“Cleanliness is next to godliness.”
“Cleanliness is next to godliness.”
But he loved peace, and he thanked “Matthew Whitelock’s housekeeper;” simply repeating that he had breakfasted. Matty was a resolute woman; she had made up her mind he should eat what she had prepared; and, consequently, laying her massive hands upon his shoulders, she forced him suddenly down upon a chair, from which he as suddenly sprang up as from an air cushion, but not before a most unearthly howl intimated that he had pressed too heavily upon “Peter,” a rough, gray terrier, who, in these days, when tangled, ragged dogs are the fashion, would have been called a “beauty.”
“And that’s your thanks, Peter, my darlin’ for not biting him, to have him scrunch down upon you, as if you war a cat,” she exclaimed; then, turning suddenly upon poor Richard, she commanded him to eat at once, and be done with it, and not stand there aggravating her, and murdering her dog.
At first Richardate with a feeling of disgust; but the bread was good, and he was hungry. Peter seated himself before the lad, rising every second moment on his haunches, and making little twitching movements with his fore-paws: Richard gave him a piece of the crumb.
“Look at that, now,” said Matty; “ye’ just give the poor innocent baste the crumb, because ye’ don’t like it ye’rself.”
Richard presented him with a bit of the crisp brown crust.
“See, now, if that brat of a boy ain’t trying already to break every tooth in the creature’s head with his crusts.”
Richard finished without offering Peter another morsel.
“Well!” ejaculated his tormentor, “if ever I saw such a selfish boy of yer age, and that’s speaking volumes, as master says; not to give the brute the last crumb, for good luck; but some has no nature in ’em; and the poor baste bobbing at you, as if you had never scrooged him into a pancake. There, go along, do; and, harkee! if you run the window-bars through the glass, you’ll have to pay for every pane you break: and mind the trap that’s over the cellar: but sure you war here before, when I was sick. Ah! I dare say you’ll go off in consumption, just as the last boy did: it’s all along the smell of the old books, and theileof the papers, to say nothing of the gas. I wonder how master and I live through it; but it wont be for long, I’m certain of that; I’m a poor fading-away crature.”
As Richard ran up the dark stairs, he could not avoid turning to look at the “fading-away crature.” The cheerful blaze of the fire threw her figure into strong light, and her shadow on the wall grew up into the ceiling. She recalled all Richard had ever heard of “ogres”—so gaunt, and strong, and terrible—tremendous people who trouble the world forever, and never die.
Richard entered the shop with the feeling of a governor going to take the command of a new province. Could it be absolutely real, that he was the appointed messenger to go in and out, backward and forward, amongst such a multitude of books! To him the store seemed more than ever immense. Surely Mr. Whitelock must have added hundreds to his hundreds since he stood upon that threshold to help the poor dying boy. He recalled the feeling of awe with which he regarded that dingy interior; he thought Mr. Whitelock must be the happiest man in the world, not only to live amongst so many books, but to be their absolute owner; he wondered how he could bear to sell them: he resolved to count them; and thrilled from head to foot at the new-born pleasure—even in anticipation—that perhaps he might be permitted to read them. There was a delight; to read every one of the books that filled these shelves! But then came the thought that, however delicious it would be to get all that knowledge into his head, it would do his mother noreal good, unless he could put the knowledge so acquired in practice: yes, put it in practice, to make money and means sufficient to keep his mother—his loving, tender, gentle mother—who seemed threatened with a terrible affliction; to keep her from want—from cold—from every apprehension of distress. Richard never stood idly to muse: no,he thought. His thoughts were active—strong, too, for a boy of his years; and they came abundantly while he occupied himself with his duties; fine, healthy, earnest thoughts they were—sanctified by an unexpressed, yet fervent, prayer to the Almighty, to bless his mother, and to prosper his own exertions for her happiness.
There is something most holy and beautiful in the attachment between mother and son: it is not always so tender or so enduring as the love between mother and daughter; but when circumstances arise to call forth the affections of a large-hearted, lonely boy toward his mother, there can be no feeling more intense or more devoted.
Again Richard’s habits of order increased his usefulness fourfold. He arranged all things in the neatest way, resolving to ask leave to dust the shelves, after the shop was shut; and determined to keep the windows clean; his mother’s window was the cleanest in the court, why should not his master’s be clean also?
He was finishing his morning’s work by mending an old stumpy pen—the last of three belonging to a leaden inkstand—when his master entered.
“So, you can mend pens?”
“Yes, sir, I think I can: would you be so good as to try this one?”
He good-naturedly did so, and, as it suited him, he was really pleased; and then told Richard where to find some things, and where to keep others, until it was time to carry out certain library books, and make sundry calls, to inquire after those that had not been returned.
Richard thought it no harm to peep into the books as he went along. The first novel he opened was all about great lords and ladies, and what they did and said, and how they looked and walked, and spent their time; and Richard, when he had read half a page, came to the conclusion that those grand folks must be different in every respect from any human beings he had ever seen. He had resolved to be very quick in his messages; but as he read, his pace insensibly slackened, and his master (a long, lean man, whose benevolent countenance was somewhat hardened by a firm set mouth) met him at the door.
“You have loitered.”
“I just looked into the book, sir; and I am afraid I did not come as fast as I intended.”
“I sent you to carry books, not to read them; and this sort of books would not do you any good, but rather harm.”
“Please, sir, I thought I had time enough.”
“Remember what Poor Richard says, ‘that what we call time enough always proves little enough.’ Besides, I have a right to yourtime; it is all you have to give in exchange for my money, and it is as dishonest to squander the one as it would be to squander the other.”
“I will never look in a book again, sir, without your leave.”
It was perhaps strange that, though the bookseller had seen as much of what is called “the world,”—that is, of his own particular “world,” with now and then a peep into its higher and lower regions—as most men, and been—as kind-natured men invariably are—frequently deceived, yet he never doubted the integrity of his little messenger’s promise, believing he would keep it to the letter; and he turned away without a single additional word of reproof or displeasure; but Richard heard sundry murmurings and grumblings on the stairs—ascending and descending—which convinced him that Matty would not be as easily pacified as her master. The bookseller told him he might go down and have his dinner.
“Your room would be more pleasing than your company,” said Matty. Without a word he was returning whence he came.
“Where are you going?” she inquired, vehemently.
“You did not wish me to stay.”
“But yer master did; he’s never contint but when he fills up this bit of a kitchen with tagrag and bobtail; but, no matter—there, eat your dinner.”
“Am I always to dine here?” he said, in a hesitating voice.
