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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
SWEET WILLIAM 
 
Sweet William 
 
 BY 
 
 MARGUERITE BOUVET 
 
 Ellusttatjt bg 
 HELEN AND MARGARET ARMSTRONG 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
 
 1891 
 
OL.I aJ 
 
 PS 
 
 mi 
 
 a^ 
 
 Copyright 
 By a. C. McClukg and Co. 
 
 A, D. 1890 
 
 A/I rights reserved 
 
< 
 U 
 
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 H 
 Z 
 
 D 
 
 O 
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 a 
 ►J 
 
 H 
 H 
 
VILLIA/^ 
 
 BY 
 /^ARG U ERITE. • B OU VET- 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 BY 
 
 Helen /^-"Margaret Ar>\strong 
 
 
TO 
 
 ALL THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THIS GREAT FREE LAND, 
 BLESSED WITH HEAVEN'S MOST PRECIOUS GIFTS, 
 
 3L0&e, iLigi^t, anb 3Lfficttg, 
 
 THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS INSCRIBED 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Castle on Mount St. Michael ... . Frontispiece 
 
 "The ladies of those days were all beautiful and 
 
 lovely" 19 
 
 "A farewell look for his lady-love" 23 
 
 The Baby William 37 
 
 My Lady Constance and her Friend Roncesvalles . 47 
 "What are you thinking of when your dear eyes are 
 
 looking away off at nothing?" 65 
 
 " Sweet William from his Bower-window beheld the 
 
 fairest vision of his dreams" 81 
 
 " Dreaming of little fairies with flying golden hair 
 
 AND rosy smiles THAT BECKONED TO HIM FROM AFAR " 95 
 "It was THEN THAT GUILBERT TOLD HIS WONDERFUL 
 
 stories" 119 
 
 "She was my mother" 133 
 
 "Sweet William looked long and wistfully after the 
 
 GALLANT ship" 157 
 
 " How like a GREAT LADY SHE FELT, AS SHE WATCHED THE 
 
 brave way in which the young knights were dis- 
 porting themselves in the lists ! " 167 
 
 Vignette -175 
 
 " A LITTLE figure APPEARED FROM BEHIND THE PARTED 
 
 TAPESTRIES " I93 
 
 "We ARE COUSINS still" 205 
 
 Vignette .... 209 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 N the north of France is the 
 beautiful country called Nor- 
 mandy, still quaint and pictur- 
 esque, but different now in 
 many ways from the Normandy 
 of centuries ago. At the time when all that I am 
 going to tell you in my little story took place, 
 there stood on the great rock Mount St. Michael 
 a strong castle such as the early Normans were 
 fond of building. It was a beautiful old place, — 
 beautiful in its strength and in its loneliness. It 
 was full of those great dungeons the very thought 
 of which fills us with dread even to-day. Its great 
 towers rose high against the heavens, overlooking 
 for many miles the blue waters of the channel. 
 Its many turrets and thick walls of stone, gray with 
 
14 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 centuries ; its wonderful drawbridge, and array of 
 high battlements, — all went to show that it had 
 been reared at a time when men were thus obliged 
 to protect themselves from their enemies with iron 
 and stone so strong that nothing then known could 
 pull down. Many of these splendid castles have 
 been destroyed in modern times ; but even their 
 ruins have a strange charm for us when we think of 
 the strength and the time it took to build them, 
 and of the wonderful and great people who lived in 
 them, and of the many strange things that took 
 place in some of them. 
 
 Mount St. Michael was not only strongly fortified, 
 but it was well guarded by nature. Its rocky base, 
 plunged deep into the sea, echoed night and day 
 to the sound of the lapping waves ; and save for a 
 few peasants' huts that clustered at the foot of the 
 promontory, the country beyond it stretched away 
 into an almost endless forest. It was altogether a 
 grand and lonely place ; and we do not wonder that 
 the good people of Normandy, who knew all about 
 its great dungeon-towers, and the captives who had 
 been brought and kept there, — some of them for 
 years, — we do not wonder, indeed, that they came 
 to look upon Mount St. Michael with more dread 
 than admiration. 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 5 
 
 But perhaps this fine old castle seemed all the 
 more fearful to them because they knew that in it 
 there lived a man who was proud and wicked, — a 
 man who delighted in nothing so much as in doing 
 evil, whose greatest pleasure was in the horrors and 
 cruelties of war, and whose only wish was to be 
 dreaded. This man, much as the people feared and 
 disliked him, called himself the Duke of Normandy; 
 and so he was, in name, though he spent but little 
 of his time in that country, and cared still less for 
 the good of the people whom he was supposed to 
 rule. When he was not off on some fighting expe- 
 dition, he much preferred being in France, where the 
 king, whose vassal he was, and who was a spirited 
 and handsome youth, led a life of excitement and 
 gayety. Duke William liked to be with his king, 
 not- that he had any real love for him, but because he 
 liked to be thought one of the great men of the court, 
 and because he hoped some day to gain for himself 
 something more than the crippled and insignificant 
 duchy of Normandy. It was not so great a thing 
 as it once had been, to be the Duke of Normandy ; 
 for Normandy was then but a small province of 
 France, and there were plenty of other duchies in 
 the kingdom that were a deal more important. But 
 the good people still liked to call their ruler the 
 
1 6 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 Duke of Normandy, and they were given that priv- 
 ilege ; and whenever they happened to have a good 
 duke over them, they always loved and respected 
 and admired him. 
 
 Now, in the old gray castle on Mount St. Michael, 
 there lived too a brother of Duke William, whose 
 name was Geoffrey. This brother was younger and 
 handsomer and much more amiable than William ; 
 and as he happened to have been born in Normandy, 
 the people loved him as one of themselves, and would 
 have preferred him for their duke had they had any 
 choice in the matter. William knew this only too 
 well, and for that reason had always been jealous of 
 his young brother. Then, too, Geoffrey was gifted 
 with so much spirit and beauty, and had withal such 
 a gracious way of making every one love him ; and 
 that was reason enough why William should hate 
 him. 
 
 When this young brother grew to be a man, and 
 the crafty William could no longer keep him from 
 going about and making friends for himself, he 
 sailed away to France to pay homage to his king 
 and see the world. Geoffrey had never been out- 
 side of Normandy in all his life before ; and France, 
 with its beautiful cities and gay people, seemed 
 wonderful to him. It was far better than hunting 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 17 
 
 in the forest, to spend one's days in the society 
 of brilliant people, to witness for the first time 
 the splendid tournaments with their games and 
 tilting, and indeed to enjoy all the queer amuse- 
 ments which the gentlemen of those days seemed 
 to delight in. 
 
 But by far the most agreeable thing he did was 
 to lose his heart to a beautiful and lovely lady whom 
 he happened to see at the court one day ; and being 
 a young and impulsive lover, his love grew so very 
 fast and so very strong that he could think of nothing 
 better than marrying this sweet lady, and taking her 
 home to Mount St. Michael to live with him and 
 make him happy. A lonely place, indeed, to bring a 
 young bride to, — that old gray castle with its dismal 
 towers and gloomy walls, where no love nor happi- 
 ness had been for many a long year, and where none 
 would welcome her but a dreadful brother whose 
 grim and sullen look was enough to frighten one 
 much braver than the timid lady. The good people 
 of the castle shook their heads sorrowfully when 
 they heard of it, and s^.id it would go ill with 
 Geoffrey and his young wife, and that no gctod would 
 come of it for any one. But these two young people 
 were so happy and light-hearted in their love that 
 they had no such forebodings. They loved each 
 
1 8 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 other so much that nothing in all the world, not 
 even the gray walls of Mount St. Michael, could 
 seem gloomy to them if they were together. 
 
 Now, Duke William had never loved any lady well 
 enough to think of marrying her, and though he was 
 much older than Geoffrey, he was still living a lonely 
 and selfish life ; and he could hardly bear to see 
 his young brother so hopeful and happy. His 
 wicked brain at once began to think of some way 
 by which he could at least seem as fortunate as his 
 brother. Then he bethought himself that some day 
 Geoffrey's fair lady might bring him a little son 
 who would be heir to the crown and lands of Nor- 
 mandy, since he himself had no children ; and this 
 thought disturbed Duke William more than any 
 other. 
 
 He hated to think that his title and possessions 
 would have to pass over to the child of the brother 
 he did not love ; and so, foolish and hopeless a task 
 as it would seem, he too set out in search of a wife. 
 It would have been a wonder if such a grim and 
 terrible person as Duke William could possibly have 
 won the love of any gentle lady ; but in those times 
 a lady's heart went for very little in such matters, 
 and it so happened that the Duke made friends 
 with another stern old nobleman, whose pretty daugh- 
 
'The ladies of those days were all beautiful and lovely." 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 21 
 
 ter married him because she could not well help 
 herself. And she, too, was beautiful and lovely; for 
 the ladies of those days were all beautiful and lovely, 
 you know. She had a sweet, girlish face, and dark, 
 tender eyes that no one could help loving ; and Duke 
 Williara was very proud of her. He had her portrait 
 painted by a great artist, and it was hung in the 
 •Great Hall of the castle, where every one might 
 see how beautiful she was. Indeed, it was supposed 
 that even the heartless old duke, who had never 
 known what it was to love any one in all his life, 
 might in time have grown fond of this gentle 
 creature if he had not had so many other things 
 on his mind. He was, however, so pleased with his 
 success and so proud of his achievement that he 
 remained in good spirits for some time. 
 
 Everything seemed peaceful and lovely at Mount 
 St. Michael, and the good people of the castle began 
 to think that they had not prophesied aright, and 
 that perhaps these two gentle ladies might be bring- 
 in? with them a new life of love and union. Then 
 they remembered that his lordship had not once 
 indulged in one of his terrible fits of rage since his 
 marriage with their sweet mistress ; and that his 
 shaggy brows seemed less shaggy, and his gruff voice 
 less frightful, when he spoke with her. He had not 
 
22 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 called his brother Geoffrey a young vagabond to his 
 face, nor threatened, behind his back, to hang him 
 to the highest tree of the forest; but instead he had 
 spent much time in hunting with his hounds and 
 his men, and this was always a sure sign that he was 
 in a pleasant humor. 
 
 But one morning there came a summons to Duke 
 William from the King of France, requesting him as 
 well as all the other noblemen of Normandy to ap- 
 pear at the court. There were great wars going on 
 in the south of Europe, and the young king was 
 gathering large armies from all parts of his king- 
 dom. William and Geoffrey eagerly made ready for 
 battle ; for next to flying his falcon the nobleman 
 of that time enjoyed nothing so much as a war. 
 Duke William had fought in many battles before ; 
 but Geoffrey never. And at the very thought of war 
 there arose in his mind the dazzling spectacle of men 
 and horses and glittering spears, and the sound of 
 clashing swords and roaring cannon ; and his heart 
 bounded with joy, for this meant to him, as it did 
 to most young knights, the beginning of glory and 
 power. 
 
 William saw his brother's eagerness, and listened 
 to his hopeful talk about all the great things he 
 meant to do, and he thought with bitterness, " It is 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 23 
 
 like his cursed good fortune, the sweet-faced knave, 
 to ride past me in the fray!" but he secretly made 
 up his mind to prevent that piece of good-luck if 
 he could. 
 
 ' A farewell look for his lady-love." 
 
 Before many suns had set, the two brothers, Wil- 
 liam and Geoffrey, were riding away from Mount 
 St. Michael, side by side, each with a great hope 
 in his heart, and on his face a smile and a fare- 
 
24 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 well look for his lady-love watching him from her 
 window. 
 
 As Duke William had feared, the young king took 
 a great fancy to Geoffrey. He could not help ad- 
 miring, as no one could, the young Norman's gay 
 and yet manly spirit, his courtly bearing and amiable 
 look, and the free and easy grace that prompted him 
 to reply, when the young monarch told him how 
 much he liked him, " And I, by my faith, sire, have 
 never looked upon a prince who could be dearer 
 to my heart." 
 
 And this was hardly strange, for the king himself 
 was a gracious person, and really the only sovereign 
 whom Geoffrey had ever beheld face to face. 
 
 One day the king took Geoffrey by the hand and 
 said sweetly, " If thou hadst been born a woman, 
 Geoffrey, I should have made thee Queen of France ; " 
 to which Geoffrey replied, — 
 
 " But since I was not, my lord, I am well pleased 
 to be your Majesty's faithful servant forever." 
 
 After these pretty speeches, the two young men 
 became fast friends, and really loved each other very 
 much. And how hardly did this go with poor 
 William, who had been years striving to obtain the 
 favor which the king had given to Geoffrey in a single 
 look ! His old envy was all alive again in a moment. 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 25 
 
 " It was always so with that worthless stripling," 
 he thought, his heart full of bitterness. '• I shall 
 have no peace while he lives. Let the saints that 
 gave him his womanish graces look to him ; he 
 will have need of them if he stand in William of 
 Normandy's way." 
 
 It is dreadful to think of all the wicked thoughts 
 that will come into the minds of envious and jealous 
 people. If they could but know how much the in- 
 dulgence of these vices serves to defeat their own 
 ends, what endless trouble and sorrow and remorse 
 they might spare themselves ! But in those days, 
 perhaps even more than now, the world was full of 
 just such men as Duke William, — men who cared 
 nothing for the rights of their fellow-creatures when 
 these stood in the way of their own ambitions, and 
 in whose eyes even the ties of blood and kinship 
 seemed to have no sacredness. 
 
 Geoffrey grew more popular every day, not only 
 with the king, but with all who knew him ; for he 
 showed himself as brave in battle as he was gal- 
 lant at court. Whenever a great victory was won, 
 they had a way of celebrating it by giving splendid 
 banquets, at which the noblemen drank quantities 
 of wine and sang one another's praises. At these 
 no name was cheered more, repeatedly or more lov- 
 
26 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 ingly than Geoffrey's, even by the king himself, who 
 took the greatest pride in the valor of his faithful 
 young vassal. And, strangely enough, Geoffrey was 
 never spoiled by his good fortune, as men are often 
 apt to be. On the contrary, he grew more and more 
 lovable to every one, except to his brother William, 
 who hated him and envied him his prosperity ; and 
 when William heard the king vow, once, to make 
 Geoffrey the greatest man in all his kingdom, he 
 felt that his brother was his bitterest enemy. 
 
 Strange destiny that rules even the will of kings ! 
 The young monarch was never called upon to keep 
 his promise. Some months later Geoffrey was slain 
 in battle. In the fulness of youth and vigor he fell, 
 and with only Heaven to witness, by the hand of 
 his own brother. 
 
 On that very day, in the old castle on Mount 
 St. Michael, a little child was born to each of the 
 brothers. Two sweet, innocent babes, all uncon- 
 scious of this great trouble, saw for the first time 
 the light of the big world, and came to take their 
 share of its sorrows and its joys. These were Sweet 
 William and the little Lady Constance. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 EAR children, do you ever won- 
 der how there can be so much 
 sin and wrong and suffering in 
 God's world? It is a question 
 that millions of men have pon- 
 dered. We even ask how, being 
 so infinitely good himself, God 
 can have any knowledge or consciousness of what 
 is so unlike him. But one thing at least we know, 
 and that is that sin is its own destroyer, — that it 
 must kill joy and peace and rest, before itself can 
 die ; that men must pay for every wrong of heart 
 or brain or hand by cruel and yet merciful suffer- 
 ing, for this is the law of a just Creator. 
 
 Duke William met with a share of his punishment, 
 some weeks later, when he returned to Mount St.- 
 Michael. His beautiful young wife, of whom he was 
 so proud, and in whom he had cherished so many 
 
28 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 hopes, had died, leaving her little child in the arms of 
 strange women. This dreadful blow Duke William 
 had never dreamed of. He could not believe that he 
 was left alone once more, — that the fair young crea- 
 ture, the only being who had ever appealed to his 
 love, had been rudely snatched from him by a power 
 greater and stronger than himself. It was a judgment 
 upon him, but it did not bring him to repentance. 
 He had done too many secret wicked things to grow 
 suddenly submissive. On the contrary, his rebellious 
 heart was wild with anger and disappointment, and 
 he raged furiously for several days, so that no one 
 dared go near him ; and his servants, who had seen 
 him behave in this way before, knew that some dark 
 trouble was. brooding, and they almost hoped that 
 he would starve or fret himself to death. But he 
 did not. Vicious people usually stay to be a plague 
 to every one in this world ; but we trust they are 
 left, in order to reap some day the fruit of all their 
 misdeeds. 
 
 Oh, what dreadful days those were at Mount St. 
 Michael, with that savage old duke giving way to 
 disappointment like some mad thing; and the people 
 all sorrowing over their beloved Geoffrey, and for his 
 sweet young wife, who would not be comforted, not 
 even with the tender little one in her arms! It 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 29 
 
 seemed as if all the sunshine in the world was forever 
 hidden behind the dark cloud that now hung over 
 Mount St. Michael, 
 
 At last when Duke William had worn himself out 
 with cursing his wretched lot, he roused himself, and 
 called for his trusty servant Francis, — a good and 
 faithful man, who knew his master's hard ways and 
 did not approve of them. 
 
 " My brother has left a child ? " asked the Duke, 
 with a wicked light in his eye. 
 
 " Yes, my lord," returned Francis. 
 
 " That child," muttered Duke William between 
 his teeth, — " that child roust not grow up before me, 
 do you hear ? " 
 
 " And I pray, sir, what is your wish ? " asked the 
 good servant, with fear. 
 
 " My wish ? You treacherous knave ! how dare 
 you ask ? Am I like to have ^Aa^ villain's child 
 ever before me, burning my very eyes out of their 
 sockets ? " 
 
 " My lord, my lord," exclaimed Francis, " your 
 brain is maddened with grief. What fear need 
 you have of a weakly babe, scarce out of its moth- 
 er's arms ? " 
 
 " I have no fear of the child, fool ! I hate it," cried 
 the Duke, fiercely, — "I hate it! To the tower with 
 
30 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 it, and let me never look upon its face! In the tower 
 it shall live, if live it must. Go, and come not again 
 before me till this is done ! " 
 
 What was it crazing this wretched man ? Was it 
 grief or remorse struggling at his heart .? Ah no, it 
 was the fear of vengeance ; it was the thought of the 
 unnatural deed he had committed that made him, 
 a strong man, stand in dread of a helpless babe. 
 That little child might wear its father's face, might 
 look at him with its father's eyes, might some day- 
 know and avenge its father's wrong. He wished it 
 dead ; but he could not take its life without exposing 
 himself and his wickedness, and thus drawing sus- 
 picion and trouble down upon his own head. He 
 wished the child out of his sight, and yet he dared 
 not let it go beyond his power, lest some time the 
 opportunity might come for doing away with it, and 
 the victim would not be there. There was nothing 
 left him but the tower, the great dungeon-tower 
 at the farthest point of Mount St. Michael, where 
 more dangerous enemies had languished and at 
 last perished ; and he could find no rest till he 
 knew that his brother's child was there, safely out 
 of his way. 
 
 And so the sorrowful news was carried to the 
 weeping young mother, not only that her beloved 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 3 1 
 
 lord was slain, but that her little one — all that she 
 had left of him to love — was to be taken from her 
 and cast into a dungeon. 
 
 " And what has my little child done to offend my 
 lord ? " cried the poor lady. '' Oh, good Mathilde, 
 good Lasette," she said to her women around her, " I 
 do entreat you, beg the Duke, my brother, to spare 
 me ! Take me to him, that I may plead with him, 
 and stay his displeasure ! " 
 
 But Mathilde, the good nurse who had lived at the 
 castle all her life, and who knew that Duke William 
 never spared or pardoned any one, told her lady how 
 fruitless her efforts would be, — that the Duke was 
 a hard man ; that something must have gone wrong 
 between the two brothers, although no one seemed 
 to know what ; and that William was taking his 
 revenge, as he never failed to do. Then she im- 
 plored the young mother to flee from the Duke's 
 anger, to leave the castle and return to her own 
 people in France. She promised to love and guard 
 the tender babe, and to watch over it as if it were her 
 own, until help could be brought to them. For the 
 love they all bore Geoffrey, the little one would be 
 saved from harm and yet made happy by the good 
 castle-folk. And after many tearful promises, the 
 gentle lady was taken away by some faithful Nor- 
 
32 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 mans, to await in their humble dwelling the ship 
 that would bear her from Mount St. Michael and 
 Normandy forever. 
 
 What the great trouble was, no one knew and no 
 one dared to ask; but the news went flying swiftly 
 through the castle, that Duke William was very angry 
 with his dead brother, and that Geoffrey's little child 
 was to bear the burden of my lord's wrath. They 
 had loved Geoffrey so much that their brave hearts 
 rebelled at this cowardly deed. They would gladly 
 have disobeyed William, had they dared; but that 
 would have been a dangerous thing, and so they 
 could only hate him more than they had ever done. 
 
 And Francis's heart was very heavy that day when 
 he went to the great dungeon, to make ready for the 
 innocent little captive. 
 
 " My lord is a cruel master," said he to old Guil- 
 bert, the tower-keeper. " I would as lief serve the 
 Evil One himself as Duke William in this thing." 
 
 " I would rather think of turning the bolts on my 
 own mother than on my lord Geoffrey's helpless 
 babe," returned Guilbert, with a sigh. 
 
 " The blackest villain could not look upon the 
 tender little lamb without feeling his stony heart 
 melt with love and pity," said Francis. " Would to 
 Heaven the cruel duke had fallen in battle instead of 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 33 
 
 his brother! Mount St. Michael and the world had 
 been better off." 
 
 " Do not grieve yourself too much for the babe, 
 Francis. My lord never visits the Great Tower, as 
 you know, and I will see to it that the little one fares 
 as well here as any one at the castle," returned the 
 good Guilbert. " A little plant needs but little 
 water; but it shall have that, if my old bones go to 
 pay for it." 
 
 " You 're a brave fellow, Guilbert. The Holy 
 Mother keep your old bones a little longer! A 
 dungeon is a sorry place for a babe; but it might 
 have fared worse for a keeper." 
 
 " Aye, aye," exclaimed Guilbert, " I 've known 
 even babes, the greater pity, to fare worse than this 
 one shall." 
 
 That night in the stately bed-chamber of the 
 castle, where the tall candles cast their flickering 
 lights upon the gorgeous tapestries, and where peace 
 and stillness reigned unbroken, the twin babes lay 
 slumbering side by side, while Mathilde and Lasette 
 bent over them with sad and anxious faces. 
 
 Then one was left in the soft, rich laces of its 
 white cradle, to be tenderly cared for and served by 
 many good women, to grow up in the midst of wealth 
 and luxury; and the other was borne away to the 
 
 3 
 
34 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 dreary tower, with its bare, gray walls and scanty 
 stream of light, where no sunshine ever came to 
 chase away the still lingering memory of the many 
 wretched ones who had known its solitude. Yet 
 there the infant William slept on as sweetly and 
 peacefully as if he had been upon his mother's 
 breast, never dreaming of the great change that 
 had just come into his little life ; and the good 
 nurse Mathilde, who was to share his captivity dur- 
 ing his babyhood, wept and prayed over him. as 
 the great bell of the abbey tolled out the hours 
 in the midnight silence. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HE Great Tower, where the baby 
 William was to grow up and live, 
 was as far away and isolated from 
 the castle as Mount St. Michael 
 itself seemed from the rest of the world. From one 
 of its long, narrow windows nothing could be seen 
 but the quiet sea, rippling away into a thousand 
 little blue waves, till water and sky seemed to blend 
 all in one. From the other, one saw the distant for- 
 est, so deep, black, and mysterious ; and nearer, the 
 quaint little peasant-huts, almost buried in the gray 
 rock of the mount, vine-grown and gloomy, with here 
 and there a lonely goat grazing at their door. 
 
 Mathilde, who beheld the sad outlook in the gray 
 light of the morning, thought and almost hoped 
 that the little prisoner would never live to know 
 his misery. 
 
 But in the mean while the good nurse had thought 
 to surround his little cradle with all the simple 
 
36 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 comforts that la}^ in her power to bring. And little 
 William, though brought up in a tower, was as 
 tenderly and lovingly reared as his twin-cousin at 
 the great castle. He was fed on the sweetest and 
 richest of milk, and had as many old-time lullabies 
 sung to him as any baby in Normandy. Every one 
 thought of him and loved and pitied him, as no 
 kind people could well help doing ; and every one 
 tried in some way to soothe his sad little lot. He was 
 the unconscious subject of many anxious thoughts 
 and earnest prayers ; and as if those humble petitions 
 were heard above, the babe grew daily in health and 
 strength. In spite of his unnatural surroundings, 
 baby William learned to smile and ooo very early, 
 and possessed all the pretty winning ways of more 
 fortunate babies. His nurse, who at first hoped he 
 would not live long for his own sake, soon began 
 to hope that he would for hers. She grew so fond 
 of him that he was hardly ever out of her arms ; and 
 she would look at him and fondle him and sing to 
 him as lovingly and foolishly as any young mother. 
 
