we to do for a supper ?" " the castellan of Windeck wiU entertain you," said the man- at-arms with a grin, and marched up the embrasure, the while the archers, taking counsel among themselves, debated whether or not they should take up their quarters in the gloomy and deserted edifice. " We shall get nothing but an owl for supper there," said young Otto. " Marry, lads, let us storm the town ; we are thirty gallant fellows, and I have heard the garrison is not more than A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. 35 . three hundred." But the rest of the party thought such a way of getting supper was not a very cheap one, and, grovelling tnaves, preferred rather to sleep ignobly and without victuals, than dare the assault with Otto and -die, or conquer something comfortable. One and all then made their way towards the castle. They entered its vast and silent halls, frightening the owls and bats that fled before them with hideous hootings and flappings of wings, and passing by a multiplicity of mouldy stairs, dank reek- ing roofs, and rickety corridors, at last came to an apartment which, dismal and dismantled as it was, appeared to be in. rather better condition than the neighbouring chambers, and they there- fore selected it as their place of rest for the night. They then tossed up which should mount guard. The first two hours of watch fell to Otto, who was to be succeeded by his young though humble friend Wolfgang ; and, accordingly, the ChUde of Godes- berg, drawing his dirk, began to pace upon his weary round; while his comrades, by various gradations of snoring, told how profoundly they slept, spite of their lack of supper. 'Tis needless to say what were the thoughts of the noble Childe as he performed his two hours' watch ; what gushing memories poured into his full soul; what "sweet and bitter" recollections of home inspired his throbbing heart ; and what manly aspirations after fame buoyed him up, " Youth is ever confident," says the bard. Happy, happy season ! The moon-ht hours passed by on silver wings, the twinkling stars looked friendly down upon him. Confiding in their youthful sentinel, sound slept the valorous toxopholites, as up and down, and there and back again, marched on the noble Childe. At length his repeater told him, much to his satisfaction, that it was half-past eleven, the hour when his watch was to cease, and so giving a playful kick to the slumbering Wolfgang, that good-humoured fellow sprung up from his lair, and, drawing his sword, proceeded to relieve Otto. The latter laid him down for warmth's sake in the very spot which his comrade had left, and for some time could not sleep. EeaHties and visions then began to mingle in his mind, tUl he scarce knew which was which. He dozed for a minute ; then he woke with a start ; then he went off again ; then woke up again. * D 2 36 A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. In one of these half-sleeping moments he thought he saw a figure, as of a woman in white, sliding into the room, and beckoning Wolfgang from it. He looked again. "Wolfgang was gone. At that moment twelve o'clock clanged from the town, and Otto started up. CHAPTEE IX. THE LADT 01' WINDECK. As the bell with iron tongue called midnight, "Wolfgang the Archer, pacing on his watch, beheld before him a pale female figure. He did not know whence she came : but there suddenly she stood close to him. Her blue, clear, glassy eyes were fixed upon him. Her form was of faultless beauty ; her face pale as the marble of the fairy statue, ere yet the sculptor's love had given it life. A smile played upon her features, but it was no warmer than the reflection of a moonbeam on a lake ; and yet it was wondrous beautiful. A fascination stole over the senses of young "Wolfgang. He stared at the lovely apparition with fixed eyes and distended jaws. She looked at him with inefiable archness. She lifted one beautifully rounded alabaster arm, and made a sign as to beckon him towards her. Did "Wolfgang — the young and lusty "Wolfgang — follow ? Ask the iron whether it follows the magnet? — ask the pointer whether it pursues the partridge through the stubble ? — ask the youtli whether the lollypop-shop does not attract him ? Wolfgang did follow. An antique door opened as if by magic. There was no light, and yet they saw quite plain; they passed through the innumerable ancient chambers, and yet they did not wake any of the owls and bats roosting there. We know not through how many apartments the young couple passed ; but at last they came to one where a feast was prepared ; and on an antique table, covered with massive silver, covers were laid for two. The lady took her place at one end of the table, and with her sweetest nod beckoned Wolfgang to the other seat. He A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. 37 took ifc. The table was small, and their knees met. He felt as cold in his legs as if he were kneeling against an ice-weU. " Gallant archer," said she, "you mnst be hungry after your day's march. What supper wiU you have ? Shall it be a delicate lobster-salad ? or a dish of elegant tripe and onions ? or a slice of boar's-head and truffles ? or a "Welsh rabbit, a la cave au cidre ? or a beefsteak and shallot ? or a couple of rognons a la Irochette ? Speak, brave bowyer : you have but to order." As there was nothing on the table but a covered silver dish, "Wolfgang thought that the lady who proposed such a multiplicity of delicacies to him was only laughing at him ; so he determined to try her with something extremely rare. "Fair princess," he said, "I should like very much a pork- chop and some mashed potatoes." She lifted the cover : there was such a pork-chop as Simpson never served, with a dish of mashed potatoes that would have formed at least sis portions in our degenerate days in Eupert- street. "When he had helped himself to these delicacies, the lady put the cover on the dish again, and watched him eating with interest. He was for some time too much occupied with his own food to remark that his companion did not eat a morsel ; but big as it was, his chop was soon gone ; the shining silver of his plate was scraped quite clean with his knife, and, heaving a great sigh, he confessed a humble desire for something to drink. " Call for what you like, sweet sir," said the lady, lifting up a silver fillagree bottle, with an India-rubber cork, ornamented with gold. " Then," said Master Wolfgang — for the fellow's tastes were, in sooth, very humble — " I call for half-and-half." According to his wish, a pint of that delicious beverage was poured from the bottle, foaming, into his beaker. Having emptied this at a draught, and declared that on his conscience it was the best tap he ever knew in his life, the young man felt his appetite renewed ; and it is impossible to say how many different dishes he called for. Only enchantment, he was afterwards heard to declare (though none of his friends believed him), could have given him the appetite he possessed on that 36 A LEGEND OF THE EHINE. extraordinary night. He called for another pork-chop and potatoes, then for pickled salmon ; then he thought he would try a devilled turkey-wing. " I adore the devil," said he. "So do I," said the pale lady, with unwonted animation, and the dish was served straightway. It was succeeded by black- puddings, tripe, toasted cheese, and — what was most remarkable -^every one of the dishes which he desired came from under the same silver cover — which circumstance, when he had partaken of about fourteen different articles, he began to find rather mysterious. " Oh," said the pale lady, with a smile, " the mystery is easily accounted for : the servants hear you, and the kitchen is lelow." But this did not account for the manner in which more half-and- half, bitter ale, punch (both gin and rum), and even oil and vinegar, which he took with cucumber to his salmon, came out of the self-same bottle from which the lady had first poured out his pint of half-and-half. " There are more things in heaven and earth, Voracio," said his arch entertainer, when he put this question to her, " than are dreamt of in your philosophy : " and, sooth to say, the archer was by this time in such a state, that he did not find anything won- derful more. "Are you happy, dear youth?" said the lady, as, after his collation, he sank back in his chair. " Oh, miss, aint I ! " was his interrogative and yet affirmative reply. "Should you like such a supper every night, "Wolfgang?" continued the pale one. " Why, no," said he ; " no, not exactly ; not everi/ night : some nights I should like oysters." " Dear youth," said she,- " be but mine, and you may have them all the year round ! " The unhappy boy was too far gone to suspect anything, otherwise this extraordinary speech would have told him that he was in suspicious company. A person who can offer oysters all the year round can live to no good purpose. "Shall I snag you a song, dear archer?" said the kdy. ' Sweet love ! " said he, now much excited, " strike up, and I will join the chorus." A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. 39 She took down her mandolin, and commenced a ditty. 'Twas a sweet and wild one. It told how a lady of high lineage, cast her eyes on a peasant page ; it told how nought could her love assuage, her suitor's wealth and her father's rage : it told how the youth did his foes engage ; and at length they went off in the Gretna stage, the high-born dame and the peasant page. "Wolfgang beat time, waggled his head, sung wofuUy out of tune as the song proceeded ; and if he had not been too intoxicated with love and other excitement, he would have remarked how the pictures on the wall, as the lady sung, began to waggle their heads too, and nod and grin to the music. The song ended, I am the lady of high lineage : Archer, will you be the peasant page ? "I'll foUow you to the devil! " said "Wolfgang. " Come," replied the lady, glaring wildly on him, " come to the chapel ; we'U be married this minute ! " She held out her hand— Wolfgang took it. It was cold, damp, — deadly cold ; and on they went to the chapel. As they passed out, the two pictures over the wall, of a gentle- man and lady, tripped lightly out of their frames, skipped noise- lessly down to the ground, and ' making the retreating couple a profound curtsey and bow, took the places which they had left at the table. Meanwhile the yoimg couple passed on towards the chapel, threading innumerable passages; and passing through chambers of great extent. As they came along, all the portraits on the wall stepped out of their frames to follow them. One ancestor, of whom there was only a bust, frowned in the greatest rage, because, having no legs, his pedestal would not move ; and several sticking-plaster profiles of the former lords of Windeck looked quite black at being, for similar reasons, compelled to keep their places. However, there was a goodly procession formed behind Wolfgang and his bride ; and by the time they reached the church, they had near a hundred followers. The church was splendidly illuminated ; the old banners of the old knights glittered as they do at Drury Lane. The organ set up of itself to play the " Bridesmaid's Chorus." The choir-chairs were filled with people in black. " Come, love," said the pale lady. 40 A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. "I don't see the parson," exclaimed "Wolfgang, spite of himself rather alarmed. " Oh, the parson ! that's the easiest thing in the world ! I say, bishop ! " said the lady, stooping down. Stooping down — and to what? Why, upon my word and honour, to a great brass plate on the floor, over which they were passing, and on which was engraven the figure of a bishop — and a very ugly bishop, too — with crosier and mitre, and lifted finger, on which sparkled the episcopal ring. " Do, my dear lord, come and marry us," said the lady, with a levity which shocked the feelings of her bridegroom. The bishop got up ; and directly he rose, a dean, who was sleeping under a large slate near him, came bowing and cringing up to him ; while a canon of the cathedral (whose name was Schidnischmidt) began grinning and making fun at the pair. The ceremony was begun, and * * i- * As the clock struck twelve, young Otto bounded up, and remarked the absence of his companion "Wolfgang. The idea he had had, that his friend disappeared in company with a white-robed female, struck him more and more. " I will follow them," said he ; and, calling to the next on the watch (old Snozo, who was right unwilling to forego his sleep), he rushed away by the door through which he had seen "Wolfgang and his temptress take their way. That he did not find them was not his fault. The castle was vast, the chamber dark. There were a thousand doors, and what wonder that, after he had once lost sight of them, the intrepid Childe should not be able to follow in their steps ? As might be expected, he took the vsrong door, and wandered for at least three hours about the dark enormous solitary castle, calling out "Wolfgang's name to the careless and indifferent echoes, knocking his young shins against the ruins scattered in the darkness, but still with a spirit entirely undaunted, and a firm resolution to aid his absent comrade. Brave Otto ! thy exertions were rewarded at last ! Por he lighted at length iipon the very apartment where "Wolfgang had partaken of supper, and where the old couple who A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. 41 had been in the picture-frames, and turned out to be the lady's father and mother, were now sitting at the table. " "Well, Bertha has got a husband at last," said the lady. " After waiting four hundred and fifty-three years for one, it was quite time," said the gentleman. (He was dressed in powder and a, pigtail, quite in the old fashion.) "The husband is no great things," continued the lady, taking snuiT. " A low fellow, my dear : a butcher's son, I believe. Did you see how the wretch ate at supper ? To think my daughter should have to marry an archer ! " " There are archers and archers," said the old man. " Some archers are snobs, as your ladyShip states ; some, on the contrary, are gentlemen by birth, at least, though not by breeding. Witness young Otto, the Landgrave of Godesberg's son, who is listening at the door like a lackey, and whom I intend to run through the—" " Law, baron ! " said the lady. " I will, though," replied the baron, drawing an immense sword, and glaring round at Otto : but though at the sight of that sword and that scowl a less valorous youth would have taken to his heels, the undaunted Childe advanced at once into the apartment. He wore round his neck a relic of St. Buffo (the tip of the saint's ear, which had been cut off at Constantinople). " Mends ! I command you to retreat ! " said he, holding up this sacred charm, which his mamma had fastened on him ; and at the sight of it, with an unearthly yell, the ghost of the baron and the baroness sprung back into their picture-frames, as clown goes through a clock in a pantomime. He rushed through the open door by which the unlucky Wolfgang had passed with his demoniacal bride, and went on and on through the vast gloomy chambers lighted by the ghastly moonshine : the noise of the organ in the chapel, the lights ia the kaleidoscopic windows, directed him towards that edifice. He rushed to the door : 'twas barred ! He knocked : the beadles were deaf. He applied his inestimable relic to the lock, and — whizz ! crash ! clang ! bang ! whang ! — the gate flew open ! the organ went off in a fugue — the lights quivered over the tapers, and then went off towards the ceiling — the ghosts assembled 42 A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. rushed away with a skurry and a scream — the bride howled, and vanished — the fat bishop waddled back under his brass plate — the dean flounced down into Ms family vault — and the canon Schid- nischmidt, who was making a joke, aa usual, on the bishop, was obliged to stop at the very point of his epigram, and to disappear into the void whence he came. Otto fell fainting at the porch, while "Wolfgang tumbled lifeless down at the altar-steps ; and in this situation the archers, when they arrived, found the two youths. They were resuscitated, as we scarce need say ; but when, in incoherent accents, they came to teE their wondrous tale, some sceptics among the archers said — " Pooh ! they were intoxicated ! " while others, nodding their older heads, exclaimed — " They have seen the Lady of Windech ! " and recalled the stories of many other young men, who, inveigled by her devilish arts, had not been so lucky as "Wolfgang, and had disappeared — for ever ! This adventure bound "Wolfgang heart and soul to his gallant preserver ; and the archers — it being now morning, and the cocks crowing lustily round about — pursued their way without farther delay to the castle of the noble patron of toxophilites, the gallant Duke of Clevesr CHAPTEE X. THE BATTLE OF THE BOWMEN. Although there lay an immense number of castles and abbeys between "Windeck and Cleves, for every one of which the guide- books have a legend and a ghost, who might, with the commonest stretch of ingenuity, be made to waylay our adventurers on the road ; yet, as the journey would be thus almost interminable, let us cut it short by saying that the travellers reached Cleves without any farther accident, and found the place thronged with visitors for the meeting next day. And here it would be easy to describe the company which arrived, and make display of antiquarian lore. Now we would A LEGEND OF THE KHINE. 43 represent a cavalcade of knights arriving, with their pages carry- ing their shining helms of gold, and the stout esquires, bearers of lance and banner. Anon would arrive a fat abbot on his ambling pad, surrounded by the white-robed companions of his convent. Here should come the gleemen and jongleurs, the minstrels, the mountebanks, the party-coloured gipsies, the dark- eyed nut-brown Zigeunerinnen ; then a troop of peasants, chanting Ehine-songs, and leading in their ox-drawn carts the peach- cheeked girls from the vine-lands. Next we would depict the litters blazoned with annorial bearings, from between the broidered curtains of which peeped out the swan-hke necks and the haughty faces of the blonde ladies of the castles. But for these descrip- tions we have not space ; and the reader is referred to the account of the tournament in the ingenious novel of "Ivanhoe," where the above phenomena are described at length. Suffice it to say, that Otto and his companions arrived at the town of Cleves, and, hastening to a hostel, reposed themselves after the day's march, and prepared them for the encounter of the morrow. That morrow came ; and as the sports were to begin early, Otto and his comrades hastened to [the field, armed with their best bows and arrows, you may be sure, and eager to distinguish themselves, as were the multitude of other archers assembled. They were from all neighbouring countries — crowds of English, as you may fancy, armed with Murray's guide-books, troops of chat- tering Frenchmen, Erankfort Jews with roulette-tables, and Tyrplese, with gloves and trinkets — all hied towards the field where the butts were set up, and the archery practice was to be held. The Childe and his brother archers were, it need not be said, early on the ground. But what words of mine can describe the young gentleman's emotion when, preceded by a band of trumpets, bagpipes, ophi- cleides, and other wind instruments, the Prince of Cleves appeared with the Princess Helen, his daughter ? And, ah ! what expres- sions of my humble pen can do justice to the beauty of that young lady ? Eancy every charm which decorates the person, every virtue which ornaments the mind, every accomplishment which renders charming mind and charming person doubly charming, and then you will have but a faint and feeble idea of the beauties 44 A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. of lier highness the Princess Helen. Fancy a complexion such as they say (I know not with what justice) Eowland's Kalydor imparts to the users of that cosmetic ; fancy teeth to which orient pearls are like "VVallsend coals ; eyes, which were so blue, tender, and bright, that while they run you through with their lustre, they healed you with their kindness-; a neck and waist, so ravish- ingly slender and graceful, that the least that is said about them the better ; a foot which fell upon the flowers no heavier than a dewdrop — and this charming person, set off by the most elegant toilet that ever milliner devised ! The lovely Helen's hair (which was as black as the finest varnish for boots) was so long, that it was borne on a cushion several yards behind her by the maidens of her train; and a hat, set off with moss-roses, sun-flowers, bugles, birds of paradise, gold lace, and pink ribbon, gave her a distingue air, which would have set the editor of the " Morning Post " mad with love. It had exactly the same effect upon the noble Childe of Godes- berg, as leaning on his ivory bow, with his legs crossed, he stood and gazed on her, as Cupid gazed on Psyche. Their eyes met : it was all over with both of them. A blush came at one and the same miuute budding to the cheek of either. A simultaneous throb beat in those young hearts ! They loved each other for ever from that instant. Otto still stood, cross-legged, enraptured, leaning on his ivory bow ; but Helen, calling to a maiden for her pocket-handkerchief, blew her beautiful Grrecian nose in order to hide her agitation. Bless ye, bless ye, pretty ones ! I am old now ; but not so old but that I kindle at the tale of love. Theresa Mac Whirter too has lived and loved. Heigho ! Who is yon chief that stands behind the truck whereon are seated the princess and the stout old lord, her father ? Who is he whose hair is of the carroty hue ? whose eyes, across a snubby bunch of a nose, are perpetually scowling at each other ; who has a hump-back, and a hideous mouth, surrounded with bristles, and crammed full of jutting yellow odious teeth. Although he wears a sky-blue doublet laced with silver, it only serves to render his vulgar punchy figure doubly ridiculous ; although his nether gar- ment is of salmon-coloured velvet, it only draws the more attention to his legs, which are disgustingly crooked and bandy. A rose- A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. 