“Just like the rest of them! Yer going to find fault with the blessed food—I knew ye’ would—I said so to-day. Says I, ‘He was too fond of giving his bread to the dogs, to care for his dinner.’”
The woman’s contradictions perplexed the boy so much that he could not speak. Moreover, he felt a sort of self-reproach for eating all that meat, when his mother wanted; this made him more than once lay down his knife and fork, and look upward.
“Mighty fine eyes ye’ have, to be sure, and fond of showing them,” said the sarcastic Matty.
“I’m quite done, thank you,” he said, after murmuring a grace he truly felt.
“Come back: what’s to come of what ye’ choose to lave on yer plate? Do you mean that I don’t give Peter enough? He wouldn’t think it worth his while to ask for all you’d eat in a month. Why ye’ve left the best cut of the silver side!—the daintiness of some boys! I’ll go bail ye’ve eat yer own weight of pudding or hard-bake while ye’ were out; but as master said, ‘Give him his dinner,’ I’v no notion of yer not eating it; so, put it up in paper, and let me see the last of ye’ this blessed day.”
Richard thanked her so warmly, that she knew, with instinctive feeling, there was some one at home he loved better than himself. Her heart softened—or rather, her mood changed. But while she paused, Richard thought, and held the piece of meat on the paper she had given him, without folding it up.
“I’d rather not take it, thank you,” said the boy, gently. “I’d much rather not take it.”
“Poor and proud—poor and proud,” muttered Matty; “but ye’shalltake it. I’m not to be contradicted by the likes of you.”
“I will not take it,” he said, firmly. “Master ordered me my dinner, but did not say I was to take away any thing; and, as it is his—not yours—So, thank you—all—”
He dared not finish the sentence: Matty struck down the knuckles of both hands violently on the table, and advanced her strongly-marked face close to his: it was illumined by fierce anger, and her small, piercing, black eyes flashed fire.
“Do ye’ mean to tell me, ye’waspeen, that I’m a thief?”
“No—no—no, indeed,” said Richard, backing out as fast as he could. Still the flaming face and flashing eyes followed him; but something arrested his progress—he could retreat no farther: it was the bookseller, who inquired what was the matter. Matty multiplied and exaggerated: the little “nagur” had as good as called her a thief. After many fruitless exertions to obtain silence, the master at last succeeded in hearing the truth from Richard.
“She gave me a beautiful dinner—a fine dinner, sir—too good—too much—and I could not eat it all; so she desired me to take up what I left, and carryit home. It was so kind of her; but I thought you would not approve of my taking it. It was no longer my dinner, when I had eaten all I could: it did not appear to me quite hers to give.”
“To doubt my right!” commented Matty; but Mr. Whitelock commanded her to listen, in a tone she was little accustomed to.
“The lad is right, Matty; it is the proper sense of justice and honesty. I am glad to see it, Matty; it is not common. You may take what you leave in future, my boy; Matty was right, and you were right. No words, Matty.”
And the master—who was really, like many peace-lovers, fearful of noise, and consequently gave way more frequently than he ought to do, merely to avoid it—seeing that he had, in this instance, the advantage, and being well pleased with himself, resolved to make a dignified exit, and withdrew, thinking—“An evidence of truth, and an evidence of honesty—both in one day—both in one day; very pleasing, very remarkable.”
Matty, however, had been offended, and she determined to show it. She paced up and down the kitchen, talking loudly to herself.
“I’m not the sort to squander my master’s property on comers or goers; I know what’s enough for a boy’s dinner; and, whether he eats it or not, there it is, and I have nothing to do with it after; for Peter scorns scraps. There—be off with ye’rself—there’s nothing keeping ye’ that I know of now, ye’ got yer answer. Setting up for honesty, indeed! as if there was no one ever honest before ye’.”
The boy’s eyes filled with tears.
“I do not know,” he said, “why every one should be so kind to me.”
“You young villain!” exclaimed Matty, with a flourish of a brobdignag poker, which seemed forged by the Cyclops. “Get out of my kitchen this moment! What do ye’ mean by saying I’mkind—kind enagh! A mighty fine thing ye’ are to takeaway my character! Botheration!is thatwhat I’m come to?”
Richard flew up the stairs, concluded his evening’s shop-work to his master’s satisfaction, again went out to distribute and gather books, and religiously kept his promise; never paused before a print-shop, nor under a tempting lamp-post, to read a sentence; thought it would not become him to be proud, so nodded to Ned Brady, at his old corner. Ned hopped after him, first on one leg, then on the other, and after a brilliant somerset stood right in his path.
“Come and watch for a job,” he exclaimed.
“I don’t want it, thank you; I’ve a place.”
“A place! Britons never should be slaves! I like odd jobs, and freedom! Lend us a bob?”
“I have not got it.”
“Well, then, a brownie.”
“I have not even that,” replied Richard.
Ned eyed him closely.
“To think of your turning out likethat,” he said, and he then walked round and round him. “We did not think we had such a fine gentleman for a friend, when we said he’d got the lucky penny.”
“We were neverfriends,” observed Richard, coldly.
“Don’t be too up,” was the reply, “and cut a poor cove because his toggery is not as fine as your’n. Rather small, though, aint they? Would just fit me.” He made two or three mocking bows round Richard, and vanished, playing the cart-wheel—turning over and over—along the street.
“He carried many a heavy load for me, though, when I was in my former hard place, and it’s a pity he is such a bad boy in some things,” thought Richard, as he trudged on. He left the books, offering to do any thing else he could, at his master’s, and felt all the anticipations of “home” more delightfully than ever, when he saw the candle-light glimmering through the chinks of his mother’s shutter. The tiny room seemed to him a paradise. The widow had finished her embroidery and was netting, so her eyes did not look as strained and weary as usual. There was something simmering and smelling very savory on the fire; but Richard put back his hand to pull out his piece of beef. It was gone!
Richard had no doubt that his quandam “friend” had picked his pocket, more in fun than malice; and he was confirmed in the idea, by seeing a boy’s shadow on the wall of the opposite houses—Ned, doubtless, waiting to see how he bore his disappointment. His first impulse was to run out and thrash the thief; but the memory of their nodding companionship, and of the loads the unfortunate lad had carried for him twice or thrice—running off with what Richard had staggered under—harmonized by the perfume of thepot au feu, taught him forbearance, and the evening passed, as the widow said, “full of hope.” Many such succeeded. Richard well satisfied his master, although he was a reserved, peculiar man, not much known, and less liked; he frequented no public places, and kept little society, spending his evenings in making up his accounts, arranging his books, and reading. Matty had often told her confidential friend, the milk-woman, that “one might as well live in the house with acorpse,” adding her belief “that all would be corpses one day, for certain; and the sooner she was one the pleasanter it would be for herself, only that, being a lone woman, she thought while people had the holy breath of life in their bodies they might as well be alive—that was all.”