 And Guilbert, who had been cautioned at the 
 peril of his head to keep the key well turned on this 
 dangerous little captive, took the greatest interest 
 in him, and was more often found playing with him 
 than on duty. The good fellow had kept watch over 
 
THE BABY WILLIAM. 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 39 
 
 many unhappy prisoners in his younger and braver 
 days; but he could not remember ever having had 
 one who loved and trusted him like little William, 
 or who seemed so contented to remain in his custody. 
 Nothing was so amusing to baby as to have his blue 
 ribbon leading-strings slipped under his little arms, 
 and to be led all around the tower-chamber by the 
 good Guilbert. And by the time William was a year 
 old, the good old friend had taught him to walk 
 as straight as any little nobleman in Normandy. 
 Besides, he could say a number of sweet old Nor- 
 man words, and this greatly delighted his nurse 
 Mathilde. 
 
 Very soon the baby William grew to be a boy; 
 and the boy William was even more lovable than 
 the baby had been. He kept a dear innocent little 
 face, and he had such a sweet mouth, and such 
 beautiful gold-brown love-locks curling all about 
 his white neck, that he was like a picture all the 
 while. He had dark, tender, trustful eyes, that looked 
 up with just a shade of sadness in them, as if his 
 childish soul drooped, without knowing it, for the 
 want of the free air and warm sunshine. His quiet 
 little voice was more like music than like the noisy 
 prattle of children. I think this came of the deep 
 stillness of the tower, which was seldom broken, 
 
40 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 save by his nurse's own gentle tones, and where any 
 sound, however harsh elsewhere, seemed plaintive 
 and sweet as it echoed within those thick gray 
 walls. Then, too, William himself was fond of sweet 
 sounds. Nothing pleased him more than to listen 
 to old Guilbert playing on his quaint harp and sing- 
 ing him to sleep in the long evenings. Little Wil- 
 liam early learned all the old melodies, and it was not 
 long before his own baby fingers drew forth the 
 sweetest music from the mellow old strings. He 
 loved to sit, in the twilight, at his nurse's knee, and 
 sing with her the cradle-songs of Norrhandy, his 
 young voice and her old one blending together in 
 strange, sweet harmony. This simple, almost lonely 
 life had its influence upon William's childish nature. 
 He grew up quiet, gentle, contented, loving his soli- 
 tude as if it had been a blessing. And Guilbert, 
 who could never quite understand how it was that so 
 sweet a child should happen to bear the name of 
 his wicked old uncle, and who declared that he had 
 never in all his life — which had been long and 
 eventful — seen so beautiful and lovable a boy as 
 little William, forthwith christened him " Sweet Wil- 
 liam;" and never did a name suit its little owner 
 better than this. 
 
 " In truth, Guilbert, you have a wise old head,"' 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 41 
 
 said Nurse Mathilde, smiling and looking into her 
 little boy's face. " You are right ; he is more like 
 the dear gentle little flower than like his heartless 
 uncle the Duke." 
 
 "And indeed, Mathilde, I would rather he were 
 ' Sweet William ' all his life, than Duke William, if 
 a title and crown must needs make men heartless 
 and cruel." 
 
 " Heaven has given him only gentle virtues, my 
 friend ; and whether it please the saints to keep him 
 here always, or to make him our Duke some day, 
 his will never be but a kind and loving heart," 
 rejoined Mathilde, hopefully. 
 
 " But I would rather the saints were pleased to 
 take his sinful lordship to purgatory at once, and 
 restore the boy to his rights. The Duke, like my- 
 self,, has lived nearly long enough. It is time he 
 were making room for a better one." 
 
 "Hush, Guilbert, hush!" cried Mathilde; "those 
 are imprudent words. My lord would have your 
 head and the child's, if he heard them. Has not 
 Francis told you how he feared the boy? They 
 say he does not sleep a night but he dreams of his 
 brother Geoffrey or of the child. He asks some- 
 times if it be strong and well, and like to live longer 
 than he, and if it resembles his brother." 
 
42 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 " I know my lord never had any love for his 
 brother; but why should he turn his hatred on the 
 child, if there be not some dark work of which we 
 know nothing? Surely he need not fear to see his 
 brother's face in the boy ; for Sweet William has no 
 more of his father than of me. My lord Geoffrey 
 had eyes as blue as heaven." 
 
 " Sweet William wears his mother's face," said 
 Mathilde, turning away with a sigh. 
 
 " Ah, yes, my lord Geoffrey was a different boy," 
 Guilbert went on dreamily. " I remember him well, 
 as he was nearly a quarter of a century ago. I can 
 see him now, running like a young deer in the forest, 
 with his pack of hounds chasing at his heels, and 
 then coming back with his face as bright as a streak 
 of sunlight. Ah me ! and I can see him, too, riding 
 away from Mount St. Michael to that dreadful war- 
 fare. To think it was the last time I laid my old 
 eyes on him, — he so young and full of life, so noble 
 and brave ! Ah, Mathilde, we shall never see his like 
 again; he was true Norman." And Guilbert drew 
 his hand across his eyes, and fell into a sorrowful 
 silence. 
 
 But in spite of the sad thoughts that often came to 
 them, these two good servants almost forgot, in time, 
 that Sweet William was their little prisoner. Even 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 43 
 
 the dingy tower became less cheerless, as the young 
 life grew there in childlike graces and loving ways. 
 Every one and everything seemed to know and under- 
 stand his fate, and tried to lessen its sadness. Even 
 the shy little birds that hovered along the loneliest 
 portions of the shore came in the spring to make 
 their nests in the green vines that hung over his 
 window. They seemed to feel that he was a guiltless 
 little captive ; and they chirped at him in their friend- 
 liest way, and sang their earliest and sweetest songs 
 to him. 
 
 And thus Sweet William lived almost without any 
 knowledge of his misfortune. He loved his good 
 nurse dearly, and she loved him; and Guilbert was 
 to him the best of playfellows. For how should he 
 miss the blessings of freedom which he had never 
 known ? Sun and air and his full share of the 
 glorious light of heaven he lacked, to bring a deeper 
 tint to the faint roses in his cheeks and greater sturdi- 
 ness to his fair young body ; yet quietly he bloomed, 
 as doth a gentle flower, beneath the sunshine of love, 
 — that fruitful blessing which a kind Providence 
 hath ordained shall bear as freely in a dungeon as 
 in the fairest field. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ^^^^^^^^ NOTHER babe was growing up 
 
 yTpi all this while at Mount St. 
 
 '^IX' Iw Michael, — a very different child, 
 
 /■^j^^fTl^^ indeed, from ■ Sweet William. 
 Qrj^ ^s_5^ In the first place, she was a 
 
 little girl, with fair hair and 
 merry blue eyes, and the happiest of little dimples 
 forever playing about her rosebud of a mouth. She 
 was always gay and bright and full of life, and she 
 was so quaint and sharp that sometimes she quite 
 astonished her nurse Lasette with her roguish little 
 ways. Then she lived in the great splendid castle, 
 where everything was beautiful, and where a host of 
 servants seemed to have nothing else to do but to 
 look after her little wants and comforts. Everything 
 that was calculated to make a child happy at Mount 
 St. Michael was hers. The bright flowers in the 
 castle gardens ; the lovely deer in her father's parks ; 
 the hounds and the horses, of which she was so 
 fond; and better than all, the free pure air of the 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 45 
 
 hills, and the clear blue sky above her, and the warm 
 sunshine, — all were hers to enjoy. 
 
 My Lady Constance, as she was always called, 
 lacked nothing to make her the bright and sunny 
 little creature that she was. She ruled, without know- 
 ing it, the castle and all its inmates, — even the stern 
 old Duke, her father, who had for many years refused 
 to see her and to love her. 
 
 You have heard enough about Duke William to 
 know that he was a strangely heartless man. When 
 his young wife died, and he was told that she had left 
 him only a little daughter, he was furious. He 
 wanted a son, of course, — a son to inherit his title 
 and his lands, and to bear his name down through the 
 ages. But the fates were unkind to him, — as they 
 had always been, he said, — and had given to his 
 brother the son that should have been his, and left 
 him with only a girl for an heir. This was a great 
 disappointment to him; and he showed how bitterly 
 he resented it by never seeing Constance or inquir- 
 ing' after her, so that for many years she hardly 
 knew she had a father. 
 
 Duke William spent little of his time at Mount St. 
 Michael. Indeed, he was never there unless he had 
 some wicked thing to hide from, or grew uneasy 
 about the little boy in the tower, lest he might in 
 
46 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 some way have escaped him. And when he had 
 reassured himself, and found everything going on as 
 usual, and saw that he had given himself all this 
 trouble and anxiety in vain, he would find fault with 
 everything he could, and scold the good Francis, and 
 make himself so disagreeable that every one kept 
 out of his way who could ; and all were glad enough 
 when he was off again. 
 
 But one day in the early summer, when my lord 
 was returning from some glorious warfare in un- 
 usually good spirits, he saw something that surprised 
 him. 
 
 A little girl was just emerging from one of the 
 narrow wooded paths that led up to Mount St. 
 Michael. She was a pretty child, with bright flowing 
 hair ; and she leaned caressingly against a beautiful 
 and stately horse. One of her little arms was wound 
 tenderly about his neck, and she looked into his 
 strong noble face without a trace of fear. She was 
 talking to him in the most earnest and loving 
 little voice, — 
 
 " You would not be wild with me, would you, dear 
 Roncesvalles ? Jacques says you are too big and too 
 fierce for a little maid like me ; but Jacques is such 
 a simple old soul, — he does not know the ways of 
 little maids. I care not what he says, I will have 
 
MY LADY CONSTANCE AND HER FRIEND RONCESVALLES. 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 49 
 
 no other horse ; for there is not in all Normandy 
 another horse as beautiful as you. I loved you the 
 very first time I saw you, and Nurse Lasette herself 
 says that is the best kind of love. I could not help 
 it, Roncesvalles, — you were so tall and so white, and 
 you held your lovely neck so well. You must forgive 
 me, but I love you more because you are fierce and 
 wild sometimes. I would not tell you this, if you 
 were not always so gentle with me. I wonder what 
 makes you so knowing. Dear, good horse, if they 
 take you from me, I will never love any other horse." 
 And she hid her rosy face in his long white mane. 
 
 Duke William thought he had never seen so 
 pretty a picture. " She is beautiful, my daughter, 
 and fair," he said to himself with pride ; and he rode 
 up where Constance and her friend were standing. 
 
 Constance was a strangely fearless child. She had 
 never seen her father, but had heard much of him, 
 and had gathered all sorts of queer ideas about him 
 in her little head. Sometimes she thought he must 
 be a kind of god, because he seemed to rule Mount 
 St. Michael without ever being there, and because 
 such great and powerful persons as Lasette and 
 Francis and even old Jacques seemed to stand 
 in such awe of him, and spoke his name only in 
 whispers. 
 
 4 
 
50 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 She had often been curious to see Duke William, 
 for she fancied he must be a different being from 
 any one she had ever known. She wondered if he 
 was a huge creature like the dreadful giants Nurse 
 Lasette had told her of. She thought that his voice 
 would be like rumbling thunder, and might shake 
 even the rocks of Mount St. Michael when he spoke. 
 Still, she had never thought that she might be afraid 
 of him. And when my lord really and truly did 
 look down at her from his high horse, and said in 
 quite a natural voice, " Roncesvalles is yours, my 
 little lady, and neither Jacques nor any one else 
 shall take him from you," she looked up at him with 
 wide blue eyes, and said, — 
 
 " Your lordship is very good to me. I am the Lady 
 Constance ; pray, what is your lordship's name .? " 
 
 " William of Normandy," replied the Duke, grimly ; 
 for it struck him oddly, perhaps unpleasantly for the 
 first time, that his own child should not know him. 
 
 Constance was not at all intimidated. She was 
 only a little surprised to find that her father was very 
 human in appearance, — in fact, not so very unlike 
 Francis, except that his eyes were blacker, and his 
 beard longer, and his brows more wrinkled, and that 
 he wore a wonderful coat of mail and a bright 
 shining sword at his side. She studied him for a 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 5 1 
 
 little while, and then the dimples played about her 
 small mouth again, and she said with her most 
 engaging smile, — 
 
 " I have wished all my life to see your grace, 
 because I have heard my nurse say that you were 
 a great and powerful man, and that you could be 
 fierce sometimes. And I knew that I would love 
 you, because I love fierce people best; that is why 
 I love Roncesvalles." 
 
 Duke William was not accustomed to have little 
 maids tell him that he was fierce, much less that they 
 loved him.. He was quite startled for a moment, 
 and scarcely knew what to say. 
 
 " And what know you of fierce people, and how 
 came you to like them so well } " he said at last. 
 
 " Oh, Nurse Lasette has told me all about them ; 
 and though they do not always do what is right, I 
 cannot help liking them. They are so strong; and 
 sometimes they can say whether a person shall live 
 or die. That is a great thing for a person to say, is 
 it not ? " 
 
 Duke William's black eyes glistened, and he looked 
 fiercer than ever, as he said, — 
 
 " You have been well taught, I see, my Lady 
 Constance." 
 
 But she did not notice the cloud that came over 
 
52 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 his face just then. She had turned to Roncesvalles 
 again, and was telHng him of his good fortune. 
 
 - " Have you heard, good horse ? The Duke my 
 father has said that you shall be mine. We will join 
 in the great chase now, and you shall be the swiftest 
 horse and I the best horseman among them. Tell 
 me that you are glad, dear Roncesvalles." 
 
 The great white steed arched his beautiful neck 
 and looked at her lovingly, and she seemed satisfied. 
 
 " Now come closer, and let me mount you, and we 
 will show my father what good friends we are." 
 
 But the Duke quickly alighted from his own horse, 
 and gallantly helped the little girl himself; and they 
 rode away to the castle together, — an odd-looking pair, 
 indeed, to those who might have seen them, — her 
 graceful and air)^ little figure sitting so straight on 
 the noble Roncesvalles speeding away between the 
 thick trees, and her clear voice ringing out in merry 
 laughter through the woods ; while Duke William's 
 tall and stately form followed in thoughtful silence, 
 like a dark shadow after a bright ray of sunlight. 
 
 From that day Duke William began to be more 
 concerned about his little daughter. In all his lonar 
 and selfish life he had never had any intercourse with 
 children. He knew little of their sweet and winning 
 ways, and of the power which they often have even on 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 53 
 
 such hard hearts as his own ; and for this reason he 
 fell an easy prey to her artless and gentle influence. 
 It pleased him to see that she was gifted with beauty 
 and grace and brave courage. He was proud to find 
 in his child the attributes which he did not possess; 
 for these virtues never fail to exercise an influence 
 over us, when their owner is so sweetly unconscious 
 of them all. 
 
 Cruel as was Duke William, he was still human 
 enough to feel the power of a loving and innocent 
 child, the more so because this child was his own, and 
 the only living being from whom he could claim any 
 affection. There comes a time in every one's life, no 
 matter how unloving and unlovable one may be, when 
 there springs up in the heart a great and unexpected 
 love that is worth more than all the hopes and 
 arnbitions of a lifetime. That time had come for 
 Duke William. He did not feel this all at once; 
 indeed, it was many months before he realized what 
 a strong hold Constance was taking each day upon 
 his heart. At first he had enjoyed the childish 
 intrepidity with which she always spoke to him, ad- 
 mired her quaint speeches, and been much amused by 
 her arguments with him. No one ever argued with 
 my lord at Mount St. Michael, or disputed his word, 
 and he found it rather a pleasing novelty. He took 
 
54 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 especial delight in pretending to be converted to 
 some of her views — which he found somewhat 
 curious at times — after a long and stormy discus- 
 sion, and he nearly always ended by granting her 
 whatever she wished, no matter how eccentric or 
 impossible her wishes might be. He was a man who 
 loved his power more than anything else in the world, 
 and who rarely missed a chance of showing it. He 
 liked to think that through him a little child could 
 rule a whole people, and in that thought he forgot 
 that she was ruling him with the rest. It would have 
 been a fearful thing for the people of Mount St. 
 Michael had Constance been anything but the kind- 
 hearted and loving child she was ; for her father 
 would as willingly have indulged her in cruel and 
 thoughtless wishes as he did in her more amiable 
 ones. 
 
 But a single wicked person in one family is quite 
 enough ; and Constance seemed to have inherited 
 none of the faults which might have been expected. 
 She was an object of love and admiration to every 
 one at the castle. Although she was always the 
 " Lady Constance " and her little word was law, she 
 had a gentle, winning way of making herself obeyed, 
 which made everybody happy to serve her. Her 
 good nurse, Lasette, who had been with her from her 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 55 
 
 cradle, and who had striven to train her childish 
 heart to kind and unselfish thoughts, felt, when she 
 saw the pretty child engaged in some good work 
 for the poor little Normans of the village, and 
 heard her pitying their hard and unhappy lot, that 
 her efforts had not been in vain, and that some day, 
 perhaps, the little Constance would be the means of 
 righting the great wrong that was done at Mount 
 St. Michael. 
 
 In time, Duke William found no society so agree- 
 able to him as that of his little daughter. His visits 
 to the castle became more frequent, and his sojourns 
 longer. He never ceased to enjoy, and indeed to 
 marvel at, her unrestrained and childlike fondness for 
 him. He did not understand that some people are 
 made to love and to be loved, and that few can resist 
 the hidden power of such natures ; that a child like 
 Constance could see no evil in others, but could 
 rather love and magnify the little good that was in 
 them. As for my lady, she liked nothing so well as 
 to sit at my lord's knee and listen to the glowing 
 accounts of the last foray, while the great fire 
 crackled up the tall chimney, and the blazing logs lit 
 up the darkness of the stately hall of the castle. She 
 always kept her love for fierce and unruly people ; and 
 as his noble lordship thought it unnecessary to inform 
 
56 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 her of all the wrong and injustice he was guilty of 
 when off on these expeditions, she also kept her 
 admiration for him and his great power, and grieved 
 often that she was only " a little maid," and could 
 never join him in all these wonderful sports. 
 
 And then my lord would sigh bitterly and think of 
 the little boy in the tower, and wonder why that 
 child whom he hated should have been a boy. 
 
 " If I had had a son like Constance," he would say 
 to himself, " I should have been a happy man." 
 
 But he did not deserve to be a happy man, when 
 he was the cause of so much unhappiness to others ; 
 and he never was. 
 
 Constance did not feel the disappointment so 
 keenly. She found much consolation in her dear 
 Roncesvalles and the favorite hounds, and in flying 
 her pet hawk. Whenever she could, she accom- 
 panied her father in his hunts to the great forest; 
 and indeed she had a great many more amusements 
 than the little girls of those days were wont to have. 
 And as she knew nothing of the little boy in the 
 Great Tower, and had never done any but kind 
 and lovely deeds all her life, she was a very happy 
 little girl. 
 
 It was not long before Duke William was again 
 called away to fight for the glory of his king and his 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 57 
 
 country; for in those troublous and ambitious times 
 the noble gentlemen of Europe were seldom idle in 
 that respect. But for some reason his lordship left 
 Mount St. Michael this time with more reluctance 
 than he had ever done. He did not like to confess, 
 even to himself, that a little girl with a sweet, dimpled 
 face and laughing blue eyes had alone been the 
 means of keeping him at Mount St. Michael so long. 
 Like all men with hard and unloving natures, he 
 considered it an unmanly weakness to show love for 
 any one. Still, he could not well help, and could 
 scarcely account for, the strange new feeling he en- 
 tertained for Constance. He excused himself how- 
 ever by saying that he was growing old, and that the 
 pleasure of warfare was beginning to lose some of its 
 charm for him ; and that before many years more, the 
 fireside at Mount St. Michael and Constance would 
 be his best companions. 
 
 As he took leave of the pretty child, who clung to 
 him and wept with undisguised sorrow at parting 
 from him, it suddenly came over him that, after all, 
 she was the dearest thing in the world to him. No 
 one had ever loved him so, nor ever trusted him as 
 she did, — not even the gentle being who had been his 
 but a few short months. His hard heart melted for 
 a moment. What if he fell, and should never see 
 
58 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 her again ? In a burst of feeling he caught the Httle 
 girl up in his arms and kissed her, and looked at her, 
 murmuring almost fondly, — 
 
 " How fair she is, my little daughter, my 
 Constance ! " 
 
 And then, turning to the trusty Francis, he spoke 
 in a voice that no one had ever heard before. 
 
 " My good friend," said he, " I leave the Lady Con- 
 stance in your keeping. When I am hence, remem- 
 ber, she rules Mount St. Michael and Normandy. 
 In doing her bidding, you are doing mine." 
 
 These were strange words from his grace the Duke 
 of Normandy. Francis could scarcely recall having 
 ever been spoken to before as my lord's " good friend," 
 or having ever received such pleasing and amiable 
 orders. But Francis was a wise man ; and though he 
 kiiew it would hardly be safe for him to disregard my 
 lord's injunctions, he could not help thinking, know- 
 ing Constance as well as he did, that my lady's views 
 and her father's were vastly different on some points. 
 But he promised, as he always did, to be her faithful 
 servant, inwardly rejoicing that Constance had a good 
 and loving little heart, and feeling sure that her 
 wishes would be none but pleasant and easy ones 
 to execute. 
 
 But here the good Francis was mistaken, as he 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 59 
 
 fully realized some weeks later, when my Lady Con- 
 stance asserted her power at Mount St. Michael in 
 such a way that for a time he was greatly puzzled 
 in his own mind as to which was the harder task, — 
 to obey my lord or to disobey my lady. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 T was full midsummer. The air 
 was sweet with the breath of 
 the wild honeysuckle, and the 
 fields were white and yellow 
 with daisies. The tall trees 
 swung softly beneath a clear blue sky; and an air 
 of warmth and quiet, that should have made all 
 things happy, rested upon Mount St. Michael. My 
 Lady Constance was returning from a joyous can- 
 ter among the hills with Roncesvalles. Her fresh 
 cheeks were blooming with health and color, and 
 her bright eyes glowing with a strange excitement. 
 " Oh, dear nurse," she cried in a distressed little 
 voice, and throwing herself into Lasette's arms, " you 
 cannot think what a dreadful thing I have just seen ! 
 Francis, dear good Francis, is doing such a wicked 
 thing ! " 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 6 1 
 
 " What is it, sweet ? " asked the nurse ; " what is the 
 good Francis doing to make my Httle lady look 
 so rosy ? " 
 
 " I could not reach them in time, dear Lasette, — 
 Roncesvalles was lazy and slow for the first time in 
 his life ; but I saw them as they left the courtyard 
 through the great western gate. They were going to 
 the Left Tower, with two noble-looking gentlemen 
 who were bound hand and foot ; and there was a 
 sweet lady with them, with a babe in her arms, who 
 wept and called out to them. But Francis would not 
 listen, and he closed the gates upon her. And now 
 he is letting them take those noble gentlemen to the 
 great black dungeon, where they must starve and die, 
 the lady says. Oh, Nurse, you should see the sweet 
 babe. It is cruel to take away its father ; and Francis 
 must not do it, must he? I shall tell him he must 
 not." And the pretty child's eyes ran over with tears, 
 as she thought of this needless suffering. 
 
 " My Constance, perhaps there is some good reason 
 why those gentlemen should be taken to the tower," 
 said Nurse Lasette, soothingly, though she herself 
 heaved a sigh and doubted her own words. 
 
 " A good reason for making people so unhappy, 
 good nurse ! I cannot think of one." 
 
 " You are still a very little girl, dear love, and you 
 
62 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 may not understand. Tell me, how came you to 
 know all this ? " 
 
 " I saw the lady as I was crossing the courtyard, 
 and spoke with her; and she told me that her 
 husband and her brother were prisoners sent to 
 Mount St. Michael to be shut up in a dungeon 
 and die. What are prisoners, Lasette?" 
 
 " Unhappy ones who are deprived of all their free- 
 dom, and who are watched and kept in some dreary 
 place where neither love nor comfort is." 
 
 " And must they always die ? " 
 
 " Not always ; though they often wish they might." 
 