45 coloured, hat, witli towering pea-green ostricli plumes, looks absurd on his bull head ; and though it is time of peace, the wretch is armed with a multiplicity of daggers, knives, yataghans, dirks, sabres, and scimitars, which testify his truculent and bloody disposition. 'Tis the terrible Eowsky de Donnerblitz, Margrave of Eulenschreckenstein. Eeport says he is a suitor for the hand of the lovely Helen. He addresses various speeches of gallantry to her, and grins hideously as he thrusts his disgusting head over her lily shoulder. But she turns away from him ! turns and shudders — aye, as she would at a black dose ! Otto stands gazing still, and leaning on his bow. " What is the prize ? " asks one archer of another. There are two prizes — a velvet cap, embroidered by the hand of the princess, and a chain of massive gold, of enormous value ; both lie on cushions before her. " I know which I shall choose, when I vrin the first prize," says a swarthy, savage, and bandy-legged archer, who bears the owl gules on a black shield, the cognisance of the Lord Eowsky de Donnerblitz. " Which, fellow ? " says Otto, turning fiercely upon him. " The chain, to be sure ! " says the leering archer. " Tou do not suppose I am such a flat as to choose that velvet gimcrack there ? " Otto laughed in scorn, and began to prepare his bow. The trumpets sounding proclaimed that the sports were about to commence. Is it necessary to describe them ? No : that has abeady been done in the novel of " Ivanhoe," before mentioned. Fancy the archers clad in Lincoln green, all coming forward in turn, and firing at the targets. Some hit, some missed ; those that missed were fain to retire amidst the jeers of the miiltitudinous spec- tators. Those that hit began new trials of skiU. ; but it was easy to see, from the first, that the battle lay between Squintoff (the Eowsky archer) and the young hero with the golden hair and the ivory bow. Squintoif's fame as a marksman was known through- out Europe ; but who was his young competitor ? Ah ! there was one heart in the assembly that beat most anxiously to know. 'Twas Helen's. The crowning trial arrived. The bull's-eye of the target, set up 46 , A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. at three quarters of a mile distance from the archers, was so small, that it required a very clever man indeed to see, much more to hit it ; and as Squintoff was selecting his arrow for the final trial, the Howsky flung a purse of gold towards his archer, saying — " Squintoff, an ye win the prize, the purse is thine." "I may as well pocket it at once, your honour," said the bowman, with a fsneer at Otto. " This young chick, who has been lucky as yet, will hardly hit such a mark as that ; " and, taking- his aim, Squintoff discharged his arrow right into the very middle of the bull's-eye. " Can you mend that, young springald ? " said he, as a shout rent the air at his success, as Helen turned pale to think that the champion of her secret heart was likely to be overcome, and as Squintoff, pocketing the Eowsky's money, turned to the noble boy of Godesberg. " Has anybody got a pea ? " asked the lad. Everybody laughed at his droll request ; and an old woman, who was selling porridge in the crowd, handed him the vegetable which he demanded. It was a dry and yellow pea. Otto, stepping up to the target, caused Squintoff to extract his arrow from the bull's-eye, and placed iu the orifice made by the steel point of the shaft, the pea which he had received from the old woman. He then came back to his place. As he prepared to shoot, Helen was so overcome by emotion, that 'twas thought she would have fainted. ISTever, never had she seen a being so beautiful as the young hero now before her ! He looked almost divine. He flung back his long clusters of hair from his bright eyes and tall forehead ; the blush of health mantled on his cheek, from which the barber's weapon had never shorn the down. He took his bow, and one of his most elegant arrows, and, poising himself lightly on his right leg, he flung himself forward, raising his left leg on a level with his ear. He looked like Apollo, as he stood balancing himself there. He dis- charged his dart from the thrumming bowstring : it clove the blue air — whizz ! " Se has split the pea ! " said the princess, and fainted. The Eowsky, with one eye, hurled an indignant look at the boy, while with the other, he levelled (if aught so crooked can be said to level anything) a furious glance at his archer. A LEGEND OE THE EHINE. 47 . The archer swore a sulky oath.. "He is the better man!" said he. " I suppose, young chap, you take the gold chain ? '' " The gold chain ? " said Otto. " Prefer a gold chain to a cap worked by your august taud ? ITever ! " and, advancing to the balcony where the princess, who now came to herself, was sitting, he kneeled down before her, and received the velvet cap, which, blushing as scarlet as the cap itself, the Princess Helen placed on his golden ringlets. Once more their eyes met — their hearts /thrilled. They had never spoken, but they knew they loved each other for ever. " "Wilt thou take service with the Eowsky of Donnerblitz ? " said that individual to the youth. " Thou shalt be captain of my archers in place of yon blundering nincompoop, whom thou hast overcome." " Ton blundering nincompoop is a skilful and gallant archer," replied Otto, haughtily ; " and I wiU not take service with the Sowsky of Donnerblitz." " Wilt thou enter the household of the Prince of Cleves ? " said the father of Helen, laughing, and not a little amused at the haughtiness of the humble archer. " I would die for the Duke of Cleves and Ms family" said Otto, bowing low. He laid a particular and a tender emphasis on the word family. Helen knew what he meant. She was the family. In fact, her mother was no more, and her papa had no other oifspring. " What is thy name, good fellow? "' said the prince, " that my steward may enrol thee." " Sir," said Otto, again blushing, "I am Otto the Aechee." 48 A LEGEND OF THE EHINE. CHAPTER XI. THE MAETXE OP lOTE. The arcliers who had travelled in company with young Otto, gave a handsome dianer in compliment to the success of our hero ; at which his friend distinguished himself as usual in the eating and drinking department. Squintoff, the Eowski bowman, de- clined to attend, so great was the envy of the brute at the youth- ful hero's superiority. As for Otto himself, he sate on the right hand of the chairman, but it was remarked that he could not eat. Gentle reader of my page ! thou knowest why full well. He was too much in love to have any appetite ; for though I myself, when labouring under that passion, never found my consumption of victuals diminish, yet remember our Otto was a hero of romance, and they never are hungry when they're in love. The next day, the young gentleman proceeded to enrol himself in the corps of Archers of the Prince of Cleves, and with him came his attached squire, who vowed he never would leave him. As Otto threw aside his own elegant dress, and donned the livery of the House of Cleves, the noble Childe sighed not a little — 'twas a splendid uniform 'tis true, but still it was a livery, and one of his proud spirit ill bears another's cognizances. " They are the colours of the prince's, however," said he, consoling himself; "and what suffering would I not undergo for lier ? " As for "Wolfgang, the squire, it may well be supposed that the good-natured, low- born fellow had no such scruples ; but he was glad enough to exchange for the pink hose, the yellow jacket, the pea-green cloak, and orange-tawny hat, with which the duke's steward supplied him, the homely patched doublet of green which he had worn for years past. ^ " Look at yon two archers," said the Prince of Cleves to his guest the Eowski of Donnerblitz, as they were strolling on the battlements after dinner, smoking their cigars as usual. His highness pointed to our two young friends, who were mounting A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. 49 guard for the first time. " See yon two bowmen — mark their bearing ! One is the youth who beat thy Squintoff, and t'other, an I mistake not, won the third prize at the butts. Both wear the same uniform — the colours of my house — yet, would' st not swear that the one was but a churl, and the other a noble gentlemen ? " "Which looks like the nobleman ? " said the Eowski, as black as thunder. " Which ? why, young Otto, to be sure," said the Princess Helena, eagerly. The young lady was following the pair, but under pretence of disliking the odour of the cigar, she had refused, the Eowski's proffered arm, and was loitering behind with' her parasol. Her iaterposition in favour of her young protege only made the black and jealous Eowski more iU-humoured. " How long is it, Sir Prince of Cleves," said he, " that the churls who wear your livery permit themselves to wear the ornaments of noble knights ? "What but a noble dare wear ringlets such as yon springald's ? Ho, archer ! " roared he, " come hither, fellow." And Otto stood before him. As he came, and presenting arms stood respectfully before the prince and his savage guest, he looked for one moment at the lovely Helena — their eyes met, their hearts beat simul- taneously • and, quick, two little blushes appeared in the cheek of either. I have seen one ship at sea answering another's signal so. "While they are so regarding each other let us just remind our readers of the great estimation in which the hair was held in the North. Only nobles were permitted to wear it long. When a man disgraced himself, a shaving was sure to follow. Penalties were inflicted upon vUlains or vassals who sported ringlets. See the works of Aurelius Tonsor ; Hirsutus de J^obilitate CapUlari ; Eolandus de Oleo Macassari ; Schnurrbart Prisirische Alterthum- skunde, &c. " We must have those ringlets of thine cut, good fellow," said the Duke of Cleves good-naturedly, but wishing 'to spare the feel- ings of his gallant recruit. " 'Tis against the regulation cut of my archer guard." " Cut off my hair ! " cried Otto agonised. " Ay, and thine ears with it, yokel," roared Donnerblitz. 50 A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. " Peace, noble Eulensclireckenstein," said the duke with dignity, ' let the Duke of Cleves deal as he will with his own men-at-arms — and you, young sir, unloose the grip of thy dagger." Otto, indeed, had conyulsively grasped his snickersnee, with intent to plunge it into the heart of the Eowski, but his politer feelings overcame him. " The count need not fear, my lord," said he — "a lady is present." And [he took off his orange-tawny cap and bowed low. Ah ! what a pang shot through the heart of Helena, as she thought that those lovely ringlets must be shorn from that beautiful head ! Otto's mind was too in commotion. His feelings as a gentle- man — let us add, his pride as a man — for who is not, let us ask, proud of a good head of hair ? — waged war within his soul. He expostulated with the prince. " It was never in his contempla- tion," he said, "on taking service, to undergo the operation of hair-cutting." "Thou art free to go or stay, sir archer," said the prince pettishly. " I wiU have no churls imitating noblemen in my ser- vice; I will bandy no conditions with archers of myguftrd." " My resolve is taken," said Otto, irritated too in his turn. "IvsdU. . ." " What! " cried Helena, breathless with intense agitation. "I wUl stay" answered Otto. The poor girl almost fainted . with joy. The Eowski frowned with demoniac fury, and grinding his teeth and cursing in the horrible German jargon stalked away. " So be it," said the Prince of Cleves, taking his daughter's arm — " and here comes Snipwitz, my barber, who shall do the business for you." "With this the prince too moved on, feeling in his heart not a little compassion for the lad ; for Adolf of Cleves had been handsome in his youth, and distinguished for the ornament of which he was now depriving his archer. Snipwitz led the poor lad into a side-room, and there — in a word —operated upon him. The golden curls— fair curls that his mother had so often played with! — ^feU under the shears and round the lad's knees, until he looked as if he was sitting in a hath of sunbeams. "When the frightful act had been performed, Otto, who entered the little chamber in the tower, ringletted like i\ polio, issued from it as cropped as a charity-boy. A LEGEND OF THE EHINE. Si See how melanclioly lie looks, now that tlie operation is over ! — And no wonder. He was thinking what would be Helena's opinion of him, now that one of his chief personal ornaments was gone. " "Will she know me ? " thought he, " will she love me after this hideous miitilation ? '' Yielding to these gloomy thoughts, and, indeed, rather unwill- , ing to be seen by his comrades, now that he was so disfigured, the young gentleman had hidden himself behind one of the buttresses of the wall, a prey to natural despondency, when he saw something which instantly restored him to good spirits. He saw the lovely Helena coming towards tlie chamber where the odious barber had performed upon him, — coming forward timidly, looking round her anxiouBly, blushing with delightful agitation, — and presently seeing, as she thought, the coast clear, she entered the apartment. She stooped down, and, ah ! what was Otto's joy when he saw her pick up a beautiful golden lock of his hair, press it to her lips, and then hide it in her bosom ! No carnation ever blushed so redly as Helena did when she came out after performing this feat. Then she hurried straightway to her own apartments in the castle, and Otto, whose first impulse was to come out from his hiding-place, and, falling at her feet, call Heaven and Earth to witness to his passion, with difficulty restrained his feelings, and let her pass : but the love-stricken young hero was so delighted with this evi- dent proof of reciprocated attachment, that all regret at losing his ringlets at once left him, and he vowed he would sacrifice not only his hair, but his head, if need were, to do her service. That very afternoon, no small bustle and conversation took place in the castle, on account of the sudden departure of the Eowski of Ealenschreckenstein, with all his train and equipage. He went away in the greatest wrath, it was said, after a long and ioud con- versation with the prince. As that potentate conducted his guest to the gate, walking rather demurely and shamefacedly by his side, as he gathered his attendants in the court, and there mounted his charger, the Eowski ordered his trumpets to sound, and scornfully flung a largesse of gold among the servitors and men-at-arms of the house of Cleves, who were marshalled in the court. " Pare- well, sir prince," said he to his host ; " I quit you now suddenly ; but remember, it is not my last visit to the Castle of Cleves ; " E 2 52 A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. and, ordering liis band to play " See the Conquering Hero comes," he clattered away through the drawbridge. The Princess Helena was not present at his departure ; and the venerable Prince of Cleves looked rather moody and chapfallen when his guest left him. He visited all the castle defences pretty accurately that night, and inquired of his officers the state of the ammunition, provisions, &c. He said nothing ; but the Princess Helena's maid did : and everybody knew that the Eowski had made his proposals, had been rejected, and, getting up in a violent fury, had called for his people, and sworn by his great gods that he would not enter the castle again untU he rode over the breach, lance in hand, the conqueror of Cleves and all belonging to it. No little consternation was spread through the garrison at the news. Por everybody knew th6 E.owski to be one of the most intrepid and powerful soldiers in all Germany, — one of the most skilful generals. Generous to extravagance to his own followers, he was ruthless to the enemy : and a hundred stories were told of the dreadful barbarities exercised by him in several towns and castles which he had captured and sacked. And poor Helena had the pain of thinking, that in consequence of her refusal she was dooming all the men, women, and children of the principality to indiscriminate and horrible slaughter. The dreadful surmises regarding a war received in a few days dreadful confirmation. It was noon, and the worthy Prince of Cleves was taking his dinner (though the honest warrior had little appetite for that meal for some time past), when trumpets were heard at the gate ; and presently the herald of the Eowski of Donnerblitz, clad in a tabard on which the arms of the count were blazoned, entered the dining-hall. A page bore a steel gauntlet on a cushion ; Bleu Sanglier had his hat on his head. The Prince of Cleves put on his own as the herald came up to the chair of state where the sovereign sate. " Silence for Bleu Sanglier," cried the prince, gravely. " Say your say, sir herald. " In the name of the high and mighty Eowski, Prince of Don- nerblitz, Margrave of Eulenschreckenstein, Count of Krotenwald, Schnauzestadt, and Galgenhiigel, hereditary Grand Corkscrew of the Holy Eoman Empire— to you, Adolf the Twenty-third, Prince A LEGEND OF THE KHINE. 53 of Cleves, I, Bleu Saaglier, bring war and defiance. Alone, and lance to lance, or twenty to twenty in field or in fortj on plain or on mountain, the noble Eowski defies you. Here, or wherever ha shall meet you, he proclaims war to the death between you and him. In token whereof, here is his glove." And taking the steel glove from the page, Bleu Boar flung it clanging on the marble floor. The Princess Helena turned deadly pale : but the prince with a good assurance flung down his own glove, calling upon some one to raise the Eowski's ; which Otto accordingly took up and pre- sented to him, on his knee. " Boteler, fill my goblet," said the prince to that functionary, who, clothed in tight black hose with a white kerchief, and a napkin on his dexter arm, stood obsequiously by his master's chair. The goblet was filled with Malvoisie : it held about three quarts ; a precious golden hanap carved by the cunning artificer Benvenuto the Florentine. " Drink, Bleu Sanglier," said the prince, " and piit the goblet in thy bosom. Wear this chain, furthermore, for my sake." And so saying. Prince Adolf flung a precious chaiu of emeralds round the herald's neck. " An invitation to battle was ever a welcome call to Adolf of Cleves." So saying, and bidding his people take good care of Bleu Sanglier's retinue, the prince left the hall with his daughter. All were marvelling at his dignity, courage, and generosity. But, though afiTecting unconcern, the mind of Prince Adolf was far from tranquil. He was no longer the stalwart knight who, in the reign of Stanislaus Augustus, had, with his naked flst, beaten a lion to death in three minutes ; and alone had kept the postern of Peterwaradin for two hours against seven hundred Turkish janissaries, who were assailing it. Those deeds which had made the heir of Cleves famous were done thirty years syne. A free liver since he had come into his principality, and of a lazy turn, he had neglected the athletic exercises which had made him in youth so famous a champion, and indolence had borne its usual Iruits. He tried his old battle-sword — that famous blade ,with which, in Palestine, he had cut an elephant-driver in two pieces, and split asunder the skull of the elephant which he rode. Adolf 5i A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. of Cleves could scarcely now lift the weapon over his head. He tried his armour. It was too tight for him. And the old soldier burst into tears, when he found he could not buckle it. Such a man was not fit to encounter the terrible Eowski in single combat. Ifor could he hope to make head against him for any time in the field. The prince's territories were small. His vassals proverbially lazy and peaceable. His treasury empty. The dismallest prospects were before him : and he passed a sleepless night writing to his friends for succour, and calculating with his secretary the small amount of the resources which he could bring to aid him against his advancing and powerful enemy. Helena's pillow that evening was also unvisited by slumber. She lay awake thinking of Otto, — thinking of the danger and the ruin her refusal to marry had brought upon her dear papa. Otto, too, slept not : but his waking thoughts were brilliant and heroic : the noble Childe thought how he should defend the princess, and win los and honour in the ensuing combat ! CHAPTEE XII. THE CHAMPIOir. And now the noble Cleves began in good earnest to prepare his castle for the threatened siege. He gathered in all the available cattle round the property, and the pigs round many miles ; and a dreadful slaughter of horned and snouted animals took place, — the whole castle resounding with the lowing of the oxen and the squeaks of the gruntlings, destined to provide food for the garrison. These, when slain, (her gentle spirit, of course, would not allow of her witnessing that disagreeable operation,) the lovely Helena, •with the assistance of her maidens, carefully salted and pickled. Corn was brought in in great quantities, the prince paying for the same when he had money, giving bills when he could get credit or occasionally, marry, sending out a few stout men-at-arms to forage, who brought in wheat without money or credit either. The charming princess, amidst the intervals of her lajrours, went A LEGEND OF THE EHINE. 