Richard had numbered more than fourteen years when he entered Mr. Whitelock’s service. He managed to keep on speaking terms with Matty, for when she would not talk to him she talked at him. He frequently remained half an hour after all was shut up to read to her; and once when Mr. Whitelock called to her to inquire who was below, she answered, in a tone of fierce indignation, that it was only the “State of Europe, the French at another revulsion, and Spain on the top of the Pyramids.”
Richard’s life passed very happily: he was gaining knowledge, he was assisting his beloved mother, he was inhaling the atmosphere of all others he most enjoyed. He had permission to take home any book at night, provided he brought it in the morning; at first, he greedily devoured all that came in his way, but the reading-stock of a third class library was not likely to feed a mind eager for actual knowledge, and largely comprehensive. Poetry he imbibed fervently; but whenever he could get biography or scientific books, he dispensed with the luxury of sleep, and came with pale cheeks and haggard eyes to his employment in the morning. Sandford and Merton, with its bright lessons of practical independence, was his favorite relaxation, and frequently, as he told his mother, “he took a plunge” into Franklin’s life as a refreshment. Then he wrote copies upon stray slips of paper; worked sums and problems on a rough piece of common slate; read what he most admired to his mother, though he was often grieved that her enthusiasm did not keep pace with his, and that she had little relish for any thing that “had not hope in it.” Then she would insist on his going to rest, when he was all eagerness to finish a book or unravel a mystery—not the transparent mystery of a novel, but the mystery of some mighty worker in the business of life; some giant amongst men, who achieved greatness though born in obscurity; some artist, whose fame towered toward the heavens, like the tree produced by the grain of mustard-seed; some Lancaster, or Washington, or Howard, or Watt, or humble, benevolent Wilderspin, revolutionizing sloth into activity, touching the eyes of multitudes with a magic wand, so that they cried out as one man. Behold, we see!—electrifying nations, calling into existence the dormant powers and sympathies of nature and of art.
Often his eyes refused to slumber or sleep, when, in obedience to the gentle request which love turned into a command, he lay down, beneath the shadow of his mother’s blessing; and his brain would throb, and his heart beat; and whensheslept, he would creep from his humble pallet and read by the light of the one lamp which illumined the court, and was (sohe thought) fortunately placed opposite their window. Not that the boy understood all he read, but he imbibed its influence, and clasping his large brow within his palms, he would weigh and consider, and feel, within that narrow room, where poverty still lingered—thoughthen, with their simple and few wants, rather as a shadow than a substance—and his heart throbbing as he thought, “What shall I do to begreat?” even, it might have been, when the chastened and subdued spirit of his young but almost sightless mother murmured in her half-broken sleep, “What shall I do to besaved?” And then, as the spring advanced, and night and morning blended sweetly together, he hastened to his work joyfully—for he loved the labor that gave him food and knowledge. Matty would say his “food went into an ill skin—never did credit to man ormortial;” while his silent master, absorbed in his occupations, and pretty much abstracted from the every-day goings-on of his establishment—having, as he said of himself, an honest curse of a housekeeper and a jewel of a boy—was, nevertheless, sometimes startled by the singular questions Richard asked, meekly and modestly seeking for information, from him whom his enthusiastic nature believed one of the mild lights of literature.
What will youths who are pampered or wooed into learning say of the circulating boy of a circulating library, performing the menial offices of his station, yet working his mind ardently and steadilyonward?
One evening, after he had gone out with his books, his mother entered the shop, timidly and with hesitating step, which those who struggle against blindness unconsciously assume. Matty was there, removing some papers; Peter, the most silent of all dogs, lay upon the mat, and Mrs. Dolland stumbled over him: Peter only gave vent to a stifled remonstrance, but that was enough to set Matty into a passion.
“Couldn’t you see the dog!” she exclaimed. “If you war a customer tin times over, you had no call to the baste; he’s neither pens, ink, wafers, books, nor blotting-paper—no, nor the writer of a book—to be trampled under your feet.”
“I did not see him,” she said meekly.
“Can’t you use your eyes?”
The unconscious roughness cut like a razor.
“I did,” she replied, turning her large, sorrowful, and dimmed eyeballs toward Matty—“I did; I used them night and day, until it was the will of God to take away their light.”
“God look down upon you!” exclaimed the woman tenderly. “Sure it isn’t going blind you are—a young woman like you to go blind?”
“I wanted to see Mr. Whitelock,” she said, without heeding Matty’s observation. “I wanted to speak a few words to him.”
Matty loved a gossip. She never suspected the fair, frail, trembling woman, “going blind,” to be Richard’s mother. He never mentioned his mother’s blindness; he could not speak of it; he hoped it would never be worse than it was. She could still read; and do plain work; and so Matty heard not of it. She had nothing particular to do that evening, and the sight of a stranger did her good, because she expected a gossip.
“Master can’t always be interrupted,” she replied, “particularly by them he doesn’t know; but if you will tell me your name and business, I’ll see what can be done for you.”
“I am Richard’s mother.”
“Think of that now. We do our best with him, poor boy—but he’s an unruly member!”
“Richard!” exclaimed the poor woman, in a tone of dismay.
“Ay, indeed; that is, he’s not so jist at the prisent time, but he’ll become so, like all the rest of them boys, one of these days.”
“God forbid!” ejaculated the widow.
“Amin!” said Matty; “but he’ll be sure to come to it at last.”
“Come to what?” inquired the alarmed mother.
“To all sorts and kinds of contrariness,” replied Matty, rapidly; “boys can’t help it, you see; it’s their nature; they’re not patient, bidable, gentle creatures likeus—not they! Mischief, and all kinds of murther, and upsetting, and latch-keys, and fidgets, and police-courts, and going out at nights, and staying out all day (though that’s a good riddance) and boxing, and apple-stealing, falling in love, and kicking upshindies.”
“I beg your pardon, but I do not understand you,” interrupted Mrs. Dolland, with more determination than she had exercised for years. She felt as if this strange, abrupt, half-mad woman was stringing together a set of accusations against her child.
“I’m obleeged to you, ma’am, for the compliment,” said Matty, dropping a curtsey; “but, as that’s neither here nor there, what’s your business with the masther?”
