He clung desperately to his precarious perch. Now and then a fierce rush of wind almost tore him from it. Strange fancies beset him. The air was full of that wild [v]symphony of nature, the wind and the rain, the pealing thunder, and the thunderous echo among the cliffs, and yet he thought he could hear his own name ringing again and again through all the tumult, sometimes in Pete's voice, sometimes in George's shrill tones.

Ethan became vaguely aware, after a time, that the rain had ceased, and the moon was beginning to shine through rifts in the clouds. The wind continued unabated, but, curiously enough, he could not hear it now. He could hear nothing; he could think of nothing. His consciousness was beginning to fail.

George Birt had indeed forgotten him,—forgotten even the promised "whings." Not that he had discovered anything so extraordinary in his trap, for it was empty, but when he reached the mill, he found that the miller had killed a bear and captured a cub, and the orphan, chained to a post, had deeply absorbed George Birt's attention.

To [v]sophisticated people, the boy might have seemed as [v]grotesque as the cub. George wore an unbleached cotton shirt. The waistband of his baggy jeans trousers encircled his body just beneath his armpits, reaching to his shoulder-blades behind, and nearly to his collar-bone in front. His red head was only partly covered by a fragment of an old white wool hat; and he looked at the cub with a curiosity as intense as that with which the cub looked at him. Each was taking first lessons in natural history.

As long as there was daylight enough left to see that cub, did George Birt stand and stare at the little beast. Then he clattered home on old Sorrel in the closing darkness, looking like a very small pin on the top of a large pincushion.

At home, he found the elders unreasonable,—as elders usually are considered. Supper had been waiting an hour or so for the lack of meal for dodgers. He "caught it" considerably, but not sufficiently to impair his appetite for the dodgers. After all this, he was ready enough for bed when a small boy's bedtime came. But as he was nodding before the fire, he heard a word that roused him to a new excitement and stimulated his memory.

"These hyar chips air so wet they won't burn," said his mother. "I'll take my tur-r-key whing an' fan the fire."

"Law!" he exclaimed. "Thar, now! Ethan Tynes never gimme that thar wild tur-r-key's whings like he promised."

"Whar did ye happen ter see Ethan?" asked Pete, interested in his friend.

"Seen him in the woods, an' he promised me the tur-r-key whings."

"What fur?" inquired Pete, a little surprised by this uncalled-for generosity.

"Waal,"—there was an expression of embarrassment on the important freckled face, and the small red head nodded forward in an explanatory manner,—"he fell off'n the bluffs arter the tur-r-key whings—I mean, he went down to the ledge arter the tur-r-key, and the vines bruk an' he couldn't git up no more. An' he tole me that ef I'd tell ye ter fotch him a rope ter pull up by, he would gimme the whings. That happened a—leetle—while—arter dinner-time."

"Who got him a rope ter pull up by?" demanded Pete.

There was again on the important face that indescribable shade of embarrassment. "Waal,"—the youngster balanced this word judicially,—"I forgot 'bout'n the tur-key whings till this minute. I reckon he's thar yit."

"Mebbe this hyar wind an' rain hev beat him off'n the ledge!" exclaimed Pete, appalled and rising hastily. "I tell ye now," he added, turning to his mother, "the best use ye kin make o' that boy is ter put him on the fire fur a back-log."

Pete made his preparations in great haste. He took the rope from the well, asked the [v]crestfallen and browbeaten junior a question or two relative to the place, mounted old Sorrel without a saddle, and in a few minutes was galloping at headlong speed through the night.

The rain was over by the time he had reached the sulphur spring to which George had directed him, but the wind was still high, and the broken clouds were driving fast across the face of the moon.

By the time he had hitched his horse to a tree and set out on foot to find the cliff, the moonbeams, though brilliant, were so [v]intermittent that his progress was fitful and necessarily cautious. When the disk shone out full and clear, he made his way rapidly enough, but when the clouds intervened, he stood still and waited.

"I ain't goin' ter fall off'n the bluff 'thout knowin' it," he said to himself, in one of these [v]eclipses, "ef I hev ter stand hyar all night."

The moonlight was brilliant and steady when he reached the verge of the crag. He identified the spot by the mass of broken vines, and more positively by Ethan's rifle lying upon the ground just at his feet. He called, but received no response.

"Hev Ethan fell off, sure enough?" he asked himself, in great dismay and alarm. Then he shouted again and again. At last there came an answer, as though the speaker had just awaked.

"Pretty nigh beat out, I'm a-thinkin'!" commented Pete. He tied one end of the cord around the trunk of a tree, knotted it at intervals, and flung it over the bluff.

At first Ethan was almost afraid to stir. He slowly put forth his hand and grasped the rope. Then, his heart beating tumultuously, he rose to his feet.

He stood still for an instant to steady himself and get his breath. Nerving himself for a strong effort, he began the ascent, hand over hand, up and up and up, till once more he stood upon the crest of the crag.

And, now that all danger was over, Pete was disposed to scold. "I'm a-thinkin'," said Pete severely, "ez thar ain't a critter on this hyar mounting, from a b'ar ter a copperhead, that could hev got in sech a fix, 'ceptin' ye, Ethan Tynes."

And Ethan was silent.

"What's this hyar thing at the end o' the rope?" asked Pete, as he began to draw the cord up, and felt a weight still suspended.

"It air the tur-r-key," said Ethan meekly, "I tied her ter the e-end o' the rope afore I kem up."

"Waal, sir!" exclaimed Pete, in indignant surprise.

And George, for duty performed, was [v]remunerated with the two "whings," although it still remains a question in the mind of Ethan whether or not he deserved them.

CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK.

HELPS TO STUDY

Tell what happened to Ethan Tynes one day when he was hunting. How was he rescued? What qualities did Ethan show in his hour of trial? Give your opinion of George Birt; of Pete. Find out all you can about life in the mountains of East Tennessee.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains—Charles Egbert Craddock. The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come—John Fox, Jr. June—John Fox, Jr.



The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The cricket's song, in the warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

JOHN KEATS.



A DEAL IN BEARS

When a whaling ship is beset in the ice of Davis Straits, there is little work for her second engineer, once the engines have been nicely tallowed down. Now, I am no man that can sit in his berth and laze. If I've no work to do, I get a-thinking about my home at [v]Ballindrochater and the ministry, which my father intended I should have adorned, and what a fool I've made of myself, and this is depressing. I was not over-popular already on the Gleaner on account of some prophecies I had made in anger, which had unfortunately come true. The crew, and the captain, too, had come to fear my prophetic powers.

At last I bethought me of sporting on the ice. There was head-money offered for all bears, foxes, seals, musk-oxen, and such like that were shot and gathered. So I went to the skipper, and he gave me a Henry rifle, well rusted, and eight cartridges.

"Show me you can use those, McTodd," says he, "and I'll give you more."

I made a big mistake with that rusty old gun. I may be a sportsman, but before that I'm an engineer, and it seemed to me that Heaven sent metal into this world to be kept bright and clean. So I took the rifle all to pieces and made the parts as smooth and sweet as you'd see in a gun-maker's shop, barring rust-pits, and gave them a nice daubing of oil against the Arctic weather. Then I put on some thick clothes I had made, and all the other clothes I could get loaned me, and climbed out over the rail on to the [v]floe.

The Gleaner lay in a bay some two miles from the shore, and let me tell you, if you do not know it, that Arctic ice is no skating-rink. There are great hills, and knolls, and bergs, and valleys spread all over, and even where it's about level, the underfoot is as hard going as a newly-metalled road before the steam-roller has passed over it.

The air was clear enough when I left the bark, and though the [v]mercury was out of use and coiled up snugly in the bulb, it wasn't as cold as you might think, for just then there was no wind. It's a breeze up in the Arctic that makes you feel the chill. There was no sun, of course; there never is sun up there in that dreary winter: but the stars were burning blue and clear, and every now and then a big [v]catherine wheel of [v]aurora would show off, for all the world like a firework exhibition.

My! but it was lonely, though, once you had left the ship behind! There was just the scrunching of your feet on the frost [v]rime, and not another sound in the world. Even the ice was frozen too hard to squeak. And overhead in that purple-black Heaven you never knew Who was looking down at you. Out there in that cold, bare, black, icy silence, I had occasion to remember that Neil Angus McTodd had been a sinner in his time, and it made me shiver when I glanced up toward those blue, cold stars and the deep purple darkness that lay between and behind them.

It may be that I was thinking less of my hunting than was advisable, for of a sudden I woke up to the sound of heavy feet padding over the crisp frost rime. I turned me round sharply enough, but as far as the dim light carried there was nothing alive to be seen through the gloom. As soon as I stopped, the footsteps stopped, too, and I don't mind admitting that my scalp tickled.

However, when I'd hauled up the hammer of the Henry, and it dropped into position with a good, wholesome cluck, my nervousness very soon filtered out. There's a comfort about a heavy-bore rifle like a Henry—which is the kind always used by whalers and sealers—that you can't get from those fancy little guns. And then, as it seemed that the animal, whatever it might be, wasn't going to move till I did, I shuffled my high sealskin boots on the crisp snow to make believe that I was tramping again.

The creature started after me promptly. It was hard to tell the direction, because every sound in that icy silence was echoed by a thousand bergs and hummocks of ice; but presently from behind a small splintered ridge of the floe there strolled out what seemed to me the largest bear in the Arctic regions. You must know that the night air there has a [v]deceptive light—it enlarges things—and the beast appeared to me as standing some five feet six inches high at the shoulder, and measuring some twenty feet from nose to tail.