5o about encouraging the garrison, who vowed to a man they would die for a single sweet smile of hers ; and in order to make their inevitable sufferings as easy as possible to the gallant fellows, she and the apothecaries got ready a plenty of efficacious simples, and scraped a vast quantity of lint to bind their warriors' wounds ■ withal. All the fortifications were strengthened ; the fosses care- fully filled with spikes and water ; large stones placed over the gates, convenient to tumble on the heads of the assaulting parties ; and cauldrons prepared, with furnaces to melt up pitch, brimstone, boiling oil, &o., wherewith hospitably to receive them. Having the keenest eye in the whole garrison, young Otto was placed on the topmost tower, to watch for the expected coming of the beleaguering host. They were seen only too soon. Long ranks of shining spears were seen glittering in the distance, and the army of the Eowski soon made its appearance in battle's magnificently stern array. The tents of the renowned chief and his numerous warriors were pitched out of arrow-shot of the castle, but in fearful proximity ; and when his army had taken up its position, an officer with a flag of truce and a trumpet was seen advancing to the castle-gate. It was the same herald who had previously borne his master's defiance to the Prince of Cleves. He came once more to the castle- gate, and there proclaimed that the noble Count of Bulenschreck- enstein was in arras without, ready to do battle with the Prince of Cleves, or his champion ; that he would remain in arms for three days, ready for combat. If no man met him, at the end of that period he would deliver an assault, and would give quarter to no single soul in the garrison. So saying, the herald nailed his lord's gauntlet on the castle-gate. As before, the prince flung him over another glove from the wall ; though how he was to defend himself from such a warrior, or get a champion, or resist the piti- less assault that must follow, the troubled old nobleman knew not in the least. The Princess Helen passed the night in the chapel, vowing tons of wax-candles to all the patron saints of the House of Cleves, if they would raise her up a defender. But how did the noble girl's heart sink — how were her notions of the purity of man shaken within her gentle bosom, by the dread 56 A LEGEND OF THE KHINE. intelligence wtich reached her the next morning after the defiance of the Eowski. At roll-call it was discovered that he on whom she principally relied — he whom her fond heart had singled out as her champion, had proved faithless ! Otto, the degenerate Otto, had fled! His comrade, "Wolfgang, had gone with him. A rope was found dangling from the casement of their chamber, and they must have swum the moat and passed over to the enemy in the darkness of the previous night. " A pretty lad was this fair spoken archer of thine ! " said the prince her father to her ; " and a pretty kettle of fish hast thou cooked for the fondest of fathers." She retired weeping to her apartment. Never before had that young heart felt so wretched. That morning, at nine o'clock, as they were going to breakfast, the Eowski's trumpets sounded. Clad in complete armour, and mounted on his enormous piebald charger, he came out of his pavilion, and rode slowly up and down in front of the castle. He was ready there to meet a champion. Three times each day did the odious trumpet sound the same notes of defiance. Thrice daily did the steel-clad Eowski come forth challenging the combat. The first day passed, and there was no answer to his summons. The second day came and went, but no champion had risen to defend. The taunt of his shrill clarion remained without answer ; and the sun went down upon the wretchedest father and daughter in all the land of Christendom. The trumpets sounded an hour after sunrise, an hour after noon, and an hour before sunset. The third day came, but with it brought no hope. The first and second summons met no response. At five o'clock the old prince called his daughter and blessed her. " I go to meet this Eowski," said he. " It may be we shall meet no more, my Helen — my child- — the innocent cause of all this grief. If I shall fall to-night the Eowski's victim, 'twill be that life is nothing without honour." And so saying, he put into her hands a dagger, and bade her sheathe it in her own breast so soon as the terrible champion had carried the castle by storm. This Helen most faithfully promised to do ; and her aged father retired to his armoury, and donned his ancient war-worn corslet. It had borne the shock of a thousand lances ere this, but it was now so tight as almost to choke the knightly wearer. A LEGEND OF THE KHINE. 57 The last trumpet sounded — tantaia! tantara! — its shrill call rang over the wide plains, and the wide plains gave back no answer. Again ! — but when its notes died away, there was only a mournful, an awful silence. " Farewell, my child," said the prince, bulkily lifting bimself into his battle-saddle. " Eemember the dagger. Hark ! the trumpet sounds for the third time. Open, warders ! Sound, trumpeters ! and good Saint Bendigo, guard the right." But Puffendorf, the trumpeter, had not leisure to lift the trumpet to his lips ; when, hark ! from without there came another note of another clarion! — a distant note at first, then swelling fuller. Presently, in brilliant yariations, the full ricb notes of the " Huntsman's Chorus " came clearly over the breeze ; and a thousand voices of the crowd gazing over th.e gate, exclaimed — " A champion ! a champion ! " And, indeed, a champion had come. Issuing from the forest came a knight and squire: the knight gracefully cantering an elegant cream-coloured Arabian of prodigious power — the squire mounted on an unpretending grey cob, whicb nevertheless was an animal of considerable strength and sinew. It was the squire who blew the trumpet through the bars of his helmet ; the knight's visor was completely down. A small prince's coronet of gold, from which rose three pink ostrich feathers, marked the warrior's rank : his blank shield bore no cognizance. As gracefully poising his lance he rode into the green space where the Eowski's tents were pitched, the hearts of all present beat with anxiety, and the poor Prince of Cleves, especially, bad considerable doubts about his new champion. " So slim a figure as that can never compete with Donnerblitz," said he, moodily, to his daughter; " but who- ever he be, the fellow puts a good face on it, and rides like a man. See he has touched the Eowski's shield with, the point of his lance ! By Saint Bendigo, a perilous venture ! " The unknown knight had indeed defied the Eowski to the death, formandy and Gruienne, Sir "Wilfrid pined like a true servant to be in company of the good champion, alongside of whom he had shivered so many lances, and dealt such woundy blows of sword and battle-axe on the plains of Jaffa, or the breaches of Acre. Travellers were welcome at Eothervrood that brought news from the camp of the good king : and I warrant me that the knight listened with all his might when Eather Drone, the chaplain, read in the St. James's Chronykyll, (which was the paper of news he of Ivanhoe took in,) of " another glorious triumph." — "Defeat of the Prench near Blois." — " Splendid victory at Epte, and narrow escape of the French king," the which deeds of arms the learned scribes had to narrate. However such tales might excite him during the reading, they left the knight of Ivanhoe only the more melancholy after listening: and the more moody as he sate in his great hall silently draining Ills Gascony wine. Silently sate he and looked at his coats of mail, hanging vacant on the wall, his banner covered with spider- webs, and his sword and axe rusting there. "Ah, dear axe," sighed he (into his drinking-horn) " ah, gentle steel ! that was a merry time when I sent thee crashing into the pate of the Emir Abdul Melik as he rode on the right of Saladin. Ah, my swordi my dainty headsman ! my sweet split-rib ! my razor of infidel beards ! is the rust to eat thine edge off, and am I never more to wield thee in battle ? What is the use of a shield on a wall, or a lance that has a cobweb for a pennon ? 0, Richard, my good king, would I could hear once more thy voice in the front of the onset ! Bones of Brian the Templar ! would ye could rise from your grave at Templestowe, and that we might break another spear for honour and — and " * * * And Seiecca, he would have said — but the knight paused here in rather a guilty panic : and Her Eoyal Highness the Princess Eowena (as she chose to style herself at home) looked so hard at him out of her China blue eyes, that Sir Wilfrid felt as if she was reading his thoughts, and was fain to drop his own eyes into his flagon. In a word his life was intolerable. The dinner hour of the REBECCA AND ROWENA. V7 twelfth century it is known was very early; in fact people dined at ten o'clock in the morning : and after dinner Eowena sate mum under her canopy, embroidered with the arms of Edward the Confessor, working with her maidens at the most hideous pieces of tapestry, representing the tortures and martyrdoms of her favourite saints, and not allowing a soul to speak above his breath, except when she chose to cry out in her own shrill voice when a hand-maid made a wrong stitch, or let fall a ball of worsted. It was a dreary life — "Wamba, we have said, never ventured to crack a joke, save in a whisper, when he was ten mUes from home ; and then Sir Wilfred Ivanhoe was too weary and blue-devilled to laugh ; but hunted in silence, moodily bringing down deer and wild-boar with shaft and quarrel. Then he besought Eobin of Huntingdon, the jolly outlaw, nathless, to join him, and go to the help of their fair sire King Eichard, with .a score or two of lances. But the Earl of Hunting- don was a very different character from Eobin Hood the forester. There was no more conscientious magistrate in aU the county than his lordship : he was never known to miss church or quarter sessions ; he was the strictest game-proprietor in all the Eiding, and sent scores of poachers to Botany Bay. " A man who has a stake in the country, my good Sir Wilfrid," Lord Huntingdon said, with rather a patronising air (his lordship had grown immensely fat since the king had taken him into grace, and required a horse as strong as an elephant to mount him), "a man with a stake in the country ought to stay in the country. Pro- perty has its duties as well as its privileges, and a person of my rank is bound to live on the land from which he gets his living." " Amen ! " sang out the Eeverend — Tuck, his lordship's domestic chaplain, who had also grown as sleek as the Abbot ot Jorvaulx, who was as piim as a lady in his dress, wore bergamot in his handkerchief, and had his poll shaved and his beard curled every day. And so sanctified was his Eeverence grown, that he thought it was a shame to kill the pretty deer, (though he ate of them still hugely, both in pasties and with French beans and currant jelly,) and being shown a quarter-staff upon a certain occasion, handled it curiously, and asked " what that ugly great stick was ? " 78 REBECCA AND KOWENA. Lady Huntingdon, late Maid Marian, had still some of her old fun and spirits, and poor Ivanhoe begged and prayed tliat she ■would come and stay at Eotherwood occasionally, and egayer the general dulness of that castle. But her ladyship said that Eowena gave herself such airs, and bored her so intolerably with stories of king Edward the Confessor, that she preferred any place rather than Eotherwood, which was as dull as if it had been at the top of Mount Athos. The only person who visited it was Athelstane. " His Eoyal Highness the Prince," Eowena of course called him, whom the lady received with royal honours. She had the guns fired, and the footmen turned out with presented arms when he arrived ; helped him to all Ivanhoe's favourite cuts of the mutton or the turkey, and forced her poor husband to light him to the state bed-room, walking backwards, holding a pair of wax candles. At this hour of bed time the Thane used to be in sujeh a condition, that he saw two pair of candles, and two Ivanhoes reeling before him — let us hope it was not Ivanhoe that was reeling, but only his kinsman's brains muddled with the quantities of drink which it was his daily custom to consume. Eowena said it was the crack which the wicked Bois Gruilbert, " the Jewess's other lover, Wilfrid, my dear," gave him on his royal skull, which caused the Prince to be disturbed so easily; but added, that drinking became a person of royal blood, and was but one of the duties of his station. Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe saw it would be of no avail to ask this man to bear him company on his projected tour abroad ; but still he himself was every day more and more bent upon going, and he long cast about for some means of breaking to his Eowena his firm resolution to join the king. He thought she would certainly fall ill if he communicated the news too abruptly to her; he would pretend a journey to York to attend a grand jury ; then a call to London on law business or to buy stock ; then he would slip over to Calais by the packet by degrees, as it were ; and so be with the King before his wife knew that he was out of sight of Westminster Hall. " Suppose your honour says you are going, as your honourwould say Bo to a goose, plump, short, and to the point," said Wamba, EKBEOCA AND ROWENA. 79 the jester, who was Sir "Wilfrid's chief counsellor and attendant ; " depend on't her highness would bear the news lite a Christian woman." " Tush, malapert ! I will give thee the strap," said Sir "Wilfrid, in a fine tone of high tragedy indignation ; " thou knowest not the delicacy of the nerves of high-born ladies. An she faint not, write me down Hollander." " I will wager my bauble against an Irish billet of exchange that she wiU let your honour go off readily : that is, if you press not the matter too strongly," "Wamba answered, knowingly ; and this Ivanhoe found to his discomfiture: for one morning at breakfast, adopting a ieffage air, as he sipped his tea, he said, " My love, I was thinking of going over to pay his Majesty a visit in Normandy : " upon which, laying down her muffin, (which, since the royal Alfred baked those cakes, had been the chosen break- fast cate of noble Anglo-Saxons, and which a kneeling page tendered to her on a salver, chased by the Tlorentine Benvenuto Cellini,) — " When do you think of going, "Wilfrid, ray dear ? "— the lady said, and the moment the tea-things were removed, and the tables and their trestles put away, she set about mending hia Hnen, and getting ready his carpet-bag. So Sir "Wilfrid was as disgusted at her readiness to part with him as he had been weary of staying at home, which caused "Wamba, the fool, to say, " Marry, Gossip, thou art like the man on ship-board, who, when the boatswain flogged him, did cry out, ' 0,' wherever the rope's end fell on him : which caused Master Boatswain to say, ' Plague on thee, fellow, and a pize on thee, knave, wherever I hit thee there is no pleasing thee.' " "And truly there are some backs which Fortune is always belabouring," thought Sir "Wilfrid, with a groan, " and mine is one that is ever sore." So, with a moderate retinue, whereof the knave "Wamba made one, and a large woollen comforter round his neck, which his wife's own white fingers had woven. Sir "Wilfrid of Ivanhoe left home to join the King, his master. Eowen^ standing on the steps, poured out a series of prayers and blessings, most edifying to hear, as her lord mounted his charger, which his squires led to the door. " It was the duty of the British female of rank," 80 REBECCA AND KOWENA, she said, " to suffer all, all in the cause of her Sovereign. She would not fear loneliness during the campaign : she would bear up against widowhood, desertion, and an unprotected situation." "My cousin Athelstane will protect thee," said Ivanhoe, with profound emotion, as the tears trickled down his basnet ; and bestowing a chaste^ salute upon the steel-clad warrior, Eowena modestly said, " She hoped his Highness would be so kind." Then Ivanhoe's trumpet blew : then Eowena waved her pocket-handkerchief : then the household gave a shout : then the pursuivant of the good knight. Sir Wilfrid the Crusader, flung out his banner (which was argent, a gules cramoisy with three Moors impaled sable) : then "Wamba gave a lash on his mule's hauncli, and Ivanhoe, heaving a great sigh, turned the tail of his war-horse upon the castle of his fathers. As they rode along the forest, they met Athelstane, the Thane, powdering along the road in the direction of Eotherwood on his great dray-horse of a charger. " G-ood bye, good luck to you, old brick," cried the Prince, using the vernacular Saxon ; " pitch into those Prenchmen ; give it 'em over the face and eyes ; and I'll stop at home, and take care of Mrs. I." " Thank you, kinsman," said Ivanhoe, looking, however, not particularly well-pleased ; and the chiefs shaking hands, the train of each took its different way — Athelstane's to Eotherwood, Ivanhoe's towards his place of embarkation. The poor knight had his wish, and yet his face was a yard lone, and as yellow as a lawyer's parchment ; and having longed to quit home any time these three years past he found himself ejivying Athelstane, because, forsooth, he was going to Eotherwood : which symptoms of discontent being observed by the witless "Wamba, caused that absurd madman to bring his rebeck over his shoulder from his back, and to sing — ATRA CURA. Before I lost my five poor wits, I mind me of a Romish clerk, Who sang how Care, the phantom dark. Beside the belted horseman sits. Methought I saw the griesly sprite Jump up but now behind my Knight. EEBECCA AND UOWENA. 