“That I can only tell himself,” she replied.
“Well,” muttered Matty, “that beats—! But the women now have no modesty. Them English is all a silent set—no sociability in them. Tell himself!—as if it wasn’t more natural for a half-blind craythur like that to discoorse a woman than a man. Well, well! No wonder my hair’s gone gray and my heart hard!”
There was something almost courtly in Mr. Whitelock’s manner of addressing women. People in his own class of life, who observed it, thought it ridiculous, and never speculated as to how this politeness became engrafted on his nature. He placed a seat for Mrs. Dolland in his little parlor; and, though it was a warm autumn evening, he moved it to keep her out of the air that blew over a box of yellowish, stunted mignonette, and two sickly wall-flowers, which graced the sill of his back window; he also pushed his own chair as far as he could from the widow’s, but, like all persons with impaired vision, she moved nearer to him, and turned her restless eyes toward the door.
“It is shut close,” said the bookseller.
[To be continued.
MEDITATIONS ON THE LAST JUDGMENT.
———
BY ERASTUS W. ELLSWORTH.
———
Thou, who, from majesty of light,Didst move Isaiah’s heart aright,And touch his prophet lips with fire,Once more a mortal song inspire.Uplift my powers above the sphereOf themes that daily earth me here;Give me, on things within thy Book,With the large eye of truth to look.So shall my daily works be sped,For when this heart of mine is fedOn things of lofty consequence,My daily life is more intense.My mortal spirits most allyWith nature and humanity,When most I bear, however known,Some deep emotion all my own.Night hovers! What with hand and thoughtMy will would do, must soon be wrought;Lo! how the years no more return,Each with his own sepulchral urn.Give me, O Lord, an eye to seeIllusion from reality:This world, and all its ample scene,Is like a grand cathedral screen;So vastly spread, and graven highWith labyrinthine blazonry;Rapt to a whisper, I beholdArt so sublime and manifold.Lo! half in light, and half in gloom,Sleeps at the base an ancient tomb,Whose prickly-blooming niches bearAll forms of rapture and despair.Above, in solemn ’scutcheons hung,Are legends in an unknown tongue—The fingers of the God of lightTouched on the awful walls of night.Through middle breadth, from side to side,The bounding-footed hours glide,And scatter blooms, like meteor things,About a glass with glowing wings.But I behold an usher wait,And wave me onward to a gate,Whose leaves on groaning staples turn,Within whose arch no lamp will burn.When, for thy feet, those valves shall play,How soon this grandeur fleets away,How, through a vista vast and clear,These eyes shall look, these ears shall hear,Preluding my eternity,Deep stops unmouthed in symphony—Hymns of an inexpressive choir,Or tremblings of a winnowed fire.O Thou, who laidst thy splendors by,To show me how to live and die,Be thou, O Lord, my hope and home,Now, and in ages yet to come.When, the firm stars and swinging spheres,Conscious of their accomplished years,Flare in the motions of thy mind,As cressets to a midnight wind,And shrunk of oil, collect their gold,And the great angel, once foretold,Girt with a noonday, comes to stand,One foot on sea, and one on land;When powers that wear a grand impress,Beatitudes expressionless,Curbed in the glory of a zone,Set forth the white eternal throne;When the loud trump, with solemn jar,Shall rouse thy creatures to thy bar,Unhousing all the sprites that dwellIn realms of heaven and earth and hell;When, up from where earth’s empire stirs,From all her unchained sepulchres,The trump-alarmed nations run,As vapors flitting to the sun;When, up from hell’s volcanic gloom,The devils soar to final doom,And shade, in horror and affright,Their eyelids from access of light.When thou art come to judgment sore,Whom every eye shall see; beforeWhose eyes the heavens shall crack and roll,Even as a furnace-writhing scroll;When Thou, alone, dost sit serene,In that immense concurrent scene,Revolving, in thy dome of thought,All that eternal ages wrought.When Gabriel lays, with solemn look,Beneath thine eye the dooms-day book,And opens where the leaves rehearseThe index of the universe;When the proud rebel’s reckoned scoreIs big with debts unknown before;When, ’lumined in unshaded day,The good man’s whiteness all is gray;When, at that session in the air,My name is called in judgment there,When what is writ shall plainly drawThe sword of that unswerving law;When swathed in tempest, like a starO’er an unknown horizon bar,Millions of ghosts unharbored all,Shall watch to see me rise or fall;O then, what prayer shall I renewTo make my Judge my Father too?What breath of mine—what moving toneShall make my bosom all his own?Look not on alms my hands have done,Nor on the tint my soul hath won;Lord, when thine eye shall rest on me,Remember thy Gethsemane.
Thou, who, from majesty of light,Didst move Isaiah’s heart aright,And touch his prophet lips with fire,Once more a mortal song inspire.Uplift my powers above the sphereOf themes that daily earth me here;Give me, on things within thy Book,With the large eye of truth to look.So shall my daily works be sped,For when this heart of mine is fedOn things of lofty consequence,My daily life is more intense.My mortal spirits most allyWith nature and humanity,When most I bear, however known,Some deep emotion all my own.Night hovers! What with hand and thoughtMy will would do, must soon be wrought;Lo! how the years no more return,Each with his own sepulchral urn.Give me, O Lord, an eye to seeIllusion from reality:This world, and all its ample scene,Is like a grand cathedral screen;So vastly spread, and graven highWith labyrinthine blazonry;Rapt to a whisper, I beholdArt so sublime and manifold.Lo! half in light, and half in gloom,Sleeps at the base an ancient tomb,Whose prickly-blooming niches bearAll forms of rapture and despair.Above, in solemn ’scutcheons hung,Are legends in an unknown tongue—The fingers of the God of lightTouched on the awful walls of night.Through middle breadth, from side to side,The bounding-footed hours glide,And scatter blooms, like meteor things,About a glass with glowing wings.But I behold an usher wait,And wave me onward to a gate,Whose leaves on groaning staples turn,Within whose arch no lamp will burn.When, for thy feet, those valves shall play,How soon this grandeur fleets away,How, through a vista vast and clear,These eyes shall look, these ears shall hear,Preluding my eternity,Deep stops unmouthed in symphony—Hymns of an inexpressive choir,Or tremblings of a winnowed fire.O Thou, who laidst thy splendors by,To show me how to live and die,Be thou, O Lord, my hope and home,Now, and in ages yet to come.When, the firm stars and swinging spheres,Conscious of their accomplished years,Flare in the motions of thy mind,As cressets to a midnight wind,And shrunk of oil, collect their gold,And the great angel, once foretold,Girt with a noonday, comes to stand,One foot on sea, and one on land;When powers that wear a grand impress,Beatitudes expressionless,Curbed in the glory of a zone,Set forth the white eternal throne;When the loud trump, with solemn jar,Shall rouse thy creatures to thy bar,Unhousing all the sprites that dwellIn realms of heaven and earth and hell;When, up from where earth’s empire stirs,From all her unchained sepulchres,The trump-alarmed nations run,As vapors flitting to the sun;When, up from hell’s volcanic gloom,The devils soar to final doom,And shade, in horror and affright,Their eyelids from access of light.When thou art come to judgment sore,Whom every eye shall see; beforeWhose eyes the heavens shall crack and roll,Even as a furnace-writhing scroll;When Thou, alone, dost sit serene,In that immense concurrent scene,Revolving, in thy dome of thought,All that eternal ages wrought.When Gabriel lays, with solemn look,Beneath thine eye the dooms-day book,And opens where the leaves rehearseThe index of the universe;When the proud rebel’s reckoned scoreIs big with debts unknown before;When, ’lumined in unshaded day,The good man’s whiteness all is gray;When, at that session in the air,My name is called in judgment there,When what is writ shall plainly drawThe sword of that unswerving law;When swathed in tempest, like a starO’er an unknown horizon bar,Millions of ghosts unharbored all,Shall watch to see me rise or fall;O then, what prayer shall I renewTo make my Judge my Father too?What breath of mine—what moving toneShall make my bosom all his own?Look not on alms my hands have done,Nor on the tint my soul hath won;Lord, when thine eye shall rest on me,Remember thy Gethsemane.
