and in this manner she was conducted to the throne, upon which the emperor took his seat, placing her on his right hand, and the Champion of God on his left. As soon as they were seated, the hangman came into the lists a second time, and, approaching the corpse of Guthram de Falkemberg, cut with a knife the links of his armour, which he divided piece by piece, throwing them about the lists, with these contemptuous words:-"This is the helmet of a coward; this is the cuirass of a coward; this is the buckler of a coward." When the hangman had stripped the body in this manner, his two assistants entered with a horse dragging a hurdle, to which they attached the corpse, which was then dragged through every street in Cologne to the public gibbet, where it was hanged by the heels, in order that everybody might come and see the dreadful wound through which the sinful soul of the recreant knight, Sir Guthram de Falkemberg, had issued forth to its dread account. And all who looked upon the guilty dead declared that only the just judgment of God could have enabled such a young and gentle cavalier to overcome such a great and renowned warrior in the trial by battle.

The emperor and empress brought the Champion of God to their palace, where they made him a great feast; and, in order to do him honour, placed him at dinner at their own table, and by their side, and declared that they never intended to part with him. Now, the count wanted to return to his own good city of Barcelona, which he had left two months before with more chivalry than prudence. So, mindful of his duty as a sovereign, after he had done his devoir as a knight errant, he stole out of the palace by night; and, having ordered hay and corn to be given his good steed at the hostelrie, and commanded his squire to groom him, he departed with great secresy from Cologne, which he left that same night for his own dominions.

The next day, the emperor, missing the count from his table, sent a messenger to the hostel, where he supposed his summons to breakfast would find him. He was soon informed of the departure of his guest, who was supposed to be at least a dozen miles from Cologne by that time. The messenger soon returned to the emperor, to whom he said :"Sire, the knight who fought for my lady the empress is gone, no one knows whither."

At this unexpected news, Henry turned to the empress, and, in a voice which betrayed his displeasure, said:—“Madam, you have heard what this person has told me. I find

your champion quitted Cologne last night, without leaving any trace by which he can be discovered and brought back."

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Oh, my dear lord!" exclaimed the empress, "you will be still more grieved when you learn the quality of this knight, with which, at present, I think you are unacquainted."

"No," replied the emperor; "he has told me nothing more than that he was a Spanish count."

"Sire, the knight who did battle for me is the noble Count of Barcelona, whose renown is already so great that it exceeds even his lofty rank."

"How!" cried the emperor, "is this unknown knight no other than Raymond de Berenger. God, indeed, sent him to my aid, madam; for the imperial crown has never been so highly honoured before. He, however, makes me pay him very dearly by the disgrace and shame his sudden departure has cast upon I declare, madam, that I will not receive you into my love and favour till you find and bring him back to my court. Go away yourself for your journey as quickly as you can; for I will either see you with him, or see you no more."

me.

"It shall be so, since you command it, sire," replied the empress, who was too well accustomed to the hasty manner and arbitrary disposition of her consort to contest his will, however unreasonable that will might appear to her. She had noticed the marked attention the handsome count had paid to her beautiful maid of honour, Douce, Marchioness of Provence, and, therefore, determined to include her in her train, which consisted of a hundred noble matrons, a hundred young damsels of quality, and a hundred knights; for Praxida resolved to travel in a style suitable to her lofty rank; and she used such expedition, that in two months from the time of her departure she found herself in the noble city of Barcelona. The astonishing report that the Empress of Germany, with a splendid retinue, had arrived at the principal hostelrie, quickly reached the noble count, who knew not how to credit it; till, mounting his horse, he rode thither, and recognised at the first glance the fair lady for whom he had lately fought. The delivered and deliverer met with equal joy, and, after the first salutation, the lord count, kneeling at the feet of the empress, asked "to what fortunate chance he owed the pleasure of seeing her in his own dominions."

"Lord count," replied the empress, "the emperor, my spouse, will not permit me to return to his court without you, for your presence

at Cologne can alone restore to me his love and favour. Indeed, ever since he has known the honour the noble Count of Barcelona did the imperial crown by becoming my champion, he has resolved to share in no festivities till that happy day when he can welcome you to his court, and thank you for that act of courtesy in a manner befitting your high degree. Therefore, if you wish me to be once more recognised as Empress of Germany, you must hearken to my humble prayer, and accompany me to Cologne."