81 " Perhaps thou didst, knave," said Ivanhoe, looking over his shoulder ; and the knave went on with his jingle. And though he gallop as he may, I mark that cursed monster black Still sits behind his honour's back, Tight squeezing of his heart alway. Like two black Templars sit they there, Beside one crupper. Knight and Care. No knight am I with pennoned spear. To prance upon a bold destrere : I will not have black Care prevail Upon my long-eared charger's tail, For lo, I am a witless fool, And laugh at Grief and ride a mule. And his bells rattled as he kicked his mule's sides. " Silence, fool! " said Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, in a voice both majestic and wrathful. " If thou knowest not care and grief, it is because thou knowest not love, whereof they are the companions. Wbo can love without an anxious heart ? How shall there be joy at meeting, without tears at parting ? " (I did not see that his honour or my lady shed many anon, thought Wamba the fool, but he was only a zany, and his mind was not right). " I would not exchange my very sorrows for thine indiiference," the knight con- tinued. " Where there is a sun there must be a shadow. If the shadow offend me, shall I put out my eyes and live in the dark ? No ! I am content with my fate, even such as it is. The Care of which thou speakest, hard though it may vex him, never yet rode down an honest man. I can bear him on my shouldeis, and make my way through the world's press in spite of him ; for my arm is strong, and my sword is keen, and my shield has no stain on it ; and my heart, though it is sad, knows no guile." And here, taking a locket out of his waistcoat (which was made of chain- mail), the knight kissed the token, put it back under the waist- eoq,t again, heaved a profound sigh, and stuck spurs into his horse. As for Wamba he was munching a black pudding whilst Sir WilMd was making the above speech (which implied some secret grief on the knight's part, that must have been perfectly unin- telligible to the fool), and so did not listen to a single word of 82 REBECCA AND KOWENA. Ivanboe's pompous remarks. They travelled on by slow stages through the whole kingdom, until they came to Dover, whence they took shipping for Calais. And in this little voyage, being exceedingly sea-sick, and besides elated at the thought of meeting his Sovereign, the good knight cast away that profound melan- choly which had accompanied him during tlie whole of his land journey. CHAPTEE II. THE LAST BATS OP THE LION. Peom Calais Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe took the diligence across country to Limoges, sending on Gurth, his squire, with the horses and the rest of his attendants, with the exception of Wamba, who travelled not only as the knight's fool but as his valet, and who, perched on the roof of the carriage, amused himself by blowing tunes upon the conducteur's French horn. The good King Eichard was, as Ivanhoe learned, in the Limousin, encamped before a little place called Chalus, the lord whereof, though a vassal of the King's, was holding the castle against his Sovereign with a reso- lution and valour, which caused a great fury and annoyance on the- part of the Monarch with the Lion Heart. Eor brave and magnanimous as he was, the Lion-hearted one did not love to be baulked any more than another ; and, like the royal animal whom he was said to resemble, he commonly tore his adversary to pieces, and then, perchance, had leisure to think how brave the latter had been. The Count of Chalus had found, it was said, a pot of money ; the royal Eichard wanted it. As the Count denied that he had it, why did he not open the gates of his castle at once ? It was a clear proof that he was guilty ; and the King was deter- mined to punish this rebel, and have his money and his life too. He had naturally brought no breaching guns with him, because those instruments were not yet invented ; and though he had assaidted the place a score of times with the utmost fury, hie Majesty had been beaten back on every occasion, untU he was so savage that it was dangerous to approach the British Lion. The EEBECCA AND ROWENA. 88 Lion's wife, the lovely Berengaria, scarcely ventured to come near him. He flung the joint-stools in his tent at the heads of the officers of state, and kicked his aides-de-camp round his pavilion ; and, in fact, a maid of honour, who brought a sack-posset in to his Majesty from the Queen, after he came in from the assault, came spinning like a foot-ball out of the royal tent just as Ivanhoe entered it. "Send me my drum-major to flog that woman," roared out the infuriate Kling. " By the bones of St. Barnabas she has burned the sack ! By St. Wittikind, I wUl have her flayed alive. Ha ! St. George, Ha ! St. Eichard, whom have we here ? '' And he lifted up his demi-eulverin, or curtal axe, a weapon weighing about thirteen hundred weight, and was about to fling it at the intruder's head, when the latter, kneeling gracefully on one knee, said calmly, " It is I, my good liege, "Wilfrid of Ivanhoe." "What, "Wilfrid of Templestowe, "Wilfrid the married man, "Wilfrid the hen-pecked," cried the King with a sudden burst of good humour, flinging away the culverin from him, as though it had been a reed, (it lighted three hundred yards ofi', on the foot of Hugo de Bunyon, who was smoking a cigar at the door of his tent, and caused that redoubted warrior to limp for some days after). " "What, "Wilfrid, my gossip ? Art come to see the lion's den ? There are bones in it, man, bones and carcases, and the Hon is angry," said the Eing, with a terrific glare of his eyes; " but tush ! we will talk of that anon. Ho ! bring two gallons of hypocras for the king, and the good knight, Wilfrid of Ivanhoe. Thou art come in time, Wilfrid, for by St. Eichard, and St. George, we wUl give a grand assault to-morrow. There will be bones broken, ha ! " "I care not, my liege," said Ivanhoe, pledging the Sovereign respectfully, and tossing off the whole contents of the bowl of hypocras to his Highnesa's good health, — and he at once appeared to be taken into high favour, not a little to the envy of many of the persons surrounding the king. As his Majesty said,^ there was fighting and feasting in plenty before Chains. I>ay after day, the besiegers made assaults upon the castle, but it was held so stoutly by the Count of Chalus, and q2 U EEBECCA AND EOWENA. his gallant garrison, that each afternoon beheld the attacking parties returning disconsolately to their tents, leaving behind them many of their own slain, and bringing back with them store of broken heads, and maimed limbs, received in the unsuccessful onset. The valour displayed by Ivanhoe, in all these contests, was prodigious • and the way in which he escaped death from the discharges of mangonels, catapults, battering-rams, twenty-four pounders, boiling oil, and other artillery, with which the besieged received their enemies, was remarkable. 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 armour 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 Eichard 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 valour 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 kiUed 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 valour and dexterity (for he would kill you off a couple of hundred of them of Chains, whilst the strongest champions of the King's 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. Eoger de Backbite sneeringly told the King, that Sir Wilfrid had offered to bet an equal bet, that he would kill more men than Eichard himself in the next assault : Peter de Toadhole said, that Ivanhoe stated every where, that his Majesty was not the man he used to be ; that pleasures and drink had enervated him ; that he CQuld neither ride, nor strike a blow with sword or axe, as he had REBECCA AND EOWENA. 85 been enabled to do in the old times in Palestine : and finally, in the twenty-fifth assault, in which they had very nearly carried the place, and in which onset Ivanhoe slew seven, and his Majesty sis, of the sons of the Count de Chains, its defender, Ivanhoe almost did for himself, by planting his banner before the King's, upon the wall ; and only rescued himself from utter disgrace, by saving his Majesty's life several times in the course of this most desperate onslaught. Then the luckless knight's very virtues (as, no doubt, my respected readers know) made him enemies amongst the men — nor was Ivanhoe liked by the women frequenting the camp of the gay King Eichard. His young Queen, and a brilliant court of ladies, attended the pleasure-loving Monarch. His Majesty would transact business in the morning, then fight severely from after breakfast till about three o'clock in the afternoon; from which time, untU after midnight, there was nothing but jigging and singing, feasting and revelry, in the royal tents. Ivanhoe, who was asked as a matter of ceremony, and forced to attend these entertainments, not caring about the blandishments of any of the ladies present, looked on at their ogling and dancing with a countenance as glum as an undertaker's, and was a perfect wet-blanket in the midst of the festivities. His favourite resort and conversation were with a remarkably austere hermit, who lived in the neighbourhood of Chains, and with whom Ivanhoe loved to talk about Palestine, and the Jews, and other grave matters of import, better than to mingle in the gayest amuse- ments of the court of King Eichard. Many a night, when the Queen and the ladies were dancing quadrilles and polkas (in which his Majesty, who was enormously stout as well as tall, insisted upon figuring, and in which he was about as graceful as au elephant dancing a hornpipe), Ivanhoe would steal away from the ball, and come and have a night's chat under the moon with his reverend friend. It pained him to see a man of the King's age and size dancing about with the young folks. They laughed at his Majesty whilst they flattered him : the pages and maids of honour mimicked the royal mountebank almost to his face ; and, if Ivanhoe ever could have laughed, he certainly woidd one night, when the King, in light-blue satin inexpressibles, with hi* 86 , REBECCA AND EOWENA. hair in powder, chose to danee fhe Minuet de la Oour "vrith. the little Queen Berengaria. Then, after dancing, his Majesty must needs order a guitar, and begin to siag. He was said to compose his own songs, words, and music — but those who have read Lord Campobello's lives of the Lord Chancellors, are aware that there was a person by the name of Blondel, who, in fact, did all the musical part of the King's performances ; and, as for the words, when a King writes verses, we may be sure there will be plenty of people to admire his poetry. His Majesty would sing you a ballad, of which he had stolen every idea, to an air that was ringing on all the barrel-organs of Christendom, and, turning round to his courtiers, woidd say, " How do you like that ? I dashed it off this morning." Or, " Blondel, what do you think of this move- ment in B flat ? " or what not ; and the courtiers and Blondel, you may fee sure, would applaud with all their might, like hypocrites as they were. One evening, it was the evening of the 27th March, 1199, indeed, his Majesty, who was in iJke musical mood, treated the court with a quantity of his so-caUed composition, until the people were fairly tired of clapping with their hands, and laughing in their sleeves. Pirst he sang an original air and poem, beginning Cherries nice, cherries nice, nice, come choose, Fresh and fair ones, -who'll refuse ? &c. The which he was ready to take his affidavit he had composed the day before yesterday. Then he sang an equally original heroic melody, of which the chorus was Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the sea, For Britons never, never, never, slaves shall be, &c. The courtiers applauded this song as they did the other, all except Ivanhoe, who sate without changing a muscle of his features, until the King questioned him, when the knight with a bow said, " he thought be had heard something very like the air and the words elsewhere." His Majesty scowled at him a savage glance from under his red bushy eye-brows; but Ivanhoe had EEBBOCA AND EOWEKA. ' 87 saved the royal life that day, and the King, therefore, with diffi- culty controlled his indignation. " Well," said he, " by St. Eichard and St. George but ye never heard this song, for I composed it this very afternoon as I took my bath after the mMee. Did I not, Blondel ? " Blondel, of course, was ready to take an affidavit that his Majesty had done as he said, and the King, thrumming on his guitar with his great red fingers and thumbs, began to sing out of tune, and as foUows : — COMMANDBES OF THE FAITHFUL. The Pope he is a happy man, His Palace is the Vatican : And there he sits and drains his can, The Pope he is a happy man. I often say -when I 'm at home, I 'd like to be the Pope of Eome. And. then there's Sultan Saladin, That Turkish Soldau full of sin ; He has a hundred wives at least, By which his pleasure is increased ; I 've often wished, I hope no sin, That I were Sultan Saladin. But no, the Pope no wife may choose, And so I would not wear his shoes ; No wine may drink the proud Paynim, And so I 'd rather not he him ; My wife, , my wine, I love I hope. And would be neithear Turk nor Pope. ' Encore ! Encore ! Bravo ! Bis ! Everybody applauded the King's song with all his might j everybody except Ivanhoe, -wio preserved his abominable gravity : and when asked aloud by Eoger de Backbite whether he had heard that too ? said, firnlly, " Tes, Eoger de Backbite, and so hast thou if thou darest but tell the truth." " Now, by St. Cicely, may I never touch gittern again," bawled the King in a fury, " if every note, word, and thought be not mine ; may I die in to-morrow's onslaught if the song be not my song. Sing thyself, Wilfrid of the Lanthorn Jaws ; thou couldat sing a good song in old times : " and with all his might, and with EEBECCA AND EOWENA. a forced laugh, the King, who loved brutal practical jests, flung his guitar at the head of Ivanhoe. Sir Wilfrid caught it gracefully with one hand, and making an elegant bow to the Sovereign, began to chant as follows : — KING CANUTE. King Camite was weary-iearted ; he had reigned for years a score ; Battling, straggling, pushing, fighting, killing mnch and robbing more. And he thought upon his actions, waiting by the wild sea-shore. 'Twixt the Chancellor and Bishop walked the King with steps sedate, Chamberlains and grooms came after, sHver sticks and gold sticks great, Chaplains, aides-de-camp, and pages, — all the officers of state. Sliding after like his shadow, pausing when he chose to pause ; If a frown his face contracted, straight the courtiers dropped their jaws ; If to laugh the King was minded, out they burst iu loud hee-haws. But that day a something Texed him, that was clear to old and young, Thrice his Grace had yawned at table, when his favourite gleeman sung, Once the Queen would have consoled him, but he bade her hold her tongue. "Something ails my gracious Master," cried the Keeper of the Seal, "Sure, my lord, it is the lampreys, served at dinner, or the veal !" "Psha !" exclaimed the angry Monarch, "Keeper, 'tis not that I feel. "'Tis the heart and not the dinner, fool, that doth my rest impair; Can a King be great as I am, prithe^, and yet know no care ? 0, 1 'm sick, and tired, and weary."- — Some one cried, " The King's arm-chair ! Then towards the lackeys turning, quick my lord the Keeper nodded, Straight the King's great chair was brought him, by two footmen able-bodied. Languidly he sank into it ; it was comfortably wadde-d. " Leading on my fierce companions," cried he, "over storm and brine, I have fought and I have conquered ! Where was glory like to mine ! " Loudly all the courtiers echoed. ' ' Where is glory like to thine ? " "What avail me all my kingdoms ? Weary am I now, and old, Those fair sons I have begotten, long to see me dead and cold ; Would I were, and quiet buried, underneath the silent mould ! " 0, remorse, the writhing serpent I at my bosom tears and bites ; Horrid, horrid things I look on, though I put out aU the lights ; Ghosts of ghastly recollections troop about my bed of nights. "Cities burning, convents blazing, red with sacrilegious fires ; Mothers weeping, virgins screaming, vainly for their slaughtered sires — " — " Such a tender conscience," cries the Bishop, " every one admires." EEBEOCA AND ROWENA. 89 "But for such unpleasant bygones, cease, my gacious Lord, to search. They're forgotten and forgiven by our holy Mother Church ; Never, never does she leave her benefactors in the lurch. " Look ! the land is crowned with Minsters, which your Grace's bounty raised ; Abbeys filled with holy men, where you and Heaven are daily praised ; You, my lord, to think of dying ? on my conscience, I'm amazed ! " "Nay, I feel," replied King Canute, "that my end is drawing near ;" "Don't say so," exclaimed the courtiers (striving each to squeeze a tear), " Sure your Grace is strong and lusty, and may live this fifty year. ' ' Live these fifty years ! " the Bishop roared, with actions made to suit, " Are you mad, my good Lord Keeper, thus to speak of King Canute ! Men have lived a thousand years, and sure his Majesty will do't. "Adam, Enoch, Lamech, Canan, Mahaleel, Methusela, Lived nine hundred years apiece, and mayn't the King as well as they ? " " Fervently," exclaimed the Keeper, "fervently, I trust he may." "He to die," resamed the Bishop. "He a mortal like to us? Death was not for bim intended, though communis omnibus ; Keeper, you are irreligious, for to talk and cavil thus. " With his wondrous skill in healing ne'er a Doctor can compete, Loathsome lepers, if he touch them, start up clean upon their fe3t ; Sorely he could rai^e the dead up, did his Highness think it meet. " Did not once the Jewish Captain stay the sun upon the hill, And, the while he slew the foemen, bid the silver moon stand still ? So, no doubt, could gracious Canute, if itjWere his sacred wiU." "Might I stay the sun above us, good Sir Bishop ? " Canute cried ; "Could I bid the silver moon to pause upon her heavenly ride ? If the moon obeys my orders, sure I can command the tide. "Will the advancing wave.s obey me. Bishop, if I make the sign?" Said the Bishop, bowing lowly, "Land and sea, my lord, are thine." Canute turned towards the ocean — "Back ! " he said, " thou foaming brine. " From the sacred shore I stand on, I command thee to retreat ; Venture not, thou stormy rebel, to approach thy master's seat ; Ocean, be thou still ! I bid thee come not nearer to my feet ! " But the sullen ocean answered with a louder, deeper roar. And the rapid waves drew nearer, falling sounding on the shore ; Back the Keeper and the Bishop, back the King and Courtiers bore. And he sternly bade them never more to kneel to human clay. But alone to praise and worship That which earth and seas obey. And his golden crown of empire never wore he from that day. King Canute is dead and gone : Parasites exist alway. 90 EEBECCA AND EOWENA. At this ballad, -wMcli, to be sure, was awfully long, and as grave as a sermon, some of the courtiers tittered, some yawned, and some affected to be asleep, and snore outright. But Eoger de Backbite thinking to curry favour with the King by this piece of vulgarity his Majesty fetched him a knock on the nose and a buffet on the ear, which, I warrant me, wakened Master Eoger ; to whom the King said, " Listen and be civil, slave, Wilfrid is singing about thee — Wilfrid, thy ballad is long, but it is to the purpose, and I have grown cool during thy homily. Grive me thy hand, honest friend. Ladies, good-night. G-entlemen, we give the grand assault to-morrow ; when I promise thee, Wilfrid, thy banner shall not be before mine " — and the King giving his arm to her Majesty, retired into the private pavilion. OHAPTEE III. . ST. GEOBGE TOB EMBLiND. Whilst the Eoyal Richard and his Court were feasting in the camp outside the walls of Chains, they of the castle were in the most miserable plight that may be conceived. Hunger, as well as the fierce assaults of the besiegers, had made dire ravages in the place. The garrison's provisions of corn and cattle, their very horses, dogs, and donkeys had been eaten up — so that it might well be said by Wamba, " that famine, as well as slaughter, had thinned the garrison." When the men of Chalus came on the walls to defend it against the scaling parties of King Richard — they were like so many skeletons in armour — they could hardly pull their bow-stringa at last, or pitch down stones on the heads of his Majesty's party, so weak had their arms become, and the gigantic Count of Chalus, a warrior as redoubtable for his size and strength as Eichard Plantagenet himself, was scarcely able to lift up his battle-axe upon the day of that last assault, when Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe ran him through the * * but we are advancing matters. What should prevent me from describing the agonies of hunger which the Count (a man of large appetite) suffered in company with his heroic sons and garrison ?— Nothing, but that Dante has KEBEOCA AND aOWENA. 