There was myself and there was the bear in the dark middle of that awful loneliness, with no one to interfere; and as there was only one of us to get home, I preferred it should not be he. So I took a brace on myself, and stood with the Henry ready to fire.

There was nothing you might call [v]diffidence about that bear. He slouched along up to me at a steady walk, with the hair and skin on him swinging about as though it was too large for his carcass and he was wearing a misfit. He seemed to look upon me as dinner, and no hurry needful. There was a sort of calm certainty about him that made me angry.

I was not what you might call a marksman in those days, and so I set a bit of [v]hummock about ten yards off as a limit where I could not very conveniently miss, and waited until the bear should come opposite that. Well, he came to it right enough in his own time. There was, as I have said before, no diffidence about the creature. And then I raised the Henry and fired her off.

Cluck went the hammer on the nipple, but there was no bang.

My! it was a misfire, and there was the bear coming down on me as steady and unconcerned as a [v]traction engine! I clawed out that cartridge and crammed in another. The bitter cold of the metal skinned my fingers like escaping steam. Then I cocked the gun again, shouldered it, and pulled trigger again.

Once more she wouldn't go off!

The bear was now nearly on top of me and was beginning to rear on its hind legs. Somehow the rifle came into my hand muzzle-end, and I hit the great brute across the eyes with the butt hard enough to have felled an ox.

I might as well have struck it with a cane. Whack came a big yellow-white paw, the Henry went flying, and my wrists tingled with the jar; and there was I left looking, I've no doubt you'll think, very humorous.

The bear might have finished me then if it had chosen. But it must needs turn aside to go snuffling at the rifle and lick the oil off the locks. I turned and footed it.

Now, at the best of times, I am no [v]sprinter, and in the great mountain of clothes one wears up there in the cold Arctic night, no man can make much speed. Besides, the way was that uneven it was a case of hands and scramble more often than plain running over the sharp, spiky level.

The bear, once he had finished his snuffle and lick at the Henry, came on at a dreadful pace, making nothing of those obstacles that balked me,—he had been born up there, you know. He laid himself out—I could see over my shoulder—like one of those American trotting horses, caring nothing for the ups and downs and ankle-breaking ice. In about two shakes he was snorting at my heels again, till I could almost feel his hot breath. The bundle of clothes hampered me. I stripped off my outer over-all and let it drop behind me.

The bear stopped and snuffed that, but I didn't stay to watch him. I got a good fifty [v]fathoms ahead of him whilst he was thus occupied. But presently, when he'd got all his satisfaction out of that, on he comes again, and I had to give him my coat. I hadn't a chance of equaling him in pace, but the trick with the clothing never tired him. Fifty fathoms was the least gain I made over a single piece, and as I got lower down toward my skin he stayed over the clothes longer.

But still the Gleaner was a long way off, over very tumbled ice, and there I was careering on in a costume which was barely enough for decency, and certainly insufficient for the climate.

However, it was little enough the bear cared for such refinements as those. I stripped off my last garment as I ran, and gained nigh on two hundred yards whilst he investigated it; and there were the bark's upper spars showing above the hummocks half a mile away, with me in nothing but my long seal-skin boots!

But there was no help for it. Up came the hot breath behind me, and I leaned up against a hummock and stripped off a boot. I hailed the Gleaner with what breath I had left, but no one gave heed. Away went the other boot, and there I was running, mother-naked, over the jagged floe, leaving blood on every footmark.

Right up to the vessel did the outrageous beast chase me, and then when I got on board and called for guns, it slunk away into the shadows of a berg and was seen no more. My feet were cut to the bone; I was frost-nipped in twenty places, and you may imagine I had had a poor enough time of it. But the thought of that canvas over-all which I had thrown away first kept me cheerful. It was indeed a very humorous circumstance. Ye see it was a borrowed one.

I got down below to a berth, and the steward, who was rated as a doctor, tended me. But Captain Black put sourness on the whole affair. He came down to my bunk and said, "Where's that Henry?"

"Lying quiet on the ice," said I.

"Do you mean to say you left that rifle behind? My rifle!"

"I did that same. The thing wasn't strong enough to fire a cartridge. I tried two."

And then Black used violent and unjustifiable language. I was in no condition to give him a fair exchange. Besides, I made an unfortunate admission. I owned up to taking the rifle apart and cleaning her. I owned up, too, that I'd been free with the oil.

Black stuck out his face at me, and his fringe of beard fairly bristled.

"And you call yourself an engineer! You talk about having gone through the shops! Put your filthy engine-room oil on my Henry's locks, would you? Why, you idiot, have you yet to learn that oil freezes up here as hard as cheese, and you've made up the lock space of that poor rifle into one solid chunk?"

"I never thought of that."

"To look at your face, you've yet to start thinking at all."

So we had it out, and as I was now aroused, I gave him some words on the inefficient way he ran his ship. At last I threatened to prophesy again, and this cooled him off. I offered to go hunting bears for him and he became quite polite.

"I'll make you an offer touching those bears," he said. "For every skin you bring here aboard, I'll give you seven shillings [v]bonus above your share as a member of the ship's company. I'll give you another rifle, two rifles if you like, and a fine bag of cartridges. But, you beggar, I make one condition. You take yourself off and away from the ship to do your hunting. You may make yourself a snow house to stay in, and live on the meat you kill."

"You wish to murder me?"

"I wish to be rid of you, and that's the truth. Man, I believe you're Jonah resurrected. We've had no luck since first you put your foot on my deck planks. And, what's more, the crew is of my way of thinking. So, refuse my offer, and I'll put you in irons and keep you there till I can fling you ashore at [v]Dundee."

Now there is no doubt Black meant what he said, and so I did not waste dignity by arguing with him. I had no taste for the irons, and as for being turned out on the ice—well, I had a plan ahead. But I didn't intend to leave Black more comfortable than I could help.

So I shut my eyes and said that the ship would have very bad luck that winter, that there would be much sickness aboard. (This was an easy guess.) I said, considering this fact, I was glad to leave such an unwholesome ship.

The crew were just aching to get rid of me. This prophesying sort of grows on a man; once you've started it, you've got to go on with it at all costs, and I could no more resist just letting my few remarks slip round amongst the men than I can resist eating when I'm hungry.

The nerves of the Gleaner people were in strings from the cold and the blackness of the Arctic night, and it put the horrors on the lot of them. The one thing they wanted was to see the last of me. They gave me almost anything I fancied, but my means of transport were small. There was a bit of a sledge, which I packed with some food, two Henry rifles and a few tools, five hundred cartridges, and the clothes I stood in. No more could be taken.

Then I went on deck into the bitter cold and over the side, and stood on the ice, ready to start on my journey. The crew lined the rail to see me off, and I can tell you their faces were very different. The older ones were savage and cared little how soon Jonah might die. The younger ones were crying to see a fellow driven away into that icy loneliness, far from shelter.

But for myself I didn't care. I had method in all this performance. Soon after we were beset in the ice, a family of Esquimaux had come on the Gleaner to pay a polite call and get what they could out of us. They were that dirty you could have chipped them with a scaling hammer, but they were very friendly. One buck who stepped down into the engine room—[v]Amatikita, he said his name was—had some English, and came to the point as straight as anything.

"Give me a [v]dlink, Cappie," says he.

"This is a dry ship," says I.

"Plenty dlink in that box," says he, handling an oil-can.

"Oh, if that's what you want, take it," I told him, and he clapped the nozzle between his lips, and sucked down a gill of [v]cylinder lubricating oil as though it had been water.

"You seem to like it," I said; "have some more."

But that was his fill. He thanked me and asked me to visit his village when I could get away from the ship. And just then some of his friends were caught pilfering, and the whole crew of them were bundled away.

Now I had noted that most of these Esquimaux had bits of bearskins amongst their other furs, and it was that I had in mind when I fell out with Captain Black. Amatikita had pointed out the direction in which his village lay, and it was to that I intended making my way with as little delay as possible. But I kept this to myself, and let no word of it slip out on the Gleaner. Indeed, when I was over the bark's rails, I headed off due north across the ice. I climbed and stumbled on in this direction till I was well out of their sight and hearing amongst the hummocks, and then I turned at right angles for the shore.

The cold up yonder in that Arctic night takes away your breath; it seems to take the manhood out of you. You stumble along gasping. By a chance I came on an Esquimaux sealing, and he beat and thumped me into wakefulness. Then he packed me on to his dog-sleigh, and took my own bit of a sled behind, and set his fourteen-foot whip cracking, and off we set.

Well, you have to be pretty far gone if you can stay asleep with an [v]Innuit's dog-sledge jolting and jumping beneath you, and I was well awakened, especially as the Esquimaux sat on top of me. And so in time we brought up at the huts, and a good job, too. I'd been tramping in the wrong direction, so it turned out, and, besides, if I had come to the village, I might well have walked over the top of it, as it was drifted up level with snow. There was a bit of a rabbit-hole giving entrance to each hut, with some three fathoms of tunnel underground, and skin curtains to keep out the draught, but once inside you might think yourself in a [v]stoke-hold again. There was the same smell of oil, and almost the same warmth. I tell you, it was fine after that slicing cold outside.