Thou, who, from majesty of light,
Didst move Isaiah’s heart aright,
And touch his prophet lips with fire,
Once more a mortal song inspire.
Uplift my powers above the sphere
Of themes that daily earth me here;
Give me, on things within thy Book,
With the large eye of truth to look.
So shall my daily works be sped,
For when this heart of mine is fed
On things of lofty consequence,
My daily life is more intense.
My mortal spirits most ally
With nature and humanity,
When most I bear, however known,
Some deep emotion all my own.
Night hovers! What with hand and thought
My will would do, must soon be wrought;
Lo! how the years no more return,
Each with his own sepulchral urn.
Give me, O Lord, an eye to see
Illusion from reality:
This world, and all its ample scene,
Is like a grand cathedral screen;
So vastly spread, and graven high
With labyrinthine blazonry;
Rapt to a whisper, I behold
Art so sublime and manifold.
Lo! half in light, and half in gloom,
Sleeps at the base an ancient tomb,
Whose prickly-blooming niches bear
All forms of rapture and despair.
Above, in solemn ’scutcheons hung,
Are legends in an unknown tongue—
The fingers of the God of light
Touched on the awful walls of night.
Through middle breadth, from side to side,
The bounding-footed hours glide,
And scatter blooms, like meteor things,
About a glass with glowing wings.
But I behold an usher wait,
And wave me onward to a gate,
Whose leaves on groaning staples turn,
Within whose arch no lamp will burn.
When, for thy feet, those valves shall play,
How soon this grandeur fleets away,
How, through a vista vast and clear,
These eyes shall look, these ears shall hear,
Preluding my eternity,
Deep stops unmouthed in symphony—
Hymns of an inexpressive choir,
Or tremblings of a winnowed fire.
O Thou, who laidst thy splendors by,
To show me how to live and die,
Be thou, O Lord, my hope and home,
Now, and in ages yet to come.
When, the firm stars and swinging spheres,
Conscious of their accomplished years,
Flare in the motions of thy mind,
As cressets to a midnight wind,
And shrunk of oil, collect their gold,
And the great angel, once foretold,
Girt with a noonday, comes to stand,
One foot on sea, and one on land;
When powers that wear a grand impress,
Beatitudes expressionless,
Curbed in the glory of a zone,
Set forth the white eternal throne;
When the loud trump, with solemn jar,
Shall rouse thy creatures to thy bar,
Unhousing all the sprites that dwell
In realms of heaven and earth and hell;
When, up from where earth’s empire stirs,
From all her unchained sepulchres,
The trump-alarmed nations run,
As vapors flitting to the sun;
When, up from hell’s volcanic gloom,
The devils soar to final doom,
And shade, in horror and affright,
Their eyelids from access of light.
When thou art come to judgment sore,
Whom every eye shall see; before
Whose eyes the heavens shall crack and roll,
Even as a furnace-writhing scroll;
When Thou, alone, dost sit serene,
In that immense concurrent scene,
Revolving, in thy dome of thought,
All that eternal ages wrought.
When Gabriel lays, with solemn look,
Beneath thine eye the dooms-day book,
And opens where the leaves rehearse
The index of the universe;
When the proud rebel’s reckoned score
Is big with debts unknown before;
When, ’lumined in unshaded day,
The good man’s whiteness all is gray;
When, at that session in the air,
My name is called in judgment there,
When what is writ shall plainly draw
The sword of that unswerving law;
When swathed in tempest, like a star
O’er an unknown horizon bar,
Millions of ghosts unharbored all,
Shall watch to see me rise or fall;
O then, what prayer shall I renew
To make my Judge my Father too?
What breath of mine—what moving tone
Shall make my bosom all his own?
Look not on alms my hands have done,
Nor on the tint my soul hath won;
Lord, when thine eye shall rest on me,
Remember thy Gethsemane.
THE TRIAL BY BATTLE.
A TALE OF CHIVALRY.
(Continued from page 330.)
THE CHAMPION.