01 already done the business in the notorious history of Count Ugolino, so that my efforts might he considered as mere imitar tions. Why should I not, if I were minded to rerel in horrifying details, show you how the famished garrison drew lots, and ate themselves during the siege ; and how the unlucky lot falling upon the Countess of Chalus, that heroic woman, taking an affectionate leave other famUy, caused her large cauldron in the castle kitchen' to be set a-boUiag, had onions, carrots and herbs, pepper and salt made ready, to make a savoury soup, as the Trench like it, and when all things were quite completed, kissed her children, jumped into the cauldron from off a. kitchen stool, and so was stewed down in her flannel bed-gown ? Dear friends, it is not from want of imagination, or from having no turn for the terrible or pathetic, that I spare you these details. — I could give you some description that would spoil your dinner and night's rest, and make your hair stand on end. — But why harrow your feelings ? Paney aU the tortures and horrors that possibly can occur in a beleaguered and famished castle : fancy the feelings of men who know that no more quarter wDl be given them than they would get if they were peaceful Hungarian citizens, kidnapped and brought to trial by his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, and then let us rush on to the breach and prepare once more to meet the assault of dreadful King £/ichard and his men. On the 29th of March in the year 1199, the good King, having copiously partaken of breakfast, caused his trumpets to blow, and advanced with his host upon the breach of the castle of Chalus. Arthur de Pendennis bore his banner ; Wilfrid of Ivanhoe fought on the King's right hand. Molyneux, Bishop of BuUocksmithy, doffed crosier and mitre for that day, and though fat and pursy, panted up the breach with the most resolute spirit, roaring out war-cries and curses, and wielding a prodigious mace of iron, with which he did good execution. Hugo de Backbite was forced to come in attendance upon the Sovereign, but took care to keep in the rear of his august master, and to shelter behind his huge triangular shield as much as possible. Many lords of note followed the King and bore the ladders ; and as they were placed against the wall, tlie air was perfectly dark with the shower of arrows which the Prench archers poured out at the besiegers ; and the 92 KEBECCA AND ROWENA. cataract of stones, kettles, boot-jacks, chests of drawers, crockery, umbrellas, congreve-rockets, bomb-shells, bolts and arrows, and other missiles which the desperate garrison flung out on the storming party. The King received a copper coal-scuttle right over his eyes, and a mahogany wardrobe was discharged at his morion, which would have felled an ox, and would have done for the Eing had not Ivanhoe warded it off skilfully. Still they advanced, the warriors falling around them like grass beneath the scythe of the mower. The ladders were placed in spite of the hail of death raining round : the King and Ivanhoe were, of course, the first to mount them. Chains stood in the breach, borrowing strength from despair ; and roaring out " Ha ! Plantagenet, Saint Barbacue for Chains ! " he dealt the King a crack across the helmet with his battle-axe, which shore off the gilt lion and crown that surmounted the steel cap. The King bent and reeled back ; the besiegers were dismayed ; the garrison and the Count of Chains set up a shout of triumph ; but it was premature. As quick as thought Ivanhoe was into the Count with a thrust in tierce, which took him just at the joint of the armour, and ran him through as clean as a spit does a partridge. Uttering a horrid shriek, he fell back writhing ; the King recovering staggered up the parapet ; the rush of knights followed, and the union-jack was planted triumphantly on the walls just as Ivanhoe, — but we must leave him for a moment. " Ha, St. Eichard ! — ha, St. G-eorge ! " the tremendous voice of the Lion-king was heard over the loudest roar of the onset. At every sweep of his blade a severed head flew over the parapet, a spouting trunk tumbled, bleeding, on the flags of the bartizan. The world hath never seen a warrior equal to that Lion-hearted Plantagenet, as he raged over the keep, his eyes flashing fire through the bars of his morion, snorting and chafing with the hot lust of battle. One by one les enfans de Chains had fallen : there was only one left at last of all the brave race that had fought round the gallant Count : — only one, and but a boy, a fair-haired boy, a blue-eyed boy ! he had been gathering pansies in the fields but yesterday — it was but a few years, and he was a baby in his mother's arras ! What could his puny sword do against the most REBECCA AND KOWENA. 9| redoubted blade in Christendom ? — and yet Bobemond faced the great champion of England, and met him foot to foot ! Turn away, turn away, my dear young friends and kind-hearted ladies ! Do not look at that ill-fated poor boy ! his blade is crushed into splinters under the axe of the conqueror, and the poor child is beaten to his knee i * * * " Now, by St. Barbacue of Limoges," said Bertrand de Grour- don, "the butcher will never strike down yonder larabling ! Hold thy hand, Sir King, or, by St. Barbacue " Swift as thought the veteran archer raised his arblast to his shoulder, the whizzing bolt fled from the ringing string, and the next moment crushed quivering into the corslet of Plantagenet. 'Twas a luckless shot, Bertrand of Gourdon ! Maddened by the pain of the wound, the brute nature of Richard was aroused : his fiendish appetite for blood rose to madness, and grinding his teeth, and with a curse too horrible to mention, the flashing axe of the royal butcher fell down on the blond ringlets of the child, and the children of Chains were no more i » * * » I just throw this off by way of description, and to show what might be done if I chose to indulge in this style of composition, but as in the battles which are described by the kindly chronicler of one of whose works this present masterpiece is professedly a continuation, everything passes off agreeably ; the people are slain, but without any unpleasant sensation to the reader ; nay, some of the most savage and blood-stained characters of history, such is the indomitable good humour of the great novelist, become amiable jovial companions, for whom one has a hearty sympathy^ — so, if you please, we will have this fighting business at Chains, and the garrison and honest Bertrand of Gourdon, dis- posed of, the former according to the usage of the good old times, having been hung up, or murdered to a man, and the latter killed in the manner described by the late Dr. Goldsmith in his History. As for the Lion-hearted, we all very well know that the shaft of Bertrand de Gourdon put an end to the royal hero — and that from that 29th of March he never robbed or murdered any more. And we have legends in recondite books of the manner of the King's death. 94 REBECCA AND ROWENA. " Tou must die, my son," said the venerable Walter of Eouen, as Berengaria was carried shrieking from the King's tent. " Eepent, Sir Eing, and separate yourself from your children ! " " It is Ul-jesting with a dying man," replied the King. " Chil- dren have I none, my good lord bishop, to inherit after me." " B-ichard of England," said the archbishop, turning up his fine eyes, " your vices are your children. Ambition is your eldest child. Cruelty is your second child. Luxury is your third child ; and you have nourished them from your youth up. Separate yourself from these sinful ones, and prepare your soul, for the hour of departure draweth nigh." Yiolent, wicked, sinful, as he might have been, Eichard of England met his death like a Christian man. Peace be to the soul of the brave ! "When the news came to King Philip of Prance, he sternly forbade his courtiers to rejoice at the death of his enemy. " It is no ma,tter of joy but of dolour," he said, " that the bulwark of Christendom and the bravest king of Europe is no more." Meanwhile what has become of Sir "Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, whom we left in the act of rescuing his Sovereign by running the Count of Chains through the body ? As the good knight stooped down to pick his sword out of the corpse of his fallen foe, some one coming behind him suddenly thrust a dagger into his back at a place where his shirt of maU was open, (for Sir "Wilfrid had armed that morning in a hurry, and it was his breast, not his back, that he was accustomed ordi- narily to protect), and when poor Wamba came up on the rampart, which he did when the fighting was over — being sueh a fool that he could not be got to thrust his head into danger for glory's sake- — he found his dear knight with the dagger in his back lying without life upon the body of the Count de Chains whom he had anon slain. Ah, what a howl poor "Wamba set up when he found his master killed ! How he lamented over the corpse of that noble knight and friend ! "What mattered it to him that Eichard the King was borne wounded to his tent, and that Bertrand de Gourdon was flayed alive ? At another time the sight of this spectacle REBECCA AND ROWHNA. 95 migM have amused the simple knave ; but now all his thoughts were of his lord, so good, so gentle, so kind, so loyal, so frank ■with the great, so tender to the poor, so truthful of speech, so modest regarding his own merit, so true a gentleman, in a word, that anybody might, with reason, deplore him. As Wamba opened the dear knight's corslet, he found a locket round his neck, in which there was some hair, not flaxen like that of my Lady Bowena, who was almost as fair as an Albino, but as black, Wamba thought, as the locks of the Jewish maiden whom the- knight had rescued in the lists of Templestowe. A bit of Eowena's hair was in Sir Wilfrid's possession, too, but that was in his purse along with his seal of arms, and a couple of groats ; for the good knight never kept any money, so generous was he of his largesses when money came in. Wamba took the purse, and seal, and groats, but he left the locket of hair round his master's neck, and when he returned to England never said a word about the circumstance. After all, how should he know whose hair it was ? It might have been the knight's grandmother's hair for aught the fool knew ; so he kept his counsel when he brought back the sad news and tokens to the disconsolate widow at Eotherwood. The poor fellow would never have left the body at all, and indeed sate by it all night, and until the grey of the morning, when seeing two suspicious-looking characters advancing towards him, he fled in dismay, supposing that they were marauders who were out searching for booty among the dead bodies ; and halving not the least courage, he fled from these, and tumbled down the breach, and never stopped running as fast as his legs would carry him, until he reached the tent of his late beloved master. The news of the knight's demise, it appeared, had been known at his quarters long before ; for his servants were gone, and had ridden oflT on his horses ; his chests were plundered, there was not so much as a shirt collar left in his drawers, and the very bed and blankets had been carried away by these faithful attendants. Who had slain Ivanhoe ? That remains a mystery to the present day ; but Hugo de Backbite, whose nose he had pulled for defama- tion, and who was behind him in the assault at Chalus, was seen 96 EEBECCA AND ROWENA. two years afterwards at the Court of King Jolin in an embroidered velvet waistcoat whicli Eowena could have sworn she had worked for Ivanhoe, and about which the widow would have made some little noise, but that— but that she was no longer a widow. That she truly deplored the death of her lord, cannot be questioned, for she ordered the deepest mourning which any milliner in York could supply, and erected a monument to his memory as big as a minster. But she was a lady of such fine principles, that she did not allow her grief to over-master her ; and an opportunity speedily arising for uniting the two best Saxon families in England, by an alliance between herself and the gentleman who offered himself to her, Eowena sacrificed her inclination to remain single, to her sense of duty ; and contracted a second matrimonial engagement. That Athelstane was the man, I suppose no reader familiar with life, and novels which are a rescript of life, and are all strictly natural and edifying, can for a moment doubt. Cardinal Pandulfo tied the knot for them : and lest there should be any doubt about Ivanhoe's death, (for his body was never sent home after all, nor seen after "Wamba ran away from it), his eminence procured a papal decree, annulling the former marriage, so that Eowena became Mrs. Athelstane with a clear conscience. And who shall be surprised, if she was happier with the stupid and boozy thane, than with the gentle and melancholy Wilfrid ? Did women never have a predilection for fools, I should like to know ; or fall in love with donkeys, before the time of the amours of Bottom and Titania ? " Ah ! Mary, had you not preferred an ass to a man, would you have married Jack Bray, when a Michael Angelo offered. Ah ! Fanny, were you not a woman, would you persist in adoring Tom Hiccups, who beats you, and comes home tipsy from the Club?" Yes, Eowena cared a hundred times more about tipsy Athelstane, than ever she had done for gentle Ivanhoe, and so great was her infatuation about the former, that she would sit upon his knee in the presence of all her maidens, and let him smoke his cigars in the very drawing-room. This is the epitaph she caused to be written by Pather Drono, (who piqued himself upon his Latinity), on the stone comme- morating the death of her late lord. REBECCA AND EOWENA.- 97 '§k t$i ^uHfriiins, Mi bum bixH a&ibits ; Cum glab-io d hmn, ^axmmxixm d ciaaque tJfrantiit iUTtrbta irnra Jttalid : pr fowos mnltem quitalrat : Cittilbrhtm oaMt : atqiK picrasolgms iiibit. Pftt ! nuitt; sub ftrssa sunt imtx mililis ossa, ?!I,vor gitljHstaiir zd tmxjixx tastissrma SHjaui. And this is the translation wliicli the doggrel knave Waniba made of the Latin lines. KEQUIESCAT. Under tie stone you behold, Buried, and coffined, and cold, Lieth Sir Wilfrid the Bold. Always he marched in advance. Warring in Flanders and France, Doughty ■with sword and with lance. Famous in Saracen iight, Eode in his youth the good knight, Scattering Paynims in flight. Brian the Templar-untrue, Fairly in tourney he slew. Saw Hiemsalem too. Now he is hurled and gone. Lying beneath the grey stone : Where shall you find such a one ? Long time his widow deplored. Weeping the fate of her lord, Sadly out off by the sword. When she was eased of her pain. Came the good Lord Athelstane, When her ladyship married again. Athelstane hurst into a loud laugh, when he heard, it, at the last line, but Eowena would have had the fool whipped, had not the Thane interceded, and to him, she said, she could refuse nothing. EEBECOA AND EOWENA. CHAPTEE IV. ITANHOE EBDiyiTUS. I TETTST nobody will suppose, from tte events described in the last Chapter, that our friend Ivanhoe is really dead. Because we have given him an epitaph or two and a monument, are these any reasons that he should be really gone out of the world ? No : as in the pantomime, when we see Clown and Pantaloon lay out Harlequin and cry over him, we are always sure that iStaster Harlequin will be up at the next minute alert and shining in his glistening coat ; and, after giving a box on the ears to the pair of them, will be taking a dance with Columbine, or leaping gaUy through the clock-face, or into the three-pair-of- stairs window : — so Sir Wilfrid, the Harlequin of our Christmas piece, may be run through a little, or may make believe to be dead, but will assuredly rise up again when he is wanted, and show himself at the right moment. The suspicious-looking characters from whom Wamba ran away were no cut-throats and plunderers as the poor knave imagined, but no other than Ivauhoe's friend, the hermit, and a reverend brother of his, who visited the scene of the late battle in order to see if any Christians stni survived there, whom they might shrive and get ready for Heaven, or to whom they might possibly offer the benefit of their skill as leeches. Both were prodigiously learned in the healing art ; and had about them those precious elixirs which so often occur in romances, and with which patients are so miraculously restored. Abruptly dropping his master's head from his lap as he fled, poor "Wamba caused the knight's pate to fall with rather a heavy thump to the ground, and if the knave had but stayed a minute longer, he would have heard Sir Wilfrid utter a deep groan. But though the fool heard him not, the holy hermits did; and to recognise the gallant Wilfrid, to withdraw the enormous dagger still sticking out of his back, to wash the wound with a portion of the precious elixir, and to pour a little REBECCA AND KOWENA. 99 of it down his throat, was with the excellent hermits the work of an instant ; which remedies being applied, one of the good men toolc the knight by the heels and the other by the head, and bore him daintily from the castle to their hermitage in a neighbouring rock. As for the Count of Chains, and the remainder of the slain, the hermits were too much occupied with Ivanhoe's case to mind them, and did not, it appears, give them any elixir, so that, if they are really dead, they must stay on the rampart stark and cold ; or if otherwise, when the scene closes upon them as it does now, they may get up, shake themselves, go to the slips and drink a pot of porter, or change their stage-clothes and go home to supper. My dear readers you may settle the matter among yourselves as you like. If you wish to kUl the characters really off, let them be dead, and have done with them : but, entre nous, I don't believe they are any more dead than you or I are, and sometimes doubt whether there' is a single syllable of truth in this whole story. "Well, Ivanhoe was taken to the hermits' cell, and there doctored by the holy fathers for his hurts, which were of such a severe and dangerous order, that he was under medical treatment for a very considerable time. When he woke up from his delirium, and asked how long he had been ill, fancy his astonishment when he heard that he had been in the fever for six years ! He thought the reverend fathers were joking at first, but their profession forbade them from that sort of levity ; and besides, he could not possibly have got well any sooner, because the story would have been sadly put out had he appeared earlier. And it proves how good the fathers were to him, and how very nearly that scoundrel of a Hugh de Backbife's dagger had finished him, that he did not get well under this great length of time, during the whole of which the fathers tended him without ever thinking of a fee. I know of a kind physician in this town who does as much sometimes, but I won't do him the ill service of mentioning his name here. Ivanhoe, being now quickly pronounced well, trimmed his beard, which by this time hung down considerably below his knees, and calling for his suit of chain armour, which before had fitted his elegant person as tight as wax, now put it on, and it bagged and hung so loosely about him, that even the good friars laughed at h2 9 100 KEBECOA AND EOWENA. his absurd appearance. It was impossible that he should go about the country in such a garb as that : the very boys would laugh at him : so the friars gave him one of their old gowns, in which he disguised himself; and, after taking an affectionate farewell of his friends, set forth on his return to his native country. As he went along, he learned that Eichard was dead, that John reigned, that Prince Arthur had been poisoned, and was of course made acquainted with various other facts of public importance recorded in Pinnock's Catechism and the Historic Page. But these subjects did not interest him near so much as his own private affairs ; and I can fancy that his legs trembled under him, and his pilgrim's staff shook with emotion, as at length, after many perils, he came in sight of his paternal mansion of Eotherwood, and saw once more the chimneys smoking, the shadows of the oaks over the grass in the sunset, and the rooks winging over the trees. He heard the supper gong sounding : he knew his way to the door well enough ; he entered the familiar hall with a henedicite, and with- out any more words took his place. ****** You might have thought for a moment that the grey friar trem- bled, and his shrunken cheek looked deadly pale ; but he recovered himself presently, nor could you see his pallor for the cowl which covered his face. A little boy was playing on Athelstane's knee ; Eowena, smiling and patting the Saxon Thane fondly on his broad buU-head, filled him a huge cup of spiced wine from a golden jug. He drained a quart of the liquor, and, turning round, addressed the friar, — ■ " And so, grey frere, thou sawest good King Eichard fall at Ghalus by the bolt of that felon bowman ? " " We did, an it please you. The brothers of our house attended the good king in his last moments ; in truth, he made a Christian ending ! " " And didst thou see the archer flayed alive ? It must have been rare sport," roared Athelstane, laughing hugely at the joke. " How the feUow must have howled ! " " My love ! " said Eowena, interposing tenderly, and putting a pretty white finger on his lip. " I would have liked to see it too," cried the boy. REBECCA AND BOWENA. 