It was Amatikita's house I was brought to, and he was very hospitable. They took off my outer clothes and put them on the rack above the soapstone lamp to dry, and waited on me most kindly. Indeed, they recognized me as a superior at once, and kept on doing it. They put tender young seal-meat in the dish above the lamp, and when it was cooked I ate my part of the stew, and then got up and took the best place on the raised sleeping-bench at the farther side of the hut. I cut a fill for my pipe, lit up and passed the plug, and presently we were all smoking, happy as you please.

Amatikita spoke up like a man. "Very pleased to see you, Cappie. What you come for? What you want?"

"You're a man of business," I said. "You waste no time. I like that. What I want is bearskins. The jackets of big, white, baggy-trousered polar bears, you know; and I brought along a couple of tip-top rifles for you to get them with. Now, I make you a fair offer. Get me all the bears in the North Polar regions, and you shall have my Henrys and all the cartridges that are left over. And as for the meat, you shall have that as your own share of the game."

"You want shoot those bears yourself?"

"Not if I can help it. I'm an engineer, and a good one at that. But as a sportsman I've had but little experience, and don't seem drawn toward learning. It is too draughty up here, just at present, for my taste. I'll stay and keep house, and maybe do a bit of repairing and inventing among the furniture. I've brought along a hand-vice and a bag of tools with me, and if you can supply drift-wood and some scrap-iron, I'll make this turf-house of yours a real cottage."

The deal was made. I worked away with my tools, and whenever those powdering winter gales eased for a little, Amatikita and his friends would go off with the howling dog-sledges and the Henrys, and it was rare that they'd come back without one bear, and often they'd bring two or even three. These white bears sleep through the black winter months in hollows in the cliffs, and the Esquimaux know their lairs, though it's rare enough they dare tackle them. Small blame, too, you'd say, if you saw the flimsy bone-tipped lances and harpoons, which are all they are armed with.

With a good, smashing, heavy-bore Henry rifle it is a different thing. The Esquimaux were no cowards. They would walk up within a yard of a bear, when the dogs had ringed it, and blow half its head away with a single shot. And then they would draw the carcass up to the huts with the dog trains, and the women would skin and dress the meat, and Amatikita and the others would gorge themselves.

At last the long winter wore away. Amatikita dived in through the entrance of the hut one day and told me that the ice-floe was beginning to break. The news affected me like the blow of a whip. I went out into the open and found the sun up. The men were overhauling their skin canoes. The snow was wet underfoot and seafowl were swooping around. The floe was still sound where it joined the shore, but two seaward lanes of blue water showed between the ice, and in one of them a whale was spouting pale gray mist.

It was high time for me to be off. So the bearskins were fastened by thongs to the sledges and word was shouted to the dog leader of each team. The dogs started, and presently away went the teams full tilt, the sledges leaping and crashing in their wake, with the drivers and a certain Scotch engineer who was unused to such [v]acrobatics clinging on top of the packs. My! but yon was a wild ride over the rotten, cracking, sodden floe, under the fresh, bright sunshine of that Arctic spring morn!

Presently round the flank of a small ice-berg we came in view of the Gleaner. She was still beset in the ice; but the hands were hard at work beating the ice from the rigging and cutting a gutter around her in the floe, so that she might float when the time came. They knocked off work when we drove up.

"Good-day, Captain Black," I said. "I've been troubling myself over bearskins, and I'll ask you for seven shillings head money on twenty-nine."

"You've shot twenty-nine bears? You're lying to me."

"The skins are there, and you can count them for yourself."

His color changed when the Esquimaux passed the skins over the side. And I clambered aboard the ship along with them.

W. CUTCLIFFE HYNE.

HELPS TO STUDY

Tell this story briefly, using your own words. What mistake did McTodd make in preparing for the hunt? What amused you most? How did McTodd show his shrewdness, even if he was not a good hunter? What do you learn about the Arctic region?

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

The Frozen Pirate—W. Clark Russell. The Casting Away of Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. Aleshine—Frank R. Stockton.



LOCHINVAR

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west:— Through all the wide Border his steed was the best, And save his good broadsword he weapons had none; He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.

He stayed not for [v]brake, and he stopped not for stone, He swam the Esk river where ford there was none; But ere he alighted at Netherby gate The bride had consented, the gallant came late: For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall, Among bride's-men and kinsmen and brothers and all: Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword (For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word), "Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"

"I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied;— Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide— And now am I come with this lost love of mine, To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."

The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up, He quaffed of the wine, and he threw down the cup. She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh, With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye. He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,— "Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.

So stately his form, and so lovely her face, That never a hall such a [v]galliard did grace; While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume, And the bride-maidens whispered, "'Twere better by far To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood near; So light to the [v]croup the fair lady he swung, So light to the saddle before her he sprung! "She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and [v]scar; They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar.

There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan; Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran; There was racing and chasing on Cannobie lea, But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see. So daring in love, and so dauntless in war; Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

HELPS TO STUDY

Read the poem through and tell the story briefly. Where is the scene laid? Border here means the part of Scotland bordering on England. Who is the hero? Give your opinion of him. Find the expressions used by the poet to inspire admiration for Lochinvar. Give your opinion of the bridegroom. Quote lines that express the poet's opinion of him. What word is used instead of thicket in the second stanza? a loiterer? a coward? Why do you suppose the bride had consented? Why did her father put his hand on his sword? What reason did Lochinvar give for coming to the feast? Why did he act as if he did not care? Was the bride willing to marry "the laggard in love"? How do you know? Describe the scene as the two danced. What do you suppose was the "one word in her ear"?

Read aloud the lines describing Lochinvar's ride to Netherby Hall. Read those describing the ride from the hall. Notice the galloping movement of the verse.



IN LABRADOR

I

Trafford and Marjorie were in Labrador to spend the winter. It was a queer idea for a noted [v]scientist and rich and successful business man to cut himself loose from the world of London and go out into the Arctic storm and darkness of one of the bleakest quarters of the globe. But Trafford had fallen into a discontent with living, a weariness of the round of work and pleasure, and it was in the hope of winning back his lost zest and happiness that he had made up his mind to try the cure of the wilderness. Marjorie had insisted, like a good wife, on leaving children and home and comfort and accompanying him into the frozen wilds.

The voyage across the sea and the march inland into Labrador were uneventful. Trafford chose his winter-quarters on the side of a low razor-hacked, rocky mountain ridge, about fifty feet above a little river. Not a dozen miles away from them, they reckoned, was the Height of Land, the low watershed between the waters that go to the Atlantic and those that go to Hudson's Bay. North and north-east of them the country rose to a line of low crests, with here and there a yellowing patch of last year's snow, and across the valley were slopes covered in places by woods of stunted pine. It had an empty spaciousness of effect; the one continually living thing seemed to be the river, hurrying headlong, noisily, perpetually, in an eternal flight from this high desolation.

For nearly four weeks indeed they were occupied very closely in fixing their cabin and making their other preparations, and crept into their bunks at night as tired as wholesome animals who drop to sleep. At any time the weather might break; already there had been two overcast days and a frowning conference of clouds in the north. When at last storms began, they knew there would be nothing for it but to keep in the hut until the world froze up.

The weather broke at last. One might say it smashed itself over their heads. There came an afternoon darkness swift and sudden, a wild gale, and an icy sleet that gave place in the night to snow, so that Trafford looked out next morning to see a maddening chaos of small white flakes, incredibly swift, against something that was neither darkness nor light. Even with the door but partly ajar, a cruelty of cold put its claw within, set everything that was movable swaying and clattering, and made Marjorie hasten shuddering to heap fresh logs upon the fire. Once or twice Trafford went out to inspect tent and roof and store-shed; several times, wrapped to the nose, he battled his way for fresh wood, and for the rest of the blizzard they kept to the hut. It was slumberously stuffy, but comfortingly full of flavors of tobacco and food. There were two days of intermission and a day of gusts and icy sleet again, turning with one extraordinary clap of thunder to a wild downpour of dancing lumps of ice, and then a night when it seemed all Labrador, earth and sky together, was in hysterical protest against inconceivable wrongs.

And then the break was over; the annual freezing-up accomplished; winter had established itself; the snowfall moderated and ceased, and an ice-bound world shone white and sunlit under a cloudless sky.

One morning Trafford found the footmarks of some catlike creature in the snow near the bushes where he was accustomed to get firewood; they led away very plainly up the hill, and after breakfast he took his knife and rifle and snowshoes and went after the lynx—for that he decided the animal must be. There was no urgent reason why he should want to kill a lynx, unless perhaps that killing it made the store-shed a trifle safer; but it was the first trail of any living thing for many days; it promised excitement; some [v]primitive instinct perhaps urged him.

The morning was a little overcast, and very cold between the gleams of wintry sunshine. "Good-by, dear wife!" he said, and then as she remembered afterward came back a dozen yards to kiss her. "I'll not be long," he said. "The beast's prowling, and if it doesn't get wind of me, I ought to find it in an hour." He hesitated for a moment. "I'll not be long," he repeated, and she had an instant's wonder whether he hid from her the same dread of loneliness that she concealed. Up among the tumbled rocks he turned, and she was still watching him. "Good-by!" he cried and waved, and the willow thickets closed about him.

She forced herself to the petty duties of the day, made up the fire from the pile he had left for her, set water to boil, put the hut in order, brought out sheets and blankets to air, and set herself to wash up. She wished she had been able to go with him. The sky cleared presently, and the low December sun lit all the world about her, but it left her spirit desolate.

She did not expect him to return until midday, and she sat herself down on a log before the fire to darn a pair of socks as well as she could. For a time this unusual occupation held her attention and then her hands became slow and at last inactive, and she fell into reverie. Thoughts came quick and fast of her children in England so far away.