The Emperor Henry IV. of Germany, the husband of the falsely accused empress, was one of the bravest and most unfortunate princes who ever sat upon a throne. He had succeeded his father, Henry the Black, in1056, at the age of six years, and the diet had given to Agnes of Aquetaine the administration of the affairs of state during his minority. But the princes and barons of Germany feeling themselves humiliated by their subjection to a foreign female, revolted against the empire, and Otho, Margrave of Saxony, commenced that series of civil wars, in which the emperor was destined to consume his life. Thus Henry IV. was always engaged in contests, first with his uncles, and then with his son; sometimes an emperor, sometimes a fugitive; to-day a proscriber, to-morrow proscribed; but always a “man of war and wo,” even in his greatest triumphs. After having deposed Pope Gregory VII.—after having, in expiation of that sacrilege, crossed the Apennines on foot, his staff in his hand, like a mendicant, in the depth of winter—after having waited three days in the court of the Castle of Canassa without clothes, without fire, without food, till it pleased his highness to admit him to his presence, he kissed his feet, and swore on the cross to submit himself to his authority; for at this price alone would the pope absolve the imperial penitent of the guilt of sacrilege; but the humiliation of the emperor displeased and disgusted the Lombards, who accused him of cowardice. Threatened by them with deposition, if he did not break the shameful league he had made with the pope, he purchased peace with the Lombards by renouncing his submission to Gregory. His acceptance of these terms set him at variance with the German barons, who elected Rodolphe, of Suabia, in his place. Henry, who had gone to Italy as a supplicant, returned to Germany a soldier, though under the ban of the church, for his rival, Rodolphe, had received from Pope Gregory a crown of gold, in token of hisinvestiture by him of temporal dominion, and a bull invoking the malediction of heaven upon his enemy. Henry defeated and slew Rodolphe at the battle ofWolskieur, near Gera, after which he returned victorious and furious into Italy, bringing with him the Bishop Guibert, whom he had made pope. This time it was for Gregory to tremble, who could not expect more mercy than he had shown to Henry. He shut himself up in Rome, and when the emperor appeared under the walls, sent a legate to make up the quarrel, by the offer of the investiture of the crown, and absolution and reconciliation to the church. Henry’s only reply was the capture of the city. The pope fled to the Castle of St. Angelo, where he was put in a state of blockade by Henry, who placed upon the papal throne the Anti-Pope Guibert, from whose hand he received the imperial crown. He had scarcely done this before he received the annoying intelligence that the Saxons had elected in his room, Hermann, Count of Luxembourg. Henry repassed the Apennines, beat the Saxons, subdued Thuringia, and took Hermann prisoner, whom he permitted to live and die unknown in an obscure corner of his empire. He once more re-entered Italy, where he caused his son Conrad to be elected King of the Romans. Believing he had settled peace on a firm basis, he came back to Germany, and turned his arms against the Bavarians and Suabians, who still remained in a state of revolt.
His son, whom he had just made king of the Romans, and who aspired to the empire, conspired at that time against his father, raised an army, and got Pope Urban II. to excommunicate him a second time. Henry upon this convoked the diet to Aix-la-Chapelle, laid open before it his paternal grief, and displayed the wounds of a heart wrung by filial ingratitude, and demanded that his second son, Henry, should be acknowledged for king of the Romans, in the place of his brother. In the midst of the sitting, he received a mysterious intimation that his presence was required at Cologne, where, he was told, an important secret would be made known to him. Henry quitted the diet in great haste; and found two of the noblest barons in the empire, Guthram de Falkenbourg and Walter de Than, waiting for him at the gates of his palace. The emperor invited them to enter with him, and led them into his chamber, when perceiving sadness and gloom painted on their faces, he demanded “why they appeared so thoughtful and sorrowful!”
“Because the majesty of the throne is in danger,” replied Guthram, with some abruptness.
“Who has endangered the throne?” demanded the emperor.
“The Empress Praxida, your wife,” said Guthram.
No other tidings would have made Henry of Germany turn pale, for he had only been married to the empress two years, for whom he felt the tenderness of a parent, and the faithful love of a husband. His union with this angelic young woman had given him the only happy hours he had passed during his stormy and unfortunate life. He had not courage at this miserable moment even to ask what his wife had done, but was gathering the strength of a failing heart to do so, when Guthram broke the ominoussilence, by saying, “she has done what we cannot pass by unnoticed, for the honor of the imperial throne, and we should deserve the name of traitors to our sovereign lord, if we should hesitate to make her misconduct known to him.”
“What has she done?” again demanded the emperor, growing paler than before.
“In your absence she has encouraged the love of a young knight, and that so openly,” replied Guthram, “that if she gives birth to a son, however the people may rejoice in that event, your nobility will mourn; for though any master is good enough for the multitude, none but the noblest in the empire can command the highest nobles in the world, who will render homage to none but the son of an emperor.”
Henry supported himself against the chair of state on which he leaned, or he would have fallen to the floor, for he remembered that only a month before, the empress had written to him to announce her maternal hopes, with the pleasure natural to a young woman about to become a mother.
“What has become of the knight?” asked the emperor.
“He quitted Cologne as suddenly as he entered it, without any person knowing from whence he came, or whither he is going. His country and name are secrets with which we are unacquainted, but you had better ask the empress, she perhaps, can satisfy your majesty.”
“Very well,” replied the emperor, “Enter, gentlemen, that cabinet.” Then the emperor summoned his chamberlain, and bade him conduct the empress to his chamber. As soon as the emperor was alone, he threw himself into the chair, like a man who had lost his personal strength and mental firmness. He who had endured with unbending fortitude civil and foreign wars, the ban of the church, and the filial revolt, yielded to a doubt. His head, which had borne the weight of a crown for five-and-forty years, without bending beneath the burden, grew feeble under the weight of a suspicion, and hung down as if the hand of a giant was upon it. In a moment the man, who had scarcely passed his full meridian of intellect, forgot every thing—empire, ban, malediction, revolt. He remembered nothing but his wife, the only human being who possessed his entire confidence, and who had deceived him more basely than any other creature had yet done. Much as he had experienced, throughout his long regnal life, of disloyalty and guile, tears fell from his eyes, for the rod of misfortune, like that of Moses, had struck the rock so forcibly, that it had drawn these drops from a source hitherto sealed up and barren.
The empress entered unseen, for her light step had not been heard by her unhappy husband. Fair, blooming, and blue-eyed, with a graceful form, of tall and slender proportions, this daughter of a northern clime approached her lord with a sweet smile, and with almost filial reverence united to conjugal affection, imprinted a chaste kiss on the troubled brow of her lord, who shrank and shuddered as if the touch of her rosy lips had been the fangs of a serpent.
“What is the matter, my lord?” asked the empress, in a tone of alarm.
“Woman,” replied the emperor, raising his head and showing her his tearful eyes, “you have seen me for four years carrying a heavy cross; you have seen my crown a crown of thorns; you have seen my face bathed in the sweat of toil, my brow in blood; but you never saw my eyelids moistened with tears. Well, behold me now—and see me weep!”
“And why do you weep, my dearly-beloved lord?” replied the empress, in a tone of sorrowful inquiry.
“Because, abandoned by my people, denied by my vassals, cursed by the church, and proscribed by my son, I had nothing but you in the world—and you, Praxida, you too have betrayed me.”