Upon hearing these words, the count once more knelt down, and presenting both his hands, in the manner of a prisoner awaiting his fetters, saying, "Madam, it is for you to command, and me to obey; do with me as with a prisoner."

The empress immediately took a golden chain, whose links encompassed her throat eight times, unwound it, and clasped one end round the right wrist of the Count of Barcelona, while she gave the other to the fair Marchioness of Provence, in whose gentle keeping she willed the captive to remain during the homeward journey. The prisoner, on his part, declared that he was too well satisfied with his guardian to wish to break her chains, unless she were pleased to permit him to relinquish them for a time.

Three days after this interview, the Empress of Germany quitted Barcelona, with her retinue of three hundred noble knights and ladies, bringing with her its chivalrous sovereign, in a chain of gold, held by her fair maid of honour; and in this manner traversed Roussillon, Languedoc, Dauphiny, Switzerland, and Luxembourg; the lord count, according to his vow, neither breaking his chain, nor showing any inclination to do so.

The cortége of the empress was met, five leagues from Cologne, by the emperor, who, being apprised of the coming of the Count of Barcelona, came to welcome him. As soon as he saw the brave cavalier who had saved the

honour of his dearly-beloved wife, Henry IV. alighted; Raymond Berenger did the same, though still held in the chain of gold by the Marchioness of Provence. The emperor then warmly embraced and thanked him for the honourable service he had done him, by waging the battle of the Empress Praxida, and besought him to name his reward.

"My lord emperor," replied the count, "will you be pleased to command the Marchioness of Provence never to let me go, for, since I cannot depart from her wardship without her good pleasure, I think she ought not to quit mine; that thus, being fast linked together for the rest of our lives, we may never be divided from each other in this world, nor in that which is to come."

Douce of Provence blushed, and even thought proper to make some maidenly opposition to an arrangement so pleasing to herself. The emperor, however, intimated to her, that, being her suzerain, whatever he chose to command she must obey. He therefore fixed the marriage for that day week; and Douce of Provence was so submissive a vassal, that she never even thought of requesting her lord paramount for the delay of a single day. It was in this manner that Raymond Berenger, Count of Barcelona, won the fair heiress, and became possessed of the marquisate and lands of Pro

vence.

* Henry the Fourth of Germany was subject to fits of jealousy, for which failing he once received personal chastisement, at the fair hands of the empress and her ladies, on a certain occasion on which he had concealed himself in his wife's apartment, disguised as a foreign knight, when his intrusion was resented and punished by severe buffettings from the incensed female court, who either did not recognize the emperor, or pretended to mistake him for a robber. Empresses of Germany appear to have been often the mark for false and murderous accusations; since, nearly a century before this period, the Empress Cunegonda was delivered from the pile by the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, who entered the lists as the Champion of God, and successfully defended her honour.-Trans.

A LIVING flash of bluest light,
The Kingfisher flew o'er the pool;
I track'd it in its glitt'ring flight,
Where willows made a shadow cool.
The burning sun was in the sky,

But no ray pierc'd that shelter'd spot; Yet, like a flash, the bird flew by, Bluer than blue Forget-me-not.

And thus, I thought, in life we see
In ev'ry dim and darken'd scene,
Some glitt'ring ray of Hope there'll be,
Where all in sorrow's shade hath been.
And, radiant as that bird of blue,
"Twill lighten up each darkest spot;
But brighter in its heav'nly hue,
Than bird or blue Forget-me-not.

CHAP. III.

THERE are some women who never lose the habit of blushing; it is lovely in the young, and indicates extreme sensitiveness in the old. Richard inherited his mother's blushes before they had faded from her own cheeks. The transparency of Mrs. Dolland's complexion was noticed by Mr. Whitelock; it contrasted well with the dust-covered pages of his books; yet he wondered why her colour came and went, and why her lips trembled.

"Nothing wrong with Richard, I hope?" he said.

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"I hope not, sir; and that is what I wanted to speak with you about, if you will be so good as to have a little patience with me. I am a simple woman, I know, sir; my husband (ah! you would have understood him) always said I was; but the simple are sometimes wise unto salvation. You live, sir, like a Christianyou never keep open after six on Saturdaysso that my boy gets home early, and not too much worn with fatigue to enjoy the rest and perform the duties of the Sabbath; and on Sundays it does him good (he says) to see you in church before the bell has done ringing. I am sure, sir, you are a Christian."

"I hope so; I am a believer; but many a believer does not live as becomes a follower of Christ," replied Mr. Whitelock.