What was that? She flashed to her feet.

It seemed to her she had heard the sound of a shot, and a quick, brief wake of echoes. She looked across the icy waste of the river, and then up the tangled slopes of the mountain. Her heart was beating fast. It must have been up there, and no doubt Trafford had killed his beast. Some shadow of doubt she would not admit crossed that obvious suggestion. The wilderness was making her as nervously responsive as a creature of the wild.

There came a second shot; this time there was no doubt of it. Then the desolate silence closed about her again.

Marjorie stood for a long time, staring at the shrubby slopes that rose to the barren rock wilderness of the purple mountain crest. She sighed deeply at last, and set herself to make up the fire and prepare for the midday meal. Once, far away across the river, she heard the howl of a wolf.

Time seemed to pass very slowly that day. Marjorie found herself going repeatedly to the space between the day tent and the sleeping hut from which she could see the stunted wood that had swallowed her husband up, and after what seemed a long hour her watch told her it was still only half-past twelve. And the fourth or fifth time that she went to look out she was set a-tremble again by the sound of a third shot. And then at regular intervals out of that distant brown-purple jumble of thickets against the snow came two more shots. "Something has happened," she said, "something has happened," and stood rigid. Then she became active, seized the rifle that was always at hand when she was alone, fired into the sky, and stood listening.

Prompt came an answering shot.

"He wants me," said Marjorie. "Something—perhaps he has killed something too big to bring!"

She was for starting at once, and then remembered this was not the way of the wilderness.

She thought and moved very rapidly. Her mind catalogued possible requirements,—rifle, hunting knife, the oilskin bag with matches, and some chunks of dry paper, the [v]rucksack. Besides, he would be hungry. She took a saucepan and a huge chunk of cheese and biscuit. Then a brandy flask is sometimes handy—one never knows,—though nothing was wrong, of course. Needles and stout thread, and some cord. Snowshoes. A waterproof cloak could be easily carried. Her light hatchet for wood. She cast about to see if there was anything else. She had almost forgotten cartridges—and a revolver. Nothing more. She kicked a stray brand or so into the fire, put on some more wood, damped the fire with an armful of snow to make it last longer, and set out toward the willows into which he had vanished.

There was a rustling and snapping of branches as she pushed her way through the bushes, a little stir that died insensibly into quiet again; and then the camping place became very still.

Trafford's trail led Marjorie through the thicket of dwarf willows and down to the gully of the rivulet which they had called Marjorie Trickle; it had long since become a trough of snow-covered, rotten ice. The trail crossed this and, turning sharply uphill, went on until it was clear of shrubs and trees, and, in the windy open of the upper slopes, it crossed a ridge and came over the lip of a large desolate valley with slopes of ice and icy snow. Here Marjorie spent some time in following his loops back on the homeward trail before she saw what was manifestly the final trail running far away out across the snow, with the [v]spoor of the lynx, a lightly-dotted line, to the right of it. She followed this suggestion of the trail, put on her snowshoes, and shuffled her way across this valley, which opened as she proceeded. She hoped that over the ridge she would find Trafford, and scanned the sky for the faintest discoloration of a fire, but there was none. That seemed odd to her, but the wind was in her face, and perhaps it beat the smoke down. Then as her eyes scanned the hummocky ridge ahead, she saw something, something very intent and still, that brought her heart into her mouth. It was a big gray wolf, standing with back haunched and head down, watching and scenting something beyond.

Marjorie had an instinctive fear of wild animals, and it still seemed dreadful to her that they should go at large, uncaged. She suddenly wanted Trafford violently, wanted him by her side. Also, she thought of leaving the trail, going back to the bushes. But presently her nerve returned. In the wastes one did not fear wild beasts, one had no fear of them. But why not fire a shot to let him know she was near?

The beast flashed round with an animal's instantaneous change of pose, and looked at her. For a couple of seconds, perhaps, woman and brute regarded one another across a quarter of a mile of snowy desolation.

Suppose it came toward her!

She would fire—and she would fire at it. Marjorie made a guess at the range and aimed very carefully. She saw the snow fly two yards ahead of the grisly shape, and then in an instant the beast had vanished over the crest.

She reloaded, and stood for a moment waiting for Trafford's answer. No answer came. "Queer!" she whispered, "queer!"—and suddenly such a horror of anticipation assailed her that she started running and floundering through the snow to escape it. Twice she called his name, and once she just stopped herself from firing a shot.

Over the ridge she would find him. Surely she would find him over the ridge!

She now trampled among rocks, and there was a beaten place where Trafford must have waited and crouched. Then on and down a slope of tumbled boulders. There came a patch where he had either thrown himself down or fallen; it seemed to her he must have been running.

Suddenly, a hundred feet or so away, she saw a patch of violently disturbed snow—snow stained a dreadful color, a snow of scarlet crystals! Three strides and Trafford was in sight.

She had a swift conviction that he was dead. He was lying in a crumpled attitude on a patch of snow between [v]convergent rocks, and the lynx, a mass of blood-smeared, silvery fur, was in some way mixed up with him. She saw as she came nearer that the snow was disturbed round about them, and discolored [v]copiously, yellow, and in places bright red, with congealed and frozen blood. She felt no fear now and no emotion; all her mind was engaged with the clear, bleak perception of the fact before her. She did not care to call to him again. His head was hidden by the lynx's body, as if he was burrowing underneath the creature; his legs were twisted about each other in a queer, unnatural attitude.

Then, as she dropped off a boulder, and came nearer, Trafford moved. A hand came out and gripped the rifle beside him; he suddenly lifted a dreadful face, horribly scarred and torn, and crimson with frozen blood; he pushed the gray beast aside, rose on an elbow, wiped his sleeve across his eyes, stared at her, grunted, and flopped forward. He had fainted.

Marjorie was now as clear-minded and as self-possessed as a woman in a shop. In another moment she was kneeling by his side. She saw, by the position of his knife and the huge rip in the beast's body, that he had stabbed the lynx to death as it clawed his head; he must have shot and wounded it and then fallen upon it. His knitted cap was torn to ribbons, and hung upon his neck. Also his leg was manifestly injured—how, she could not tell. It was evident that he must freeze if he lay here, and it seemed to her that perhaps he had pulled the dead brute over him to protect his torn skin from the extremity of cold. The lynx was already rigid, its clumsy paws asprawl,—and the torn skin and clot upon Trafford's face were stiff as she put her hands about his head to raise him. She turned him over on his back—how heavy he seemed?—and forced brandy between his teeth. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she poured a little brandy on his wounds.

She glanced at his leg, which was surely broken, and back at his face. Then she gave him more brandy, and his eyelids flickered. He moved his hand weakly. "The blood," he said, "kept getting in my eyes."

She gave him brandy once again, wiped his face, and glanced at his leg. Something ought to be done to that, Marjorie thought. But things must be done in order.

The woman stared up at the darkling sky with its gray promise of snow, and down the slopes of the mountain. Clearly they must stay the night here. They were too high for wood among these rocks, but three or four hundred yards below there were a number of dwarfed fir trees. She had brought an ax, so that a fire was possible. Should she go back to camp and get the tent?

Trafford was trying to speak again. "I got—"

"Yes?"

"Got my leg in that crack."

Was he able to advise her? She looked at him, and then perceived that she must bind up his head and face. She knelt behind him and raised his head on her knee. She had a thick silk neck muffler, and this she supplemented by a band she cut and tore from her inner vest. She bound this, still warm from her body, about him, and wrapped her dark cloak round his shoulders. The next thing was a fire. Five yards away, perhaps, a great mass of purple [v]gabbro hung over a patch of nearly snowless moss. A hummock to the westward offered shelter from the bitter wind, the icy draught, that was soughing down the valley. Always in Labrador, if you can, you camp against a rock surface; it shelters you from the wind, guards your back.

"Dear!" she said.

"Awful hole," said Trafford.

"What?" she cried sharply.

"Put you in an awful hole," he said. "Eh?"

"Listen," she said, and shook his shoulder. "Look! I want to get you up against that rock."

"Won't make much difference," replied Trafford, and opened his eyes. "Where?" he asked.

"There."

He remained quite quiet for a second perhaps. "Listen to me," he said. "Go back to camp."

"Yes," she said.

"Go back to camp. Make a pack of all the strongest food—strenthin'—strengthrin' food—you know?" He seemed unable to express himself.

"Yes," she said.

"Down the river. Down—down. Till you meet help."

"Leave you?"

He nodded his head and winced.

"You're always plucky," he said. "Look facts in the face. Children. Thought it over while you were coming." A tear oozed from his eye. "Don't be a fool, Madge. Kiss me good-by. Don't be a fool. I'm done. Children."

She stared at him and her spirit was a luminous mist of tears. "You old coward," she said in his ear, and kissed the little patch of rough and bloody cheek beneath his eye. Then she knelt up beside him. "I'm boss now, old man," she said. "I want to get you to that place there under the rock. If I drag, can you help?"

He answered obstinately: "You'd better go."

"I'll make you comfortable first," she returned.

He made an enormous effort, and then, with her quick help and with his back to her knee, had raised himself on his elbows.

"And afterward?" he asked.

"Build a fire."

"Wood?"

"Down there."

"Two bits of wood tied on my leg—splints. Then I can drag myself. See? Like a blessed old walrus."

He smiled and she kissed his bandaged face again.

"Else it hurts," he apologized, "more than I can stand."