The empress stood like a statue, only her complexion, varying from red to pale, betrayed her feelings. “My lord,” said she, “it is not true. You are my liege lord and my sovereign master; but if any other man than yourself had dared to utter such words, I would answer that he lied through envy or malice.”
The emperor turned in the direction of cabinet, and in a loud voice said, “Come in.” The door opened, and Guthram de Falkenbourg, and Walter de Than entered the imperial chamber. The empress, at the sight of her enemies, trembled all over. They advanced to the other side of the emperor’s chair, and, holding up their hands, prepared to make their unjust accusation good upon the first sign he might give.
He motioned them to speak, and they were not slow to avail themselves of his permission.
“Sire,” said they, “what we have told you is true; and we are ready to support the charge at the peril of our bodies and souls, two against two, against any knights who may dare to dispute the truth of our impeachment of the empress.”
“Do you hear what they say, madam! for it shall be done as they have demanded; and if, in a year and a day, you cannot find any knights to clear your fame by a victorious combat, you will be burned alive in the great square of Cologne, in the face of the people, and by the torch of the common hangman.”
“My lord, I invoke the aid of God,” replied the empress, “and I hope, by His grace, my truth and innocence will find vindicators, and will be completely established.”
“Well, be it so,” said the emperor; and he summoned his guards, to whose wardship he consigned his empress. By his command she was conveyed to the lowest apartment in the castle, which differed in nothing from a prison but in name.
She had been imprisoned nearly a twelve-month, and had given birth to a son, condemned, like herself, to the pile. This babe she nourished at her own bosom, and reared with her own hands, like one of the wives of the people. None of her women paid her any attention or rendered her the smallest service, but Douce, Marchioness of Provence, who, having abandoned her own country, then the theatre of civil war, to seek an asylum at the court of her suzerain, had remained faithful to her mistress in her misfortunes.The empress, who had diligently exerted herself, by letters and promises, to procure champions for her ordeal by battle, had been hitherto completely unsuccessful. The renown of her accusers, their prowess in war and revengeful dispositions, had outweighed all her entreaties and largesses. Only three days of the time allowed by the emperor now remained, and the envoy sent by the fair Marchioness of Provence had not yet returned. She began to despair herself—she who had always soothed the despondency of the injured empress with hope.
As to the poor emperor, no one suffered like him; struck by this blow at once as sovereign, husband, and father, he had vowed publicly to join the Crusades, in the hope of averting the wrath of heaven; and the day he had fixed for the vindication or execution of the empress, would bring to him as severe a trial as to that unfortunate and injured princess. He had, at length, given the matter into the care of heaven, and, immuring himself in the most private apartments in his palace of Cologne, gave up all business, whether public or private, having no heart to attend to any thing, whatever. Such was the state of his mind when the dawn of the three hundred and sixty-fifth day found him still miserable, and his accused empress championless.
At noon, he had scarcely quitted his oratory when he was told that a foreign knight, from a distant country, wished to speak to him. The emperor was agitated, for, at the bottom of his heart, he secretly wished that heaven would yet send the unfortunate Praxida a champion; and he received him in the same chamber in which, sitting in the same chair, he had commanded the arrest of the empress. The knight entered, and bent his knee to the ground. The emperor bade him rise, and declare the occasion of his visit to his court.
“My lord,” replied the unknown knight, “I am a Spanish count. I was told at matins that the empress, your spouse, was accused by two knights of your court, and that if, within the space of a year and a day, she could not find a champion to defend her by battle, she would be publicly burned. Now, I have heard so much good said of this lady, and she is so renowned for piety throughout the world, that I am come from my own distant land to undertake her quarrel against both her accusers.”
“Count, you are welcome,” replied the emperor. “Certainly you show great friendship for the accused, or a great desire for renown. You are yet in time to save her, for there still remains one day before the sentence to which the laws of Germany condemn the adultress can be put in force against her.”
“Sire,” said the count, “I have a favor to ask you, which I hope you will courteously grant me. I wish to see the empress, for in this interview I should be able to form some opinion of her guilt or innocence; for, if I think her guilty, I will not imperil my body and soul in battle for her, but if she is innocent, I will fight, not only with one of her accusers, but with both, and indeed, will undertake her defense against every knight in Germany.”
“It is but justice on my part,” replied the emperor, “to grant your request, Sir Count.”
The unknown bowed, and retreated toward the door, but the emperor recalled him. “My lord count, have you made a vow to keep your visor down, and conceal your face?”
“No, sire,” replied the knight.
“Then you will do me the favor to raise your visor, that I may engrave on my memory the features of him who is about to imperil his life to save my honor?”
The knight took off his helmet, and the emperor saw the dark-complexioned, but expressive features of a young man of eighteen or nineteen years. His forehead and head were finely formed, and indicative of talent and power. The monarch regarded the youthful countenance of the champion with a sigh, and remembered with regret that the accusers of Praxida, his empress, were men not only well-skilled in war, but in the prime of manly strength. “May God preserve you, lord count,” said he, “for you appear to me full young for success in the difficult enterprise you have undertaken. Reflect, for there is still time to withdraw your promise.”
“Do me the honor to let me see the empress,” replied the knight, who had no intention of abandoning without cause an unfortunate lady.
The emperor gave him his signet-ring. “Go then, Sir Knight; this seal will open for you the doors of her prison.”
The knight kissed, on his knee, the hand which offered him the ring; then rose, saluted the monarch, and departed.
The sight of the emperor’s signet opened, as he had said, the guarded apartment of the empress, and in ten minutes the youthful champion found himself in the presence of the accused lady, for whom he was about to risk his life.
The empress was seated on her bed, nursing her infant. Accustomed to the entrance of her jailors, and for a long time abandoned by her women, she never even raised her head when the door was opened, only, by the instinct of modesty, she covered with her mantle her unveiled bosom, still continuing the plaintive hymn by which she lulled her babe to rest, accompanying the air with the movement of a nurse who rocks her babe to sleep.
The knight contemplated for some minutes, in tearful silence, this moving picture of fallen greatness, till, perceiving that the empress seemed unconscious of his vicinity, he accosted her in these words: “Madam, deign to raise your eyes, and honor with your notice, a man whom the renown of your virtue has led from a distant land, to vindicate your honor, defamed, he trusts, by false accusation; but before I undertake your cause, it is absolutely necessary that I should learn from you whether you are innocent of the charge laid against you. For, madam, I require a clear conscience, as well as a strong arm, since a trial by battle is an appeal to God, the judge of all, to decide the cause by the victory or fall of the champion. In the name of heaven, I entreat you to speak the truth; in which case, ifyou can prove your innocence to me, I swear by my knighthood that I will defend you to the last drop of my blood; trusting that the Lord will strengthen me to do your battle with such power as will clear your honor, and preserve my own life.”