 " Oh, I wish there were no dungeon towers at 
 Mount St. Michael! Think of it, good nurse! The 
 poor lady has walked for days across the moors only 
 to be with them, and now they will not let her go 
 into the tower to see them ; she says she will die of 
 grief. But Francis must not let this thing be done ; 
 he must not shut them up in that black, black tower, 
 must he ? " 
 
 Lasette longed to say no, and to ease her child's 
 anxious little heart; but she could not. She could 
 only take her in her arms and stroke her fair hair 
 soothingly. 
 
 " These good men must be set free," the little girl 
 went on. " I am sure they have done no wrong ; for 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 63 
 
 they are noble and princely-looking, like my 
 dear father himself. He would let them go if 
 he were here. I must seek Francis and tell him 
 so." And she bounded away with a face full of 
 determination. 
 
 " Nay, nay, Constance ! " cried Lasette, in alarm ; 
 " you can do nothing. Francis is doubtless doing 
 what is right, and my lord your father's will. These 
 things must happen in war, — and indeed I would 
 there were no wars. But we can do naught but wait, 
 and comfort the poor lady, and bid her hope for 
 their release sometime." 
 
 " But she says they will never be pardoned, 
 Lasette,^ that they are doomed to die. It is a fear- 
 ful thing. It must not happen at Mount St. Michael ; 
 and we will not let it, will we, dear nurse ? " 
 
 " Ah, Constance," thought the good . Lasette, 
 " many fearful things have been done at Mount 
 St. Michael, of which your tender little heart 
 knows nothing. Would there were more like you ! 
 There would be less suffering and sorrow in the 
 world." 
 
 " You do not answer me," said Constance, fearing 
 her nurse was falling into one of those long and sad 
 reveries which the little girl could not understand 
 and which always troubled her. " Tell me, what are 
 
64 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 you thinking of when your dear eyes are look- 
 ing away off at nothing, like that ? Are you think- 
 ing of the poor prisoners, and of how we can help 
 them ? " 
 
 " It is needless to think of that, my sweet Con- 
 stance. I fear we never can." 
 
 " Oh, Nurse, we must ! I will never love you again 
 if you do not say we can." And she kissed and 
 caressed Lasette in a way that plainly belied her 
 words. " Come, let us go and find Francis, and I 
 will tell him how it is, and that he must let them 
 go before nightfall ; for they have a long journey 
 before them." 
 
 Lasette allowed herself to be led away. It was 
 impossible to hold out long against Constance. She 
 had such simple, childish trust in the kindliness of 
 others that no request seemed to her too daring. 
 She was a wise child for her years, and could often 
 be made to recognize her wilfulness whenever her 
 little wishes were unreasonable, — as they not unfre- 
 quently were. But she took no refusal when she felt 
 inwardly sure that some great good for others would 
 come of what she asked. 
 
 A great deal of talking went on with Francis, who 
 at first laughed at my lady, and then tried to reason 
 with her. He told her that these noble gentlemen 
 
' What are you thinking of when your dear eyes are looking 
 away off at nothing ? " 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 67 
 
 were dangerous prisoners, and powerful enemies of 
 the king; and that the Duke her father was doing 
 his Hege a great service by keeping them safely out of 
 the way. But Constance could not be convinced 
 that two such noble-looking persons could possibly 
 be dangerous, or could in any way deserve to be 
 locked up in a tower and made miserable. She used 
 all her wiles on the good steward, and finally recalled 
 her father's words to him, asking him if he were not 
 ashamed so ill to keep his promise. 
 
 This was bewildering, and Francis hardly knew 
 what to do. My lord would certainly be furious if he 
 found his captives gone when he returned ; my lord 
 would be furious if he knew that Constance had been 
 thwarted or grieved in any way ; in fact, my lord was 
 such a strange man that he would be furious what- 
 ever- was done ; and Francis felt, for this once only, 
 that my Lady Constance was as hard to serve as 
 her father. 
 
 " By the great St. Michael ! " he exclaimed, " I love 
 the little lady dearly, but I can ill spare my head 
 at five-and-forty." 
 
 But her ladyship seemed to have no thought of 
 this. Indeed, she went alone to visit the unfortunate 
 prisoners and to comfort them. She assured them, in 
 her bright and hopeful way, that Francis would not 
 
68 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 be obstinate long, and that ere another dawn they 
 would be on their way homeward. She did not know 
 why they smiled so faintly, and why they seemed to 
 take more pleasure in looking at her glowing little 
 face and touching her fair hair than in the glad 
 news she brought. 
 
 St. Michael was a well-known and dreaded fortress. 
 Every one had heard of its great, deep dungeons 
 which for centuries had scarcely been idle. Every 
 one knew of the fierce old duke, and his love of 
 wickedness and revenge. But every one did not 
 know of the little girl who had lately grown up at 
 Mount St. Michael, and in whose small person was 
 so much power, — but whose power was love. 
 
 I cannot say whether Constance would have carried 
 the day with Francis, or indeed what would have 
 happened, if at this supreme moment my lord himself 
 had not appeared ; and just at the time to witness the 
 most interesting part of the struggle between them. 
 All the castle-folk were in a state of great excitement, 
 of course. Such a strange thing had never been heard 
 of at Mount St. Michael. Little girls were not wont 
 to interfere with the affairs of the kingdom, nor to 
 release prisoners of war. It was an extraordinary 
 event ; and every one felt it to be an anxious time, — 
 most of all the good Francis, who afterward declared 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. ' 69 
 
 frankly that for the first time in his Hfe he was truly 
 glad to see Duke William's lordly face turned toward 
 Mount St. Michael. 
 
 And Constance was happier than she had ever 
 been at the sight of his lordship. She knew very 
 well that Francis would never dare to disjaute with him 
 as he had done with her, and that with such a great 
 and powerful person as her father all things were 
 -possible. 
 
 She did not wait for the usual evening confidences 
 around the fireside. Before my lord had fairly 
 alighted from his horse, she had related the whole 
 story to him in her eager, impulsive way, — pictured 
 the distress of the young mother, praised in glowing 
 terms the brave courage of the unhappy prisoners, 
 and expressed her own grief that they had met with 
 such uncourteous treatment at Mount St. Michael. 
 There was not the shadow of a doubt in her words, 
 as she took her father's hand and said, — 
 
 " I knew, dear father, that you would not let this 
 thing happen at your castle. Now the gentlemen 
 may go, and the dear lady with them, may they 
 not .? " 
 
 A terrible look came into my lord's face, — a look 
 of mingled rage and fear. Yes, he was afraid of those 
 simple, trustful words. — afraid lest that dear, childish 
 
yo SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 faith in him should be shaken, or perhaps lost for- 
 ever ; angry that he had been unconsciously trapped 
 by her in one of his wicked designs, and caused for 
 one moment to lose sight of his own selfish ends. 
 Francis understood the look, more especially as it 
 was directed to him, and freighted with terrible mean- 
 ing; but Constance did not. She fancied my lord 
 was displeased at the wrong that had been done in 
 his absence ; and she began to fear she had spoken 
 too severely in poor Francis's behalf, and might be 
 now calling down untold evils on his faithful head. 
 
 " My lord," she cried, looking up at him with 
 anxious eyes, " you will pardon the good Francis ; he 
 did not understand, as we do. Let him go and 
 release the prisoners and make them happy." 
 
 " Francis hath ill obeyed his orders, and deserves 
 no such honorable task," replied Duke William, 
 directing his answer to the good servant " What 
 has the Lady Constance to do with affairs like these, 
 or to be troubled with them ? " 
 
 Francis made no protest. 
 
 " My father," returned the child, with a tender 
 little look that was almost a caress, " the Lady 
 Constance has troubled herself with this affair, and 
 Francis is really not to blame. He would have 
 hidden it all from me, but I would not let him. And, 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 7 1 
 
 indeed, I saw the lady myself, and she told me every- 
 thing. You must see the sweet lady, dear father; 
 and she will tell you, too, what great good men her 
 husband and her brother are, and how innocent they 
 are of any guilt." 
 
 " I have no wish to see the sweet lady or her noble 
 relatives," rejoined my lord, with a grim effort at a 
 smile. " I know the story of their innocence perhaps 
 better than my little daughter. I only wish that she 
 will not trouble herself with matters so much beyond 
 her years, nor give her father cause to make her 
 unhappy. Take," said he, turning to his servant, — 
 " take the child away ; she must hear no more." 
 
 But Constance was not to be baffled even by this 
 first approach to a refusal. 
 
 " But I shall be very unhappy if I do not know 
 more. Tell me, dearest father," she cried, clinging to 
 him appealingly, " must these gentlemen die in the 
 dungeon ? Oh, I cannot think of it ! It is a fearful 
 thing to die, is it not ? " 
 
 " We must all come to it, soon or late," returned 
 my lord, dryly ; " and these gentlemen will scarcely 
 be the worse for it a hundred years hence." 
 
 " But think of their wives and their dear little 
 children who must live on without them. I should 
 grieve so if any one took your life ; I should want to 
 
72 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 die too." And Constance looked up at him with blue 
 and tearful eyes. 
 
 The sight of her grief, of her tenderness for him, 
 stayed my lord's displeasure. He laid his hand on 
 her fair hair and stroked it gently. 
 
 " And, sir," she went on, " is it not a wicked, 
 wicked sin to take little children's fathers from them ? 
 And would not the good St. Michael, who loves all 
 little children, — would he not be angry with us all, 
 if such a thing were done at Mount St. Michael .'' " 
 
 Duke William felt a cold stream about his heart. 
 What memory did those clear, childish words recall to 
 him ? What was it that held him, that made him 
 tremble, — he so strong in wickedness ever before, so 
 immovable in his purpose, — when those trustful, inno- 
 cent eyes looked straight into his. All at once there 
 rose in his mind a strangely mingled picture of his 
 young wife, with her sweet face and angel smile, and 
 of the youthful brother upon whom he had looked in 
 cold blood on that dismal battle-field. A shudder 
 ran through his frame. 
 
 " Bring me the wine ! " he cried ; " my blood is 
 cold. — Ah, Constance, Constance ! that look hath 
 made a coward of your father ! " And his head 
 dropped in silence on his breast. 
 
 He was thinking, not of the wrong he had medi- 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. ^^ 
 
 tated, not of the sorrow he would have caused, nor of 
 the wrath he might be caUing down from heaven 
 upon his head, — indeed, he had so long lived in total 
 disregard of any power greater than himself that he 
 never thought of the vengeance of a just Providence. 
 He was thinking selfishly, as he always did, — of what 
 he himself was in danger of losing ; this trust, this 
 admiration, this perfect childish love, which was more 
 to him than all his hopes of former years. 
 
 He felt the little girl's hand nestle softly within 
 his, and the spell was broken. " Go," said he to one 
 of his attendants, — " go, release the prisoners, and say 
 it is the Lady Constance gives them their liberty." 
 
 Such glad, glad words to the ears of the little 
 Constance ! Such startling news to weary, hopeless 
 captives ! And, oh, such rejoicing as there was at 
 Mount St. Michael that night ; and such praises to 
 the good patron saint, that Duke William had at last 
 found something to warm his hard and bitter old 
 heart! And such secret hopes as rose in the bosoms 
 of the good nurses for that other child, — the dear 
 little prisoner whom every one loved, but for whom 
 nobody dared to intercede ! 
 
 Everybody was so happy, and wore such a bright 
 and smiling face, at the thought of this first good 
 deed of my lord's, that Duke William did not feel 
 
74 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 quite at home in his own castle. The thought of his 
 good deed did not impress him as favorably as it did 
 the rest. Indeed, after having slept over his amia- 
 ble resolutions, he considered them only weak and 
 cowardly, and concluded that the genial influence 
 of love and virtue was unfitting him for his knightly 
 duties. 
 
 Several hours before dawn my lord left the fortress, 
 following close upon the footsteps of the luckless 
 noblemen, and was neither seen nor heard of for 
 many a long day. He went, he said with a wicked 
 smile, to see them safely on their way; but how they 
 fared in my lord's kindly custody, or whether they 
 ever reached the end of their journey in safety, neither 
 my Lady Constance nor any one else at Mount St. 
 Michael ever knew. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE■/^KREY•H(DK^t- 
 WAKiS, 
 
 THE 
 nOEM 
 
 WEET WILLIAM had no knowl- 
 edge of all this. Why should 
 he, — a little boy living away in 
 a lonely tower, seeing no one 
 but his good, kind nurse and 
 his merry old keeper, who both 
 kept from him anything that 
 might disturb his sweet content- 
 ment ? William had never heard of wars nor of 
 captives. He did not even know that he himself was 
 one. He did not know that there were people in the 
 world who were doing cruel and unjust things, and 
 spending the best part of their lives in making other 
 people unhappy. He did not know that such a 
 person, very nearly related to him, was living hard 
 by at the castle, and had for long years been cherish- 
 ing evil and malicious designs against his own inno- 
 cent little self. But he did know that in this same 
 great castle there lived another child who like him- 
 
76 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 self had lost her dear young mother, — a little girl 
 who had been born on the same day with him, and 
 who Mathilde had said was good and beautiful. He 
 always spoke of her as " my fair cousin Constance ; " 
 and without having ever seen her face her image 
 was enthroned in his young heart, and he loved it 
 in a vague and indefinite way, as one loves a fair 
 ideal or a dear memory. 
 
 He often wondered if he would ever really see her, 
 and be permitted to kiss her hand and do brave 
 deeds for her sake, as cousins always did in the 
 lovely fairy-stories his nurse told him. And she 
 would always say, — 
 
 " Some day, Sweet William, some day you will 
 surely live at the castle with the Lady Constance, 
 and be happy. Oh, may the good God will that it 
 be soon ! " 
 
 "And may I then see my fair cousin everyday.?" 
 William would ask ; " and will she sing with me as 
 you do, nurse, and let me play with her ? " 
 
 To which Mathilde would always reply, with a 
 kiss and a hopeful smile, " Doubtless, sweetheart, 
 doubtless." 
 
 " And what games would please a little maid like 
 her, do you think ? Surely, 't would frighten her to 
 hear Guilbert roar like the lion when we have our 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. ']'] 
 
 tournaments ; " for in his tender heart he was ever 
 building very light and airy Uttle castles for that 
 happy time when he would go forth into the big 
 world as other children did, and see the many 
 strange things he had only heard of as yet, and learn 
 much that would make him good and wise and teach 
 him_ to make others happy. 
 
 Thus he and Mathilde would talk and plan for 
 hours together, and devise a score of pleasing and 
 impossible things for those happy days to come. 
 And they took so much pleasure in these innocent 
 hopes that Sweet William never wearied of his 
 solitude. Indeed, he loved it, and would have been 
 sorry to leave the dear old quietness of the tower, 
 and the drowsy murmurs of the sea beneath it, and 
 the merry chirp of the birdlings at his windows, 
 and all the simple tokens of love in which his cap- 
 tivity was so skilfully concealed from him, had he 
 suddenly been taken from them all. 
 
 He knew — for his good nurse had told him — that 
 for some reason which he was yet too young to under- 
 stand, he must live in the tower and never ask to leave 
 it ; and he never did, being blessed with a sweet 
 spirit of submission that made his childish trust and 
 faith all the more pathetic. He knew that his nurse 
 loved him ; and he listened to her hopeful words, and 
 
78 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 looked forward to that strangely distant future, of 
 which they so often spoke, much as we look forward 
 to a glorious hereafter while still loath to leave this 
 less lovely world. 
 
 The time came, however, when Sweet William's 
 dreams were in part realized ; but, like all of our 
 dreams, it came about so differently from what he 
 had fancied that it scarcely seemed to him like the 
 thing he had been wishing for so long. A little less 
 than a month after my lord's departure from Mount 
 St. Michael, there was one bright morning great sport 
 going on at the castle, in the shape of a splendid 
 hunt to the great forest. Hounds and horses, young 
 men and ladies, among whom the little Lady Con- 
 stance was by no means the least conspicuous, were 
 gathering for a day of merry frolic ; and the whole 
 air about Mount St. Michael trembled with the 
 sound of their mingled voices. 
 
 By some strange hazard the hunters had taken 
 a lonely, narrow road from the fortress, that wound 
 around the foot of the Great Tower, and thence led 
 miles away into the very heart of the forest. It was 
 a road seldom taken by my lord himself in his chase ; 
 and it was almost untravelled by any human being. 
 It was the road that led across that vast stretch of 
 country overlooked by one of William's tower- 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 79 
 
 windows. That day the little boy sat beside this 
 window, which he himself had named " Sweet Wil- 
 liam's Bower," because it was there he loved to sit 
 alone, and think about all the great things he would 
 do when he grew to be a man. It was there he 
 dreamed all his young dreams, and wondered silently 
 at the mystery that hung over his young life. It was 
 there he sat at dusk and watched the little stars come 
 peeping through the darkness, and breathed the crisp 
 salt-breeze that wafted from' the sea. He loved this 
 outlook best, even though it was barren and unlovtely, 
 ^perhaps because it was more in harmony with his 
 dreary little life. But he did not know this : he 
 only knew that it was the place he loved best in his 
 quietest moods ; and he felt, rather than thought, 
 that the lonely country which no one ever crossed 
 was his childhood, and the deep, mysterious forest 
 beyond it, the great Some Day which Mathilde said 
 held something hidden for him. If he sat there 
 through the day, Guilbert never made so bold as 
 to disturb his reveries, not even to propose the 
 rescuing of an imaginary fair cousin from the jaws of 
 some no less imaginary dragon, which was a favorite 
 amusement with them both when little William felt 
 heroically inclined. He had often said to his nurse 
 that he knew sometime he would look out of his 
 
8o SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 Bower-window and see something pleasant. He did 
 not know exactly when or what, but he felt it would 
 be something that would make him happy. He 
 begged Mathilde not to laugh at him, nor call it one 
 of his odd little fancies ; and he was so earnest in his 
 belief that the good nurse never did. 
 
 And truly enough, on that same bright morning, 
 when the warm sunlight streamed down from heaven 
 like a flood, making even that desolate landscape 
 beautiful. Sweet William from his Bower beheld the 
 fairest vision of his dreams. 
 
 A troop of hunters were riding gayly down the 
 road, with their hounds barking and chasing after 
 them in great glee, their falcons perched upon their 
 shoulders, and their cross-bows slung at their sides. 
 Shouts of merry laughter came up from the happy 
 throng, and the sound of the hunting-horns filled 
 the air, and echoed loudly against the wall of the 
 Great Tower. 
 
 Sweet William heard and saw it all. But from 
 amid the whole company he singled out one little 
 figure sitting erect upon a horse of spotless white. 
 Golden ripples of hair fell all over her shoulders like 
 a veil, and her wide-awake blue eyes sparkled with 
 life and happiness. A cry of admiration burst from 
 his childish lips. 
 
"Sweet William from his Bower-window beheld the fairest vision of his dreams.' 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 83 
 
 " It is Constance ! " he exclaimed, starting and clasp- 
 ing his little hands tightly. " Look, look, Mathilde, 
 how beautiful she is ! " 
 
 It was Constance, and she was beautiful indeed. 
 The bloom of morning and of youth was upon her 
 cheek, and the ring of her clear voice was like the 
 chiming of silver bells. She looked like a nodding 
 rose upon a bed of snow, as she sat upon the great 
 white Roncesvalles ; and he, too, was beautiful, for 
 my lady had, with her own loving hands, decked him 
 out with garlands of marguerites that hung in stately 
 grace around his arched neck. 
 
 "Holy Mother!" cried Mathilde, "it is the little 
 lady herself. How did you know, sweet, that it 
 was Constance ? " 
 
 " Because she is like the Constance you have so 
 often told me of, only a thousand times more fair. 
 Oh, Nurse, she looks like a goodly little maid, and 
 loving ; for see how she leans over the noble horse, 
 and seems to jest with him, and sends smiles and 
 kisses to him withal ! " 
 
 " Roncesvalles is my lady's best comrade," said the 
 nurse. 
 
 " I would, then, that Roncesvalles and I were 
 friends. I think, Mathilde, that angels can scarce be 
 lovelier than my cousin Constance. Oh, tell me more 
 
84 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 of her, dear nurse. You have not told me half 
 enough. We should have spoken of nothing else if 
 I had known she was so beautiful. What is she doing 
 in this great company, and why are they riding away, 
 away so far.? Soon I shall see her no more." 
 
 Mathilde drew near to her darling, and folded her 
 arms about him tenderly ; for a sudden fear sprang up 
 in her heart at the sight of his^ agitation. She tried 
 to soothe him with kind words and to make light 
 of his surprise ; but his dark eyes had a wistful look 
 in them, and his fair cheeks were flushed, and he 
 spoke in a hurried, excited little voice which she 
 had never heard before. 
 
 " They are off to the chase, I fancy, — to hunt all 
 day in the wild woods, and come home weary and 
 faint with their day's sport. Come sit upon my 
 knee, sweetheart, and I will tell you what wild frolic 
 is in a chase; and at nightfall we will watch again 
 for them and see them bringing back their 
 game." 
 
 But William lingered a moment longer at his 
 window, not seeming to hear his good nurse, his eyes 
 fixed on the galloping white steed, and his thoughts 
 with its fair rider. In that same moment Constance, 
 as if drawn by the power of that earnest look, turned 
 back. Her eyes rested on the distant tower, search- 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 85 
 
 ing for something; then they wandered higher and 
 higher till they fell at last on Sweet William's 
 Bower and the face that looked down from it. 
 
 And that face, as Constance saw it, was the face of 
 a little boy, — a sweet earnest face, so pure and white, 
 framed in its wealth of rich brown curls ; a face 
 lighted up by a pair of great soft eyes that shone 
 like two stars in the deep midnight ; a face that 
 would have been sad but for the smile that lurked in 
 the upturned corners of his little mouth ; a face that 
 once seen, one might never forget. Constance saw it 
 all in one look, and remembered it ever after. 
 
 " Come, dear heart, will not you hear about the 
 hunt? " said Mathilde, drawing him gently to her side; 
 " or must I let Guilbert tell it to you ? He has a 
 better memory, and a marvellous tongue for story- 
 telling, has Guilbert, as you know; and I feel he 
 could delight your ears better than I.. For it is many 
 and many a year since your old nurse has seen 
 such sports." 
 
 "No, no, dear maman," — Sweet William always 
 called his nurse so when he was very fond of her, — 
 " not Guilbert this time, but you. Guilbert would 
 make me laugh, he always does, — he is such a dear, 
 merry soul. I would rather think now ; and you know 
 I can always think better so." And he stole one arm 
 
86 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 about her neck, while his head rested lovingly on 
 her shoulder. 
 
 " Well, well, let me see," said Mathilde, trying to re- 
 call something she had never witnessed. " As I said 
 before, it is a long, long while since I was in a chase, 
 — so long that I sometimes think I was never in one 
 at all. And that is much more likely, for in my days 
 little girls had milder sports ; and galloping about on 
 fiery steeds, over rocky places, and jumping deep 
 ditches, and keeping company with fierce birds whose 
 sharp claws and ugly beaks are enough to frighten one, 
 was considered much too dangerous. But now — " 
 
 " Oh, were you a little girl once," asked Sweet 
 William, incredulously, — "a little girl like my cousin 
 Constance ? " 
 
 " Yes, sure, my love, though not so fair as your 
 sweet cousin. In truth, William, I think, with you, 
 that my Lady Constance is more like an angel than 
 a child, for loveliness." 
 
 " And was your hair the color of gold, like hers ? 
 It is so white, and more like silver now," said he, 
 softly touching the locks that strayed from beneath 
 her cap. 
 
 " Alas, no ! Mine was more like the plumes of a 
 crow; and many's the time my heart ached with it, 
 for my ears were sore with hearing mysglf called 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 87 
 
 a blackbird and a cinder-wench, and what not. I 
 would fain have cut it off to please those who found 
 fault with it, and to silence their tongues." 
 
 " It would have been better had you cut their 
 tongues out for grieving you so," returned Sweet 
 William, warmly. " But no one speaks so to you now, 
 dear nurse ? " he asked, with tender solicitude. 
 
 " No, no, my sweetling ; every one has forgotten 
 what a dark little witch old Mathilde was once, and 
 every one thinks kindly of her gray locks now; 
 but most of all, I trust, a little boy who is dearer 
 to her than all the golden-haired little fairies in 
 Normandy." 
 
 Sweet William kissed her, and Mathilde went on: 
 " But we are talking of little fairies, and our 
 thoughts have wandered from the chase. In my 
 young days, William, the ways of children were 
 different from what they are now. Nowadays 
 nothing is too daring ; and methinks I shall hear of 
 my lady's capturing a wild boar all by her little self, 
 some of these fine days." 
 