She stood up again, put his rifle and knife to his hand, for fear of that lurking wolf, abandoning her own rifle with an effort, and went striding and leaping from rock to rock toward the trees below. She made the chips fly, and was presently towing three venerable pine dwarfs, bumping over rock and crevice, back to Trafford. She flung them down, stood for a moment bright and breathless, then set herself to hack off the splints he needed from the biggest stem. "Now," she said, coming to him.

"A fool," he remarked, "would have made the splints down there. You're—good, Marjorie."

She lugged his leg out straight, put it into the natural and least painful pose, padded it with moss and her torn handkerchief, and bound it up. As she did so a handful of snowflakes came whirling about them. She was now braced up to every possibility. "It never rains," she said grimly, "but it pours," and went on with her bone-setting. He was badly weakened by pain and shock, and once he spoke to her sharply. "Sorry," he said a moment later.

She rolled him over on his chest, and left him to struggle to the shelter of the rock while she went for more wood.

The sky alarmed her. The mountains up the valley were already hidden by driven rags of slaty snowstorms. This time she found a longer but easier path for dragging her boughs and trees; she determined she would not start the fire until nightfall, nor waste any time in preparing food until then. There were dead boughs for kindling—more than enough. It was snowing quite fast by the time she got up to him with her second load, and a premature twilight already obscured and exaggerated the rocks and mounds about her. She gave some of her cheese to Trafford, and gnawed some herself on her way down to the wood again. She regretted that she had brought neither candles nor lantern, because then she might have kept on until the cold night stopped her, and she reproached herself bitterly because she had brought no tea. She could forgive herself the lantern, for she had never expected to be out after dark, but the tea was inexcusable. She muttered self-reproaches while she worked like two men among the trees, panting puffs of mist that froze upon her lips and iced the knitted wool that covered her chin. "Why don't they teach a girl to handle an ax?" she cried.

II

When at last the wolfish cold of the Labrador night had come, it found Trafford and Marjorie seated almost warmly on a bed of pine boughs between the sheltering dark rock behind and a big but well-husbanded fire in front, drinking a queer-tasting but not unsavory soup of lynx-flesh, which she had fortified with the remainder of the brandy. Then they tried roast lynx and ate a little, and finished with some scraps of cheese and deep draughts of hot water.

The snowstorm poured incessantly out of the darkness to become flakes of burning fire in the light of the flames, flakes that vanished magically, but it only reached them and wetted them in occasional gusts. What did it matter for the moment if the dim snowheaps rose and rose about them? A glorious fatigue, an immense self-satisfaction, possessed Marjorie; she felt that they had both done well.

"I am not afraid of to-morrow now," she said at last.

Trafford was smoking his pipe and did not speak for a moment. "Nor I," he said at last. "Very likely we'll get through with it." He added after a pause: "I thought I was done for. A man—loses heart—after a loss of blood."

"The leg's better?"

"Hot as fire." His humor hadn't left him. "It's a treat," he said. "The hottest thing in Labrador."

Later Marjorie slept, but on a spring as it were, lest the fire should fall. She replenished it with boughs, tucked in the half-burnt logs, and went to sleep again. Then it seemed to her that some invisible hand was pouring a thin spirit on the flames that made them leap and crackle and spread north and south until they filled the heavens with a gorgeous glow. The snowstorm was overpast, leaving the sky clear and all the westward heaven alight with the trailing, crackling, leaping curtains of the [v]aurora, brighter than she had ever seen them before. Quite clearly visible beyond the smolder of the fire, a wintry waste of rock and snow, boulder beyond boulder, passed into a [v]dun obscurity. The mountain to the right of them lay long and white and stiff, a shrouded death. All earth was dead and waste, and the sky alive and coldly marvelous, signalling and astir. She watched the changing, shifting colors, and they made her think of the gathering banners of inhuman hosts, the stir and marshaling of icy giants for ends stupendous and indifferent to all the trivial impertinence of man's existence! Marjorie felt a passionate desire to pray.

The bleak, slow dawn found Marjorie intently busy. She had made up the fire, boiled water and washed and dressed Trafford's wounds, and made another soup of lynx. But Trafford had weakened in the night; the soup nauseated him; he refused it and tried to smoke and was sick, and then sat back rather despairfully after a second attempt to persuade her to leave him there to die. This failure of his spirit distressed her and a little astonished her, but it only made her more resolute to go through with her work. She had awakened cold, stiff and weary, but her fatigue vanished with movement; she toiled for an hour replenishing her pile of fuel, made up the fire, put his gun ready to his hand, kissed him, abused him lovingly for the trouble he gave her until his poor torn face lit in response, and then parting on a note of cheerful confidence, set out to return to the hut. She found the way not altogether easy to make out; wind and snow had left scarcely a trace of their tracks, and her mind was full of the stores she must bring and the possibility of moving Trafford nearer to the hut. She was startled to see by the fresh, deep spoor along the ridge how near the wolf had dared approach them in the darkness.

Ever and again Marjorie had to halt and look back to get her direction right. As it was, she came through the willow scrub nearly half a mile above the hut, and had to follow the steep bank of the frozen river. Once she nearly slipped upon an icy slope of rock.

One possibility she did not dare to think of during that time—a blizzard now would cut her off absolutely from any return to Trafford. Short of that, she believed she could get through.

Her quick mind was full of all she had to do. At first she had thought chiefly of Trafford's immediate necessities, of food and some sort of shelter. She had got a list of things in her head—meat extract, bandages, [v]corrosive sublimate by way of antiseptic, brandy, a tin of beef, some bread, and so forth; she went over it several times to be sure of it, and then for a time she puzzled about a tent. She thought she could manage a bale of blankets on her back, and that she could rig a sleeping tent for herself and Trafford out of them and some bent sticks. The big tent would be too much to strike and shift. And then her mind went on to a bolder enterprise, which was to get him home. The nearer she could bring him to the log hut, the nearer they would be to supplies.

She cast about for some sort of sledge. The snow was too soft and broken for runners, especially among the trees, but if she could get a flat of smooth wood, she thought she might be able to drag him. She decided to try the side of her bunk, which she could easily get off. She would have, of course, to run it edgewise through the thickets and across the ravine, but after that she would have almost clear going up to the steep place of broken rocks within two hundred yards of him. The idea of a sledge grew upon her, and she planned to nail a rope along the edge and make a kind of harness for herself.

Marjorie found the camping-place piled high with drifted snow, which had invaded tent and hut, and that some beast, a wolverine she guessed, had been into the hut, devoured every candle-end and the uppers of Trafford's well-greased second boots, and had then gone to the corner of the store-shed and clambered up to the stores. She took no account of its [v]depredations there, but set herself to make a sledge and get her supplies together. There was a gleam of sunshine, though she did not like the look of the sky and she was horribly afraid of what might be happening to Trafford. She carried her stuff through the wood and across the ravine, and returned for her improvised sledge. She was still struggling with that among the trees when it began to snow again.

It was hard then not to be frantic in her efforts. As it was, she packed her stuff so loosely on the planking that she had to repack it, and she started without putting on her snowshoes, and floundered fifty yards before she discovered that omission. The snow was now falling fast, darkling the sky and hiding everything but objects close at hand, and she had to use all of her wits to determine her direction: she knew she must go down a long slope and then up to the ridge, and it came to her as a happy inspiration that if she bore to the left she might strike some recognizable vestige of her morning's trail. She had read of people walking in circles when they have no light or guidance, and that troubled her until she bethought herself of the little compass on her watch chain. By that she kept her direction. She wished very much she had timed herself across the waste, so that she could tell when she approached the ridge.

Soon her back and shoulders were aching violently, and the rope across her chest was tugging like some evil-tempered thing. But she did not dare to rest. The snow was now falling thick and fast; the flakes traced white spirals and made her head spin, so that she was constantly falling away to the southwestward and then correcting herself by the compass. She tried to think how this zig-zagging might affect her course, but the snow whirls confused her mind and a growing anxiety would not let her pause to think.

Marjorie felt blinded; it seemed to be snowing inside her eyes so that she wanted to rub them. Soon the ground must rise to the ridge, she told herself; it must surely rise. Then the sledge came bumping at her heels and she perceived that she was going down hill. She consulted the compass and found she was facing south. She turned sharply to the right again. The snowfall became a noiseless, pitiless torture to sight and mind.

The sledge behind her struggled to hold her back, and the snow balled under her snowshoes. She wanted to stop and rest, take thought, sit for a moment. She struggled with herself and kept on. She tried walking with shut eyes, and tripped and came near sprawling. "Oh God!" she cried, "Oh God!" too stupefied for more [v]articulate prayers. She was leaden with fatigue.

Would the rise of the ground to the ribs of rock never come?

A figure, black and erect, stood in front of her suddenly, and beyond appeared a group of black, straight antagonists. She staggered on toward them, gripping her rifle with some muddled idea of defense, and in another moment she was brushing against the branches of a stunted fir, which shed thick lumps of snow upon her feet. What trees were these? Had she ever passed any trees? No! There were no trees on her way to Trafford.

At that Marjorie began whimpering like a tormented child. But even as she wept, she turned her sledge about to follow the edge of the wood. She was too much downhill, she thought, and must bear up again.

She left the trees behind, made an angle uphill to the right, and was presently among trees again. Again she left them and again came back to them. She screamed with anger and twitched her sledge along. She wiped at the snowstorm with her arm as though to wipe it away; she wanted to stamp on the universe.

And she ached, she ached.