101 " That's my own little Cedrie, and so thou shalt. And, friar, didst see my poor kinsman Sir "Wilfrid of Ivanhoe ? They say he fought well at Chains ! " " My sweet lord," again interposed Eowena, " mention him not." " Why ? Because thou and he were so tender in days of yore — v.hcu you could not bear my plain face, being all in love with Ms pale one ? " " Those times are past now, dear Athelstane," said his affection- ate wife, looking up to the ceiling. " Marry, thou never couldst forgive him the Jewess, Eowena." '■ The odious hussy ! don't mention the name of the unbelieving creature," exclaimed the lady. " Well, well, poor Wil was a good lad — a thought melancholy and milJksop though. Why, a pint of sack fuddled his poor brains." " Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe was a good lance," said the friar. "I have heard there was none better in Christendom. He lay in our convent after his wounds, and it was there we tended him till he died. He was buried in our norbh cloister." "And there's an end of him," said Athelstane. "But come, this is dismal talk. Where's Wamba the jester ? Let ua have a song. Stir up, Wamba, and don't lie like a dog in the fire ! Sing us a song, thou crack-brained jester, and leave off whimpering for bygones. Tush, man ! There be many good fellows left in this world." " There be buzzards in eagles' nests," Wamba said, who was lying stretched before the fire sharing the hearth with the Thane's dogs. " There be dead men alive and live men dead. There be merry songs and dismal songs. Marry, and the merriest are the saddest sometimes. I will leave off motley and wear black, gossip Athelstane. I will turn howler at funerals, and then, perhaps, I shall be merry. Motley is fit for mutes, and black for fools. Give me some drink, gossip, for my voice is as cracked as my brain." " Drink and sing, thou beast, and cease prating," the Thane said. And Wamba, touching Ms rebeck wildly, sat up in the chimaey- side and curled his lean shanks together and began : — 102 EKBECCA AND ROWENA. LOVE AT TWO SCOEE. Ho ! pretty page, "with dimpled oHn, That never has known the barber's shear, All your aim is woman to win^ This is the way that boys begin. Wait till you've come to forty year ! Curly gold locks cover foolish brains, Billing and cooing is all your cheer, Sighing and singing of midnight strains Under Bonnybells' window-panes. Wait till you've come to forty year ! Forty times over let Michaelmas pass, Grizzling hair the brain doth clear ; Tlien you know a boy is an ass. Then you know the worth of a lass. Once you have come to forty year. Pledge me round, I bid ye declare. All good fellows whose beards are grey : Did not the fairest of the fair Common grow and wearisome, ere Ever a month was past away ? The reddest lips that ever have kissed, The brightest eyes that ever have shone, May pray and whisper and we not list, Or look away and never be missed, Ere yet ever a month was gone. Gillian 's dead, Heaven rest her bier, How I loved her twenty years syue ! Marian's married, but I sit here. Alive and merry at forty year. Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine. " Who taught thee that merry lay, "Wamba, thou son of "Witless?" roared Athelstane, clattering his cup on the table and shouting the chorus. " It was a good and holy hermit, sir, the pious clerk of Oop- manhurst, that you wot of, who played many a prank with us in the days that we knew King Eichard. Ah, noble sir, that was a jovial time and a good priest." " They saythe holy pri«st is sure of the next bishopric, my love," said Eowena. "His majesty hath taken him into much REBECCA AND KOWBNA. 103 fayour. My lord of Huntingdon looked very well at the last ball, thougli I never could see any beauty in the countess — a freckled blowsy thing, whom they used to call Maid Marian ; though, for the matter of that, what between her flirtations with Major Littlejohn and Captain Scarlett, really " " Jealous again, haw ! haw ! " laughed Athelstane. " I am above jealousy, and scorn it," Eowena answered, drawing herself up very majestically. ""Well, weU, "Wamba's was a good song," Athelstane said. " Nay, a wicked song," said Eowena, turning up her eyes as usual. " What ! rail at woman's love ? Prefer a filthy wine-cup to a true wife ? Woman's love is eternal, my Athelstane. He who questions it would be a blasphemer were he not a fool. The weU-bom andweU-nurtured gentlewoman loves once and once only." " I pray you, madam, pardon me, I — I am not well," said the grey friar, rising abruptly from his settle, and tottering down the steps of the dais. Wamba sprung after him, his bells jingling as he rose, and casting his arms round the apparently fainting man, he led him away into the court. " There be dead men alive and live men dead," whispered he. " There be coffins to laugh at and marriages to cry over. Said I not sooth, holy friar ? " And when they had got out into the solitary court, which was deserted by all the followers of the Thane, who were mingling in the drunken revelry in the hall, "Wamba, seeing that none were by, knelt down, and kissing the friar's garment, said, " I knew thee, I knew thee, my lord and my liege ! " " Get up," said "Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, scarcely able to articulate ; "only fools are faithful." And he passed on and into the little chapel where his father lay buried. All night long the friar spent there, and "Wamba the jester lay outside watching as mute as the saint over the porch. When the morning came, Wamba was gone ; and the knave being in the habit of wandering hither and thither, as he chose, little notice was taken of his absence by a master and mistress who had not much sense of humour. As for Sir Wilfrid, a gen- tleman of his delicacy of feelings could not be expected to remain 104 EEBECCA AND KOWENA. in a house where things so naturally disagreeable to him were occurring, and he quitted Eotherwood incontinently, after paying a dutiful visit to the tomb where his old father, Cedric, was buried, aud hastened on to York, at which city he made himself known to the family attorney, a most respectable man, in whose hands his ready money was deposited, and took up a sum sufficient to iib himself out with credit, and a handsome retinue, as became a iiiiight of consideration. But he changed his name, wore a wig iiud spectacles, and disguised himself entirely, so that it was impossible his friends or the public should know him, and thus metamorphosed, went about whithersoever his fancy led him. He v^as present at a public ball at Tork, which the lord mayor gave, danced Sir Eoger de Coverley in the very same set with Eowena ^(who was disgusted that Maid Marian took precedence of her) — he saw little Athelstane overeat himself at the supper, and pledged his big father in a cup of sack ; he met the Eeverend Mr. Tuck at a missionary meeting, where he seconded a resolution proposed by that eminent divine ; — in fine, he saw a score of his old acquaint- ances, none of whom recognised in him the warrior of Palestine and Templestowe. Having a large fortune and nothing to do, he went about this country performing charities, slaying robbers, rescuing the distressed, and achieving noble feats of arms. Dragons and giants existed in his day no more, or be sure he would have had a fling at them : for the truth is. Sir Wilfrid of Jvanhoe was somewhat sick of the life which the hermits of Chains had restored to him, and felt himself so friendless and solitary that he would not have been sorry to come to an end of it. Ah, my dear friends and intelligent British public, are there not others who are melancholy under a mask of gaiety, and who, in the midst of crowds, are lonely ? Liston was a most melancholy man ; Grrimaldi had feelings ; and there are others I wot of — but psha — let us have the next chapter. REBECCA AND ROWENA. 105 CHAPTEE V, ITANHOE TO THE EESCTJE, The rascally manner in ■whicli the chicken-livered successor of Eichard of the Lion-heart conducted himself to all parties, to Ms relatives, Hs nobles, and his people, is a matter notorious, and set forth clearly in the Historic Page : hence, although nothing, except perhaps success, can, iu my opinion, excuse disaffection to the sovereign, or appearance in armed rebellion against him, the loyal reader will make allowance for two of the principal personages of this narrative, who will have to appear in the present Chapter in the odious character of rebels to their lord and king. It must be remembered, in partial exculpation of the fault of Ivanhoe and Eowena (a fault for which they were bitterly punished, as you shall presently bear), that the monarch exasperated his subjects in a variety of ways, — that before he murdered his royal nephew, Prince Arthur, there was a great question whether he was the rightful king of England at all, — that his behaviour as an uncle, and a family man, were likely to wound the feelings of any lady and mother, — finally, that there were palliations for the conduct of Eowena and Ivanhoe, which it flow becomes our duty to relate. When his majesty destroyed Prince Arthur, the Lady Eowena, who was one of the ladies of honour to the queen, gave up her place at court at once, and retired to her castle of Eotherwood. Expressions made use of by her, and derogatory to the character of the sovereign, were carried to the monarch's ears, by some of those parasites, doubtless, by whom it is the curse of kings to be attended ; and John swore, by St. Peter's teeth, that he would be revenged upon the haughty Saxon lady, — a kind of oatla, which, though he did not trouble himself about all other oaths, he was never known to break. It was not for some years after he had registered this vow, that he was enabled to keep it. Had Ivanhoe been present at Eouen, when the king meditated 106 REBECCA AND EOWENA. Ms horrid designs against his nephew, there is little doubt that Sir Wilfrid woiJd have prevented them, and rescued the boy : for Ivanhoe was, we need scarcely say, a hero of romance ; and it is the custom and duty of all gentlemen of that profession to be present on all occasions of historic interest, to be engaged in all conspiracies, royal interviews, and remarkable occurrences, — and hence Sir Wilfrid would certainly have rescued the young Prince, had he been anywhere in the neighbourhood of Eouen, where the foul tragedy occurred. But he was a couple of hundred leagues off, at Chains, 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 Eebecca 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 were entirely indifferent to a man who announced to his nurse-tenders, the good hermits of Chains before mentioned, that he was the Marquis of Jericho, and about to marry Eebecca 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 Eowena married again,) or perfectly crazy, the husband of the beautiful Eebecca ? 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 acquies- cence, the authority of the sanguinary successor of his beloved King Eichard. It was Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, I need scarcely say, who got the barons of England to league together and extort from the king that famous instrument and palladium of our liberties at present in the British Museum, Great EusseU Street, Bloomsbury — the Magna Charta. His name does not naturally appear in the list of barons, because he was only a knight, and a knight in disguise too : nor does Athelstane's signature figure on that document. Athelstane , in the first place, could not write ; EEDBCCA AND KOWENA. 107 nor did he care a penny-piece about politics, so long as he could drink his wine at home undisturbed, and have his hunting and shooting in quiet. It was not until the ting wanted to interfere with the sport of every gentleman in England (as we know by reference to the Historic Page that this odious monarch did), that Athelstane broke out iato open rebellion, along with several Yorkshire squires and ' noblemen. It is recorded of the king, that he forbade every man to hunt his own deer ; and, in order to secure an obedience to his orders, this Herod of a monarch wanted to secure the eldest sons of all the nobility and gentry, as hostages for the good behaviour of their parents. Athelstane was anxious about his game— Eowena was anxious about her son. The former swore that he would hunt his deer in spite of aU Norman tyrants — the latter asked, should she give up her boy to the ruffian who had murdered his own nephew ? * The speeches of both were brought to the king at Tork ; and, furious, he ordered an instant attack upon Eotherwood, and that the lord and lady of that castle should be brought before him dead or alive. Ah, where was Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, the unconquerable cham- pion, to defend the castle against the royal party ? A few thrusts from his lance would have spitted the leading warriors of the king's host : a few cuts from his sword would have put John's forces to rout. But the lance and sword of Ivanhoe were idle on this occasion. " No, be hanged to me ! " said the knight, bit- terly, "this is a quarrel in which I can't interfere. Common politeness forbids. Let yonder ale-swUling Athelstane defend his, ha, ha, uoife : and my lady Eowena guard her, ha, ha, ha, son.'' And he laughed wildly and madly : and the sarcastic way in which he choked and gurgled out the words " wife " and " son " would have made you shudder to hear. When he heard, however, that, on the fourth day of the siege, Athelstane had been slain by a cannon ball (and this time for good, and not to come to life again as he had done before), and that the widow (if so the innocent bigamist may be called) was * See Hume, Giraldus Camtrensis, The Monk of Croyland, and Pinuock's Cateeliism. 108 REBECCA AND EOWENA. conducting the defence of Eotherwood herself with the greatest intrepidity, showing herself upon the walls, with her little son (who bellowed like a bull, and did not like the fighting at all), pointing the guns and encouraging the garrison in every way — better feelings returned to the bosom of the knight of Ivanhoe, and summoning his men, he armed himself quickly, and deter- mined to go forth to the rescue. He rode without stopping for two days and two nights in the direction of Eotherwood, with such swiftness and disregard for refreshment, indeed, that his men dropped one by one upon the road, and he arrived alone at the lodge gate of the park. The windows were smashed ; the door stove in ; the lodge, a neat little Swiss cottage, with a garden, where the pinafores of IVIrs. Gurth's children might have been seen hanging on the gooseberry bushes in more peaceful times, was now a ghastly heap of smoking ruins — cottage, bushes, pinafores, children lay mangled together, destroyed by the licentious soldiery of an infuriate monarch ! Far be it from me to excuse the disobedience of Athelstane and Eowena to their sovereign ; but surely, surely this cruelty might have been spared. Gurth who was lodge-keeper, was lying dreadfully wounded and expiring at the flaming and violated threshold of his lately picturesque home. A catapult and a couple of mangonels had done his business. The faithful fellow, recognising his master, who had put up his visor and forgotten his wig and spectacles in tlie agitation of the moment, exclaimed, " Sir Wilfrid ! my dear master — praised be Sb. Waltheof — there may be yet time — my beloved mistr — master Atheist ..." He sank back, and never spoke again. Ivanhoe spurred on his horse Bavieca madly up the chestnut avenue. The castle was before him ; the western tower was in flames ; the besiegers were pressing at the southern gate ; Athelstane's banner, the bull rampant, was still on the northern bartizan. " An Ivanhoe, an Ivanhoe ! " he bellowed out, with a shout that overcame all the din of battle — J^ostre Dame a la rescousse — and to hurl his lance through the midriff of Eeginald de Bracy, who was commanding the assault, who fell howling with anguish, to wave his battle-axe over his own head, and cut off REBECCA AND EOWENA. 109 those of thirteen men-at-arms, was the work of an instant. " An Ivanhoe, an Ivanhoe ! " he still shouted, and down went a man as sure as he said ' hoe.' "Ivanhoe! Ivanhoe! " a shrill voice cried from the top of the northern bartizan. Ivanhoe knew it, " Eowena ! my love ! I come ! " ha roared on his part, " Villains ! touch but a hair of her head, and I . . . ." Here, with a sudden plunge and a sq^ueal of agony, Bavieca sprang forward wildly, and fell as wildly on her back, rolling over and over upon the knight. All was dark before him ; his brain reeled ; it whizzed ; something came crashing down on his fore- head. St. "Waltheof, and all the saints of the Saxon calendar protect the knight ! * * * When he came to himself, Wamba and the lieutenant of his lances were leaning over him with a bottle of the hermit's elixir, " We arrived here the day after the battle," said the fool ; " marry, I have a knack of that." " Tour worship rode so deucedly quick, there was no keeping up with your worship," said the lieutenant. "The day — after — the bat — " groaned Ivanhoe. — "Where is the Lady Eowena ? " " The castle has been taken and sacked," the lieutenant said. — and pointed to what once was Eotherwood, but was now only a heap of smoking ruins. — Not a tower was left, not a roof, not a floor, not a single human being ! Everything was flame and ruin, smash and murther ! Of course Ivanhoe fell back fainting again among the ninety- seven men-at-arms whom he had slain ; and it was not until Wamba had applied a second, and uncommonly strong, dose of the elixir that he came to life again. The good knight was, however, from long practice, so accustomed to the severest wounds, that he bore them far more easily than common folk, and thus was enabled to reach York upon a litter, which his men constructed for him, with tolerable ease. Humour had as usual advanced him ; and he heard at the hotel where he stopped, what had been the issue of the afiair at Eother- wood. A minute or two after his horse was stabbed, and Ivanhoe knocked down, the western bartizan was taken by the storming 110 EEBECCA AND EOWENA. party -wliicli invested it, and every aoul slain, except Eowena and her boy ; who were tied npon horses and carried away, under a secure guard, to one of the king's castles — nobody knew whither —and Ivanhoe was recommended by the hotel-keeper (whose house he had used in former times) to reassume his wig and spectacles, and not call himself by his own name any more, lest some of the king's people should lay hands on him. However as he had kUled everybody round about him, there was but little danger of his discovery ; and the Enight of the Spectacles, as he was called, went about York quite unmolested, and at liberty to attend to his own affairs. "We wish to be brief in narrating this part of the gallant hero's existence ; for his life was one of feeling rather than affectidn, and the description of mere sentiment is considered by many well- informed persons to be tedious. "What were his sentiments, now it may be asked, under the peculiar position in which he found himself? He had done his duty by Eowena, certainly : no man could say otherwise. But as for being in love with her any more, after what had occurred, that was a different question. Well, come what would, he was determined still to continue doing his duty by her ; — but as she was whisked away, the deuce knew whither, how could he do anything ? So he resigned himself to the fact that she was thus whisked away. He, of course, sent emissaries about the country to endeavour to find out where Eowena was ; but these came bacfc without any sort of intelligence ; and it was remarked, that he still remained in a perfect state of resignation. He remained in this condition for a year, or more ; and it was said that he was becoming more cheer- ful, and he certainly was growing rather fat. The Knight of the Spectacles was voted an agreeable man in a grave way ; and gave some very elegant, though quiet, parties, and was received in the best society of York. It was just at assize-time, the lawyers and barristers had arrived, and the town was unusually gay : when, one morning, the attorney, whom we have mentioned as Sir WUfred's man of business,, and a most respectable man, called upon his gallant client at his lodg- ings, and said he had a communication of importance to make. Having to communicate with a client of rank, who was condemned EEBECCA AND KOWENA. Ill to be hanged for forgery, Sir Hugo de Backbite, the attorney said, he had been to visit that party in the condemned cell ; and on the way through the yard, and through the bars of another cell, had seen and recognised an old acquaintance of Sir "Wilfrid of Ivanhoe — and the lawyer held him out, with a particular look, a note, written on a piece of whity-brown paper. What we're Ivanhoe's sensations when he recognised the hand- writing of Eowena ! — he tremblingly dashed open the billet, and read as follows : — " Mx DIDAEEST ItANHOE, " 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 Eowena? 