 " My cousin is a brave little maid, is she not ? " 
 
 " My lady knows not the word ' fear,' " replied 
 Mathilde, with much earnestness, as she thought of 
 the intrepid way in which that little person had 
 grown in intimacy with her redoubtable father, — a 
 
88 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 creature more to be dreaded, in Mathilde's eyes, than 
 all the wild beasts she knew of. 
 
 " And one has need to be brave to seek such peril 
 for pleasure," she went on ; " it makes one tremble to 
 think of the mad rushing and scampering and the 
 wild shouting that goes on to track a single deer. 
 I can almost see them following after it, over the 
 copse and fallen trees, across streams and over 
 hillocks, until the poor thing falls from weariness 
 or from one of their arrows. Oh, it is a- wild game, 
 and a great game in these days, my sweet; and you 
 and I would rather talk of it than be in it, would 
 we not ? " 
 
 "And my fair cousin loves this sport?" said 
 William, half to himself. " I thought she looked 
 happy. Oh, what a day this will be for her ! I should 
 love to see her in the midst of it with the beautiful 
 Roncesvalles, for I know he is a good and swift 
 horse at the chase." 
 
 " My lady and Roncesvalles are good hunters 
 both of them, and there is nothing they love more 
 than this." 
 
 " And has she a falcon, too, like the rest of the 
 hunters ? " inquired Sweet William, whose interest 
 in his fair cousin could not be quelled even by 
 Mathilde's stirring account of a chase. 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 89 
 
 " Yes ; and a cross, ugly bird it is to every one but 
 my lady," returned Mathilde. " But he knows her 
 call well, and always comes back to her with some 
 bright pheasant or a long-legged heron, when she 
 sets him a-flying." 
 
 The little boy remained silent. He was thinking 
 what a happy, happy child his cousin must be, and 
 what a score of things she had to make her so, 
 and what Mathilde had said of her goodness, and 
 how so many people loved her, and above all, how 
 beautiful she was. 
 
 " Tell me, dear nurse," he said at length, "when 
 shall I see my sweet cousin again ? If I could but 
 look upon her every day, as I did this morning, I 
 could think of her all the day and dream of her all 
 the night, and I should be so happy ; " and his lip 
 quivered, and his dark eyes grew sadder. For with 
 the sight of that fair picture of happiness and beauty, 
 there rose suddenly a great yearning in his hungry 
 little heart. 
 
 The good nurse saw this, and her soul grew sick at 
 the thought of this first ripple in the quiet content- 
 ment of his little life. The fear that he should come 
 to know his wretched lot, or long for something 
 which she could not give him, made her miserable. 
 Alas! she could make no promise. She could only 
 
90 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 encourage him with tender, hopeful words, and fondle 
 him in her arms, and try to make him feel that much 
 love was his, though it came but from her own 
 old heart. 
 
 She coaxed him to go and have a game with 
 Guilbert, feeling grieved that she had not been able 
 to draw his thoughts away from the events of the 
 morning. But Sweet William had no wish to be 
 amused, and would only sit in her lap and talk of all 
 that was in his heart. And all that day they two sat 
 quietly together, building many hopes, talking of 
 many things, but principally of the little girl at the 
 castle, — of all that she did and said; of her pretty, 
 winning ways that made every one love her so ; of 
 her fondness for Roncesvalles, the noble creature to 
 whom she had given such a brave name ; of her 
 nurse Lasette, who had brought her up just as 
 Mathilde had Sweet William ; of the great castle 
 where she lived ; and indeed of everything that now 
 bore a new charm in his eyes because of its association 
 with the little girl. 
 
 And at dusk Sweet William stood again at his 
 Bower and watched for the coming home of the 
 hunters, hoping to get another glimpse of his dear 
 cousin ; but night fell all too soon, and no train 
 of riders crossed the lonely road again, nor were 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 91 
 
 the notes of the bugle sounding their return heard 
 about the walls of the Great Tower any more. 
 
 That night Sweet William had no play with 
 Guilbert ; and when he took up his little harp to sing 
 with Nurse Mathilde, his fingers wandered idly over 
 the chords, and she was more than once left singing 
 alone, while he asked some distracted question about 
 my Lady Constance. And when at last he laid his 
 young head down to rest, and his eyelids drooped 
 with sleep, the wondering smile that swept ,over 
 his fair features, and the broken words that fell 
 from his unconscious lips told of the subject of his 
 dreams. 
 
 And Mathilde, the good devoted nurse, what was 
 she thinking of that night as she bent over the sleep- 
 ing William, and why did she hold her heart, and 
 weep and kiss him over and over again, and lay her 
 old cheek against his young one, and entreat him 
 pitifully to forgive her and to love her always, as 
 though his young ears had not been deaf to all but 
 the voices of dreamland ? And what dread was 
 in her heart, as she looked into the pure white face 
 of her boy, and saw the same patient, gentle look 
 steal back again, and the same sweet smile that made 
 it infinitely more sad to her now, rest upon it like the 
 bitterest reproach ? She knelt beside him a long, long 
 
92 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 while, holding his little hand, winding his dark curls 
 lovingly about her fingers, kissing his closed eyes, 
 and calling him her darling, her heart's dearest, and 
 praying Heaven to spare him ; until at length Guil- 
 bert, who from his post without had been watching 
 her, came noiselessly to her side, and inquired what 
 new fears she had for the little one. 
 
 " Oh, my kind friend," said Mathilde, recovering 
 herself a little, " is my heart not always full of fears 
 for him ? Can I see him growing day by day in 
 grace and loveliness, and not grow sick with wonder- 
 ing what is to become of my darling ? " 
 
 " Nay, nay, you lose hope," returned the old keeper, 
 almost reproachfully, " and we must never do that. 
 The dear one has not been unhappy with so good a 
 mother as you, Mathilde, and he may never know 
 his ill-luck till he is out of it." 
 
 "Ah, Guilbert, I fear he will know it too soon, too 
 soon. Saw you not the change in him to-day after 
 seeing his cousin Constance ? He would talk of 
 nothing else, think of nothing else; and I have 
 strange misgivings that this is the beginning of 
 something — I know not what — for my poor 
 lamb." And Mathilde fell to sobbing and weeping 
 bitterly. 
 
 This was terrible to the good keeper, who besides 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 93 
 
 cherishing a secret fondness for Nurse Mathilde, 
 dreaded tears, next to my lord's anger, more than 
 anything else in the world. Finding he could ad- 
 minister but little comfort, he entreated her to go and 
 consult with Lasette, as she always did when espe- 
 cially concerned about Sweet William ; and he him- 
 self sat beside the little couch, as he had done many 
 a time before, watching the sleeping boy as tenderly 
 and lovingly as any woman. 
 
 A moment later Mathilde was speeding down the 
 great staircase of the tower, through narrow passage- 
 ways and gloomy corridors, and out into the wide 
 courtyard where the moonlight fell so peacefully upon 
 the slumbering world. Away, away she sped, toward 
 the old gray castle, where another child lay sleeping 
 in that stately bedchamber where the twin babes had 
 slept years ago. There the two nurses held a long 
 and animated converse, speaking in hushed voices, 
 confiding to each other the many hopes and fears 
 which none but themselves could know. Lasette 
 had much to tell Mathilde concerning my lady's 
 discovery of the little boy in the Great Tower, of her 
 eager questions about him, and of her own apprehen- 
 sions lest that little lady's impetuous interest might 
 lead to the good saints only knew what harm for 
 them all. 
 
94 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 It was far into the night when the nurse reached 
 the tower-chamber again, and found Guilbert gently 
 nodding over his young charge, and Sweet William 
 still sleeping and dreaming of bright litde fairies with 
 flying golden hair and rosy smiles, that beckoned to 
 him from afar. 
 
' Dreaming of bright little fairies witli flying golden hair and rosy smiles, 
 that beckoned to him from afar.'' 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HEN Sweet William awoke late 
 the next morning, the warm sum- 
 mer air was blowing softly at his 
 windows, and the little birds were chirping noisily 
 from their vines, as if chiding him for idly sleeping 
 away the fresh morning hours. Nurse Mathilde was 
 busy over a little table in Sweet William's bower, 
 carefully setting forth his simple morning meal, and 
 dressing it with dainty nosegays here and there to 
 delight his eyes. Old Guilbert was mounting guard 
 with a somewhat impatient step in the dark entry 
 without, occasionally stopping to put his head be- 
 tween the bars of the great dungeon-door, and to 
 smile a droll sort of smile at Mathilde, and nod 
 mysteriously at his little prisoner. 
 
 Sweet William wondered why he felt so strange, 
 and what it was that made yesterday seem so very 
 long ago. Dear little boy ! he did not know that 
 something had just come into his life that would 
 
 7 
 
98 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 make all his yesterdays seem like a distant and 
 almost forgotten past. 
 
 As he sat at his small breakfast, quietly discoursing 
 with his nurse on the strange and unreal happenings 
 of the previous day, the old keeper's hearty laugh 
 was heard outside ; and presently the heavy door 
 creaked on its rusty hinges, and Guilbert announced 
 in joyful and excited tones, — 
 
 " The Morning Sunshine, come to see Sweet 
 William." 
 
 In walked my little lady, dancing like a sunbeam, 
 looking about her with round and curious eyes, and 
 crying eagerly as she caught sight of William, — 
 
 " Oh, my sweet cousin, do you not know me ? I 
 am your cousin Constance. I saw you at this win- 
 dow yesterday for the first time, and I would not 
 sleep till Nurse had told me all about you. She said 
 your name is Sweet William, — I think it is a lovely 
 name, — and that we are twin cousins. Are you not 
 glad ? " she asked, embracing him in her prettiest and 
 friendliest way. 
 
 Sweet William did not say he was glad, but he 
 looked radiantly happy, and for some time could only 
 sit and gaze at her in speechless wonderment. 
 
 " I am very glad," Constance went on, " for I never 
 had a cousin before ; and I have scolded Lasette 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 99 
 
 shamefully for not telling me about you sooner. I 
 have never had a little comrade, like you, Cousin 
 William, — no one but Roncesvalles. He is dear 
 and good, and I love him. But he can never be my 
 cousin nor yet my twin cousin ; for though he is so 
 big and strong, I am a year older than he. And so 
 Lasette said if I would be very good, and would not 
 ask her a score of questions, but do as I was bidden, 
 I might come to see you to-day ; and I promised, for 
 I wanted to know my cousin very much." 
 
 " And I too," said Sweet William, earnestly. " La- 
 sette must be a good nurse, just like Mathilda." 
 
 " Yes ; and I love her too. Oh, I love a great 
 many people. Cousin, — old Jacques, and Francis, 
 and Nurse, and Roncesvalles, and the old, old peasant 
 who lives at the foot of the mount, and has lost all 
 his little grandchildren, and who says I look like my 
 sweet young mother. But most of all I love my dear 
 father. You have never seen my father, have you, 
 Sweet William ? Oh, no. Nurse said you had not. 
 He is a mighty lord, and I am sure you would love 
 him as I do ; for he is your dear uncle, as you are 
 my dear cousin." 
 
 " And why did he not come with you ? " inquired 
 Swe'et William. 
 
 " Oh, he is far away now, in the great wars, fight- 
 
lOO SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 ing for his king. Had I only been a lad, like you, 
 Cousin, I might have gone with him sometimes," 
 added Constance, with a little sigh. 
 
 " And will he return soon, and shall I know him 
 then ? " asked Sweet William, eagerly. 
 
 " No ; not for a long while yet. Nurse says we 
 must never speak of you to him. I do not know 
 why, and that is one of the questions I may not ask. 
 But some day we shall surprise my lord, as I was 
 surprised, and show him the little boy in the tower, 
 and then we shall all be so happy. But this is all a 
 secret. Have you ever had a secret. Cousin William .'' " 
 
 " Truly, I think never," answered Sweet William, 
 with a puzzled look. 
 
 " Nor I, until now," rejoined my lady. " Nurse 
 said to me, ' Constance, can you keep a secret ? ' and 
 I said, ' Yes, Nurse, if it is not made of sweet stuff, — 
 I love comfits too well to keep them long, you know.' 
 Here are some I saved for Roncesvalles ; he is very 
 fond of sweets, but I will give them to you instead. 
 Then she told me all this, — that my little cousin had 
 lived in the Great Tower since he was a babe, and that 
 no one ever saw him save his nurse and Guilbert the 
 keeper ; not even my lord. And she said he was a 
 sweet and lovely child, never fretting naughtily like 
 a little maid she once knew whose name was Con- 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. lOI 
 
 stance. Then she wept a little when I was not look- 
 ing, and said, talking to her needlework more than 
 to me, that 'Oh, it was a thousand pities!' Then 
 I was very angry, — I am a wicked child sometimes, 
 Sweet William, — and I scolded dreadfully, saying I 
 would straightway take you from the tower, as I did 
 the poor captives. But Nurse wept all the more, — 
 she always does when I am wicked, — and said I would 
 make you very unhappy if I did, and bring great 
 trouble upon her. I fancied you must be wretched 
 in a dungeon and would wish to leave it. But this is 
 not at all like the gloomy prison where I saw the two 
 . noblemen. It was a dreadfully cold, dark place, and 
 very strange to them, I should think, for they had 
 never been in a prison before." 
 
 " But this is not a prison, surely, dear cousin ? " said 
 the little boy, questioningly. " I think it is a pleasant 
 place, and have never wished to leave it." 
 
 " And are you quite happy here, Sweet William.? " 
 " Yes, quite ; but I shall be more so if you will come 
 to see me often. We have great games, Guilbert and 
 I together; and Nurse teaches me so many good and 
 wise things, and at twilight we sing together, and in 
 the evening Guilbert tells the longest story of the 
 times when he was young. Oh, you should hear some 
 of them, Cousin ! " 
 
I02 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 " I will surely come every day. Indeed, Sweet 
 William, I like your nurse Mathilde greatly. Her cap 
 is a little queer and different from Lasette's," she whis- 
 pered confidentiall}', " but she has the same good face. 
 And Guilbert must be a truly good friend," she added, 
 as she studied the old keeper attentively ; for she had 
 never seen any one just like him, she thought. His 
 eyes were so very sharp and bright, though his hair 
 was as white as snow ; and there was a smile of good- 
 nature in every wrinkle of his face. Then he looked 
 so short and fat, with his -wide ruff around his short 
 neck, and his wide trousers caught in at the knees, and 
 his quaint shoes with their great buckles and long- 
 pointed toes, that her little ladyship thought him the 
 drollest creature she had ever seen. 
 
 " I am sure I should like him too. He was so 
 good to let me in the tower this morning. Lasette 
 came to the door with me, and whispered something 
 in his ear; and then he laughed, and tossed me in his 
 arms and cried, ' Ho, ho, little fairy ! ' You are fond 
 of him, are you not. Cousin ? " 
 
 " Mathilde and Guilbert are the only persons I have 
 ever known, and the only ones I love excepting you, 
 dear Constance," added the artless William. 
 
 Constance was so delisfhted with this ineenuous 
 declaration that she immediately embraced Sweet 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 103 
 
 William again. And as if bent on making friends 
 all around, she straightway ran and did likewise with 
 Mathilde and Guilbert, who sat a little apart, watching 
 their innocent pleasure. 
 
 Then the two children sat long together at the little 
 table, — Sweet William joyfully laying before his little 
 cousin the best portions of his simple meal, and giving 
 her the choicest flowers, which Mathilde had gathered 
 fresh that morning ; while Constance in turn delighted 
 him with her merry prattle. 
 
 " No, no ! " remonstrated my lady, as William placed 
 his largest nosegay before her ; " I will have no other 
 than those sweet purple posies over there. They are 
 yoiir flowers, and I shall always wear them in my hair, 
 as ladies do the chosen flowers of their knights." And 
 she took a handful of purple and white sweet-williams 
 that stood in an earthen vase upon the window-ledge. 
 
 " Nurse brings these to me every day, and I like 
 them best of all myself. She says they are like me ; 
 do you think so, Cousin .^ " 
 
 Constance looked at the tender blossoms, and then 
 at the pure, sweet face before her, with its smile of 
 innocence and its dark lustrous eyes and earnest, 
 trustful look ; and she said quite gently, -^ 
 
 " I do not know, Sweet William ; but I have never 
 seen in all the fields of Normandy a flower so lovely as 
 
I04 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 you. And there are many of them in the early summer, 
 I do assure you, — marigolds and daffodils and daisies 
 and blue violets everywhere. Roncesvalles and I love 
 to go and gather them. And I make wreaths of rose- 
 mary for his dear neck, and he likes it ; for I tell him 
 that rosemary means true, and that I shall always be 
 true to him. Oh, I wish that I might bring my 
 Roncesvalles to see you ! If you did not live in such 
 a high tower, and he were not so very big, I would ; 
 for he is a beautiful and a brave horse." 
 
 " I thought so, as I saw him yesterday," returned 
 Sweet William ; " but you can ride under my window 
 again, as you did then, and teach him to look up 
 at me." 
 
 " Oh, I will, I will, and tell him all about my new 
 cousin ! Lasette need not fear but he can keep a 
 secret even better than I ; and he will be so glad, for 
 he understands all I tell him, and nearly talks to me 
 with his great eyes. But you may see Ixe ; that is 
 my hawk. A fierce black bird he is, with little silver 
 bells at his talons, that tinkle and tell me where he is 
 though he be ever so high. Oh, Sweet William, if 
 you could but leave this tower and come with me 
 to my father's castle, I would show you a thousand 
 pleasant things, and we could have such sports 
 together as you have never dreamed of." 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 105 
 
 Sweet William looked at her wistfully, and his deep 
 eyes asked a question which his lips could not frame ; 
 and something in the tender face made Constance 
 add hastily, — , 
 
 " But I am again unmindful of Lasette's counsel. 
 We must be patient and wait," she said ; " and some 
 day if we keep our secret well, you will surely come 
 and live at the castle and be the Lord of Mount St. 
 Michael and all Normandy. Think of it. Cousin ! " 
 
 Sweet William could scarcely think of it. His eyes 
 grew wide with surprise, as he asked, — 
 
 " How longr must we wait, dear Constance? " 
 
 " I do not know, nor does Lasette ; but surely not 
 very many years. Sweet William, for you are almost 
 tall enough now to be a king." And she looked admir- 
 ingly at the slender, graceful young figure before her. 
 
 And so they went on, talking all the morning, and 
 growing better friends every minute ; telling each 
 other the simple' experiences of their little lives, which 
 for being so different found greatest favor in their 
 eyes. They made a grand survey of the tower- 
 chamber ; and Constance was shown Sweet William's 
 cradle, and the little shoes in which he had learned to 
 walk, and the curious toys that Guilbert had fashioned 
 for his amusement, — in fact, all the quaint little 
 relics of his babyhood, which Mathilde prized above 
 
I06 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 all her other earthly possessions, and which told of the 
 simple comforts and great love that had been his. 
 Sweet William took her to see his little birds, and 
 told her the names of every one of them, as they 
 hopped shyly in and out of their nests among the 
 green vines ; and he showed her how tame and friendly 
 they were, and how they even ate little crumbs from 
 his hand. And altogether Constance began to think 
 the Great Tower the most delightful place she had 
 ever seen, and declared she would spend all her days 
 there till Sweet William was ready to leave it ; and 
 that then every dungeon at Mount St. Michael should 
 be made just like it, that all little boys who were 
 brought up in them might fare as peacefully and 
 contentedly as did Sweet William. She tripped about 
 the old gray chamber as familiarly as if she had lived 
 in- it always, yet finding something new and pleasant 
 at every turn, admiring all she saw, and chattering 
 like a linnet, while the young William followed her 
 and listened with his sweet, serious smile. 
 
 At length Lasette came to take my lady away, and 
 finding her in such good and amiable spirits, was well 
 pleased with her daring venture, and promised to let 
 her come again every day. As Lasette led the little 
 girl away, she stopped to whisper in Mathilde's ear, — 
 
 " Have no fear, good sister! It was best to let my 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 07 
 
 lady have her way in this. Her dread of bringing 
 trouble on the dear Httle one will make her mindful 
 of my words. She is full of reason, and, trust me, no 
 harm will come of it." 
 
 Mathilde made no reply, but she looked up hope- 
 fully ; for Guilbert had told her of Lasette's plan 
 while the two children were engaged in their artless 
 talk, and many of her old fears had vanished and 
 new hopes risen in their stead. 
 
 Yet she watched her little boy anxiously more than 
 once that day, for he was thoughtful and silent be- 
 yond his wont ; and though no shadow rested on his 
 peaceful face, the absent look in his dark eyes showed 
 that his thoughts were far away. 
 
 " And of what does my sweetheart think ? " she 
 asked, as she watched the long curling lashes droop 
 pensively over his fair cheek. 
 
 '■ I was thinking," said Sweet William, " of what my 
 fair cousin said of the poor captives in that other 
 prison ; and I was wondering why it was cold and 
 dreadful there, and why they were unhappy; Is it 
 a sad thing to be a captive, Nurse.?" 
 
 " Ay, ay, sweet love ; it is a dreary fate enough." 
 
 " And why are people shut up in gloomy towers 
 like that, and made unhappy ? " 
 
 " Ah, Sweet William," answered Nurse, " that is 
 
Io8 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 what I cannot tell ! I am too unwise to understand 
 these things ; but the good God knows best, and 
 sometime he will set it all aright." 
 
 " And am I a captive, too, because I live in a dun- 
 geon.?" asked William, with pathetic doubtfulness. 
 
 Mathilde clasped him in her arms. She could find 
 no answer for these words. 
 
 "Why do you weep, good maman.? ' he said, ca- 
 ressing her tenderly. " Sure, this is no gloomy dun- 
 geon like the one my cousin spoke of, and I am very 
 happy here." 
 
 " Oh, my little William, are you sure, very sure, 
 that you are happy here .'' " 
 
 " So long as I have you with me, dear nurse." 
 
 " And is there nothing you long for and have not.? " 
 
 " Nothing, now that I have seen my fair cousin. 
 Truly, I should like to see the splendid castle she 
 speaks of; but heard you not, dear Mathilde, what she 
 said, — that we must wait patiently and some day I 
 should be ruler of Mount St. Michael and Normandy ? " 
 
 " That is my hope," returned Mathilde, half to her- 
 self ; but she sio:hed as she thou2;ht of all that migrht 
 happen before that great hope was fulfilled. 
 
 As for Sweet William, he had no knowledge of the 
 strife and the bitterness born of such ambitious hopes; 
 he knew only of peace and quietude and love and 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 109 
 
 gentleness, and his dreams of a blissful future were 
 unclouded by any doubt. 
 
 " When I am a man, Mathilde, I will do good 
 things," he said. "I should like to be a mighty lord, 
 and make my people happy, and teach them to love 
 me and to be good and wise. I would go through 
 every castle in Normandy, and wherever I found an 
 unhappy captive I would set him free. It is well to 
 be powerful, is it not .? " 
 
 " It is well to be powerful," answered Nurse, " if that 
 power is directed to mercy. But, dearest heart, it is^ 
 better to be born good and lovable than to be born 
 a king. And I would rather my little one possessed 
 a kindly heart than all the wealth and power of this 
 great realm ; for love is stronger and makes mightier 
 conquests than all the deadly weapons of men." 
 
 And Sweet William pondered over these wise words 
 in his heart, and remembered them long after many 
 strange things for him had come to pass. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 RUE to her promise, my Lady Con- 
 stance appeared beneath Sweet 
 WilHam's Bower on the following 
 morning. She rode the stately 
 Roncesvalles, and waved her little hand toward the 
 window where Sweet William stood smiling down 
 upon them both. She halted, and bending forward 
 until her rosy lips almost touched the listening ears 
 of Roncesvalles, said in a coaxing little voice, — 
 
 "Come, good horse, look up at your cousin Wil- 
 liam. See! is he not a dear, dear cousin? No, no! 
 this way, Roncesvalles ; look where I look, and smile 
 at him, do ! " 
 
 But whether the face at the window was too hio-h 
 up for the proud Roncesvalles to look to, or whether 
 he secretly felt that Cousin William bade fair to be 
 a rival in his young mistress's affection, never a sign 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. HI 
 
 of recognition made he, save to beat the earth im- 
 patiently with his hoofs. 
 
 " Look up just once for me," pleaded Constance, 
 "and then you will want to look twice for yourself." 
 
 But Roncesvalles remained obstinate. 
 
 Sweet William dropped a handful of his own little 
 blossoms from his window, and they fell partly on my 
 lady's broad-brimmed hat and partly on the good 
 horses mane. Constance gathered them carefully, 
 and put them to Roncesvalles's nose with childish 
 audacity, using all her prettiest witcheries to win him ; 
 but he only shook his head uneasily, and breathed 
 such a whiff out of his great nostrils that all the little 
 petals were scattered to the winds. 
 