Suddenly something caught her eye ahead, something that gleamed; it was exactly like a long, bare, rather pinkish bone standing erect on the ground. Just because it was strange and queer she ran forward to it. As she came nearer, she perceived that it was a streak of barked trunk; a branch had been torn off a pine tree and the bark stripped down to the root. And then came another, poking its pinkish wounds above the snow. And there were chips! This filled her with wonder. Some one had been cutting wood! There must be Indians or trappers near, she thought, and of a sudden realized that the wood-cutter could be none other than herself.

She turned to the right and saw the rocks rising steeply, close at hand. "Oh Ragg!" she cried, and fired her rifle in the air.

Ten seconds, twenty seconds, and then so loud and near it amazed her, came his answering shot.

In another moment Marjorie had discovered the trail she had made overnight and that morning by dragging firewood. It was now a shallow, soft white trench. Instantly her despair and fatigue had gone from her. Should she take a load of wood with her? she asked herself, in addition to the weight behind her, and immediately had a better idea. She would unload and pile her stuff here, and bring him down on the sledge closer to the wood. The woman looked about and saw two rocks that diverged, with a space between. She flashed schemes. She would trample the snow hard and flat, put her sledge on it, pile boughs and make a canopy of blanket overhead and behind. Finally there would be a fine, roaring fire in front.

She tossed her provisions down and ran up the broad windings of her pine-tree trail to Trafford, with the sledge bumping behind her. Marjorie ran as lightly as though she had done nothing that day.

She found Trafford markedly recovered, weak and quiet, with snow drifting over his feet, his rifle across his knees, and his pipe alight. "Back already"—

He hesitated. "No grub?"

The wife knelt over him, gave his rough, unshaven cheek a swift kiss, and rapidly explained her plan.

Marjorie carried it out with all of the will-power that was hers. In three days' time, in spite of the snow, in spite of every other obstacle, they were back in the hut, and Trafford was comfortably settled in bed. The icy vastness of Labrador still lay around them to infinite distances on every side, but the two might laugh at storm and darkness now in their cosy hut, with plenty of fuel and food and light.

H. G. WELLS.

HELPS TO STUDY

I. Describe the location of Trafford's camp; also the coming of winter. Give in your own words an account of the adventure that befell the two.

II. Name some characteristics Marjorie showed in the critical situation. What did she do that impressed you most? What would you have done in similar circumstances?

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Youth—Joseph Conrad. Prairie Folks—Hamlin Garland. Northern Lights—Sir Gilbert Parker.



THE BUGLE SONG

The splendor falls on castle walls The snowy summits old in story; The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going! O, sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river; Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying. And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

ALFRED TENNYSON.



THE SIEGE OF THE CASTLE

This story is an extract from Sir Walter Scott's novel, Ivanhoe, which describes life in England during the Middle Ages, something more than a century after the Norman Conquest. The hatred between the conquering Normans and the conquered Saxons still continued, and is graphically pictured by Scott. Ivanhoe centers about the household of one Cedric the Saxon, who was a great upholder of the traditions of his unfortunate people. Wilfred of Ivanhoe, Cedric's son, entered the service of the Norman king of England, Richard I, and accompanied him to the Holy Land on the Third Crusade. His father disowned the young knight for what he considered disloyalty to his Saxon blood. Ivanhoe, returning to England, participated in a great tournament at Ashby, in which he won fame under the disguise of the "Disinherited Knight." Among the other knights who took part in the tournament were the Normans, Maurice de Bracy, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, and Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a Knight Templar. Two sides fought in the tournament, one representing the English, the other representing the foreign element in the land. An unknown knight, clad in black armor, brought victory to the English side, but left the field without disclosing his identity. An archery contest held at the tournament was won by a wonderful bowman who gave his name as Locksley. Ivanhoe, who fought with great valor, was badly wounded. Cedric had been accompanied to Ashby by his beautiful ward, the Lady Rowena, whose wealth and loveliness excited the cupidity of the lawless Norman knights. "The Siege of the Castle" opens with Cedric's discovery of his son's identity, and recounts the stirring incidents that follow the tournament. It gives a wonderful picture of warfare as it was hundreds of years ago, before the age of gunpowder.

I

When Cedric the Saxon saw his son drop down senseless in the great tournament at Ashby, his first impulse was to order him into the care of his own attendants, but the words choked in his throat. He could not bring himself to acknowledge, in the presence of such an assembly, the son whom he had renounced and disinherited for his allegiance to the Norman king of England, Richard of the Lion Heart. However, he ordered one of the officers of his household, his cupbearer, to convey Ivanhoe to Ashby as soon as the crowd had dispersed. But the man was anticipated in this good office. The crowd dispersed, indeed, but the wounded knight was nowhere to be seen.

It seemed as if the fairies had conveyed Ivanhoe from the spot; and Cedric's officer might have adopted some such theory to account for his disappearance, had he not suddenly cast his eyes on a person attired like a squire, in whom he recognized the features of his fellow-servant Gurth, who had run away from his master. Anxious about Ivanhoe's fate, Gurth was searching for him everywhere and, in so doing, he neglected the concealment on which his own safety depended. The cupbearer deemed it his duty to secure Gurth as a fugitive of whose fate his master was to judge. Renewing his inquiries concerning the fate of Ivanhoe, all that the cupbearer could learn was that the knight had been raised by certain well-attired grooms, under the direction of a veiled woman, and placed in a litter, which had immediately transported him out of the press. The officer, on receiving this intelligence, resolved to return to his master, carrying along with him Gurth, the swineherd, as a deserter from Cedric's service.

The Saxon had been under intense [v]apprehensions concerning his son; but no sooner was he informed that Ivanhoe was in careful hands than paternal anxiety gave way anew to the feeling of injured pride and resentment at what he termed Wilfred's [v]filial disobedience.

"Let him wander his way," said Cedric; "let those leech his wounds for whose sake he encountered them. He is fitter to do the juggling tricks of the Norman chivalry than to maintain the fame and honor of his English ancestry with the [v]glaive and [v]brown-bill, the good old weapons of the country."

The old Saxon now prepared for his return to Rotherwood, with his ward, the Lady Rowena, and his following. It was during the bustle preceding his departure that Cedric, for the first time, cast his eyes upon the deserter Gurth. He was in no very placid humor and wanted but a pretext for wreaking his anger upon some one.

"The [v]gyves!" he cried. "Dogs and villains, why leave ye this knave unfettered?"

Without daring to remonstrate, the companions of Gurth bound him with a halter, as the readiest cord which occurred. He submitted to the operation without any protest, except that he darted a reproachful look at his master.

"To horse, and forward!" ordered Cedric.

"It is indeed full time," said the Saxon prince Athelstane, who accompanied Cedric, "for if we ride not faster, the preparations for our supper will be altogether spoiled."

The travelers, however, used such speed as to reach the convent of Saint Withold's before the apprehended evil took place. The abbot, himself of ancient Saxon descent, received the noble Saxons with the profuse hospitality of their nation, wherein they indulged to a late hour. They took leave of their reverend host the next morning after they had shared with him a [v]sumptuous breakfast, which Athelstane particularly appreciated.

The superstitious Saxons, as they left the convent, were inspired with a feeling of coming evil by the behavior of a large, lean black dog, which, sitting upright, howled most piteously when the foremost riders left the gate, and presently afterward, barking wildly and jumping to and fro, seemed bent on attaching itself to the party.

"In my mind," said Athelstane, "we had better turn back and abide with the abbot until the afternoon. It is unlucky to travel where your path is crossed by a monk, a hare, or a howling dog, until you have eaten your next meal."

"Away!" said Cedric impatiently; "the day is already too short for our journey. For the dog, I know it to be the cur of the runaway slave Gurth, a useless fugitive like its master."

So saying and rising at the same time in his stirrups, impatient at the interruption of his journey, he launched his [v]javelin at poor Fangs, who, having lost his master, was now rejoicing at his reappearance. The javelin inflicted a wound upon the animal's shoulder and narrowly missed pinning him to the earth; Fangs fled howling from the presence of the enraged [v]thane. Gurth's heart swelled within him, for he felt this attempted slaughter of his faithful beast in a degree much deeper than the harsh treatment he had himself received. Having in vain raised his hand to his eyes, he said to Wamba, the jester, who, seeing his master's ill humor, had prudently retreated to the rear, "I pray thee, do me the kindness to wipe my eyes with the skirt of thy mantle; the dust offends me, and these bonds will not let me help myself one way or another."

Wamba did him the service he required, and they rode side by side for some time, during which Gurth maintained a moody silence. At length he could repress his feelings no longer.

"Friend Wamba," said he, "of all those who are fools enough to serve Cedric, thou alone hast sufficient dexterity to make thy folly acceptable to him. Go to him, therefore, and tell him that neither for love nor fear will Gurth serve him longer. He may strike the head from me—he may scourge me—he may load me with irons—but henceforth he shall never compel me either to love or obey him. Go to him and tell him that Gurth renounces his service."

"Assuredly," replied Wamba, "fool as I am, I will not do your fool's errand. Cedric hath another javelin stuck into his girdle, and thou knowest he doth not always miss his mark."

"I care not," returned Gurth, "how soon he makes a mark of me. Yesterday he left Wilfred, my young master, in his blood. To-day he has striven to kill the only other living creature that ever showed me kindness. By Saint Edward, Saint Dunstan, Saint Withold, and every other saint, I will never forgive him!"