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 infatua- tion 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 wUt care for my boy — his boy who fell like a hero (when thou wert absent) combating by the side of " Eowena." 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 Eowena, 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 "Wilfred of Ivanhoe easily procured, and with feelings of no small trepidation, reached the cell where, for the space of a year, poor Eflwena had been immured. 112 KEBECCA AND ROWENA. If any person have a doubt of tlie correctness, of the historical exactness of this narrative, I refer him to the " Biographie TJniver- selle " (article Jean sans Terre), vrhich says, " La femme d'uu baron auquel on vint demander son fils, rdpondit, ' Le roi pense- t-il que je confierai mon fils a un homme qui a egorg^ son neveu de sa propre main ? ' Jean fit eulever la mere et 1' enfant, et la laissa mourir defaim dans les cachots." I picture to myself, with a painful sympathy, Eowena under- going 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 grey 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!" "Promise me, then," gasped Eowena, staring wildly at him, " that you never will marry a Jewess ? " " By St. Waltheof," cried Ivanhoe, "this is too much ! Eowena !" But he felt his hand grasped for a moment, the nerves then relaxed, the pale lip ceased to quiver — she was no more ! REBECCA AND KOWENA. 113 CHAPTER YI. IVANHOE THE "WTDOWEB. Hating placed young Cedric at school at the Hall of Dothe- boyes, in Yorkshire, and arranged his family affairs, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe quitted a country which had no longer any charms for him, and in which his stay was rendered the less agreeable by the notion that King John would hang him if ever he could lay hands on the faithful follower of King Eichard and Prince Arthur. But there was always in those days a home and occupation for a brave and pious knight. A saddle on a gallant war-horse, a pitched field against the Moors, a lance wherewith to spit a turbaned infidel, or a road to Paradise caryed out by his scimetar, — these were the height of the ambition of good and religious warriors ; and so renowned a champion as Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe was sure to be well received wherever blows were stricken for the cause of Christendom. Even among the dark Templars, he who had twice overcome the most famous lance of their Order was a respected though not a welcome guest : but among the opposition company of the Knights of St. John, he was admired and courted beyond measure ; and always affectioning that Order, which offered him, indeed, its first rank and commanderies, he did much good service, fighting in their ranks for the glory of Heaven and St. Waltheof, and slaying many thousands of the heathen in Prussia, Poland, and those savage northern countries. The only fault that the great and gallant, though severe and ascetic Folko of Hey- denbraten, the chief of the Order of St. John, found with the melancholy warrior, whose lance did such good service to the cause, was, that he did not persecute the Jews as so religious a knight should. He let off sundry captives of that persuasion whom he had taken with his sword and his spear, saved others from torture, and actually ransomed the two last grinders of a venerable rabbi (that Eoger de Cartright, an English knight of 114 EEBECCA AND ROWENA. the Order, Tvas about to extort from the elderly Israelite), with a hundred crowns and a gimmal ring, which were all the property- he possessed. Whenever he so ransomed or benefited one of this religion, he w^ould moreover give them a little token or a message (were the good knight out of money) saying, " Take this token, and remember this deed was done by "Wilfrid the Disinherited, for the services whilome rendered to him by Eebecca, the daughter of Isaac of Tork ! " So among themselves, and in their meetings and synagogues, and in their restless travels from land to land, when they of Jewry cursed and reviled all Christians, as such abominable heathens will, they nevertheless excepted the name of the Desdichado, or the doubly-disinherited as he now was, the Desdichado-Doblado. The account of all the battles, storms, and scaladoes in which Sir Wilfrid took part, would only weary the reader, for the chopping off one heathen's head with an axe must be very like the decapi- tation of any other unbeliever. Suffice it to say, that wherever this kind of work was to be done, and Sir Wilfrid was in the way, he was the man to perform it. It would astonish you were you to see the account that Wamba kept of his master's achievements, and of the Bulgarians, Bohemians, Croatians, slain or maimed by his hand : and as, in those days, a reputation for valour had an immense effect upon the soft hearts of women ; and even the ugliest man, were he a stout warrior, was looked upon with favour by Beauty ; so Ivanhoe, who was by no means ill-favoured, though now becoming rather elderly, made conquests over female breasts, as weU as over Saracens, and had more than one direct offer of marriage made to him by princesses, countesses, and noble ladies possessing both charms 'and money, which they were anxious to place at the disposal of a champion so renowned. It is related that the Duchess Eegent of Eartoffelberg offered him her hand and the Ducal Crown of Kartoffelberg, which he had rescued from the unbelieving Prussians ; but Ivanhoe evaded the duchess's offer, by riding away from her capital secretly at midnight, and hiding himself in a convent of Knights Hospitallers, on the borders of Poland ; and it is a fact that the Princess Rosalia Seraphina of Pumpernickel, the most lovely woman of her time, became so frantically attached to him, that she followed him on a campaign, REBECCA AND EOWENA. 115 and was discovered with his baggage disguised as a horse-boy. But no princess, no beauty, no female blandishments had any charms for Ivanhoe : no hermit practised a more austere celibacy. The severity of his morals contrasted so remarkably with the lax and dissolute manner of the young lords and nobles in the courts which he frequented, that these young springalds would sometimes sneer and call him Monk and Milksop ; but his courage in the day of battle was so terrible and admirable, that I promise you the youthful libertines did not sneer then ; and the most reckless of them often turned pale when they couched their lances to follow Ivanhoe. Holy "Waltheof ! it was an awful sight to see him with his pale, calm face, his shield upon his breast, his heavy lance before him, charging a squadron of Heathen Bohemians, or a regiment of Cossacks ! Wherever he saw the enemy, Ivanhoe assaulted him : and when people remonstrated with him, and said if he attacked such and such a post, breach, castle, or army, he would be slain, " And suppose I be ? " he answered, giving them to understand that he would as lief the Battle of Life were over altogether. While he was thus making war aJgainst the northern infidels,, news was carried all over Christendom of a catastrophe which had befallen the good cause in the south of Europe, where the Spanish Christians had met with such a defeat and massacre at the hands of the Moors, as had never been known in the proudest days of Saladin. Thursday, the 9th of Shaban, in the 605th year of the Hejira, is known all over the West as the amun-al-arle, the year of the battle of Alarcos, gained over the Christians by the Moslems of Andalus, on which fatal day Christendom suffered a defeat so signal, that it was feared the Spanish Peninsula would be entirely wrested away from the dominion of the Cross. On that day the Franks lost 150,000 men and 30,000 prisoners. A man-slave sold among the unbelievers for a dirhem ; a donkey, for the same ; a sword, half a dirhem ; a horse, five dirhems. Hundreds of thou- sands of these various sorts of booty were in the possession of the triumphant followers of Takoob-al-Mansoor. Curses on his head ! But he was a brave warrior, and the Christians before him seemed- I 2 116 aEBECCA AND ROWENA. to forget that they were the descendants of the brave Cid, the Karibitoor, as the Moorish hounds (in their jargon) denominated the famous Campeador. A general move for the rescue of the faithful in Spain — a crusade against the infidels triumphing there, was preached throughout Europe by all the most eloquent clergy : and thousands and thousands of valorous knights and nobles, accompanied by well-meaning varlets and vassals of the lower sort, trooped from all sides to the rescue. The straits of Gribel-al-tariif, at which spot the Moor, passing from Barbary, first planted his accursed foot on the Christian soil, were crowded with the galleys of the Templars and the Knights of St. John, who flung succours into the menaced kingdoms of the peninsula ; the inland sea swarmed with their ships hasting from their forts and islands, from Ehodes and Byzan- tium, from Jafia and Askalon. The Pyrenean peaks beheld the pennons and glittered with the armour of the knights marching out of France into Spain ; and, finally, in a ship that set sail direct from Bohemia, where Sir Wilfrid happened to be quartered at the time when tlie news of the defeat of Alarcos came and alarmed all good Christians, Ivanhoe landed at Barcelona, and proceeded to slaughter the Moors forthwith. He brought letters of introduction from his friend Folko of Heydenbraten, the Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John, to the venerable Baldomero de Garbanzos, Grand Master of the renowned order of Saint Jago. The chief of Saint Jago's knights paid the greatest respect to a warrior, whose fame was already so widely known in Christendom ; and Ivanhoe had the pleasure of being appointed to all the posts of danger and forlorn hopes that could be devised in his honour. He would be called up twice or thrice in a night to fight the Moors : he led ambushes, scaled breaches, was blown up by mines; was wounded many hundred times (recovering, thanks to the elixir, of which "Wamba always carried a supply) ; he was the terror of the Saracens, and the admiration and wonder of the Christians. To describe his deeds would, I say, be tedious ; one day's battle was like that of another. I am not writing in ten volumes like Monsieur Alexandre Dumas, or even in three like other great authors. We have no room for the recounting of Sir Wilfrid's KEBECCA AND EOWENA. H; deeds of valour. Whenever he took a Moorish town, it was remarked, that he went anxiously into the Jewish quarter, and inquired amongst the Hebrews, who were in great numbers in Spain, for Eebecca, the daughter of Isaac. Many Jews, accord- ing to his wont, he ransomed, and created so much scandal by' this proceeding, and by the manifest favour which he showed to the people of the nation— that the Master of Saint Jago remonstrated with him, and it is probable he would have been cast into the Inquisition and roasted; but that his prodigious valour and success against the Moors counterbalaiiced his here- tical partiality for the children of Jacob. It chanced that the good knight was present at the siege of Xisona in Andalusia, entering the breach at first, according to his wont, and slaying, with his own hand, the Moorish lieutenant of the town, and several hundred more of its unbelieving defenders. He had very nearly done for the Alfaqui, or governor, a veteran warrior with a crooked scimetar and a beard as white as snow, but a couple of hundred of the Alfaqui's body-guard flung themselves between Ivanhoe and their chief, and the old fellow escaped with his life, leaving a handful of his beard in the grasp of the English knight. The strictly military business being done, and such of the garrison as did not escape put, as by right, to the sword, the good knight, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, took no further part in the proceedings of the conquerors of that ill-fated place. A scene of horrible massacre and frightful reprisals ensued, and the Christian warriors, hot with victory and flushed with slaughter, were, it is to be feared, as savage in their hour of triumph as ever their heathen enemies had been. Among the most violent and least scrupulous was the ferocious knight of Saint Jago, Don Beltran de Cuchilla y Trabuco y Espada y Espelon ; raging through the vanquished city like a demon, he slaughtered indiscriminately all those infidels of both sexes whose wealth did not tempt him to a ransom, or whose beauty did not reserve them for more frightful calamities than death. The slaughter over, Don Beltran took up his quarters in the Albaycen, where the Alfaqui had lived who had so narrowly escaped the sword of Ivanhoe ; but the wealth, the treasure, the slaves, and the family of the fugitive chieftain, were left in possession o£ 118 KEBECCA AND EOWEHA. the conqueror of Xkona. Among the treasures, Don Beltran recognised with a savage joy the coat-armours and ornaments of many brave and unfortunate companions-in-arms vrho had fallen in the fatal battle of Alarcos. The sight of those bloody relics added fury to his cruel disposition, and served to steel a heart already but little disposed to sentiments of mercy. Three days after the sack and plunder of the place, Don Beltran was seated in the hall-court lately occupied by the proud Alfaqui, lying in his divan, dressed in his rich robes, the fountains playing in the centre, the slaves of the Moor ministering to his scarred and rugged Christian conqueror. Some fanned him with pea- cocks' pinions, some danced before him, some sang Moors' melo- dies to the plaintive notes of a guzla, one — it was the only daughter of the Moor's old age, the young Zutulbe, a rosebud of beauty — sat weeping in a corner of the gilded hall, weep- ing for her slain brethren, the pride of Moslem chivalry, whose heads were blackening in the blazing sunshine on the portals without, and for her father, whose home had been thus made desolate. He and his guest, the English knight Sir "Wilfrid, were playing at chess, a favourite amusement with the chivalry of the period, when a messenger was announced from Valencia, to treat, if pos- sible, for the ransom of the remaining part of the Alfaqui's family. A grim smile lighted up Don Beltran's features as he bade the black slave admit the m.essenger. He entered. By his costume it was at once seen that the bearer of the flag of truce was a Jew — ^the people were employed continually then as ambassadors between the two races at war in Spain. " I come," said the old Jew (in a voice which made Sir Wil- frid start), " from my lord the Alfaqui to my noble senor, the invincible Don Beltran de Cuchilla, to treat for the ransom of the Moor's only daughter, the child of his old age and the pearl of his affection." " A pearl is a valuable jewel, Hebrew. What does the Moorish dog bid for her?" asked Don Beltran, still smiling grimly. " The Alfaqui offers 100,000 dinars, twenty-four horses with their caparisons, twenty-four suits of plate-armour, and diamonds and rubies to the amount of 1,000,000 dinars." EEBECOA AND ROWENA. 119 " Ho, slaves !" roared Don Beltran, " show tlie Jew my treasury of gold. How many hundred thousand pieces are there ? " And ten enormous chests were produced in which the accountant counted 1,000 bags of 1,000 dirhems each, and displayed several caskets of jewels containing such a treasure of rubies, smaragds, diamonds, and jacinths, as made the eyes of the aged ambassador twinkle with avarice. " How many horses are there in my stable ? " continued Don Beltran ; and Muley, the master of the horse, numbered three hundred fully caparisoned ; and there was, likewise, armour of the richest sort for as many cavaliers, who followed the banner of this doughty captain. " I want neither money nor armour," said the ferocious knight ; " tell this to the Alfaqui, Jew. And I will keep the child, his daughter, to serve the messes for iny dogs, aud clean the platters for my scullions." " Deprive not the old man of his child," here interposed the knight of Ivanhoe ; " bethink thee, brave Don Beltran, she is but an infant in years." " She is my captive. Sir Enight," replied the surly DonBeltran ; " I will do with my own as becomes me." " Take 200,000 dirhems ! " cried the Jew; " more !— anything ! The Alfaqui will give his life for his child ! " " Come hither, Zutulbe ! — come hither, thou Moorish pearl ! " yelled the ferocious warrior ; '" come closer, my pretty black-eyed houri of heathenesse ! Hast heard the name of Beltran de Espada yTrabuco?" " There were three brothers of that name at Alarcos, and my brothers slew the Christian dogs!" said the proud young girl, looking boldly at Don Beltran, who foamed with rage. " The Moors butchered my mother and her little ones at mid- night, in our castle of Murcia," Beltran said. " Thy father fled like a craven, as thou didst, Don Beltran ! " cried the high-spirited girl. " By Saint Jago, this is too much ! " screamed the infuriated nobleman ; and the next moment there was a shriek, and the maiden fell to the ground with Don Beltran's dagger in her side. 120 KEBKCCA AND ROWENA. "Death is better than dishonour! " cried the child, rolling on the blood-stained marble pavement. " I — I spit upon thee, dog of a Christian ! " and with this, and with a savage laugh, she fell back and died. "Bear back this news, Jew, to the Alfaqui," howled the Don, spurning the beauteous corpse with his foot. " I would not have ransomed her for all the gold in Barbary ! " And shudder- ing, the old Jew left the apartment, which Ivanhoe quitted likewise. When they were in the outer court, the knight said to the Jew, " Isaac of York, dost thou not know me ? " and threw back his hood, and looked at the old man. The old Jew stared wildly, rushed forward, as if to seize his hand, then started back, trembling convulsively, and clutching his withered hands over his face, said, with a burst of grief, " Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe ! — no, no ! — I do not know thee ! " "Holy mother! what has chanced?" said Ivanhoe, in his turn becoming ghastly pale ; " where is thy daughter— where is Rebecca?" " Away from me 1 " said the old Jew, tottering, " away ! Eebecca is— dead!" ******* When the disinherited knight heard that fatal announcement, he fell to the ground senseless, and was for some days as one perfectly distraught with grief. He took no nourishment and uttered no word. Por weeks he did not relapse out of his moody sUence, and when he came partially to himself again, it was to bid his people to horse, in a hollow voice, and to make a foray against the Moors. Day after day he issued out against these iniidels, and did nought but slay and slay. He took no. plunder as other knights did, but left that to his followers ; he uttered no war-cry, as was the manner of chivalry, and he gave no quarter, insomuch that the " silent knight" became the dread of all the Paynims of Granada and Andalusia, and more fell by his lance than by that of any the most clamorous captain of the troops in arms against them. Thus the tide of battle turned, and the Arab historian, El Makavy, recounts how, at the great battle of Al Akab, culled by the Spaniards Las Navas, the Christians REBECCA AND KOWENA. 