 " Oh, you are very, very naughty, and I do not love 
 you," said she, with a contradictory smile. " Dear 
 cousin," she added, looking up at the little boy apolo- 
 getically, " you must excuse his bad behavior to-day. 
 Roncesvalles is very rude sometimes, even with his 
 own relations. I must set about teaching him better 
 courtesy ; but he has so many loving qualities, for 
 all- his ill-temper, that I cannot be very severe with 
 him. Come!" cried she, drawing in her reins, " one 
 more gallop to show my. cousin what a brave, swift 
 horse you are." 
 
 Roncesvalles awaited no second summons, but 
 
112 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 started off at full speed ; and a moment later he 
 and my lady had disappeared in the descent of 
 the winding road. 
 
 After that they rarely missed their morning turn 
 around the foot of the Great Tower; and although 
 Roncesvalles never grew very intimate with his cousin 
 William, nor yet learned to smile at him as he was 
 bidden, he appeared to become reconciled to my lady's 
 fondness for her little twin-cousin, and in time actuall}' 
 seemed to take jDride in doing his best before Sweet 
 William, — galloping and cantering in his most grace- 
 ful manner, and in fact displaying all the arts of an 
 obedient and accomplished horse. And Sweet W^il- 
 liam from his high tower watched and admired it all, 
 and " wondered " much in his quiet way at all the 
 strange new things he saw. 
 
 It is astonishing how short a time it takes for young 
 loves to grow. They are like the fair flowers of 
 spring, which to-day are but tender buds, and to- 
 morrow rich blossoms full of sweetness and promise. 
 Sweet William and his little cousin, seeing more of 
 each other as time went on, grew nearer and dearer 
 each day. Nothing of interest ever took place at the 
 castle but my lady brought glowing accounts of it to 
 the little boy in his retirement. Before many weeks 
 he had heard the histories of all the peasants of the 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 13 
 
 village. He knew by name all the good castle-folk at 
 Mount St. Michael, and could have found, if he had 
 had leave, the spots where the brightest flowers grew, 
 or the trees where tlje rarest birds built their nests, or 
 the places on the shore where the loveliest sea-shells 
 lay, — so vividly had Constance pictured to him all the 
 things and places that she loved most. Indeed, he 
 had in that short time learned more of his own sur- 
 roundings from her than he had in all the years of 
 his young life from the wise Mathilde. And it was 
 well for my lady that she was the one chosen by fate 
 to enjoy the free and beautiful world without. Such 
 an eager, restless little bird as she could never have 
 listened to all the delights of a world from which she 
 was shut out with that sweet, submissive spirit which 
 rendered the gentle William so lovable. Not that he 
 was entirely free from a secret wish to share them 
 sometimes ; but that his unquestioning faith in those 
 he loved told him it was best to be as he was, and 
 kept him from vain longings. 
 
 Yes, they were very happy in the Great Tower, these 
 two little cousins ; and Nurse Mathilde declared it was 
 the sweetest pleasure she had ever known to watch them 
 as they sat all the long autumn afternoons with their 
 young heads together, talking and laughing as only chil- 
 dren can, — Constance always animated, wild, impul- 
 
114 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 sive ; while Sweet William remained calm and serene, 
 with only the wondering expression in his grave sweet 
 eyes as he listened to the many stories that Constance 
 had stored in her young memory. 
 
 There was one tale he always liked to hear better 
 than all the rest ; and that was the one about the old 
 peasant who lived at the foot of the Mount, who had 
 said that my lady resembled her pretty young mother. 
 Constance related how the old man had lived these 
 many years all alone in his little hut watching and 
 waiting for a ship that never came ; how his children 
 and his grandchildren had all died, save one, who, 
 being a brave and trusty seaman, had gone to man 
 a ship which years ago had taken an unhappy lady 
 from Mount St. Michael ; and how the good sailor 
 had promised the Norman people, who loved the lady 
 dearly, that he would never show his face in Normandy 
 again if he failed to pilot her safely back to her own 
 country ; and the weeks and the months and the 
 years had rolled by, and no ship had ever returned, 
 and no sailor ever brought news of a safe voyage. 
 But love and hope are stronger than the wildest 
 tempest ; and the old Norman was still waiting and 
 watching at the foot of the Mount for this last of all 
 his loved ones. She told how the light was left burn- 
 ing every night against the good sailor's return, and 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. II5 
 
 how the old man would often mistake the moaning of 
 the wind or the murmur of the waves for the voice 
 of the absent one, and with faltering steps and anx- 
 iously beating heart would go to the door of his 
 little hut, only to let in the cold and darkness of 
 night. 
 
 Sweet William always sighed after listening to this 
 story of patient love, and said, — 
 
 " I wonder what became of the lady, Constance, and 
 whether the ship will ever come back." 
 
 But Constance could not tell, and William's tender 
 heart ached for the old man when he learned that his 
 years of waiting had been as many as those of his own 
 young life ; and that to him seemed very long. 
 
 Then there was old Mother Anne, for whom Sweet 
 William had conceived a lively interest. A remark- 
 able person she seemed to him, from all the accounts 
 he had of her. Constance had said that she possessed 
 two pairs of eyes, one of which she used to look into 
 the future. And it was certain that she made sfood 
 use of them both, for she not only knew everything 
 that went on in the village, but could tell all that 
 would happen in years to come, they said. This rare 
 gift William often coveted. How gladly would he 
 have used those far-seeing eyes to look into his own 
 mysterious future, and what a deal of wondering they 
 
Il6 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 would have saved him about himself ! He often tried 
 to imagine what prophecies Mother Anne would have 
 in store for him, and secretly wished he might beguile 
 her into revealing some of her wisdom. But Mother 
 Anne, like most people who have a talent, was choice 
 of it, and never displayed it except on rare occasions. 
 Even my lady thought her a little disobliging for 
 never entering into the free and confidential talks 
 with her which she liked so much from her elders. 
 And when she once asked the old woman to teach her 
 some of her wily arts, Mother Anne had only replied 
 with a low chuckle, — 
 
 " He who knows nothing, fears nothing." 
 But as Constance feared nothing and knew a great 
 deal for a little girl, she was somewhat disgusted with 
 Mother Anne's logic. 
 
 Still, the old woman was very fond of the pretty 
 child, her saucy prattle notwithstanding; and her son, 
 a burly young peasant, had spent much time and care in 
 training the famous Ixe as a gift from that worthy dame 
 to my little lady on her feast-day. It was rather a du- 
 bious thing in those days to receive a gift from such 
 a questionable personage as Mother Anne ; especially 
 as good or ill fortune was supposed to attend the gift, 
 according to the manner in which it was given. But 
 on this occasion Mother Anne had not committed 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. II7 
 
 herself; she had only said in her most mystifying 
 tones, — 
 
 " A light heart and a happy lot are yours, my pretty 
 lady ; but look you ! should Ixe die before the year, 
 you are in danger of losing both. Take care of him, 
 good care of him, my little elf!" which harrowing 
 prophecy caused Lasette to spend many an anxious 
 and sleepless night. As for Constance, she always 
 took the greatest care of her bird, — not on account of 
 Mother Anne's words, which were mere riddles to her, 
 but because she was fond of him, as she was of every 
 living thing that came within the reach of her loving 
 nature. 
 
 At last the brown autumn died away, and the cold 
 winter came ; and the gray mists rose above Mount 
 St. Michael, and the white snow fell quietly, burying 
 everything beneath it, and making the lonely landscape 
 around Sweet William's Bower even more bleak and 
 desolate. But none of the dreariness without ever 
 found its way into the gray chamber now. There 
 was always laughter and merry-making going on 
 within ; and although it had once been the gloomiest 
 dungeon on Mount St. Michael, it was now lighted 
 up with the sunshine of love and youthful graces, and 
 often made bright and beautiful. 
 
 The days were all too short, and even the long 
 
Il8 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 evenings came to an end much too soon for the happy 
 little cousins ; for it was then that Guilbert, sitting 
 very straight in his high-backed chair, related his 
 wonderful stories, and delighted the ears of Sweet 
 William and Constance with his marvellous adven- 
 tures. The good old fellow had kept a boyish heart, 
 his white hairs notwithstanding ; and his thrilling 
 recitals were scarcely less a delight to himself than 
 to the children. For he had a remarkable memory, 
 had Guilbert, for things that never happened, or which 
 happened so long before his time that he was hardly 
 expected to have any recollection of them. It must 
 be confessed that in his excitement he often grew 
 sadly confused, and jumbled up his dates in a way 
 that would have made any historian's hair turn 
 white. 
 
 The artless William always listened intently, with 
 his sweet, trustful, unquestioning smile, and his dark 
 eyes filled with a look of innocent wonderment ; but 
 Constance, whose knowledge of events was vast in 
 comparison, was often moved to shameful doubt, 
 especially when Guilbert dwelt at length on his inti- 
 macy with William the Conqueror, or told what active 
 part he took in the ravagings of the early Northmen, 
 or even went so far as to hint at his having been one 
 of the brave Roland's band, — forgetting, apparently, 
 
— -■'T^frj^- 
 
 "It was then that Guilbert told his wonderful stories." 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 121 
 
 that though the fame of these great heroes hves 
 forever, their poor bodies had been lying in their 
 rocky graves for centuries. 
 
 " Guilbert must be very, very old," Constance would 
 conjecture. " Do you think, Sweet William, he could 
 have seen the awful dragon that used to roam' about 
 Mount St. Michael before our great fortress was 
 built ? " 
 
 But Sweet William had never heard of the great 
 dragon that roamed about Mount St. Michael; and 
 Constance was fain to relate to him the old legend, 
 which Nurse Lasette had repeated so many times that 
 the little girl had it all by heart. 
 
 " It is strange to think of it. Sweet William," said 
 she ; " but once upon a time there was nothing on this 
 high mount but gray rocks and great lonely trees 
 growing in among them, — no abbey nor castle, and no 
 one living near it for miles around. The people were 
 afraid of it because this fearful dragon was hidden 
 away under the topmost rock ; and at dusk he came 
 out and wandered about the mount, and ate up any- 
 body he chanced to meet. He was the terror of all 
 the countr}', but especially of the poor mariners, who 
 were sure whenever they heard his terrible laugh that 
 some great danger was ahead. Think, Cousin, how 
 curious to hear a dragon laugh ! A dragon is a dread- 
 
122 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 ful creature with wings and a monstrous tail and a 
 very unpleasant face. One would never think that 
 he could laugh. The people were very sorry about 
 this dragon; but most of all a good old bishop who 
 lived near by, and who had prayed much to the blessed 
 saints that the monster might be destroyed. One 
 night the bishop had a strange dream ; the Archangel 
 Michael came to him and said, ' Go to the highest 
 rock of the mount and slay the dragon, and there 
 build a church in my name.' When the good bishop 
 awoke he was glad indeed to find it was only a dream ; 
 for though he was anxious to be rid of the dragon, he 
 would rather some one else did the slaying while he 
 did the praying. But the second and the third night he 
 had again the same dream ; till at last Saint Michael 
 struck him on the head with his thumb, and left a 
 little round mark in his skull where no hair ever grew 
 again. After that the good bishop did as he was told ; 
 and think of his terror, William, when he reached the 
 top of the mount ! The huge beast flapped its wings, 
 and opened its great jaws as if it would swallow him 
 whole; but he was brave now, for the good angel was 
 near him, and as he raised his sword the dragon 
 laughed one of its horrid laus^hs and fell down dead. 
 Then the bishop laid the first stone on the place 
 where the dragon fell, and after that a little church 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 23 
 
 was built, and the mount called Mount St. Michael 
 in honor of the archangel. And ever since Saint 
 Michael has been the patron saint of France and 
 Normandy.'' 
 
 " If it were not for the mark of the saint's thumb," 
 observed Sweet William, pensively, " I would almost 
 think Guilbert were that bishop ; it is like some of 
 the brave deeds he did in his youth. Guilbert has 
 been so many things, Constance, is it not possible he 
 might have been a bishop.?" 
 
 But Constance, upon second consideration, thought 
 not ; for though Guilbert possessed an ample circu- 
 lar baldness on the top of his venerable head which 
 would have been testimony enough for him, all this 
 had happened so many hundred years ago — no 
 one knew exactly how many — that she felt certain 
 Guilbert could claim no share in it. 
 
 " And then," she went on, " the castle was built, and 
 the little church was made into the large and beautiful 
 abbey that it is now, by the powerful dukes of Nor- 
 mandy. There is a picture of the good archangel 
 there, and you should see it, dear William, — such a 
 heavenly face when the sunshine falls on it through 
 the purple and crimson windows ! I can almost think 
 he is looking straight at me and saying, ' I am the 
 patron of little children ; I love and protect them all.' 
 
124 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 Have you never seen the face of the good Saint 
 Michael, William?" 
 
 " Surely no, dear Constance ; I do not understand. 
 How may one see the . faces of those who are not 
 on earth ? " 
 
 "Oh, Sweet William dear!" said my lady, laugh- 
 ingly, " you can see the portrait of any one, — even 
 of persons who are not living now, or who never were 
 on earth at all." 
 
 " And what is a portrait like ? " inquired Sweet 
 William, innocently. 
 
 ''Just like a living person whose face is ever smiling, 
 and whose eyes are always looking straight at you. 
 Some of them are very beautiful. Great men whom 
 the world calls artists paint them ; and you would not 
 believe it, Cousin, but with a few bright colors and a 
 long brush they fashion faces that look like some one 
 you love. My dear father is fond of lovely portraits, 
 and he has many of them at the castle, of all the lords 
 and ladies that have lived at Mount St. Michael. And 
 there is one of my father too, — a great glorious figure 
 in shining armor, and the mighty look in his eye that 
 I love so well. When he is far away and I long for 
 him, I sit and watch the painted face, and it is almost 
 like seeing him." 
 
 " What a wonderful thing a portrait is ! " said Sweet 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 25 
 
 William, in astonishment. " Tell me, dear Constance, 
 would I know and love my lord as you do, if I saw 
 his face in the portrait ? " 
 
 " I am sure you would. Sweet William. My father 
 has a brave face ; it is stern and terrible sometimes, 
 but it is always kind when it looks at me. And I 
 know that he would love you. Cousin dear, just as 
 he does me, if he only knew all about you." 
 
 Sweet William had no doubt of this. Indeed, he 
 knew of no reason why my lord should do otherwise 
 than love him. Had he met with aught but the 
 deepest and tenderest devotion from the few faithful 
 hearts that, so far, had come within the scope of his 
 little life ? Yet a gentle sigh rose to his parted lips, 
 and suddenly the look of yearning came into his great 
 soft eyes. 
 
 " Dearest Constance," said he, " I wish something 
 very much." 
 
 " And what is that. Sweet William ? " inquired 
 Constance, eagerly. 
 
 " That I might, just for one little moment, go with 
 you to the castle and look upon the face of my lord." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 T was so seldom that Sweet Wil- 
 liam wished for anything very- 
 much, or at least so seldom 
 that he spoke of his wishes, 
 that Nurse Mathilde and old 
 Guilbert were quite startled by this sudden avowal. 
 And to little Constance, who had but to speak in 
 order to obtain what she wanted, it seemed a great 
 wrong that Sweet William should be sufifered to long 
 for anything in vain. 
 
 Constance had been wise and docile beyond the 
 expectation even of the good nurses. She had 
 helped to make Sweet William's life in the Great 
 Tower happier and brighter than it had ever been. 
 But it could hardly be hoped that even the gentle 
 William could listen day after day to the wonders 
 of the great free world, and hear of the kindred 
 of whose rightful love he had mysteriously been 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 27 
 
 robbed, without feeling, now and then, a secret long- 
 ing to see and share them all. 
 
 Constance no sooner heard the words, than her own 
 heart unconsciously felt their tender pathos. Her 
 ingenious little brain responded at once, and in a 
 twinkling she had surmounted all difficulties. 
 
 " Sweet William dear," she said, " why should you 
 not come to the Great Hall with your nurse and me 
 and see the portrait ? We should be gone but a little 
 while ; and if you returned to the tower in safety, what 
 harm would be done ? Guilbert is such a good kind 
 keeper, he must surely let you go just for one 
 little moment." 
 
 But Guilbert, who happened to overhear this 
 dangerous praise of himself, began to gesticulate so 
 wildly, cutting off his head with an imaginary sword, 
 falling on his knees and imploring mercy from some 
 invisible tyrant, and otherwise manifesting such signs 
 of inward perturbation, that one might easily have 
 doubted whether he were the kind keeper that 
 Constance thought him, or the most ferocious of 
 custodians. 
 
 Sweet William's eyes lighted up strangely at the 
 sound of his cousin's words. The thought of leav- 
 ing the tower-chamber even for a single moment had 
 never presented itself to him, or indeed to any one else. 
 
128 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 in the light of a possibility. He started and ran 
 to his nurse, his dark curls blown from his fair fore- 
 head, and his face faintly flushed with excitement. 
 
 " Oh, good Mathilde, could we — could we, do 
 you think.''" he cried, throwing himself on the little 
 stool at her feet, and resting his clasped hands on 
 her knees. 
 
 What did make poor Nurse Mathilde falter and 
 tremble so ? What is it that makes us all weak 
 and yielding at the sight of a pleading child ? She 
 forgot her own peril and his. She forgot every- 
 thing when her darling sat there looking up at her 
 with his great yearning eyes ; and taking his dear 
 face between her hands, she said, — 
 
 " Yes, sweetheart, if the good Guilbert will let us." 
 
 But here the good Guilbert gave an alarming gasp 
 which might have been taken for his last breath, 
 and went through such another evolution of strange 
 grimaces that Constance was fain to laugh outright 
 at him, and call him a simple old soul. No one 
 understood as he did, however, the great risk he 
 would run in allowing even for one short hour a 
 prisoner of my lord's to go from beyond his watch. A 
 dungeon-keeper's duty was very serious in those days, 
 and Guilbert plumed himself on having been a just 
 and faithful servant all his life. 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 29 
 
 But this was such a peculiar case, Mathilde argued, 
 and the children's design was such an innocent and 
 harmless one, and my lord was so many miles away, 
 that surely he need have no fears. And then Con- 
 stance pleaded with him so prettily, and Sweet Wil- 
 liam looked at him so longingly, that very soon poor 
 Guilbert began to yield. " If I did not love my 
 prisoner so dearly and hate my master so heartily," he 
 thought, "I would not, for the first time in my five- 
 and-sixty years, fail in my trust. But there is no 
 wrong in doing good, no wrong in granting a simple 
 happiness to a child like Sweet William," he reasoned 
 with himself ; and after having recounted a multi- 
 tude of instances in which the direst and most terri- 
 ble consequences had resulted from a tower-keeper's 
 allowing little boy-captives to go about and view their 
 lordly uncles' portraits, he gave his consent with 
 fear and trembling. 
 
 Mathilde made all sorts of promises, to appease the 
 good servant's concern. She even went so far as 
 to say she would give herself up as his prisoner for 
 life, if she failed to return with Sweet William before 
 the great bell of the abbey rang out another hour. 
 And, if you will believe me, this proved so satis- 
 factory that Guilbert immediately loosened the heavy 
 bolts, albeit with a merry twinkle in his eye ; and he 
 
 9 
 
I30 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 was rash enough to hope secretly that Mathilde would 
 not be quite true to her word. 
 
 It was Sweet William's turn to be surprised when, 
 for the first time in his life, he stepped beyond the 
 threshold of the Great Tower chamber ; when he 
 breathed the clear, frosty air of the Mount, and 
 pressed with his little feet the pure, newly fallen snow; 
 when he saw the tall green pines swaying their loose 
 branches so near that he could almost touch them ; 
 and when at last he beheld the gray old walls of the 
 castle rising in stately grandeur before him. 
 
 Oh, little children who love and enjoy the beau- 
 tiful free world, with all its glorious wonders, who 
 look up day after day to its great blue dome, and 
 drink in freely the precious influence of its warmth 
 and light and sunshine, think what it must have 
 been to the little William when he saw and felt it 
 all for the first time ! No wonder his little heart beat 
 violently, and he held Mathilde's hand so tightly, 
 as they sped in silence through the great courtyard, 
 and into wooded paths, and up the narrow corridors 
 and winding stairways, till the home that was so 
 familiar to Constance seemed to him like a delightful 
 labyrinth. 
 
 But the Great Hall of the castle, in all its gloomy 
 magnificence, surpassed everything that Sweet Wil- 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 131 
 
 Ham had ever dreamed of. So many rare and costly 
 things greeted his eyes ; powerful-looking swords 
 whose hilts were of burnished gold, hung crossed upon 
 the walls ; soft silken curtains fell partly over the 
 beautifully latticed windows, and richly embroidered 
 tapestries hung on every side ; while the dark oaken 
 furniture, so massive and curiously shaped, was a 
 source of bewilderment to William, who could only 
 look his admiration and remain speechless. At one 
 end of the hall was my lord's ducal throne, made of 
 richly carved wood and adorned with beaten brass ; 
 and overhead a canopy of gold and purple draperies 
 from which hung the heavy crown that had rested on 
 the great dukes of Normandy for centuries. Oppo- 
 site, at the end of a long colonnade of arching mar- 
 ble pillars, was the banqueting-table where the great 
 feasts went on, and where the noblemen drank out 
 of jewelled goblets and ate from golden plates ; and 
 above it hung the famous portrait of the Duke, the 
 great glorious figure that Sweet William had longed 
 to see. 
 
 But there, too, over the tall chimney-piece hung 
 another portrait of such exquisite beauty that the 
 moment Sweet William's eyes fell upon it, they were 
 blind to everything else. It was the portrait of a 
 lady, young and beautiful, with a look of ineffable 
 
132 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 sweetness beaming down from dark, tender eyes that 
 seemed to follow William and look straight at him 
 wherever he stood. 
 
 "And who is this?" he asked in a voice that was 
 almost tremulous. 
 
 " She was my mother," said Constance, gently. 
 "Was she not a lovely lady.f" She died, dear cousin, 
 when you and I were babes. I often wonder why it 
 was so, and think how dearly I should have loved her, 
 had she been spared to her little child. She was 
 as good as she was beautiful, and every one loved her 
 at Mount St. Michael; and my father once said to me 
 that the light of the world went out for him when 
 her dear eyes closed." 
 
 Sweet William put his arm around the little girl's 
 neck, and his own eyes filled with tears. 
 
 " But he has you, dear Constance, and you are 
 sunshine enough for all the world," he said tender^. 
 
 " I am only a little maid, Sweet William, and but 
 a poor companion for so great and wise a lord as my 
 father. I have seen him many and many a time sit 
 before the portrait and watch it long and earnestly, 
 and I knew that he was thinking of her, and longing 
 to have her back with him. Oh, William, do you ever 
 wish, as I do, that you might have known and loved 
 your sweet young mother ? " 
 
" She was my mother." 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 35 
 
 Sweet William made no answer. But as he looked 
 more intently at the beautiful face above him, he felt 
 for the first time in his life that there was hidden 
 away somewhere in his heart a great love for some 
 one he had never known. 
 
 " If she was like this," he said at length, without 
 taking his eyes from the picture, " I could love her 
 without seeing her. But, Constance, is there not a 
 portrait of my mother in the castle ? " 
 
 " I think I have never seen one. Cousin dear," said 
 she, with a puzzled look. 
 
 The two children were silent for a moment while 
 they stood looking up at the lovely face. Constance 
 was thinking what a splendid thing it was to be a 
 good and beautiful lady and to be loved and re- 
 membered always, and was hoping that she too 
 might be so some day ; while Sweet William was 
 wondering, in his grave and quiet way, why Constance 
 had never spoken of her mother to him. 
 
 But my lady had so many people about her to love 
 and to talk of, that it was not strange she had ap- 
 parently forgotten one who lived only in her fancy. 
 Then the thought came to Sweet William, as it had 
 sometimes of late, that Constance had been blessed in 
 everything; even in her loss she had been blessed 
 more than he. But there was no bitterness nor regret 
 
136 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 in the passing thought ; it came and went Hke an 
 April snow-flake, leaving no trace of sadness in his 
 unselfish heart. 
 
 " Tell me more of this lady," he said at last, turning 
 to Constance. " I love her face dearly, it is so very 
 beautiful." 
 
 " I know but little, Sweet William ; it grieves my 
 father to speak of her, and Nurse cannot do so without 
 weeping. But it never saddens me to think of her, 
 for I know she is safe and happy with the angels, and 
 that she looks down from heaven and sees us, just as 
 she is doing from the portrait now." 
 