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'My husband, sir, was one of those who suffered long, and was kind, and thought no evil; in short, sir, you can read his character in 1 Corinthians, chap. xiii. I owe him more than woman ever owed to man. His unfortunate attachment to me lost him his position in society; his father never forgave him for marrying a farmer's daughter. I thought then I did right, because he, just one-and-twenty, said he could bend his lot to mine, and laugh at poverty, and not live without me, and such like things-as, perhaps, you have said yourself, before you were married."

"I beg your pardon, my good woman," interrupted the bookseller, "but I never was married, and never uttered such absurdities in my life." Mrs. Dolland coloured, and twisted the end of her shawl round her finger. "Lucky, sir-lucky for you-and for-but I

*Continued from page 92.

beg your pardon; perhaps you never were in love."

Mr. Whitelock fidgetted, and grumbled something; and the widow's instinct made her comprehend that he did not relish her conjectures. She continued:

"I believed every word he said; I could not understand his sacrifice, because I had never moved in his sphere, I thought it a fine thing to marry for love, and outstare poverty. I did not know that the gaze of its stony eyes, and the clutch of its bony hands, might drive him to his grave. They said he was consumptive from his birth; I don't believe it; I know that labour and want take its form. I went to his father; I knelt to him; I told him I would leave my husband-go where they should never hear my name—if he would only receive him and his son; I did indeed, sir; but he turned from me with cruel words. And, though he knew he was teaching a few poor scholars, just for bread, so he left himand so he died. I only wish that young poor girls, who think it a fine thing to marry a gentleman, could know the misery it brings; the hardest lot can be borne alone; but to bring another to it, and that other the one you would die to make happy-Oh! that is the hardest of all things to bear! I beg your pardon, sir; but if I did not begin from the first, you could not understand my feelings."

She wiped away her tears, and Mr. Whitelock told her to proceed. He was so much interested in her tale, told in her simple manner, in her soft voice a voice so full of that low intonation, which is distinct even in its murmurs that he could not help wishing some one of his favourite novelists, people who, long ago, wrote the most innocent tales, in five or seven volumes, were there to hear it. By his own dreamy abstraction, she was transformed into a young shepherdess, tying a blue ribband round a lamb's neck; and the vision, with its adjuncts of green fields and purling brooks-which he never saw more than twice a year—with an enraptured youth leaning over a stile, and the village church steeple peering above the distant trees, was only dispelled by her resuming her unaffected narrative.

"And speaking, as I was, sir, of understanding the feelings, I know that to the last I

never quite understood those of my husband. I can't tell if it was because of the difference of our birth, or of our bringing up, or of both; though, as to the birth, his father had been a poor man once, and got rich, some said, not over rightly-though I can't quite believe that of my dear husband's father. I never, as I said, quite understood my husband; for, to the last, I know I gave him pain, by little ways which he never complained of, and I knew not how to change; but what I could understand was his PIETY. He lived the last year of his life a life of such faith and hope, that the world seemed to fold itself away from him like a vapour, and he looked upon all that stood between Christ and him as evil. He delighted to teach our child texts of Scripture; and even the wise-like copies which he used to set him from Poor Richard's Almanac, faded from his memory towards the last, though Bible words remained with him, and scraps of Watts's hymns, and long passages of holy poetry; but what he dwelt upon was the future of his child. At that time I got constant work as an embroideress. But the last year he might be said to be more in heaven than on earth; the world was not with him; only hour by hour he used to call me to him, and say, 'Remember our great salvation,' and the next minute he would pray me, clasping my hands within his, not to care about the little lad's learning, so that he could win Christ. He would go on, adding scripture to scripture, to prove that all this world is nothing worth, without that which ensures eternal life. He desired neither riches, nor honours, nor wealth, nor learning for that boy -nothing, but his becoming wise unto salvation. Sir, I understood that-that came home to me. Now, sir, the lad is a good lad-tender and loving to me, his mother, and, I believe, dutiful to you, sir; though the person below did hint, rather than say, things which I own gave me concern, just now-things which make me fear he may not be altogether what I hope; but he is young, and—”

"It is only Matty's unfortunate manner,” interrupted the bookseller. "She does not mean it; she has an ugly trick of insinuating evil, where she means good."