121 retrieved their defeat at Alarcos, and absolutely killed half a million of Mahometans. Eifty thousand of these, of course, Don Wilfrid took to his own lance; and it was remarked that the melancholy warrior seemed somewhat more easy in spirits after that famous feat of arms. CHAPTER VII. THE END OP THE PEErOBMANCE. Iif a short time the terrible Sir Wilfrid of Ivauhoe, had killed off so many of the Moors, that though those unbelieving miscreants poured continual reinforcements into Spain from Barbary, they could make no head against the Christian forces, and in fact came into battle quite discouraged at the notion of meeting the dreadful silent knight. It was commonly believed amongst them, that the famous Malek Eic, Eichard of England, the conqueror of Saladin, had come to life again, and was battling in the Spanish hosts — that this his second life was a charmed one, and his body inaccessible to blow of scimetar or thrust of spear — that after battle he ate the hearts and drank the blood of many young Moors for his supper ; a thousand wild legends were told of Ivanhoe, indeed, so that the Morisco warriors came half van- quished into the field, and fell an easy prey to the Spaniards, who cut away among them without mercy. And although none of the Spanish historians whom I have consulted make mention of Sir Wilfrid as the real author of the numerous triumphs which now graced the arms of the good cause ; this is not in the least to be wondered at in a nation that has always been notorious for bragging, and for the non-payment of their debts of gratitude as of their other obligations, and that writes histories of the Penin- sular war with the Emperor Napoleon, without making the slightest mention of His Grace the Duke of Wellington, or of the part taken by Beitish talotje in that transaction. Well, it must be confessed on the other hand that we brag enough of our 122 REBECCA AND KOWENA. fathers' feats iu those campaigns, but this is not the subject at present under consideration. To be brief, Ivanhoe made such short work with the unbelieyers, that the monarch of Aragon, King Don Jayme, saw himself speedUy enabled to besiege the city of Valencia,' the last strong- hold which the Moors had in his dominions, and garrisoned by many thousands of those infidels under the command of their King Aboo Abdallah Mahommed, son of Yakoob Almansoor. The Arabian historian El Makary^ gives a full acconnt of the military precautions taken by Aboo Abdallah to defend his city, but as I do not wish to make a parade of my learning, or to write a costume novel, I shall pretermit any description of the city under its Moorish governors. Besides the Turks who inhabited it, there dwelt within its walls, great store of those of the Hebrew nation, who were always pro- tected by the Moors, during their unbelieving reign in Spain; and who were, as we very well know, the chief physicians, the chief bankers, the chief statesmen, the chief artists and musicians ; the chief everything under the Moorish kings. Thus it is not surprising, that the Hebrews, having their money, their liberty, their teeth, their lives, secure under the Mahometan domination, should infinitely prefer it to the Christian sway, beneath which they were liable to be deprived of every one of these benefits. Among these Hebrews of Yalencia, lived a very ancient Israelite — no other than Isaac of York, before mentioned, who came into Spain with his daughter, soon after Ivanhoe's marriage, in the third volume of the first part of this history. Isaac was respected by his people, for the money which he possessed, and his daughter for her admirable good qualities, her beauty, her charities, and her remarkable medical skill. The young Emir Aboo Abdallah, was so struck by her charms, that though she was considerably older than his highness, he offered to marry her, and instal her as number 1 of his wives, — and Isaac of York would not have objected to the union, (for such mixed marriages were not uncommon between the Hebrews and Moors those days,) — but Eebecca firmly, but respectfully, declined the proposals of the Prince, saying, that it was impos- REBECCA AND ROWENA. 123 sible she should unite herself with a man of a creed different to her own. Although Isaac was, probably, not over well pleased at losing this chance of being father-in-law to a royal highness, yet as he passed, among his people for a very strict character, and there were-in his family several Rabbis of great reputation and severity of conduct, the old gentleman was silenced by this objection of Eebecca's, and the young lady herself applauded by her relatives for her resolute behaviour. She took their congratulations in a very frigid manner, and said, that it was her -wish not to marry at all, but to devote herself to the practice of medicine altogether, and to helping the sick and needy of her people. Indeed, although she did not go to any public meetings, she was as benevolent a creature as the world ever saw : the poor blessed her, wherever they knew her, and many benefited by her who guessed not whence her gentle bounty came. But there are men in Jewry who admire beauty, and as I have even heard, appreciate money too, and Eebecca had such a quantity of both, that all the most desirable bachelors of the people were ready to bid for her. Ambassadors came from all quarters to propose for her. Her own uncle, the venerable Ben Solomons, with a beard as long as a Cashmere goat, and a repu- tation for learning and piety which still lives in his nation, quarrelled with his son Moses, the red-haired diamond merchant of Trebizond, and his son Simeon, the bald bUl-brober of Bagdad, each putting in a claim for their cousin. Ben Minories came from London, and knelt at her feet : Ben Jochanan arrived from Paris, and thought to dazzle her with the latest waistcoats from the Palais Eoyal: and Ben Jonah brought her a present of Dutch herrings, and besought her to come back, and be Mrs. Ben Jonah at the Hague. Eebecca temporised as best she might. She thought her uncle was too old. She besought dear Moses and dear Simeon not to quarrel with each other, and offend their father by pressing their suit. Ben Minories, from London, she said was too young, and Jochanan from Paris, she pointed out to Isaac of York, must be a spendthrift, or he would not wear those absurd waistcoats. As for Ben Jonah, she said she could not bear the notion of tobacco 124 EEBECCA AND ROWENA. and Dutch herrings — she wished to stay with her papa, her dear papa. In fine, she invented a thousand excuses for delay, and it was plain that marriage was odious to her. The only man whom she received with anything like favour, was young Bevis Marks, of London, with whom she was very familiar. But Bevis had come to her with a certain token that had been given to him by an English knight who saved him from a faggot to which the ferocious Hospitaller Poiko of Heydenbraten was about to con- demn him. It was but a ring, with an emerald in it, that Bevis knew to be sham, and not worth a groat. Eebecca knew about the value of jewels too ; but, ah ! she valued this one more than aU the diamonds in Prester John's turban. She kissed it ; she cried over it ; she wore it in her bosom always ; and when she knelt down at night and morning,' she held it between her folded hands on her neck. . . . Young Bevis Marks went away finally no better off than the others ; the rascal sold to the king of Prance a handsome ruby, the very size of the bit of glass in Eebecca' s ring; but he always said, he would rather have had her, than ten thousand pounds, and very likely he would, for it was known she would at once have a plumb to her fortune. These delays, however, could not continue for ever ; and at a great family meeting held at Passover time, Eebecca was solemnly ordered to choose a husband out of the gentlemen there present ; her aunts pointing out the great kindness which had been shown to her by her father, in permitting her to choose for herself. One aunt was of the Solomon faction, another aunt took Simeon's side, a third most venerable old lady, the head of the family, and a hundred and forty-four years of age, was ready to pronounce a curse upon her, and cast her out, unless she married before the month was over. All the jewelled heads of all the old ladies in council ; all the beards of all the family wagged against her — it must have been an awful sight to witness. At last, then, Eebecca was forced to speak. " Kinsmen ! " she said, turning pale, " When the Prince Abou Abdil asked me in marriage, I told you I would not wed but with one of ray own faith." KEBECOA AND EOWENA. 125 " She has turned Turk," screamed out the ladies. "She wants to be a princess, and has turned Turk," roared the Eabbis. " Well, well," said Isaac, in rather an appeased tone, " let us hear what the poor girl has got to say. Do you want to marry his royal highness, Eebecca, say the word, yes or no ?" Another groan burst from the Eabbis — they cried, shrieked, chattered, gesticulated, furious to lose such a prize, as were the women, tliat she should^reign over them, a second Esther. " Silence," cried out Isaac, " let the girl speak— speak boldly, Eebecca, dear, there's a good girl." Eebecca was as pale as a stone. She folded her arms on her breast, and felt the ring there. She looked round all the assembly, and then at Isaac. " Eather," she said, ia a thrilling low steady voice, " I am not of your religion — I am not of the Prince Boabdil's religion — I — I am oiJiis religion." " His, whose ? in the name of Moses, girl," cried Isaac. Eebecca clasped her hands on her beating chest, and looked round with dauntless eyes,—" Of his," she' said, " who saved my life and your honour, of my dear, dear champion's, — I never can be his, but I will be no other's. Give my money to my kinsmen ; it is that they long for. Take the dross, Simeon and Solomon, Jonah and Jochanan, and divide it among you, and leave me. I will never be yours, I tell you, never. Do you think, after knowing him and hearing him speak, — after watching him wounded on his pillow, and glorious in battle (her eyes melted and kindled again as she spoke these words), I can mate with such as you? Go. Leave me to myself. I am none of yours. I love him, I love him. Tate divides us— long, long miles sepa- rate us ; and I know we may never meet again. But I love and bless him always. Tes, always. My prayers are his ; my faith is his. Tes, my faith is your faith, "Wilfrid, Wilfrid ! I have no kindred more, — I am a Christian." At this last word there was such a row in the assembly, as my feeble pen would in vain endeavour to depict. Old Isaac staggered back in a fit, and nobody took the least notice of him. Groans, curses, yells of men, shrieks of women, filled the room with such a furious jabbering, as might have appalled any heart less stout than Eebecca's; but that brave woman was prepared for all, expecting. 126 BBBECCA AND EOWENA. and perhaps hoping, that death would be her instant lot. There was but one creature who pitied her, and that was her cousin and father's clerk, little Ben Davids, who was but thirteen, and had only just begun to carry a bag, and whose crying and boo-hooing, as she finished speaking, was drowned in the screams and male- dictions of the elder Israelites. Ben Davids was madly in love with his cousin (as boys often are with ladies of twice their age), and he had presence of mind suddenly to knock over the large brazen lamp on the table, which illuminated the angry conclave, and whispering to Eebeeca to go up to her own room and lock herself in, or they would kill her else, he took her hand and led her out. From that day she disappeared from among her people. The poor and the wretched missed her, and asked for her in vain. Had any violence been done to her, the poorer Jews would have risen and put all Isaac's family to death ; and besides, her old flame, Prince Boabdil, would have also been exceedingly wrathful. She was not knied then, but, so to speak, buried alive, and locked up in Isaac's back kitchen ; an apartment into which scarcely any light entered, and where she was fed upon scanty portions of the most mouldy bread and water. Little Ben Davids was the only person who visited her, and her sole consolation was to talk to him about Ivanhoe, and how good and how gentle he was, how brave and how true ; and how he slew the tremendous knight of the Templars, and how he married a lady whom Eebecca scarcely thought worthy of him, but with whom she prayed he might be happy ; and of what colour his eyes were, and what were the arms on his shield, viz., a tree with the word " Desdichado " written underneath, &c., &c., &c. ; all which talk would not have interested little Davids, had it come from any body else's mouth, but to which he never tired of listening as it fell from her sweet lips. So, in fact, when old Isaac of York came to negotiate with Don Beltran de Cuchilla for the ransom of the Alfaqui's daughter of Xixona, our dearest Eebecca was no more dead than you and I ; and it was in his rage and fury against Ivanhoe that Isaac told that cavalier the falsehood wkich caused the knight so much pain and such a prodigious deal of bloodshed to the Moors ; and who REBECCA AND KOWENA. 127 knows, trivial as it may seem, whetlier it ■was not that very circum- stance which caused the destruction in Spain of the Moorish power ? Although Isaac, we may be sure, never told his daughter that Ivanhoe had cast up again, yet Master Ben Davids did, who heard it from his employer ; and he saved Eebecca's life by communi- cating the intelligence, for the poor thing would have infallibly perished but for this good news. She had now been in prison four years three months and twenty-four days, during which time she had partaken of nothing but bread and water (except such occasional tit-bits as Davids could bring her, and these were few indeed, for old Isaac was always a curmudgeon, and seldom had more than a pair of eggs for his own and David's dinner) ; and she was .languishing away when the news came suddenly to revive her. Then, though in the darkness you could not see her cheeks, they began to bloom again : then her heart began to beat and her blood to flow, and she kissed the ring on her neck a thousand times a day at least ; and her constant question was, " Ben Davids ! Ben Davids ! when is he coming to besiege Valencia ? " She knew he would come, and, indeed, the Christians were encamped before the town ere a month was over. And now my dear boys and girls I think I perceive behind that dark scene of the back^kitchen (which is just a simple flat, painted stone-colour, that shifts in a minute,) bright streaks of light flash- ing out, as though they were preparing a most brilliant, gorgeous, and altogether dazzling illumination, vrith effects never before attempted on any stage. Tes, the fairy in the pretty pink tights and spangled muslin, is getting into the brilliant revolving chariot of the realms of bliss. — Tes, most of the fiddlers and trumpeters have gone round from the orchestra to join in the grand triumphal procession, where the whole strength of the company is already assembled, arrayed in costumes of Moorish and Christian chivalry, to celebrate the "Terrible Escalade," the " Eescue of Virtuous Innocence " — the " Grand Entry of the Christians into Valencia" — "Appearance of the Pairy Day-Star," and "unexampled displays of pyrotechnic festivity." Do you not, I say, perceive that we are come to the end of our history ; and, after a quantity of rapid and 128 REBECCA AND ROWENA. terrific fighting, brilliant change of scenery, and songs, appropriate or otherwise, are bringing our hero and heroine together ? Who wants a long scene at the last ? Mammas are putting the girls' cloaks and boas on — Papas have gone out to look for the carriage, and left the box-door swinging open, and letting in the cold air — if there were any stage-conversation, you could not hear it, for the scuffling of the people who are leaving the pit. See, the orange- women are preparing to retire. To-morrow their play-bills will be as so much waste-paper — so will some of our masterpieces, woe is me — but lo ! here we come to Scene the last, and Valencia is besieged and captured by the Christians. Who is the first on the wall, and who hurls down the green standard of the Prophet ? Who chops off the head of the Emir Abou Whatdyecallem just as the latter has cut over the cruel Don Beltran de Cuchilla y &c. ? Who, attracted to the Jewish quarter by the shrieks of the inhabitants who are being slain by the Moorish soldiery, and by a little boy by the name of Ben Davids, who recognises the knight by his shield, finds Isaac of York egorge on a threshold, and clasping a large back-kitchen key ? Who but Ivanhoe — who but Wilfrid ? " An Ivanhoe to the rescue," he bellows out : he has heard that news from little Ben Davids which makes him sing. And who is it that comes out of the house — trembling — panting — with her arms out— in a white dress — with her hair down— who is it but dear Eebecca ! Look, they rush together, and Master Wamba is waving an immense banner over them, and knocks down a circumambient Jew with a ham, which he happens to have in his pocket. . . . As for Eebecca, now her head is laid upon Ivanhoe's heart : I shall not ask to hear what she is whispering ; or describe further that scene of meeting, though I declare I am quite affected when I think of it. Indeed I have thought of it any time these five-and-twenty years — ever since, as a boy at school, I commenced the noble study of novels — ever since the day when, lying on sunny slopes of half-holidays, the fair chivalrous figures and beautiful shapes of knights and ladies were visible to me — ever since I grew to love Eebecca, that sweetest creature of the poet's fancy, and longed to see her righted. . REiBECO^ AND EOWENA. 129 That slie and Ivanhoe were married follows of course ; for Koweua's promise extorted from tim was, tliat lie would never wed a Jewess, and a better Christian than Eebecca now was never said her Catechism. Married I am sure they were, and adopted little Cedric ; but I don't think they had any other children, or were subsequently very boisterously happy. 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Just puhlished, price 10*. cloth, Vol. I. of THE CYCLOP/F.DIA OF BIOGRAPHY; OR, THIRD DIVISION OF THE ENGLISH CYCLOPEDIA, Conducted by CHAELES KNIGHT. *^* This Cyclopaedia, which will form the most complete Bingraphical Dictionai'^ extant, possesses the new and most important feature,— in addition to presenting a large amount of information connected with the History of Distinguished Men of ancient and modern tijiie, — of givin>< a characteristic detailed account of all living men of any degree of celebrity ; as the following list will more fully show : — Living Biographies already published. Abd-el-Kftder Bonpland, Aime Catfcermole, George Ab.iu-i-Mbjid Bop|j, Kranz Cauchy, Augnstiu-Louis Aberdeen, Ejirl ol Bordeaux. Due de Cavaigtiac, General Louis- Adams. Jnlin C. Borrow, George Eugfene Agassi/, Louis Bosquet, General Cayley. Arthur Ainsworth, W. H. Bosworth, Joseph, D.D. Chadwick. Edwin Airy. G h,, Astronomer Royal Botta, Panl-Emile Cliamhers, William and Robert Albert, rriuce Bowriiig, Sir John Champollion, Jean Jacques Alexander II,, Emperor of Bremer, Fredrika Chanea nier, Nicolas- Aun6- Russia Brewster, Sir David T, .Module Alison, Sir Archibald, Bart. Briglit, John Chaales, Michel Andersen, Hans Christian Britton, John Gbesnej-, Colonel Francis Raw- Argyll, Dnko of Broderip. W. J. don Arudt, Ernest Moritz Rrodie Sir Benjamin C, Chevreul, Michel Eugfene Aniott. Dr Neil Bniijgnia'-t, Adolphe-Theodoro Chisholm, Mrs. Caroline Auber, D. F. E. Brooke, Sir James Chodzko, Alexander Babbage, Charles Brougham, Henry, Lord Chodzko, Jak6b Leonard Back, yir George Bi-owii, Genenil Sir George Christiana, Maria, of Spain Baily, Edward H. Brown, John, D.D. Clare, Jolm Bancroft, (ieoj-ge Brown, Robert Clarendon, George W. F. V., Baraiite, Baron de Bi-ugifero Brownn.g. Robert Earl of Barlow, Peter Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Clark, Sir James, Bart, M.D. Barry, Sir Ciiarles Brunei, Isamhard K. Cobden. Richard Batliyaui, Ouuut Casimir Bryant, William Culleu Cockerell, C. R., R A. Beeciiy, Frederick William Bucklaud, Dvau Codriugton. G..neral Sir Wil- . Bell, Jolin, Sculptor Buigariu, Thaddeus li.un John, K.C.B. Bell, Thomas Bulwer, Sir Henry Lytton Cole, Henry Beranger, Pierre-John de Bunseu, Chevaher Coleridge, Rev. Derwent Bergbaus, Heinrich Buraoyne, Lieutenaut-General Collier, J Payne Beriioz. Hector Sir Johu Collins, William Wilkie Bony, DuchessB de Burnet, John Collins, Charles AUston Biard, Auguste-Kraucoia Burritt, Elihu Combe, George Biot, Jean Baptiste Burton, John Hill Combermere, Stapleton Cot- Blanc, Louis Caballero, Fermin ton, Viscount Blomfield, C. J., Bishop of Cabot, Etienne Comte, Auguste London Cabrera, Don Ramon Coiistantine, Nikolaevich Bceckh, August Cahen, Samuel Conyb are. Very Reverend Buisserc'e. Sulpiz Cailliaxi'i, Fiederic William Daniel Boissunade, JeanFramjois Campbell, John. Lord Cooper, Th omas Sidney, A. R. A. Bouai larte— \'ai>olcon 1 11. Campbell, Sir Colin Cope, Charles West, R.A, Bonaparte, Jerome Candlish, R S., D.D. Cornelius, Peter Von Bonapai to, Charles - Luciou, Cahrobert, Francois -Certain de Cousin, Victor Prince of Canino Carlyle, Thomas Cowley, Henry Richard Wei- Bonaparte, Louis- Lucicn. Carpenter, W. B., M.D. lesley. Lord Boua|)arte, Napoleon-Joseph- Cass, General Lewis Cox, David Charles-Paul CaatigUoni, Carlo (Htavio Castilho, Antonio Fuliciano de Craik, Geoige Lillie Bonheur, Kosa Creswick, Thomas, R.A. Fuhlished in Weekly JS ^umhers and in Monthly Parts, which are always BRADBURY on sale. AND EVANS, 11, BOUVE RIE STREET. MR. THAGKERAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. •i». t. d. BALLADS Price 1 6 THE SNOB PAPERS , « 2 MAJOR GAHAGAN „ 1 THE FATAL BOOTS;-COX'S DIAET „ 1 THE TELLOWPLUSH MEM0£RS;-^EAMES'S DIARY.. „ 2 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON ....,A „ 2 NOVELS BY EMINENT HANDS; — CHARACTER SKETCHES : „ 1-6 .*„- -'.■ MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON'. „ 3 A LEGEND OF THE RHINE ;— REBECCA AND fiOWENA .;,;.. -. „ 16 A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S ;— THE BEDFORD ROW CONSPIRACY , 10 The above, already published, form the First Three Volumes, price 6s. ; "s. each, of " MiscELLAifiES," by W. M. Thackekat. The Fourth Volume will be published in October. BRADBURY & EVANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET. Bradbarjr Jt^Snmi.Prliitera.'VrMteMare. m ^..feyrS "^ li.'WBT* ^ Y ,: W^ -mrj^.