At noon, upon the motion of Athelstane, the travelers paused in a woodland shade by a fountain to repose their horses and partake of some provisions with which the hospitable abbot had loaded a [v]sumpter mule. Their repast was a pretty long one; and the interruption made it impossible for them to hope to reach Rotherwood without traveling all night, a conviction which induced them to proceed on their way at a more hasty pace than they had hitherto used.

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

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

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

"The man is old and feeble," she said to Cedric, "the maiden young and beautiful, their friend sick and in peril of his life. We cannot leave them in this extremity. Let the men unload two of the sumpter-mules and put the baggage behind two of the [v]serfs. The mules may transport the litter, and we have led-horses for the old man and his daughter."

Cedric readily assented to what was proposed, and the change of baggage was hastily achieved; for the single word "outlaws" rendered every one sufficiently alert, and the approach of twilight made the sound yet more impressive. Amid the bustle, Gurth was taken from horseback, in the course of which removal he prevailed upon the jester to slack the cord with which his arms were bound. It was so negligently refastened, perhaps intentionally, on the part of Wamba, that Gurth found no difficulty in freeing his arms altogether, and then, gliding into the thicket, he made his escape from the party.

His departure was hardly noticed in the apprehension of the moment. The path upon which the party traveled was now so narrow as not to admit, with any sort of convenience, above two riders abreast, and began to descend into a dingle, traversed by a brook, the banks of which were broken, swampy, and overgrown with dwarf willows. Cedric and Athelstane, who were at the head of their [v]retinue, saw the risk of being attacked in this pass, but neither knew anything else to do than hasten through the defile as fast as possible. Advancing, therefore, without much order, they had just crossed the brook with a part of their followers, when they were assailed, in front, flank, and rear at once, by a band of armed men. The shout of a "White dragon! Saint George for merry England!" the war cry of the Saxons, was heard on every side, and on every side enemies appeared with a rapidity of advance and attack which seemed to multiply their numbers.

Both the Saxon chiefs were made prisoners at the same moment. Cedric, the instant an enemy appeared, launched at him his javelin, which, taking better effect than that which he had hurled at Fangs, nailed the man against an oak-tree that happened to be close behind him. Thus far successful, Cedric spurred his horse against a second, drawing his sword and striking with such inconsiderate fury that his weapon encountered a thick branch which hung over him, and he was disarmed by the violence of his own blow. He was instantly made prisoner and pulled from his horse by two or three of the [v]banditti who crowded around him. Athelstane shared his captivity, his bridle having been seized and he himself forcibly dismounted long before he could draw his sword.

The attendants, embarrassed with baggage and surprised and terrified at the fate of their master, fell an easy prey to the assailants; while the Lady Rowena and the Jew and his daughter experienced the same misfortune.

Of all the train none escaped but Wamba, who showed upon the occasion much more courage than those who pretended to greater sense. He possessed himself of a sword belonging to one of the domestics, who was just drawing it, laid it about him like a lion, drove back several who approached him, and made a brave though ineffectual effort to succor his master. Finding himself overpowered, the jester threw himself from his horse, plunged into a thicket, and, favored by the general confusion, escaped from the scene of action.

Suddenly a voice very near him called out in a low and cautious tone, "Wamba!" and, at the same time, a dog which he recognized as Fangs jumped up and fawned upon him. "Gurth!" answered Wamba with the same caution, and the swineherd immediately stood before him.

"What is the matter?" he asked. "What mean these cries and that clashing of swords?"

"Only a trick of the times," answered Wamba. "They are all prisoners."

"Who are prisoners?"

"My lord, and my lady, and Athelstane, and the others."

"In the name of God," demanded Gurth, "how came they prisoners? and to whom?"

"They are prisoners to green [v]cassocks and black [v]vizors," answered Wamba. "They all lie tumbled about on the green, like the crab-apples that you shake down to your swine. And I would laugh at it," added the honest jester, "if I could for weeping."

He shed tears of unfeigned sorrow.

Gurth's countenance kindled. "Wamba," he said, "thou hast a weapon and thy heart was ever stronger than thy brain. We are only two, but a sudden attack from men of resolution might do much. Follow me!"

"Whither, and for what purpose?" asked the jester.

"To rescue Cedric."

"But you renounced his service just now."

"That," said Gurth, "was while he was fortunate. Follow me."

As the jester was about to obey, a third person suddenly made his appearance and commanded them both to halt. From his dress and arms Wamba would have conjectured him to be one of the outlaws who had just assailed his master; but, besides that he wore no mask, the glittering baldric across his shoulders, with the rich bugle horn which it supported, as well as the calm and commanding expression of his voice and manner, made the jester recognize the archer who had won the prize at the tournament and who was known as Locksley.

"What is the meaning of all this?" the man demanded. "Who are they that rifle and ransom and make prisoners in these forests?"

"You may look at their cassocks close by," replied Wamba, "and see whether they be thy children's coats or no, for they are as like thine own as one green pea-pod is like another."

"I will learn that presently," returned Locksley: "and I charge ye, on peril of your lives, not to stir from this place where ye stand until I have returned. Obey me, and it shall be the better for you and your masters. Yet stay; I must render myself as like these men as possible."

So saying, he drew a [v]vizard from his pouch, and, repeating his charges to them to stand fast, went to reconnoitre.

"Shall we stay, Gurth?" asked Wamba; "or shall we give him [v]leg-bail? In my foolish mind, he had all the equipage of a thief too much in readiness to be himself a true man."

"Let him be the devil," said Gurth, "an he will. We can be no worse for waiting his return. If he belongs to that party, he must already have given them the alarm, and it will avail us nothing either to fight or fly."

The yeoman returned in the course of a few minutes.

"Friend Gurth," he said, "I have mingled among yon men and have learned to whom they belong, and whither they are bound. There is, I think, no chance that they will proceed to any actual violence against their prisoners. For three men to attack them at this moment were little else than madness; for they are good men of war and have, as such, placed sentinels to give the alarm when any one approaches. But I trust soon to gather such a force as may act in defiance of all their precautions. You are both servants, and, as I think, faithful servants of Cedric the Saxon, the friend of the rights of Englishmen. He shall not want English hands to help him in this extremity. Come then with me, until I gather more aid."

So saying, he walked through the wood at a great pace, followed by the jester and the swineherd. The three men proceeded with occasional converse but, for the most part, in silence for about three hours. Finally they arrived at a small opening in the forest, in the center of which grew an oak-tree of enormous magnitude, throwing its twisted branches in every direction. Beneath this tree four or five yeomen lay stretched on the ground, while another, as sentinel, walked to and fro in the moonlight.

Upon hearing the sound of feet approaching, the watch instantly gave the alarm, and the sleepers as suddenly started up and bent their bows. Six arrows placed on the string were pointed toward the quarter from which the travelers approached, when their guide, being recognized, was welcomed with every token of respect and attachment.

"Where is the miller?" was Locksley's first question.

"On the road toward Rotherham."

"With how many?" demanded the leader, for such he seemed to be.

"With six men, and good hope of booty, if it please Saint Nicholas."

"Devoutly spoken," said Locksley. "And where is Allan-a-Dale?"

"Walked up toward the [v]Watling Street, to watch for the Prior of Jorvaulx."

"That is well thought on also," replied the captain. "And where is the friar?"

"In his cell."

"Thither will I go," said Locksley. "Disperse and seek your companions. Collect what force you can, for there's game afoot that must be hunted hard and will turn to bay. Meet me here at daybreak. And stay," he added; "I have forgotten what is most necessary of the whole. Two of you take the road quickly toward Torquilstone, the castle of [v]Front-de-Boeuf. A set of gallants, who have been [v]masquerading in such guise as our own, are carrying a band of prisoners thither. Watch them closely, for, even if they reach the castle before we collect our force, our honor is concerned to punish them, and we will find means to do so. Keep a good watch on them, therefore, and despatch one of your comrades to bring the news of the yeomen thereabouts."

The men promised obedience and departed on their several errands. Meanwhile, their leader and his two companions, who now looked upon him with great respect as well as some fear, pursued their way to the chapel where dwelt the friar mentioned by Locksley. Presently they reached a little moonlit glade, in front of which stood an ancient and ruinous chapel and beside it a rude hermitage of stone half-covered with ivy vines.

The sounds which proceeded at that moment from the latter place were anything but churchly. In fact, the hermit and another voice were performing at the full extent of very powerful lungs an old drinking-song, of which this was the burden:

Come, trowl the brown bowl to me, Bully boy, bully boy; Come trowl the brown bowl to me: Ho! jolly Jenkin, I spy a knave drinking; Come trowl the brown bowl to me.

"Now, that is not ill sung," said Wamba, who had thrown in a few of his own flourishes to help out the chorus. "But who, in the saint's name, ever expected to have heard such a jolly chant come from a hermit's cell at midnight?"

"Marry, that should I," said Gurth, "for the jolly Clerk of Copmanhurst is a known man and kills half the deer that are stolen in this walk. Men say that the deer-keeper has complained of him and that he will be stripped of his [v]cowl and [v]cope altogether if he keep not better order."

While they were thus speaking, Locksley's loud and repeated knocks had at length disturbed the [v]anchorite and his guest, who was a knight of singularly powerful build and open, handsome face, and in black armor.

"By my beads," said the hermit, "here come other guests. I would not for my cowl that they found us in this goodly exercise. All men have enemies, sir knight; and there be those malignant enough to construe the hospitable refreshment I have been offering to you, a weary traveler, into drinking and gluttony, vices alike alien to my profession and my disposition."