“First, let me thank you, Sir Knight,” replied the empress, shedding tears of joy; “but, before I clear up my fame in your hearing, I pray you tell me your name, and permit me to see your face.”
“My face, madam, may be seen by every body,” said the count; “but my name is a different thing, since I have sworn to tell it to none but you.” He removed his helmet, and displayed to her sight his noble and ingenuous countenance, full of the fire and intelligence of upright youth verging upon manhood.
“Your name and quality, then, be pleased to show me,” replied the empress.
“I am a prince of Spain: Raymond Berenger, Count of Barcelona.”
At that name, so celebrated from father to son for lofty generosity and heroic deeds, the empress clasped her hands together, while a smile of joy lighted up her beautiful features through her tears, like a sunbeam breaking through a watery cloud.
“My lord, I can never repay you for the consolation you have afforded me this day; but you have demanded the truth from me—the whole truth: I ought to tell it you, and I will not disguise it from your knowledge. It is true that there came, in my husband’s absence, to the court of Cologne, a young and handsome knight, who, perhaps, was under some vow, either to his sovereign or the lady of his heart, to conceal his name and rank; for he told them to no one, not even to me. It was supposed, from his magnificence and generosity, that he was the son of a king; but we called him, from the gem he wore on his finger, the Knight of the Emerald. It is true that he sometimes conversed with me; but with so much respect, that I could not distance him without appearing to consider his attention as a matter of more consequence than it really was. Still he made a point of attending me on every public occasion. It happened one day, when we were hawking on the borders of the Rhine, and were got as far as Lusdorf, without meeting any game, till at last a heron rose, and I unhooded and cast off my falcon, who immediately soared; and, as he was a fine one, of true Norwegian breed, he soon reached the quarry, and I put my horse to a full gallop, to be in at the death. Carried away by my ardor, I leaped a stream, followed by none of my ladies but Douce, for they were timid horsewomen. The wicked knights, who have falsely slandered me, could not take the leap on their heavy steeds, but led my ladies to a fordable part of the rivulet. While making to the spot where the game had fallen, we saw a mounted cavalier fly from it like a phantom, and reënter a wood along the shore. The heron we found fluttering in the agonies of death, for the falcon had pierced his brain; but he still held an emerald ring in his beak, which Douce, as well as myself, immediately recognised as the one we had often seen on the finger of the unknown knight, whom we rightly supposed to be the cavalier who had galloped into the wood. I was wrong, I will own, to do as I then did; but women are vain and thoughtless. So, instead of throwing the jewel into the stream, as I ought, perhaps, to have done, I put it on my finger, and displaying it to my suite as they came up, related the adventure, without being aware of my own imprudence. Nobody, however, doubted the truth of my recital but Guthram and Walter, who smiled incredulously, in a manner that seemed to ask explanations which would have compromised my dignity, without allaying their unjust suspicions. I put on my glove, replaced my falcon on my wrist, without meeting with any other extraordinary discovery. At mass, however, I again met the knight of the emerald, and then perceived that he was without his ring, which, from that moment, I resolved to return to him upon the first suitable opportunity. A week after this adventure, the festival of Cologne was held. You are aware that this feast attracts a concourse of people from all parts of Germany: minstrels, players, and jongleurs of course abound. Among these last, there was a man who showed wild beasts, which he displayed on a theatre built for the occasion, in the grand square, where the spectators could gaze without danger on a lion from Barbery, and a tiger from India. Seated in a gallery, raised fifteen feet above them—I was there with my ladies—when, happening to discover the knight of the emerald among the company, I was going to give the ring to Douce, in order to restore it to him, when a spring from the tiger, accompanied by a dreadful roar, so terrified me, that I dropped the jewel from my finger into the cage of the lion, which was immediately below the balcony in which I was placed. Instantly, before I could utter a word, I saw the knight in the theatre, sword in hand. The tiger remained for a moment quiet, apparently astonished at the unparalleled boldness of the action, before he sprung upon the dauntless stranger; then we saw what appeared like a flash of lighting, and the head of the monster rolled upon the sand, upon which his immense body and terrible paws were deeply impressed. The knight took a diamond agraffe from his cap, flung it to the wild-beast man, and thrusting his arm through the bars of the lion’s cage, took up the ring I had dropped, and brought it to me, while the air rang with the acclamations of the spectators; but, as I had resolved to return it to him, I put back his hand, and said—‘No, my lord knight; this ring has cost youtoo dear for me to retain. Keep it in remembrance of me.’ These were the last words I ever addressed to him; for fearing the adventure would make more noise, I dispatched Douce with a message to the knight of the emerald, beseeching him in my name to quit Cologne. He departed the same evening, without informing me of his name or quality, or telling me whence he came, or whither he was going. This, my lord count, is the whole truth. And if I have been imprudent, I have, I think, paid dearly for my fault, by a twelve-month’s imprisonment, and a false accusation, that imperils my life.”
The count drew his sword, and turning the cross of the handle most reverently toward the empress, said—
“Swear to me, madam, upon this blade, that what you have just now related to me is perfectly true.”
“I swear,” replied the empress, “that I have told you nothing but the truth.”
“Well, by this sword, and the help of God, you shall be delivered from this prison, in which you have been confined a year, and be cleared also from the deadly accusation that clouds your fame.”
“May God grant it!” said the pious empress.
“Now, madam, will you bestow upon me one of your jewels, in token that you accept me for your knight?”
“My lord count, take this gold chain, the only relic of my former state that I still possess. This pledge will serve as a proof that I have chosen you for my champion.”
“Madam, I take it with thanks,” replied the Count of Barcelona, returning, as he spoke, his sword to its scabbard, and replacing his helmet on his head. He bowed courteously to the fair prisoner, and rejoined the emperor, who was anxiously expecting his return.
“Sire,” said the count, “I have seen her majesty, the empress, and am satisfied with her explanations. Will you, therefore, be pleased to inform her accusers, that I am ready to do battle in her cause with one or both—either together, or by single combat.”
“My lord count,” replied the emperor, “you shall engage them separately; for it shall never be said that a knight who undertook the cause of an accused lady in so noble a manner did not find noble enemies.”
[To be continued.