 Sweet William looked again at the painted face, 
 and then at the little girl's, so fair, so full of life and 
 light; and he thought there was a sweetness in it just 
 then that showed her heart at least was like the beau- 
 tiful lady's. But he wondered a little how his cousin 
 came by her sunny locks and eyes of blue. Surely 
 the old Norman at the foot of the hill was mistaken, 
 or else sorrow and age had dimmed his memory; for 
 my lady did not resemble her young mother. They 
 were both beautiful, but as unlike as twilight and 
 / dawn. 
 
 The great bell on Mount St. Michael ringing out 
 the close of this eventful hour in Sweet William's life, 
 roused him from his meditation ; and Constance ran 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 137 
 
 to Nurse Mathilde, — who had likewise fallen into 
 a quiet reverie, — and laughingly reminded her that 
 Guilbert had now two prisoners instead of one ; and 
 furthermore, that he might be indulging in some 
 dangerous pastimes at the thought of losing them 
 both. 
 
 And in truth she was not mistaken, for they found 
 the good keeper in a serious state when they returned. 
 He declared this had been the longest hour in all his 
 life, and that never before, not even when the chief of 
 the fierce Kymry had held the battle-axe three days 
 over his head, had he known such anguish as when 
 the last stroke of the bell had died away and he found 
 himself still alone in the tower. Indeed, he had 
 some notion of throwing himself from the tower- 
 window, but that Sweet William and Mathilde arrived 
 just in time to prevent this undignified close to his 
 brave career. 
 
 There was such a droll mixture of mirth and seri- 
 ousness in his words, and such a look of triumph in 
 his keen gray eye in spite of his feigned discomfiture, 
 that Sweet William could not refrain from laughing ; 
 and clasping him around the neck, he cried, — 
 
 " Oh, Guilbert, you mistrustful Guilbert, to think we 
 should ever desert you ! He does not deserve a kiss, 
 does he. Nurse ? " But Sweet William gave him a 
 
138 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 great many, nevertheless, as though they had been 
 parted a weary time. 
 
 " Nay, nay, my little one ! I had little fear of that ; 
 but, to tell you truly, the minutes were very long with- 
 out seeing your sweet face. Now come and tell me 
 all that has happened to make my little blossom's eyes 
 so brisjht." 
 
 So, climbing upon the old man's knee, William 
 related all his adventures, and told of the wonderful 
 things he had seen ; and even hinted, albeit very 
 cautiously, that he might like to repeat the experiment 
 at some future time. At which proposition Guilbert 
 showed the whites of his eyes in a way that was quite 
 alarming ; but all the while there was such a light of 
 pleasure in the little boy's face that the good keeper 
 felt well repaid for his few anxious and lonely 
 rnoments. 
 
 But Sweet William, like all tender and sensitive 
 natures, spoke least of the thing that was nearest his 
 heart ; and when the excitement of the day was over 
 he grew quiet and pensive again, and no one but his 
 ever watchful nurse caught glimpses of the sober 
 thoughts that were busying his young brain. Until 
 quite late that evening he sat in his favorite retreat, 
 looking out upon the night. All was quiet and peace- 
 ful, and the cold bright stars looked down benignly 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 139 
 
 upon the white earth below. A misty moonbeam 
 came slanting through the Bower-window, and fell full 
 upon the graceful figure within. Mathilde heard a 
 little sigh, and saw the thoughtful look steal again 
 into his deep eyes. 
 
 " What is it, dearest heart ? " she asked, bending 
 softly over the young face, so pure and fi'ail in the 
 pale radiance that fell upon it. 
 
 " Nothing, good nurse. I was only wondering," 
 said Sweet William, without looking up, — "wonder- 
 ing about the beautiful lady in the portrait." 
 
 And indeed he had occasion to wonder a great deal, 
 and his childish soul was often turbulent as the tide 
 of time rolled on to still more eventful days. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 LL this time Duke William seemed 
 to have forgotten his dangerous 
 little enemy in the Great Tower ; 
 at least, so all the good people of 
 Mount St. Michael thought. And 
 the little lady Constance would 
 have had good cause to be lonely, 
 and to sit and watch the glorious figure in the por- 
 trait, had it not been for the companionship of the 
 little cousin, whose beautiful and tender devotion so 
 utterly filled all the longings of her childish heart. It 
 seemed such a great while since my lord had been 
 at the castle, and so many things had happened dur- 
 ing these many months of cousinly intercourse, that 
 Constance was beginning to' feel, she said, as she used 
 to feel "years ago," when she was a very little girl 
 and did not even know what a dear, good father she 
 had; except that then she had only imagined the 
 most absurd and impossible things about him, whereas 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 141 
 
 now she could think of him as he was, and remember 
 all sorts of pleasant things about him, and hope for 
 his return. 
 
 In youth hopefulness and cheerfulness are hardy 
 little plants, and the heart whence they spring is very 
 fertile ; and it is not to be wondered at that a 
 sanguine and buoyant nature, like that of little Con- 
 stance, could find no reason to mourn the absence 
 even of one whom she loved and revered as she did 
 my lord. It is true she would sometimes ask La- 
 sette what there could be about wars that kept the 
 noblemen of Normandy away from their castles for so 
 long. But Lasette was forced to confess herself very 
 ignorant on the subject of wars, and really could not 
 say why great lords went to them so much, and still 
 less why some of them never returned. Then Con- 
 stance would add, in a way that never made the good 
 nurse jealous, — 
 
 " I should feel sad very often, Lasette, thinking 
 about my father so far away, but that I have my dear 
 cousin. One must get very lonely without one's own 
 kindred, don't you think ? Even though one may love 
 others very much, it is never quite the same, you 
 know. And then I think one's twin-cousin must be 
 nearer than any other kin in the world. Sometimes I 
 feel as if I could never live away firom my dear Sweet 
 
142 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 William. When he is a man and a great lord, and 
 must go off to the wars, I shall go with him." 
 
 If Duke William could have heard these simple 
 words, he would have been startled into an unpleasant 
 recollection of his youthful prisoner. It was well he 
 did not. He would better have parted with the half 
 of his dukedom than shared the love of Constance 
 with his enemy's child. Still, he was not entirely free, 
 during these long months, from the memory of a child, 
 beautiful and innocent, growing up to boyhood in the 
 gloomiest dungeon of the great Norman fortress. Al- 
 though his heart was cruel and his conscience seared, 
 there were many, many moments when the thought of 
 that child filled him with unrest. How would it all 
 end, and what was he to do that the end, when it 
 did come, might serve all his selfish and revengeful 
 motives, were questions that beset him almost daily. 
 
 When Sweet William was but a baby, my lord had 
 sent him to the tower, hoping that the gloom and con- 
 finement, and the lack of all that makes life precious 
 and worth living for, would shorten the tender life, 
 and thus save him from deliberately adding one more 
 wicked deed to his already long list of sins. But now 
 every year, every month, every day added to Sweet 
 William's life made him more dangerous and more to 
 be dreaded in Duke William's e)'^es. Many a night 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 43 
 
 as my lord lay on his uneasy pillow, his brain busy 
 with godless and designing schemes, would he resolve 
 to take the child's life as ruthlessly as he had taken 
 that of his own young brother ; but when the light of 
 the morning came, the evil he had meditated in dark- 
 ness frightened him, and he was left weak and help- 
 less. There was a lurking fear in his heart that it 
 would go ill with him if he put the boy William to 
 death, — William, the only male descendant of his 
 noble line, and bearing his own name. It was as if a 
 voice spoke to him and a strong- hand withheld him 
 whenever this wicked thought came into his brain. 
 Perhaps, too, he could not but confess to himself how 
 guiltless and helpless this same little William really 
 was, and how useless it would be to bring sorrow and 
 suffering on the innocent child. 
 
 Oh, it is but an unholy pleasure to seek revenge, 
 even for the real wrongs done to us ; but how in- 
 finitely worse is it to inflict needless pain on hearts 
 young and loving that have never known the shadow 
 of evil ! Such a wrong rests like a curse on him who 
 deals it. 
 
 Sweet William's heart was as pure and beautiful as 
 his face, as those who knew him well said. But my 
 lord did not know this: he only knew that however 
 good and beautiful the child might be, he was a living 
 
144 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 reproach to him, and troubled his conscience more 
 than Duke William had ever allowed anything to 
 trouble him before ; and, strange as it may seem, these 
 secret misgivings came most frequently to my lord 
 during those last months when his little daughter 
 Constance and her cousin William were learning to 
 love each other so dearly, and dreaming such bright 
 visions of future happiness, and making such artless 
 resolutions to be together always. His own dreams 
 might have been more uneasy, had he known how the 
 sacred ties he had striven to kill were asserting them- 
 selves strongly and mysteriously in spite of him, and 
 that in the very prison he had destined for their 
 graves, Love and Youth and Purity were growing 
 side by side. 
 
 Daily the sun rose on Mount St. Michael, and daily 
 it. sank behind the purple clouds across the sea, and 
 yet Duke William came not, and the little twin-cousins 
 spent their days happily in the Great Tower, and the 
 good nurses began to think my lord had quite for- 
 gotten them all. But he had not ; and I think it 
 was only the will of a wise Providence that though 
 his thoughts were so often at Mount St. Michael, 
 Duke William himself should have been kept away, 
 in order that this pure, strong love might gain a 
 firmer growth. 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 145 
 
 It is surprising how suddenly the clouds come 
 up in a clear sky, and still more surprising how such 
 a small thing as a cloud can darken a \yhole world. 
 It is very often so in our own lives ; when we are 
 happiest, something comes up all at once that seems 
 to chase away all our sunshine. It was just at this 
 time, when everything was so peaceful and quiet at 
 Mount St. Michael, that an incident occurred which 
 filled the good castle-folk with the direst forebod- 
 ings ; for I am sorry to say that the people in 
 those days were very superstitious, — particularly the 
 people who lived in small provinces, and who were 
 ignorant, — and an omen of ill-luck often caused 
 greater anxiety and distress than tlie real misfortune 
 it was so surely supposed to announce. 
 
 Nurse Mathilde had said, just a few days before, 
 that, she could scarcely remember a happier time in 
 all her life. There was her little William, sweeter 
 and comelier than ever, and my lady growing so wise 
 and gentle. And what with Nurse Lasette, who 
 often joined them in their merry-makings now, there 
 was hardly a happier family to be found in Normandy. 
 And there was Guilbert, too, growing whiter and 
 droller every day, especially in his attempts to trans- 
 form the Great Tower chamber into the scene of some 
 thrilling event in his life. Great battles were re- 
 
146 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 hearsed, and wild hunts and exciting tournaments 
 were played at by turns. Indeed, there was scarcely 
 any one of these popular diversions in which Sweet 
 William had not been taught by his fair cousin ; and 
 with the true spirit of a little nobleman of his time, 
 his progress was very rapid. He won great honors at 
 these homely festivities, with no other competitors 
 than a host of imaginary champions, and a most 
 partial and enthusiastic audience. He won his spurs 
 with uncommon facility, and after many other glori- 
 ous achievements was knighted with all due solem- 
 nity, my Lady Constance herself dubbing him with 
 their little mock wooden sword. 
 
 In one thing, certainly, Sweet William was distin- 
 guishing himself. He was becoming a good archer. 
 He must have inherited the gift or else been a won- 
 derfully apt pupil ; for with but a few instructions 
 from Guilbert he soon learned to handle my lady's 
 little cross-bow as gracefully as any Robin Hood, 
 and to send his arrow flying as swiftly and skilfully 
 as many a practised sportsman. Constance always 
 admired and applauded his successes; for she, too, 
 was a fair archer, and capable of appreciating liis skill. 
 There was nothing they enjoyed more than standing 
 together at one of the tower-windows and throwing 
 out little pebbles which Nurse Mathilde had pre- 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 47 
 
 viously sewed up into deceiving little round bundles, 
 to see which one could send his arrow quickly enough 
 to split the little bag and release the pebbles. 
 
 In these shooting-matches the hawk Ixe was 
 always a lively spectator. He would sit perched 
 upon one of the projecting bars of the window, and 
 eye the little farce half disdainfully and half approv- 
 ingly ; and when a victory was won, and the merry 
 laughter of the two children rang out upon the quiet 
 landscape, he would fly down with a great show of 
 enthusiasm, and return bearing the little woollen 
 trophy in his beak. 
 
 It was thus that the little twin-cousins were 
 engaged on one of the first long spring afternoons. 
 Constance stood beside Sweet William, flinging out 
 the little targets ; but either my lady was in a playful 
 mood and tried some of her little witcheries to baffle 
 him, or else luck was not on his side, for he missed 
 them every one. 
 
 " Oh, come, Sweet William, try just once more, do ! 
 You must not be discouraged yet," said her ladyship, 
 with an engaging smile, as the little boy laid down 
 his bow with a disappointed look. " See ! I will 
 throw this one very straight. Hold your bow long 
 and steadily, so ; and do not move until I give the 
 word." 
 
148 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 Sweet William retreated a step or two, threw back 
 his curly head with a resolute air, and held his bow 
 at arm's length for a long second or two. 
 
 '' Fly ! " cried my lady. 
 
 At the word, which she had always used in hunt- 
 ing with her falcon, Ixe sprang from his perch as 
 swiftly as the arrow itself, and crossed it just in 
 time to receive its sharp point in his black breast. 
 
 Constance uttered a piercing cry, and covered her 
 face with her hands. Mathilde fell back in her chair 
 with a smothered groan; and the little cross-bow 
 dropped from Sweet William's helpless hands, and 
 his face was as deadly pale as if the arrow had been 
 in his own heart. 
 
 My lady's feast-day was not for a fortnight to 
 come, and the bird Ixe lay dead beneath the tower- 
 window, with Sweet William's arrow buried deep in 
 his black plumes. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HE death of the black hawk was 
 regarded in the Hght of a great 
 calamity at Mount St. Michael, — 
 by Constance, who had been so 
 fond of him and spent so many pleasant hours in 
 his company; by Sweet William, who bewailed his 
 wretched luck, and could not forgive himself for 
 bringing sorrow to his dear cousin ; but more es- 
 pecially by the good people at the castle, who re- 
 membered Mother Anne's words, and plainly saw 
 that this event foreshadowed some great evil. 
 
 Mathilde and Lasette were in frequent consulta- 
 tion together, and wore such anxious faces that Sweet 
 William wondered secretly if the loss of the poor bird 
 could really make his nurse act so curiously at times. 
 She had never shown any remarkable affection for 
 the creature ; indeed, she had spoken of him once or 
 
I50 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 twice as a wild, audacious thing, as like to pick my 
 lady's pretty eyes out as do any other dangerous mis- 
 chief. And then, too, Lasette had wept almost as 
 much as my lady, and bidden her return no more to 
 the tower that day, but spend the hours of play in 
 giving her favorite due and honorable burial. Ixe, 
 like most of fortune's pets, had had many envious 
 enemies in his lifetime ; but when he died every one 
 seemed to mourn for him. It is a strange world, and 
 Sweet William was greatly puzzled. 
 
 Nor was the general consternation at all lessened 
 when, some days later, intelligence was brought that 
 my lord the Duke was actually on his way to Mount 
 St. Michael, with a great company of lords and ladies. 
 This, to the anxious people, made every imaginary 
 evil possible. 
 
 But, on the contrary, my lord came home in an un- 
 usually benevolent frame of mind. For the wars were 
 ended for a brief season, and peace reigned through- 
 out France. It was a happy time. Great victories 
 had been won, and men had distinguished themselves 
 and were on their way homeward rejoicing. Every 
 one seemed disposed to make merry, — even the surly 
 Duke of Normandy, who was returning on purpose 
 to prepare for a great joust given by his king. 
 
 It was always so in those days, — men were either 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 151 
 
 fighting one another in good earnest or doing so in 
 jest. The most popular amusement of the day was 
 the tournament, where vaUant knights wrestled with 
 one another, and went through all the mimicry of 
 real combat for the entertainment of royal beholders. 
 And this was thought a fitting way to celebrate any 
 joyous event, even the close of a fierce warfare and 
 the reconciliation of two great nations. 
 
 Such a tournament it was that Duke William was 
 making ready for, so gorgeous and festive and splen- 
 did in every way that it has not its like in all history. 
 It was to be held in a beautiful valley of France near 
 the famous city of Calais ; and for months before 
 great ships loaded with the costliest and rarest luxu- 
 ries were sailing into this great port, and leaving their 
 cargoes to array the chosen camp. Thousands of 
 workmen were there, busy erecting temporary palaces 
 and gay pavilions and richly furnished tents for the 
 king and his nobles, who were now gathering from all 
 the country round ; and scarcely anything else was 
 talked of for weeks beforehand. 
 
 But at Mount St. Michael, so far out on the lonely 
 sea, where the only nobleman was a little boy shut up 
 in a great tower, no news of all this had come, until 
 Duke William himself brought the tidings. And the 
 elaborate preparations that were then made threw the 
 
152 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 good castle-folk into such a state of excitement that 
 they quite forgot the little episode of the Great 
 Tower. 
 
 Now Duke William did not mean to be outshone 
 by any knight in France in the coming festivities. 
 He accordingly gave orders that a splendid ship 
 should be fitted out, — a ship magnificent enough to 
 bear so mighty a lord as he to the grand tournament. 
 The fair vessel was brought to the shores of the 
 rocky Mount, and for days nothing was done at the 
 castle save to prepare for the eventful journey; and 
 nothing was left undone that could in any way add 
 glitter and glory to its pageantry. 
 
 It had been a whim of my lord to take his little 
 daughter with him on this festive tour, and he was 
 pleased to think that her beauty and spirit would be 
 greatly admired by all his noble friends. It was a 
 very uncommon thing, an extraordinary thing, I 
 might say, for a little girl like Constance to share 
 the amusements of older people, much less to travel 
 about for pleasure. True, she had been especially 
 favored as a child, but she had never dreamed of such 
 a privilege as this. Therefore, when her father made 
 known his intention, and told her of all the gorgeous- 
 ness that would be displayed there, and of the feast- 
 ing and merry-making, and of all the royal personages 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 53 
 
 that were to be present, she could scarcely contain 
 her rapture. 
 
 That night she went straight to the Great Tower, 
 and confided her good fortune to Sweet William. In 
 her own animated way she related all the wonders 
 her father had described to her. She made such a 
 long and impressive story of my lord's achievements, 
 and the bravery he had displayed in the late con- 
 quests, that the ingenuous William was inclined to 
 believe that the great feast was being held chiefly 
 in honor of my lord. 
 
 " And think of it, Sweet William," cried my lady, 
 clapping her little hands excitedly, " I shall see a real 
 tournament, and the king himself, and the bravest 
 knights and loveliest ladies of Europe, and. Cousin 
 dear, the most beautiful horses in the land, — horses, 
 my. father says, that would make even Roncesvalles 
 hang his head. But he says that only to try me, 
 for he knows that my Roncesvalles is the dearest 
 horse in all the world. Oh, I shall miss him, I 
 fear," she added pensively " and you, too, my sweet 
 cousin." And she laid her hand ever so gently on 
 the little boy's cheek. 
 
 Sweet William looked up at her, and a little shade 
 of trouble filled his eyes. 
 
 " And must you go away and leave me ? " he asked. 
 
154 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 " Yes ; but not for long, William dear. And I shall 
 have so much to tell you when I return ; we shall 
 talk about it for days. Will you not like to hear 
 about all the wonderful things I am going to see .'' " 
 
 Something in the little boy's tender nature told him 
 he must not mar his dear cousin's happiness with any 
 regrets of his own ; and though his heart was heavy at 
 the thought of parting from her even for a few short 
 weeks, he answered quite cheerfully, — 
 
 " Oh, I will indeed, Constance ; but I shall like 
 better than all to see you coming home again. When 
 does the ship set sail ? " 
 
 " Not for a fortnight," returned my lady, — " time 
 enough for Nurse to teach me courtly manners and 
 how to make a pretty reverence. She cautions me 
 every day about my good behavior, and says I must 
 not prattle much, as I do here; for in the big world 
 children are wont to sit and listen while their elders 
 speak. I have much to learn. Sweet William, and I 
 am such a wilful child that poor Lasette will be quite 
 grave, I fear, before she has made a good lady of me." 
 
 Sweet William was about to interpose, but she put 
 the tips of her rosy fingers on his lips, saying, — 
 
 " No, no, William ! you must not contradict me. I 
 am a very naughty child. I am always making Nurse 
 cry. But yesterday I said to her that my father would 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 55 
 
 take you to the tournament too, if she would let me 
 tell him that you were here. But she looked at me 
 with such sad eyes, and said ' Constance, Constance,' 
 so reproachfully, that I had to promise again and 
 again I would keep our secret from him. Oh, I wish 
 that wanting to be good could make one so!" And 
 Constance rested her little chin on her hands and was 
 silent for a moment, as if quite overwhelmed at the 
 thought of her iniquities. 
 
 " I ought to be good," she added after a pause, " for 
 I have much to make me happy." 
 
 " You are very good, I think," added Sweet William, 
 seriously ; " and that is why you are so happy." 
 
 " Oh, my dear, dear cousin," cried my lady, in sur- 
 prise as well as pleasure, " do you really think so ? " 
 And she ran up to him and embraced him heartily. 
 
 In all their little scenes Sweet William's fondness, 
 unlike that of Constance, was always evinced in a 
 quiet and gentle dignity, which contrasted singularly 
 with the little girl's ardent and captivating demon- 
 strations ; and a stranger looking in upon them 
 would hardly have taken them for children of the 
 same hour. 
 
 " Now, Constance, tell me more about the beautiful 
 ship," Sweet William said, as they walked hand in 
 hand to the window overlooking the sea. 
 
156 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 So she made a vivid picture of the splendors she 
 anticipated; for she was an imaginative Httle person, 
 and WiUiam never wearied of listening to the lively 
 prattle that Nurse Lasette had seemed to condemn. 
 
 " Our ship will sail past this very window," said 
 she, "and you must stand here and smile at me; and 
 I shall look up and remember you so all the while I 
 am gone. Will you, Sweet William ? " 
 
 Sweet William promised, and for the moment for- 
 got his own disappointment in her happiness. 
 
 A little later when my lady turned to say good- 
 night, she kissed Sweet William tenderly, and whis- 
 pered in his ear, — 
 
 " I am very happy, Cousin dear, but I should be 
 much happier if you were going with me." 
 
 At last the eventful day arrived ; and my lady, look- 
 ing her fairest in her pretty gown of white, and the 
 June sunshine lighting up her bright hair, stepped on 
 board the splendid vessel, followed by Nurse Lasette, 
 and then Duke William and all his retinue, and a 
 host of lords and ladies in gay and gorgeous cos- 
 tumes, — the most brilliant company the rocks of 
 Mount St. Michael had looked down upon for many 
 a long day. There was music and dancing and feast- 
 ing aboard, and merry laughter rang out on the sea, 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 157 
 
 and high above all floated the white banner of Nor- 
 mandy, with the lilies of France upon it, emblazoned 
 in purple and gold. Then the anchors were loosed, 
 
 and the sailors' glad shout rose from the waters, and 
 the fair ship set sail upon a quiet sea. 
 
 All this Sweet William saw from the window of the 
 Great Tower, and the promised smile on his young 
 lips was very faint, as he saw the last flutter of my 
 lady's golden hair. He looked long and wistfully after 
 
158 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 the gallant ship, — long after the last of her happy- 
 crew had faded out of sight, and her tall white sails 
 looked like the wings of some great sea-bird ; and then 
 he turned away with a heavy heart, and fell into the 
 arms of his nurse Mathilde and sobbed away all his 
 bitterness. 
 
 Oh, the memory of a first sorrow, a sorrow like 
 this, — to part from that we love best in all the world ! 
 How it lingers in the heart, how it hovers about us 
 even in happier moments ! Sweet William never 
 forgot this hour. He had enjoyed the love and 
 companionship of so few people during his strange 
 childhood that to lose sight of one of them even for 
 a brief season seemed like taking a part of his own 
 life away ; and a sense of dreary emptiness oppressed 
 him, and filled him with vague fears. 
 
 .Mathilde tried to comfort him, as she alone could 
 do, with cheerful words and promises; and she cradled 
 him in her arms as tenderly as In the days of his 
 babyhood. But Sweet William could not help remem- 
 bering that another ship had once gone from the 
 shores of Mount St. Michael and never returned ; 
 and he wondered if he should have to watch and 
 wait as the old Norman peasant had done. 
 