"Base [v]calumniators!" replied the knight. "I would I had the chastising of them. Nevertheless, holy clerk, it is true that all have their enemies; and there be those in this very land whom I would rather speak to through the bars of my helmet than bare-faced."

"Get thine iron pot on thy head, then, sir knight," said the hermit, "while I remove these pewter flagons."

He struck up a thundering [v]De profundis clamavi, under cover of which he removed the apparatus of their banquet, while the knight, laughing heartily and arming himself all the while, assisted his host with his voice from time to time as his mirth permitted.

"What devil's [v]matins are you after at this hour?" demanded a voice from outside.

"Heaven forgive you, sir traveler!" said the hermit, whose own noise prevented him from recognizing accents which were tolerably familiar to him. "Wend on your way, in the name of God and Saint Dunstan, and disturb not the devotions of me and my holy brother."

"Mad priest," answered the voice from without; "open to Locksley!"

"All's safe—all's right," said the hermit to his companion.

"But who is he?" asked the Black Knight. "It imports me much to know."

"Who is he?" answered the hermit. "I tell thee he is a friend."

"But what friend?" persisted the knight; "for he may be a friend to thee and none of mine."

"What friend?" replied the hermit; "that now is one of the questions that is more easily asked than answered."

"Well, open the door," ordered the knight, "before he beat it from its hinges."

The hermit speedily unbolted his portal and admitted Locksley, with his two companions.

"Why, hermit," was the yeoman's first question as soon as he beheld the knight, "what boon companion hast thou here?"

"A brother of our order," replied the friar, shaking his head; "we have been at our devotions all night."

"He is a monk of the church militant," answered Locksley; "and there be more of them abroad. I tell thee, friar, thou must lay down the [v]rosary and take up the [v]quarter-staff; we shall need every one of our merry men, whether clerk or layman. But," he added, taking a step aside, "art thou mad—to give admittance to a knight thou dost not know? Hast thou forgotten our agreement?"

"Good yeoman," said the knight, coming forward, "be not wroth with my merry host. He did but afford me the hospitality which I would have compelled from him if he had refused it."

"Thou compel!" cried the friar. "Wait but till I have changed this gray gown for a green cassock, and if I make not a quarter-staff ring twelve upon thy pate, I am neither true clerk nor good woodsman."

While he spoke thus he stript off his gown and appeared in a close buckram doublet and lower garment, over which he speedily did on a cassock of green and hose of the same color.

"I pray thee [v]truss my points," he said to Wamba, "and thou shalt have a cup of sack for thy labor."

"[v]Gramercy for thy sack," returned Wamba; "but thinkest thou that it is lawful for me to aid you to transmew thyself from a holy hermit into a sinful forester?"

So saying, he accommodated the friar with his assistance in tying the endless number of points, as the laces which attached the hose to the doublet were then termed.

While they were thus employed, Locksley led the knight a little apart and addressed him thus: "Deny it not, sir knight, you are he who played so glorious a part at the tournament at Ashby."

"And what follows, if you guess truly, good yeoman?"

"For my purpose," said the yeoman, "thou shouldst be as well a good Englishman as a good knight; for that which I have to speak of concerns, indeed, the duty of every honest man, but is more especially that of a true-born native of England."

"You can speak to no one," replied the knight, "to whom England, and the life of every Englishman, can be dearer than to me."

"I would willingly believe so," said the woodsman; "and never had this country such need to be supported by those who love her. A band of villains, in the disguise of better men than themselves, have become masters of the persons of a noble Englishman named Cedric the Saxon, together with his ward and his friend, Athelstane of Coningsburgh, and have transported them to a castle in this forest called Torquilstone. I ask of thee, as a good knight and a good Englishman, wilt thou aid in their rescue?"

"I am bound by my vow to do so," replied the knight; "but I would willingly know who you are who request my assistance in their behalf?"

"I am," said the forester, "a nameless man; but I am a friend of my country and my country's friends. Believe, however, that my word, when pledged, is as [v]inviolate as if I wore golden spurs."

"I willingly believe it," returned the knight. "I have been accustomed to study men's countenances, and I can read in thine honesty and resolution. I will, therefore, ask thee no farther questions but aid thee in setting at freedom these oppressed captives, which done, I trust we shall part better acquainted and well satisfied with each other."

When the friar was at length ready, Locksley turned to his companions.

"Come on, my masters," he said; "tarry not to talk. I say, come on: we must collect all our forces, and few enough shall we have if we are to storm the castle of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf."

II

While these measures were taking in behalf of Cedric and his companions, the armed men by whom the latter had been seized hurried their captives along toward the place of security, where they intended to imprison them. But darkness came on fast, and the paths of the wood seemed but imperfectly known to the [v]marauders. They were compelled to make several long halts and once or twice to return on their road to resume the direction which they wished to pursue. It was, therefore, not until the light of the summer morn had dawned upon them that they could travel in full assurance that they held the right path.

In vain Cedric [v]expostulated with his guards, who refused to break their silence for his wrath or his protests. They continued to hurry him along, traveling at a very rapid rate, until, at the end of an avenue of huge trees, arose Torquilstone, the hoary and ancient castle of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf. It was a fortress of no great size, consisting of a donjon, or large and high square tower, surrounded by buildings of inferior height. Around the exterior wall was a deep moat, supplied with water from a neighboring rivulet. Front-de-Boeuf, whose character placed him often at feud with his neighbors, had made considerable additions to the strength of his castle by building towers upon the outward wall, so as to flank it at every angle. The access, as usual in castles of the period, lay through an arched [v]barbican or outwork, which was defended by a small turret.

Cedric no sooner saw the turrets of Front-de-Boeuf's castle raise their gray and moss-grown battlements, glimmering in the morning sun, above the woods by which they were surrounded than he instantly augured more truly concerning the cause of his misfortune.

"I did injustice," he said, "to the thieves and outlaws of these woods, when I supposed such banditti to belong to their bands. I might as justly have confounded the foxes of these brakes with the ravening wolves of France!"

Arrived before the castle, the prisoners were compelled by their guards to alight and were hastened across the drawbridge into the castle. They were immediately conducted to an apartment where a hasty repast was offered them, of which none but Athelstane felt any inclination to partake. Neither did he have much time to do justice to the good cheer placed before him, for the guards gave him and Cedric to understand that they were to be imprisoned in a chamber apart from Rowena. Resistance was vain; and they were compelled to follow to a large room, which, rising on clumsy Saxon pillars, resembled the [v]refectories and chapter-houses which may still be seen in the most ancient parts of our most ancient monasteries.

The Lady Rowena was next separated from her train and conducted with courtesy, indeed, but still without consulting her inclination, to a distant apartment. The same alarming distinction was conferred on the young Jewess, Rebecca, in spite of the entreaties of her father, who offered money in the extremity of his distress that she might be permitted to abide with him.

"Base unbeliever," answered one of his guards, "when thou hast seen thy lair, thou wilt not wish thy daughter to partake it."

Without further discussion, the old Jew was dragged off in a different direction from the other prisoners. The domestics, after being searched and disarmed, were confined in another part of the castle.

The three leaders of the banditti and the men who had planned and carried out the outrage, Norman knights,—Front-de-Boeuf, the brutal owner of the castle; Maurice de Bracy, a free-lance, who sought to wed the Lady Rowena by force and so had arranged the attack, and Brian de [v]Bois-Guilbert, a distinguished member of the famous order of [v]Knights Templar,—had a short discussion together and then separated. Front-de-Boeuf immediately sought the apartment where Isaac of York tremblingly awaited his fate.

The Jew had been hastily thrown into a dungeon-vault of the castle, the floor of which was deep beneath the level of the earth, and very damp, being lower than the moat itself. The only light was received through one or two loop-holes far above the reach of the captive's hand. These [v]apertures admitted, even at midday, only a dim and uncertain light, which was changed for utter darkness long before the rest of the castle had lost the blessing of day. Chains and shackles, which had been the portion of former captives, hung rusted and empty on the walls of the prison, and in the rings of one of these sets of fetters there remained two moldering bones which seemed those of the human leg.

At one end of this ghastly apartment was a large fire-grate, over the top of which were stretched some transverse iron bars, half devoured with rust.

The whole appearance of the dungeon might have appalled a stouter heart than that of Isaac, who, nevertheless, was more composed under the imminent pressure of danger than he had seemed to be while affected by terrors of which the cause was as yet remote and [v]contingent. It was not the first time that Isaac had been placed in circumstances so dangerous. He had, therefore, experience to guide him, as well as a hope that he might again be delivered from the peril.

The Jew remained without altering his position for nearly three hours, at the end of which time steps were heard on the dungeon stair. The bolts screamed as they were withdrawn, the hinges creaked as the wicket opened, and Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, followed by two Saracen slaves of the Templar, entered the prison.

Front-de-Boeuf, a tall and strong man, whose life had been spent in public war or in private feuds and broils and who had hesitated at no means of extending his [v]feudal power, had features corresponding to his character, and which strongly expressed the fiercer and more evil passions of the mind. The scars with which his visage was seamed would, on features of a different cast, have excited the sympathy due to the marks of honorable valor; but in the peculiar case of Front-de-Boeuf they only added to the ferocity of his countenance and to the dread which his presence inspired. The formidable baron was clad in a leathern doublet, fitted close to his body, which was frayed and soiled with the stains of his armor. He had no weapon, except a [v]poniard at his belt, which served to counter-balance the weight of the bunch of rusty keys that hung at his right side.