 The days were very long now, without my lady's 
 bright little person in the tower-chamber; and Sweet 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 59 
 
 William had so much leisure to think and ponder 
 over his mysterious seclusion, and he was so much 
 wiser than in the old days when his relations with 
 Constance were only fanciful, that Nurse Mathilde 
 plainly saw the end. Sweet William would awaken 
 to his wretched lot. In spite of all her efforts, the 
 tower would be to him what it had been to so many 
 others, — a dreary prison whose walls stood between 
 him and all life's blessings. It would be unbearable, 
 and his young soul would droop and sicken under it 
 all ; and this thought was so distressing to her that she 
 could hardly keep a brave face for her darling. But 
 she prayed, oh so earnestly, in her heart that the good 
 God would provide some way, any way, by which her 
 precious boy might be spared from the evils that 
 seemed threatening. 
 
 Long before the time appointed for my lord's re- 
 turn to Mount St. Michael, Sweet William was keep-, 
 ing a patient and faithful vigil at the tower-window. 
 He was never tired of looking out across the tranquil 
 sea, though for many more days nothing was seen 
 upon its bosom but the blue reflection of the summer 
 heavens. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ITH a gentle and prosperous wind, 
 the fair Norman vessel soon en- 
 tered into port at Calais. Al- 
 ready the great city was alive 
 with the spirit of the prodigious 
 feast. Everything was stirring, and had a wonderfully 
 festive look. Even the working-people, dressed out 
 in their Sunday costumes seemed for the time to 
 have little else to do besides watching the gay multi- 
 tudes flocking toward the place of meeting. The 
 road thither was hung with garlands, and strewn with 
 flowers, and lighted by hundreds of flaming torches. 
 Gorgeous equipages rolled by incessantly, while strains 
 of martial music echoed far and wide; and it really 
 seemed as if the whole world were on a glorious 
 holiday. 
 
 My little Lady Constance, who had been in ecsta- 
 sies all the way, was now quite bewildered by this 
 new magnificence. Her bright blue eyes were bigger 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. l6l 
 
 and brighter than ever, and her active little tongue 
 could hardly ask questions fast enough. She entirely 
 forgot Nurse Lasette's injunction, and her unre- 
 strained prattling and exclamations of surprise and 
 her merry ringing laughter were quite improper for 
 a little lady of the nobility. But my lord the Duke 
 was mightily amused by it all. He said his little 
 daughter's amazement" was a far more interesting 
 sight to him than all the king's tournaments ; and 
 many of his noble friends said so too. 
 
 When Constance reached the beautiful field, she 
 found there was still a great deal more to delight her. 
 Such wonderful things as she saw, — magnificent tents 
 decked and hung in golden tapestries, and gorgeous 
 banners waving overhead, and golden statues of lions 
 and other monstrous creatures which she admired 
 greatly, and fountains that ran wine as freely as 
 water, and sparkled like rubies in the sunlight. 
 Then there were horses without number, — strong, 
 handsome horses, splendidly caparisoned and wear- 
 ing crests of tall white plumes on their proud heads ; 
 and their riders were clad from head to foot in 
 bright armor, and carried long spears that flashed 
 and glittered so that the scene was dazzling to the 
 eyes. Indeed^ there seemed to be no end of pomp 
 and glory; and Constance felt, that this was certainly 
 
162 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 the grandest spectacle she had ever looked upon. 
 She had never supposed there were so many people 
 in the world, and such amiable and courtly people 
 too; for every one had a smile for the pretty 
 bright-haired child who went about hand in hand 
 so confidingly with the grim and redoubtable Duke 
 William. 
 
 On the day after the arrival Constance went 
 with her father to visit the tents of some great lords 
 whose names she could not remember, they were 
 so long and strange ; and the flattering remarks 
 which her beauty and winning ways called forth 
 on every side were as music to the vain old ears 
 of my lord. He had never been admired by any 
 one himself, and he knew it. He had always before 
 hated those who were, and shown his envy in some 
 unpleasant way. But with this child it was different. 
 She was a part of himself, and he felt that all her 
 charms and graces were but a reflection of his own 
 greatness, and a thing to be proud of and to gloiy 
 in. Some of these great people actually said she 
 was a rival for the pretty queen herself, and better 
 fitted to grace the court of France than the bare 
 rocks of Mount St. Michael ; at which Duke William 
 smiled pleasurably, and his ambitions rose high. 
 
 But her little ladyship, who happily was ignorant 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 63 
 
 of all ambition, and still more unconscious of all her 
 attractions, spoke up with her usual artless daring, — 
 
 " But I shall never leave Mount St. Michael, 
 except with — " 
 
 " Except with whom ? " demanded my lord. 
 
 " Except with some one I love very, very much," 
 answered she, looking up at him with a bright, 
 mischievous little smile. 
 
 And my lord, thinking she meant him, was 
 pleased that his great friends should see how per- 
 fectly she loved and trusted him. He had had little 
 enough love and trust to boast of, forsooth, and hers 
 was now the sweetest thing in life to him. 
 
 On the next day the games began ; and Constance 
 was installed in one of the airy pavilions, in the midst 
 of a group of fair ladies, beautifully dressed in light 
 silken robes, with dainty laces about their shoulders, 
 and roses blooming freely upon their cheeks. Nurse 
 Lasette stood near by, and when my lady saw some- 
 thing that particularly astonished her, or when her lit- 
 tle feelings became too much for her, she would draw 
 Lasette's face down to hers and whisper in her ear, 
 ■" Oh, Nurse, if Sweet William could but see all this ! " 
 
 Constance soon noticed that many brave and 
 handsome knights hovered continually about their 
 pavilion. It is a curious thing, but one may nearly 
 
1 64 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 always see brave young knights wherever there are 
 lovely ladies. Constance did not yet know this 
 great law of attraction ; so she watched them all 
 with deep interest, and amused her nurse with her 
 comments. 
 
 " The ladies must love the brave knights very 
 much, to give them such beautiful knots of ribbon," 
 said she ; " and look ! some of them are throwing 
 down flowers. Why do not the young lords kiss 
 the pretty ladies for their pains, Lasette .'' " 
 
 But Lasette was at a loss to say why the young 
 noblemen should prove themselves so thoughtless 
 and ungrateful. 
 
 Presently my lady was interrupted in her ingen- 
 uous reflections. A young knight stood beside one 
 of the flower-decked pillars of their bower, and 
 directed his glances so often towards the little 
 figure in white that Constance began to notice 
 him particularly. He was alone. He neither spoke 
 with the fair ladies above him, nor received flowers 
 and favors from their hands. He had an absent 
 look in his eyes, except when he looked at Constance, 
 and then she observed that he smiled a little. She 
 thought him very handsome and manly. He wore 
 such a beautiful cloak of crimson velvet, fastened 
 on the shoulder with a large silver clasp. One end 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 65 
 
 of it was gracefully thrown back, and revealed a 
 splendid girdle and sword-hilt all inlaid with pre- 
 cious stones. She liked his face, too, — for it was a 
 pleasant face, fairer than that of most men, — while 
 his hair was almost as yellow as her own. 
 
 " I wonder what lady he is looking for," she mused, 
 as she studied him with her wide-awake blue eyes. 
 But as she was unable to satisfy herself on this point, 
 she soon became interested in some of the lively 
 combats that were going on. 
 
 As for the young nobleman, he watched the games 
 but little that day. Every now and then Constance 
 found his eyes upon her, and after a little she 
 began to think that he was looking for no less a lady 
 than her little self. Whenever she broke out into 
 some exclamation of delight, or clapped her little 
 hands, or made some artless remark to her nurse, he 
 watched her, following all her movements and smiling 
 as if in sympathy with her enjoyment. 
 
 Many eyes watched the pretty child that day, but 
 none so furtively as the young lord's ; and many 
 spoke of her that night, but the young nobleman did 
 not, — he only took with him the memory of her 
 bright young face, and spent a great portion of the 
 night in thinking. 
 
 As for my lady, when she laid her tired little head 
 
1 66 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 on her pillow that night, she wondered if she would 
 wake in the morning and find it all a dream. Her 
 thoughts wandered to the old fortress in Normandy, 
 and it seemed years since she had left it. All that 
 she had seen since then went through her mind in 
 rapid succession ; and lastly she thought of the great 
 distance between her and the little cousin she loved, 
 and but for that thought she felt this had been 
 the happiest day of her life. 
 
 On the third day, and on all the days following, 
 Constance went again with her nurse to the ladies* 
 pavilion. Each day she saw the young lord standing 
 alone near the same pillar, and looking at her with the 
 same searching look in his blue eyes. At last one 
 day he came and spoke with her, and asked her in a 
 courtly way what she thought of the king's great 
 tournament. He had a kindly voice as well as a 
 pleasant face, and Constance was disposed to be very 
 friendly with him. So she told him, in her quaint 
 little way, how pleased and surprised she had been, 
 and how like a great lady she felt, as she watched 
 the brave way ■ in which the young knights were 
 disporting themselves in the lists. 
 
 " It is a noble sight," she said. " There is only 
 one thing I miss, — just one thing." 
 
 " And what is that ? " inquired her friend. 
 
* How like a great lady she felt, as she watched the brave way in which the young 
 knights were disporting themselves in the lists." 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 169 
 
 " There is not, in all this great assembly, a single 
 face that resembles Sweet William's." 
 
 " Sweet William ! " repeated the nobleman ; " that 
 is a dainty name enough. And, pray, who is 
 Sweet William.?" 
 
 " My cousin, — my little twin-cousin who lives in the 
 Great Tower at Mount St. Michael. I am so fond of 
 him, and he is fond of me. I think of him all the 
 time, even while I am seeing such great and curious 
 sights as these ; and I wish that he were with me. It 
 was such a pity to come away and leave him shut up 
 in that Great Tower — But there ! I have again 
 forgotten," she added hastily. " Nurse told me never 
 to speak of Sweet William to any one; but she said 
 'to any one at Mount St. Michael,' and you are not 
 of Mount St. Michael, so it is no great wrong." 
 
 The young lord looked surprised, but after a pause 
 he said, — 
 
 " It is no wrong at all. I am not of Mount St. 
 Michael, but of Chalons. I am the Count Philippe 
 of Chalons, and I have never been in Normandy. 
 But I had a sister once who was there, — a sweet 
 and beautiful lady," he said. And as he looked more 
 intently at the little girl, he added under his breath, 
 " And you are wonderfully like her, — wonderfully 
 like her!" 
 
fJO SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 Their thoughts were travelHng in different direc- 
 tions ; and while the Count stood musing, Constance 
 pursued her own without interruption. 
 
 " If you think there is no wrong," she said, " I will 
 tell you all about my cousin Sweet William." And 
 she laid her hand on his arm with a confiding little 
 gesture, and an air of secrecy that was quite capti- 
 vating. " I love to speak of him, though I seldom do 
 to any one but Nurse. He is the dearest cousin in all 
 the world, and so beautiful ! I think you have never 
 seen any one quite so beautiful as Sweet William. 
 His name is Sweet William, but I call him Prince 
 William sometimes. In truth, he is more like a 
 prince than any of these noble lords." And she em- 
 phasized her ruthless assertion by a wave of her lit- 
 tle arm that took in the entire assembly. " Do you 
 know, I often wonder how Sweet William will look 
 when he too is a great lord." 
 
 " That is a serious question," said the Count, 
 laughingly. 
 
 " He will not look like you," she added, eying him 
 critically ; " for his curls are very brown, and his eyes 
 are big and dark. Sometimes vou would almost 
 think they had tears in them, they shine so. But his 
 sweet mouth tells you they have not. Sweet William 
 is always smiling. I have never seen him weep, and 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 171 
 
 I think he never does. He is so ver)'- good, I am 
 sure he has no reason to shed tears over his sins, 
 as I have." 
 
 Count Philippe smiled involuntarily ; but he was 
 fain to check himself with speed, for my little lady 
 was quite serious. 
 
 " And you say this lovely Sweet William is shut up 
 in a great tower ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes ; but he is quite happy, for he has his good 
 nurse always with him. He is only quiet and 
 thoughtful, and his cheeks are not so rosy as mine. 
 I think it is because he wonders a great deal. We 
 are very different, — Sweet William and I. Nurse 
 calls us the Shadow and the Sunshine." 
 
 The young Count thought what a pleasant picture 
 to see the two beautiful children together, — the 
 sprightly, elf-like little maid and the gentle, winsome 
 boy. There was something singularly attractive about 
 Constance, and his interest grew deeper every mo- 
 ment. Without wishing to seem curious, he. felt a 
 desire to know more of this little twin-cousin in the 
 tower, and to look into the strange mystery; for a 
 mystery he was sure there was. 
 
 " And what has Sweet William done that he should 
 be put in a tower? " he inquired. 
 
 " I do not know; no one knows," replied Constance, 
 
172 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 artlessly ; and she was a little puzzled because the 
 Count Philippe looked incredulous. She was quite 
 sure, however, that Sweet William had never done 
 any wrong, and she told the young Count so. She 
 believed in her little cousin so thoroughly, she trusted 
 him so implicitly, that she felt some anxiety lest any 
 one might form wrong impressions of him. They 
 were all waiting, she said, — waiting and hoping ; and 
 some day something would happen — she did not 
 know exactly what — that would give Sweet William 
 leave to go from the Great Tower; and then they 
 would all live happily at the castle. Constance 
 thought this " something " must happen very soon 
 now, for she had been waiting nearly a year. 
 
 " And Sweet William," she added, " has been wait- 
 ing ever since he was a baby. That is nearly nine 
 years ago. Sweet William and I were babes together 
 then." 
 
 And, pray, what was the good Lasette doing while 
 all this was going on ? She must surely have fallen 
 asleep, or been too rapt in the marvels that greeted 
 her honest eyes ; for never before had she watched so 
 ill over her fair young charge. True, something un- 
 usual had just occurred. The young king of France 
 had engaged in a playful hand-to-hand encounter, and 
 come off victorious. Every one had been intensely 
 
SWEET WILLIAM, 1 73 
 
 interested, but my lady and her friend tlie Count. 
 But now the mad applause that rang through the 
 crowd, and the great commotion that was made, put 
 an end to any further conversation between them 
 that day. 
 
 After that my lady and the Count grew very 
 intimate. They saw each other every day at the 
 games, and Constance went with him to see his 
 beautiful charger, — he having heard of her fondness 
 for horses, and all about the favorite Roncesvalles, and 
 indeed about everything at Mount St. Michael that 
 she thought might interest him. Count Philippe 
 spent little of his time in the gaj'^ society of the lords 
 and ladies of the court. He seemed quite content to 
 be with little Constance. Every day he grew more 
 and more attracted to her ; and every night, as he stood 
 alone in his chamber, he grew more and more puzzled 
 by his own reflections. 
 
 At last the great tournament came to an end, and 
 many of the noble guests were leaving reluctantly the 
 scene of all these splendid festivities; but Count 
 Philippe seemed more reluctant than the rest, and he 
 lingered on as long as Duke William of Normandy 
 and his little daughter were to be seen about the 
 pleasant valley. One day, when he had not seen them 
 at all, he went to his tent in the evening feeling very 
 
174 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 lonely and dispirited. He sat thinking a long time, — 
 thinking of the days when he too was a little child 
 like my lady's cousin Sweet William, and when he 
 loved a little girl almost as fair as my lady herself. 
 And he grew so sad thinking about these things that 
 he was fain to draw from his breast a little locket, the 
 sight of which seemed to comfort him very much. It 
 was a locket brought to him years ago by a poor 
 sailor, the only living soul saved from a terrible wreck. 
 There was a pretty face in the locket, and the Count 
 looked at it long and earnestly. 
 
 " You are wonderfully like her, — wonderfully like 
 her ! " he repeated, half aloud. 
 
 Then he kissed the sweet face tenderly, and was 
 about to restore the locket to its place, when it 
 slipped from between his fingers and fell to the floor. 
 As it did so, a hidden spring flew open, and something 
 fell out from the back of the little locket, -:- a slip of 
 paper, worn and creased, with only a few dim words 
 written upon it. Count Philippe had never seen it 
 before. He: took it up, and read it a great many 
 times over, I think ; for the few hurried words could 
 not have held him there so long in silence. Then little 
 by little the mystery became clearer, and suddenly a fear- 
 ful truth flashed upon him like daylight. He sprang 
 to his feet. What could he do ? Nothing, then ; for 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 175 
 
 the night was already far spent. He would have need 
 to wait till the morning. Then he would see the lit- 
 tle girl once more ; he would speak with her nurse, 
 and learn more of this little child in the Great Tower. 
 But at that very hour my Lady Constance and her 
 nurse and all of Duke William's company were once 
 more on the gallant ship ; and while Count Philippe 
 was spending his night hours walking restlessly about 
 his chamber, and his feverish brain was at work over 
 his strange discovery, her little ladyship was sleeping 
 tranquilly, as every wave bore her nearer and nearer 
 to the old fortress-home in Normandy. 
 
CHAPTER XIII, 
 
 OME nine or ten years before, when 
 Count Philippe was but a very 
 young knight indeed, he had met 
 with a great sorrow. He had loved 
 a lady very much, and another 
 knight scarcely older than himself had come and 
 taken her away. That lady was his sister. He 
 thought at first he could never bear to part with her. 
 They had played together as children, and grown to- 
 gether out of childhood, and never been separated an 
 hour until that luckless day when this gallant courtier 
 had come and married her. It was true the young 
 husband was good and brave and handsome, and the 
 lady loved him very much, and was willing to go any- 
 where in the world with him ; but this last thought 
 was scarcely a comforting one to the young Philippe. 
 I cannot tell you how much he missed his sweet sis- 
 ter. Only brothers who have loved and lost their dear 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 77 
 
 sisters can know what a sad thing it is. After she 
 had gone, he spent much of his time in writing long 
 letters to her, which she rarely received, and which 
 she as rarely replied to, — for in those early days 
 young ladies, though lovely and accomplished in 
 many ways, were not as well versed in the art of letter- 
 writing as they are now ; and besides, travelling then 
 was so uncertain that sometimes it was years before 
 families that were separated had any news of one 
 another. 
 
 So time went on without Count Philippe's ever hear- 
 ing a word of his dear companion ; and he was just 
 beginning to be reconciled to • her absence when a 
 terrible thing happened. 
 
 A Norman vessel bound for France was wrecked in 
 a fearful tempest, and every soul on board perished 
 but one poor sailor. That sailor would rather have 
 died a thousand times than have been the one left to 
 tell the dismal story; yet he alone was spared. A 
 fair lady had been intrusted to his care by some good 
 and faithful Normans ; and when the storm was rag;- 
 ing highest, and the ship was sinking fast, and the 
 voices of a hundred human souls rose up in agony, he 
 had heard no voice but hers, and had tried to save her 
 alone. For some hours he swam bravely bearing her 
 in his arms, and clinging to the end of a broken oar 
 
 \ 
 
178 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 that supported them ; but at length the poor lady 
 grew so weak and exhausted and chilled with the cold 
 that she was very faint, and knew she could not live 
 much longer. 
 
 " My good friend," she whispered faintly, giving 
 him something which she held fast in her hand, " I 
 have not strength to live. If you reach the land, in 
 Heaven's name find my brother Philippe of Chalons, 
 and give him this ; it will tell him all. The good 
 God keep you ! " And she sank to the bottom. 
 
 The sailor was rescued by some good fishermen, and 
 in the early morning he reached the land in safety ; 
 and never a day nor a night did he rest till he had 
 found the Count Philippe, and given him the little 
 locket, and told him the fate of his beloved sister. 
 And from that day the faithful Norman had wandered 
 about homeless and friendless, never again serving on 
 the treacherous sea nor daring to show his face in 
 Normandy. 
 
 Many and many a time had Count Philippe looked 
 at the dear face in the little locket, and kissed it lov- 
 ingly ; but never before had he known that through 
 all these long years his sister's dying message to him 
 lay hidden away there unheeded. And now, when 
 his sorrow was almost sleeping, a light broke in upon 
 him in the person of a sunny-haired little girl, whose 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 179 
 
 love for her dear cousin had reminded him of his 
 own happy childhood. By some singular fancy he 
 thought he saw a resemblance between her and the 
 little sister he had loved long ago. He had seen it 
 that first day at the games, — in her little dimpled 
 smiles, in the blue depth of her eyes, in her waving 
 golden hair; and the thought had grown so strong 
 that it haunted him day and night. Every day had 
 brought something that seemed to confirm his conjec- 
 tures about her, and every night he had resolved to 
 lose no more time in waiting, but speak out all that 
 was in his mind. And yet in some unaccountable 
 way the days had come and gone, and the bright little 
 apparition with them ; and now the truth was revealed 
 to him when it was too late. He had made a dis- 
 covery which sent the hot blood rushing to his brain 
 with anger and indignation one moment, and tortured 
 him with fearful doubts the next. The mystery he 
 had thought solved at first, now grew more and more 
 intricate. The words on the little slip of paper in the 
 locket said, " My little child is a prisoner in the Great 
 Tower. Oh, Philippe, save — " And the rest was so 
 dim and blurred that he could read no more. The 
 little boy in the tower must be his sister's child; and 
 3^et Constance was so like the lady in the locket he 
 would have sworn they belonged to each other. There 
 
l8o SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 was a dreadful mystery ; he knew it, and he was the 
 one appointed to clear it, not only from choice, but 
 from duty. 
 
 Like an energetic young nobleman as he was, Count 
 Philippe lost no more time in meditation. He set out 
 to find the good mariner who had brought him the 
 locket, and on whom he had never laid eyes again. It 
 seemed a weary task, and almost a hopeless one at 
 times ; and it took so many days and weeks that the 
 young Count grew discouraged more than once. But 
 there is a gracious Providence that brings about even 
 things which seem impossible in a most astonishing 
 way. Quite unexpectedly, and after what appeared to 
 Count Philippe a weary time to wait, the good sailor 
 was found and made to relate all that he knew of the 
 story of Mount St. Michael. It was a long narrative, 
 often broken by sighs from the honest lips that told it ; 
 for the Norman sailor remembered it all as if it had 
 been yesterday. It was not until then that the young 
 Count learned all that had really happened to his dear 
 sister, — all the grief she had had, and what she had 
 suffered at the hands of the cruel Duke William. It 
 was then he learned the fate of the little child who 
 had been wronged to satisfy the cravings of a wicked 
 revenge. Oh, if he had known it all, what a deal of 
 suffering might have been spared to many innocent 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. , l8l 
 
 hearts ! Would not the years and best efforts of his 
 early manhood have been spent in righting this great 
 wrong ! 
 
 But the good sailor had never dreamed that the 
 little locket would remain unopened for nine long 
 years. Indeed, he had thought more than once that 
 save for the loss of their beloved lady, peace and 
 contentment must long ere this have been restored 
 at Mount St. Michael. He had often wondered 
 what had been the fate of the implacable old Duke 
 when found out by the young Count in all his 
 wickedness. He had hoped, too, that some time 
 the good Normans would forgive their poor country- 
 man for having so ill piloted his fair charge, and bid 
 him return home again and be happy. And he 
 had waited wearily, and like many others, he had 
 waited in vain. Never a word had come to him 
 concerning what had happened at Mount St. Michael. 
 Never had he seen the young Count since that first 
 day until now ; and the strange discovery fell upon 
 him with the same sad force. Both felt it was the 
 workings of a mysterious Providence which neither 
 of them' could understand. It was with this as 
 with so much that happens in this world. A very 
 little knowledge wouM have prevented it all ; but 
 on that little hung the scourge of a great evil. For 
 
1 82 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 even the evil in this world tends to some good end ; 
 and this one was designed to teach a great lesson. 
 Although the burden of it fell upon an innocent and 
 helpless child, he was to be the unconscious instru- 
 ment of a just and merited retribution. 
 
 The young Count and the sailor talked and 
 worked together for many days, and at last it was 
 arranged that they should set out for Mount St. 
 Michael, and that Count Philippe should there de- 
 mand his sister's child of the Duke of Normandy. 
 It was done so quietly that no one knew of their 
 intention ; and even while the two were journeying 
 towards the old Norman castle, Sweet William and 
 my Lady Constance were again in the Great Tower 
 together, enjoying the peaceful evening hours as 
 of old, while William heard of, and my lady re-lived 
 rriany times over, the delightful days at the great 
 tournament. 
 
 And my lord, little dreaming of the startling 
 announcement about to be made to him, was also 
 enjoying a few peaceful and quiet days, and bask- 
 ing in the splendor of his own greatness. It would 
 have been hard enough for him to be found out in 
 all his sinfulness, to be thwarted in his revengeful 
 purpose, to be baffled in his amtTition. But something 
 far worse than all this was in store for him. A chord 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 83 
 
 in his cold nature, never touched before, was soon 
 to be rudely awakened. He had never loved much ; 
 yet through his love he was to suffer more than 
 from any of the defeats and disappointments of 
 former years. The cloud that hung over Mount 
 St. Michael for so many years was to be dispelled, 
 and many hearts to be lightened of their anxious 
 burden. No one suspected it, — not my lord, surely, 
 who felt quite safe in his strong castle ; nor the 
 dear little captive, though the day of his happiness 
 was dawning ; nor yet the good nurses, who knew 
 the whole mystery of the Great Tower but too well. 
 
 The story of Mount St. Michael was no longer 
 a secret nor a mystery to one person, at least ; for 
 while they journeyed together towards Normandy, 
 the sailor had said to the Count, — 
 
 " Your sister's child, my lord, was a little maid." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OUNT PHILIPPE and his compan- 
 ion had travelled all night long, when 
 at last the dense blackness melted 
 into gray, and in the ghostly morn- 
 ing light Mount St. Michael and its 
 grim old castle rose from the misty sea. Deep 
 gloom reigned everywhere. It had steeped the 
 lonely place in more than its usual loneliness. It 
 clung to the barren coast wrapped in silvery vapors, 
 to the gray towers and turrets still but faintly 
 outlined against the leaden skies. Who would 
 have guessed what a sweet vision of freshness and 
 beauty lay hidden in the very highest of those 
 frowning turrets .'' Like the gray old giant of the 
 forest, sheltering its tender nursling in the lofty 
 branch, as far as possible from earth, as near as 
 may be to heaven; so Mount St. Michael held its 
 treasure in its strong arms safe and close. 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 85 
 
 The boy William lay there sleeping, surely the 
 fairest born in Normandy : a picture of warmth 
 and color, more than enough to make up for the 
 chill, colorless world outside, — color in the dark 
 curls lying loosely on the white pillow, in the tender 
 eyes now hidden by the beautiful eyelids and their 
 fringe of soft black lashes. Who can tell what 
 visions of freedom and happiness delight him now .? 
 And there is color not less beautiful on the softly 
 rounded cheek glowing" with the rosiness of health- 
 ful sleep, and in the sweet red lips, parted and half 
 smiling, — at fortune, perhaps, who is to do such great 
 things for him this day. Ah, Sweet William, lovely 
 image of childish grace and innocence, sleep but 
 this one hour more, and it shall be thy last in the 
 great, dreary dungeon ! To-day the sorrows of cap- 
 tivity are at an end for thee, and freedom no lon- 
 ger a vague dream, but a glorious reality ! 
 
 It was very early, and others were asleep at Mount 
 St. Michael besides the gentle William; but in less 
 than an hour after, when it was known that two 
 strangers had arrived at the castle, and that one of 
 them was a young count from France, and the other a 
 sailor whom every one had thought dead these many 
 years, the whole household awoke as if by magic, and 
 all was life and interest. The first of all the honest 
 
1 86 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 hearts made glad by these tidings was that of the old 
 Norman peasant when he welcomed back his loved 
 one after all these years of patient waiting. It was 
 through him that the news reached the castle-folk, for 
 the poor old man could not contain his joy. Through 
 him they learned that the Count Philippe was the 
 brother of my lord Geoffrey's fair lady, and that 
 he was come at last to claim his sister's little child. 
 They heard how the ship in which she sailed away 
 from Normandy had been wrecked. They heard the 
 story of the little locket, how the paper in it had been 
 found. They were told how much the little Lady 
 Constance resembled her young uncle, and what a 
 brave, good knight he was, and how he had m.et my 
 lady at the tournament, and a great deal more ; and 
 the greatest excitement prevailed. 
 
 All that Duke William heard of these rumors, how- 
 ever, was that a young nobleman from the court of 
 France awaited his pleasure ; and as he did not sus- 
 pect the nature of the young Count's visit, and was 
 always glad to make a display before other noble- 
 men, he prepared to give him a most courteous and 
 splendid welcome. 
 
 Some hours later all of Duke William's retinue 
 had assembled in the Great Hall of the castle. The 
 nobles stood in two long lines on either side of my 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 187 
 
 lord, who sat at one end in his ducal chair, wearing a 
 heavy crown of jewels, arrayed in silk and purple, and 
 beaming down majestically upon every one. Con- 
 stance sat on a little stool at his feet, with no more 
 charming ornaments than her own bright smile and 
 her crown of golden hair. A look of great expec- 
 tancy stole into her big eyes. She had been silent for 
 some little time, and was just preparing to begin 
 a series of eager questions, when a movement was 
 heard in the hall and the Count Philippe entered. 
 
 A cry of joyous recognition broke from my lady's 
 lips. Disregarding all the rigid formality of such a 
 ceremonial as this, she ran forward to meet him, 
 exclaiming, — 
 
 " Oh, my lord, you have come all the way from 
 France to see me ! " 
 
 "All the way from France to see you, my Con- 
 stance," repeated the young Count, tenderly, bending 
 over her and putting his arm about her little figure 
 as if he meant never to let her go again. 
 
 Every one looked surprised, — most of all, Duke 
 William, whose expression of surprise was slightly 
 mingled with displeasure ; for he resented the 
 young nobleman's familiarity with his little daugh- 
 ter. Count Philippe, still holding Constance by the 
 hand, came forward, and knelt before the Duke to re- 
 
1 88 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 ceive his greeting. Then he rose and looking about 
 him with an air of brave assurance, made known his 
 errand, speaking with gentle dignity; for he was a 
 courteous as well as a brave and noble knight. 
 
 " My lord," said he, " I am here to undeceive you, for 
 it is plain that you, too, are ignorant of the truth con- 
 cerning this little lady. Constance is your brother 
 Geoffrey's child and my sister's ; and I have, by 3'our 
 gracious leave, come to take her back to her kindred. 
 Your own son, William, is in yonder Great Tower, by 
 what chance I know not ; but it will doubtless please 
 you to release him early, and deprive him no longer 
 of a father's love." 
 
 A deep stillness fell over the assembled nobles. 
 Duke William's face was ghastly- white. His deep 
 eyes gleamed fiercely, and his beetling brows were 
 knit over them in wrath. Constance thousrht she 
 had never seen my lord look so terrible, and for 
 the first time in her life she shrank from him and 
 was almost afraid. 
 
 "What madness is this.?" he asked at length, in 
 a voice that trembled with agitation. 
 
 Count Philippe drew forth the little locket 
 containing his sister's face. It was the image of 
 Constance. Then he laid the little message before 
 him, and Duke William read the few dim words that 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 89 
 
 had been his undoing. He remained as one trans- 
 fixed. All breathing was hushed, and the room 
 was deathly still. 
 
 "And what," said he, after a fearful pause, "is all 
 this about the Lady Constance and my son, William? 
 Speak ! " he thundered. 
 
 The Count turned and beckoned to his companion, 
 who was waiting without, saying, — 
 
 " This good man, my lord, whom you may remem- 
 ber as once a brave sailor of Normandy, will tell 
 you better than I." 
 
 The old mariner then related how nine years ago 
 my lord Geoffrey's fair lady had been taken to his 
 grandfather's hut, and there awaited the ship that was 
 to take her back to France, away from my lord's dis- 
 pleasure ; and how she had wept at parting from her 
 little child, and how she had spoken of it as her ten- 
 der baby-daughter, and begged them to give it her 
 own true name, Constance ; and how she had said 
 they must pray and hope and wait, and she would 
 send her brother the Count to bring her little one 
 back to her. Then he told of the frightful storm and 
 of her death ; and there was not an eye but was dim, 
 save that of Duke William. And lastly he told of 
 the strange misunderstanding about the locket, and 
 the finding of the little paper at last, and the young 
 
I go SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 Count's search for him, and indeed all that had 
 happened since. All this he told, and could vouch 
 for its truth. But how it happened that after these 
 nine years he had come back and found this same 
 little daughter as happy and free as a bird at Mount 
 St. Michael, and had heard of another child of the 
 name of William who was in the Great Tower instead, 
 he really could not say. 
 
 " Mayhap the good nurses Mathilde and Lasette, 
 who did attend the little ones, may know more of 
 this than any one else." 
 
 Duke William's face had not changed a muscle 
 during the whole of the sailor's narrative ; but at these 
 closing words a sudden fear overtook him, and one 
 could see that a terrible struggle was going on within 
 him. His hand trembled visibly, and a cold moisture 
 beaded his dark brow. 
 
 " Bring," said he, to one of his attendants, — " bring 
 hither the two women and — and the child from the 
 tower ! " 
 
 A dreadful stillness followed this command, and for 
 many long minutes no sound was heard in the Great 
 Hall but the quick and fitful breathing of my lord, 
 while his heart beat so fiercely that he thought it 
 must be freeing itself from his breast. He sat motion- 
 less and deadly pale, gazing fixedly at the portrait of 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 191 
 
 the beautiful lady, that hung on the opposite wall ; and 
 unconsciously every eye followed his. 
 
 Presently the great door swung open, and a little 
 figure appeared from behind the parted tapestries, — 
 a lithe and graceful figure, straight and slender as a 
 young oak, — and the next moment Sweet William 
 stood before the Duke ! His young head was thrown 
 back, and his curls hung in rich, loose rings about 
 his shoulders. He looked up, and his eyes were inno- 
 cently fearless ; they were dark, luminous eyes, like 
 those in the portrait. His face was fair and delicate, 
 but it was strong in its angelic purity. And as he 
 stood there alone in the face of so many strange peo- 
 ple, with the same look of sweet, unconscious dignity 
 on his childish countenance, a murmur of admiration 
 ran through the astonished crowd. The instant Duke 
 William laid his eyes upon him, he felt himself grow 
 weak and powerless. There was no mistake ; Sweet 
 William wore, indeed, his mother's look, and he saw 
 reflected in every feature of the beautiful child the 
 face of his young wife, her tender smile, and the 
 earnest, trustful look that had won his cold heart 
 to her. 
 
 Then the good nurse Mathilde, who had followed 
 him, threw herself upon her knees, — not before the 
 mighty Duke of Normandy, whose anger she no 
 
192 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 longer dreaded, but before Sweet William, her brave 
 beautiful darling, for whose love she would have given 
 her life. She spoke to him alone, and begged his for- 
 giveness alone, when she told him how on that dread- 
 ful night she and Lasette had looked at the twin- 
 babes sleeping in the little white cradle, and thought 
 to keep the tender girl, their beloved Geoffrey's babe, 
 safely at the castle as my lord's child, and to send his 
 own son William to the dingy tower instead. They 
 feared lest this boy might grow up like his father, cruel 
 and heartless ; and they thought the Great Tower a 
 more fitting place for him than for a helpless little 
 maid. They dreaded, as they had good cause to do, a 
 son of my lord ; and yet, as the good ^Mathilde had 
 carried him in her arms to the dreary tower that 
 night, — then but an innocent and harmless babe, — 
 she had felt her heart full of pity for him, and had 
 wept bitterly her own share in his sad fortunes. 
 
 But Sweet William had inherited not only the 
 beautiful face, but also the gentle spirit of the fair 
 young mother who had faded at his birth ; and, con- 
 trary to all their fearful expectations, he had grown up 
 the dearest and loveliest boy in all Normandy, and 
 Mathilde loved him with all her heart. They had 
 kept their secret bravely, she and Lasette, even from 
 the old keeper, who had shared Sweet William's love ; 
 
'A little figure appeared from behind the parted tapestries." 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 195 
 
 and they had prayed and trusted earnestly that the 
 good God would forgive them and right their wrong, 
 and in His own good time restore the little one to his 
 liberty ; and now that this time had come, and some 
 one was near to protect the little Constance, Mathilde 
 felt that she was ready to die for her darling's 
 happiness. 
 
 What a terrible blow was this to the proud old 
 Duke, to see his own wicked and cruel deeds turned 
 back upon himself, — to find that the sorrow he had 
 caused for those he should have loved was now his 
 own ! He was so stricken down by the suddenness of 
 these astounding truths that he had not strength 
 enough left to be angry, not even with those who had 
 brought this grief upon him ; nor had he a wish nor 
 a thought to punish them. Something stronger even 
 than anger was laying hold of his heart. It was re- 
 morse for the evil he had done, but still more for the 
 evil he had meditated. He recalled with a shudder 
 the many, many times he had been tempted to take 
 this child's life, — this fair, lovable William, his own 
 flesh and blood, the son he had so often wished ! 
 But God is merciful even to the ungodly, and Duke 
 William had been stayed, and his hand mysteriously 
 withheld from committing so frightful a sin. And 
 though he never fully knew it, his son had been an 
 
196 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 unusually favored and contented little captive, and 
 had been spared all the real misery that was destined 
 for him. 
 
 And his beloved Constance, — his no longer, — the 
 true object of all his fear and hatred, — he had learned 
 to love her as he had never loved any one or anything 
 in all his life before. Now that this love was about to 
 be taken from him, he felt how strong it was, how it 
 rose above every other feeling in his heart, — even 
 that of his bitter disappointment, and the indomitable 
 envy which had ruled him all his life. 
 
 " Constance is free to go," he said in a strange, 
 hoarse voice ; and laying his hand on Sweet William's 
 shoulder, he murmured brokenly, " My son ! my son ! " 
 
 But Constance sprang forward, her little heart 
 overflowing with love and compassion. 
 
 " Never without you ! " she cried, — " never without 
 you, my dear, dear father! I know no father but you, 
 and you shall always be mine as well as Sweet Wil- 
 liam's." And she threw her arms about his neck in 
 her fond and loving way. 
 
 This perfect childish trust, this undeserved love, 
 so beautiful and true now in his hour of greatest 
 need, completely disarmed my lord. For a moment it 
 seemed as if great tears stood in his eyes. Every one 
 was moved; even those who had hated him most were 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 97 
 
 touched at the pitiful sight of this wilful old man, so 
 broken down and miserable in the face of a power 
 mightier than he. Every one felt kindly towards him ; 
 for there is nothing like the sight of grief to make a 
 noble heart forget its wrongs. The generous young 
 Count and the tender-hearted William both forgave 
 him ; and when at last my lord rose to go, weak and 
 overpowered, it was no other than Count Philippe and 
 Sweet William who supported his unsteady steps to 
 the door of the Great Hall. 
 
 When every one had gone, and Sweet William was 
 left alone in the stately chamber with his nurse Ma- 
 thilde, he stood once more before the lovely face that 
 had so impressed him on his first visit to the great 
 castle ; and as he looked again at the portrait with 
 the thought of this great new revelation stirring his 
 young soul, a strange, sweet rapture filled him, and he 
 murmured in his heart, " She was my mother ! " 
 
 There was great rejoicing at Mount St. Michael 
 that night. But what was to so many the reward of 
 years of patient waiting was to Duke William a ter- 
 rible punishment. It fell heavily upon him, — much 
 more so than if he had been young and strong, in- 
 stead of a broken down and wretched old man. The 
 shock was too great for him; and that night he lay 
 very ill on his bed, feeling that he had but little time 
 
ig8 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 left in which to repent for the misdeeds of a long life. 
 Until a late hour Sweet William and Constance stood 
 on either side of him ; and a look of quiet resignation, 
 never worn in his life before, now rested on his face. 
 He spoke lovingly to the little girl, more lovingly than 
 he had ever done before he knew whose child she 
 really was. But when he looked at William, his own 
 sweet, comely boy, whom he might have known and 
 loved these many years, his heart was full of yearning, 
 and he longed to say something that would win the 
 childish heart to him even at this late hour. For, oh! 
 there is no more bitter sorrow, in all life's sorrows, 
 than the knowledge that those we love most have 
 suffered wrongs at our unconscious hands. 
 
 He drew Sweet William's young head down to his, 
 and said in a voice that was broken and tremulous, — 
 " My child, my son, I have loved you always, but I did 
 not know it. In my heart there was a place for you, 
 but unknowingly I have kept you from it. Oh, for- 
 give me ! and Heaven forgive me, for I am in great 
 need ! " And he sank exhausted upon his couch. 
 
 At last he took a little hand in each of his own, and 
 looked earnestly at the sweet and innocent faces of the 
 two children ; and as he did so, the last vestige of bit- 
 terness vanished out of his heart, and lo ! the love 
 that had so long been divided was united once more. 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 1 99 
 
 Oh, happy thought, that for one moment, even one 
 short moment, his heart was moved to repentance, 
 and that a Hfe of selfish and wicked motives should 
 close at last with only words of love ! It was thus 
 that in the best and humblest spirit he had ever 
 known, the surly and dreaded William passed away 
 to his rest. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 T first Sweet William did not know 
 himself in his new condition, for 
 he had been proclaimed the Duke 
 of Normandy in truth, and had 
 been feasted and welcomed and 
 cheered so heartily by all the good 
 people of Normandy that he was 
 quite bewildered. But ' otherwise Sweet William 
 himself was unchanged by this great tide in his for- 
 tunes. He was still the same innocent little boy, with 
 the wondering look in his great dark eyes, and the 
 tender loving heart that endeared him to all. The 
 story of his strange captivity was a revelation to 
 many; but to William, who had lived in mystery all 
 his days, and who had learned to accept unaccounta- 
 ble happenings with sweet, unquestioning submission, 
 this new glory meant very little ; and he remained 
 quite undisturbed by it all. He was only a little sorry 
 to leave the old gray tower, — the home that had been 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 20I 
 
 made bright for him by love and kindness, — and 
 very happy to live in the splendid castle, to go about 
 freely with his dear cousin Constance, to play in the 
 open fields, to enjoy the warm and beautiful sunlight, 
 and to see so many good, kind people who always 
 greeted him with smiles. It was like living in a new 
 world, and a world that was always beautiful. For 
 in these days every one was happy at Mount St. Mi- 
 chael ; and save for my little lady, who very naturally 
 mourned the death of Duke William, whom she still 
 called her dear good father, every one was light- 
 hearted, and felt that things had come to a happy 
 close, and rejoiced that so much good had come out 
 of so great an evil. But I think the one who rejoiced 
 the most, and who gave the most fervent thanks to 
 Heaven, was the good nurse Mathilde, who had tried in 
 her honest heart to spare both the dear little ones from 
 any suffering. All her anxious fears and misgiv- 
 ings of past years were forgotten in the assurance of 
 her darling's love, and the knowledge that his noble 
 and generous nature approved of -all she had done. 
 For when she related to him, over and over again, 
 the secret that had Iain hidden from him in her 
 heart, and as often entreated him to forgive her, he 
 had only embraced her lovingly and said, — 
 " Dear nurse, you have only taught my father to love 
 
202 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 his brother's child, and to know his own before his 
 death. If my Hving in the Great Tower has saved 
 Constance from a day of unhappiness, then have you 
 granted my dearest wish. I have been happy with 
 you in the old place, Mathilde ; and we love it, do we 
 not ? " And his little voice faltered, as it did many 
 times afterward in remembering the scene of his 
 strangely clouded childhood. 
 
 As for my lady Constance, when she realized all 
 that had really happened, she was as much overcome 
 by the thought of her little cousin's wrongs as by her 
 own sorrow. For some singular reason she felt that 
 all the blame rested upon her, — that she had caused 
 him to suffer untold miseries ; and when she was 
 with him alone for the first time after he had risen 
 to the exalted position of Duke of Normandy, she 
 stood almost in awe of him, and felt he could never 
 love her any more- 
 
 ■' Oh, William, Sweet William," she cried, " what 
 a sinful child I have been ! I have robbed you of all 
 that was yours; but I did not know it, indeed I did not. 
 Oh, pray, my lord, put me in the Great Tower now, if 
 it will do any good ! " And she fell on her knees at 
 his feet quite stricken down by a sense of her deep 
 guilt. She seemed for the moment to forget their long 
 friendship, the great tie of love that bound them, — 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 203 
 
 everything except that he had suffered a great injury, 
 and, in some way which she could not fully under- 
 stand, for her sake. 
 
 But Sweet William, Heaven bless him! did not for- 
 get the light and the sunshine she had brought into 
 his dingy home, the childish love she had so freely 
 given him, the happy hours her presence had made for 
 him ; and of all the feelings that stirred his heart in 
 these eventful days, none was so strong and so ardent 
 as his love for Constance. 
 
 Dear children, there is no more precious thing 
 on all God's earth than a loving and grateful heart, — 
 a heart that can forget its own wrongs, but never 
 the love and kindness it has received. Such a heart 
 is the noblest gift a man can possess, — greater 
 than beauty and wealth and talents, — and it makes 
 more real happiness in this world than all of these 
 put together. It is like a blessed sunbeam, casting 
 its generous warmth on the good and evil alike, 
 and leaving its precious influence everywhere ; and 
 if such a heart is that of a little child, it is all 
 the more beautiful because of its youthful ardor and 
 purity. 
 
 " Dear, dear Constance," Sweet William said, rais- 
 ing her tenderly and putting his arm about her with 
 an air of sweet protection and the new look of dignity 
 
204 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 that sat so well upon his youthful countenance, "we 
 are cousins still, and we shall always be. No matter 
 how far you may be from me, I shall always think 
 of you and love you. And when I am a man, Con- 
 stance, I will come for you, and we shall live again at 
 Mount St. Michael." And although Constance had 
 already learned to love her young uncle the Count, 
 and the thought of going back to France with him 
 was not unpleasant, she felt just at that moment 
 that she would rather be a prisoner in the Great 
 Tower all her life than be parted from her cousin 
 Sweet William. 
 
 But Count Philippe, who was good and kind, and 
 cared most for these dear children's happiness, had no 
 thought of parting them ; and some days later, when 
 they were all three together, he said to Constance, — 
 
 '.' Ask your cousin William if he will go to France 
 with us, in a great and splendid ship." 
 
 " To live with us," cried Constance, looking up 
 eagerly, — " to be near me always.? " 
 
 " Yes," said the Count, with a queer little smile, 
 " always." 
 
 And Sweet William consented, saying he could 
 think of nothing that would be more to his liking. 
 
 So for some weeks following, the two little cousins 
 roamed about Mount St. Michael together, — he 
 
;^3 
 ^ ^ 
 
 W^ 
 
 II 
 
 L^ 
 
 "We are cousins still.'' 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 207 
 
 enjoying his new-found liberty and all the delights it 
 brought, and she learning to forget her first childish 
 sorrow. And this was all such a perfect realization of 
 their bright dreams that very soon the little Constance 
 forgot her loss, and was as happy again as any one at 
 Mount St. Michael. And this you will think is saying 
 much, when I tell you that there were some very 
 happy people at the castle just then, — two in particular. 
 And my story would not be complete if I omitted to 
 say that these were old Guilbert and Nurse Mathilde, 
 who were bidden to accompany their young lord to 
 his new home in France. In the excitement of the 
 prospective journey it is said that Mathilde quite lost 
 her head, and actually consented to keep the promise 
 she had made some time before, to become the good 
 keeper's prisoner for life indeed ; and what is still 
 more remarkable is that she seemed immensely pleased 
 at the idea; though I think they never again lived 
 in a Great Tower, but spent the remainder of their 
 honest lives in the faithful and pleasant service of their 
 young master. 
 
 When at last the day of the departure arrived, and 
 my lady had taken a tender leave of all her many 
 friends at Mount St. Michael, not forgetting the noble 
 Roncesvalles, promising to be true to him always and 
 
2o8 SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 to love him, the two children stood in the vast court- 
 yard of the castle, whither all the good castle-folk and 
 Normans of the village had assembled to bid their 
 little lord God-speed. While the air still trembled 
 with the loving clamor of his name, Sweet William 
 stepped forward, holding his little cousin by the hand, 
 and of his own free will, like a true and brave little 
 nobleman that he was, addressed them in his clear 
 childish voice, — 
 
 " My good friends," said he, " do not think we are 
 leaving you for always, and do not grieve at our going. 
 Constance and I will come again, — will we not, 
 cousin ? — to rule at Mount St. Michael, when I have 
 learned in France how to be a good and brave Duke 
 of Normandy." 
 
 And oh, the cheers that rang out after his young 
 lordship's sweet farewell ! And how the walls of the 
 old gray castle echoed and re-echoed with the joyous 
 acclamations of the good people ! And how they all 
 followed the merry party down to the white shore, 
 and waved their heartiest good-byes to the two 
 happy children! It was then that another fair vessel 
 left the shores of Normandy for Calais ; and as it 
 sailed out into the beautiful blue channel, and the 
 glorious evening sunshine fell over it like a bless- 
 
SWEET WILLIAM. 
 
 209 
 
 ing, none but kind and loving wishes followed after 
 it, and all hearts were merry and glad. For this 
 time no little cousin was left behind, nor was the 
 face of Sweet William ever again seen watching 
 and waiting from the window of the Great Tower 
 on Mount St. Michael. 
 
 14