"How very strange," said the meek woman. "I am so glad I mentioned it; I should have made my son so unhappy. What a pity she does not hope, sir; poor thing! not to have hope is worse than blindness. Well, sir, have I explained how anxious my husband was that this dear lad should become a righteous man-not a formalist, but a vital Christianabiding continually in the faith, faithful above

all things; believing, like his father, in Christ, and evincing that belief by acts of charity-in word, in deed, in thought-towards his fellowcreatures. That, sir, was the religion in which he lived and died; and I should feel unfaithful to his trust, if I did not, by prayer, supplication, and entreaty, try to keep the lad in the path which his father trod. But he is getting too strong for me: his mind swells like a river after rain. He reads his Bible, to be sure; but he reads other books more frequently. I don't know if that is quite right. Oh! sir, I weary heaven with prayers to teach me how to keep him in the right; so that, even if he halt, or turn aside, he may return."

"The boy is a good boy-an excellent lad: I have been turning over in my mind what I could do for him, to put him in the way of bettering his position. He is a right excellent lad," repeated the bookseller; "and I would have you beware of drawing the rein too tight: I think you are anxious overmuch."

She shook her head mournfully. "Sir, I have lived on hope-a holy hope, a hope above the world-the hope of one day seeing him in the courts of his Heavenly Father, met by his earthly father. With that hope to light me, I can walk thankfully into the grave—which, if I live a few months longer, cannot be darker than my sight-certain of the brightness which shall be revealed hereafter. But, oh! sir, if he, HIS child, should be beguiled by too much worldly wisdom, or learning, to forget God, how could I meet my husband - how could I answer to him for the soul which he left to my care upon his bed of death ?"

"My good woman, all the most righteous parents can do is to letter and bind the book carefully, and let the world cut the leaves."

"Yes," she answered, " and to pray for him, and keep evil, especially the evil of unbelief, from him; and that is one great reason of my visit, sir. You lent him-"

"The works of Benjamin Franklin-I remember."

"Is it the sort of book, do you think, sir, that is fit for my little lad? I know it is full of knowledge, about his catching lightning, and inventing wonderful things, and contains great and good advice to young tradesmen; but I fear, though a great man, he wanted—”

"What the best of us want, more or less, my good lady," said the bookseller, with unusual briskness," and had much that few of us possess." And, then, after some consideration, he added, slowly, rather as if talking to himself, than addressing another, "Let me The early part of his life was stained,

see.

like the lives of many-John Bunyan to witwith faults almost amounting to crimes; and those would have remained untold, unrecorded -indeed, perfectly unknown, even by his most intimate friends-but for the extraordinary truthfulness of the man's great nature. In the brief account of his own life, he confesses that he was blown about by every wind of doctrine; and to what purpose? to fall into the quagmire of unbelief. Now, this would be dangerous to read and think over for lads of Richard's age and eager temperament, if the entire honesty of Franklin's nature-downright, brave, looking-straight-in-the-face, truth-had not made him confess and condemn his errors. He was scourged-as all unbelievers are, if they would only admit so much-by his unbelief; he had to endure the bitterness and self-reproach of knowing that the young friends, whom his arguments had perverted, turned upon and ill-used him; he recalled his own misconduct, born of, and nurtured by unbelief; and, though his nature was neither pious nor enthusiastic, like that of John Bunyan, he saw, like Bunyan, the evil of his ways, particularly in a reasoning point of view. He learned that unbelief was the proof of a weak, not of a strong nature; he saw how foolish it would be to call a boy "strong-minded," because he would not believe what his father told him! As he grew in years, he strengthened in truth; another proof of his great mind. And then his works live in our literature; they keep their place by their own specific gravity. The lad is old enough to understand this man's greatness, and the value he was to his country-indeed, to all countries-and to imbibe those lessons of usefulness and industry which are taught in his works, without being tainted by his confessed sin. Infidelity is put, and by himself, at such a disadvantage, that it holds out no temptations; it shows from first to last the confessed blot upon a radiant memory. Aye, indeed, this great man, this man so in advance of his time, this true man, was, as I have said, scourged by his infidelity; and he shows his stripes. I daresay" (the bookseller was a great phrenologist, and the science engrafted much charity on his simple, yet shrewd, mind)

"I daresay the organ was depressed at veneration, but large in benevolence, with an almost overweight of the reasoning faculties. Ah! if historians would only give us the measurement of heads, and their developments, instead of their own crude or prejudiced analysis of character, we should better know where to render our hero-worship. Don't you think so?"

The mother looked upwards; the spirit's

vision was unimpaired, though the sight was fading day by day. Still she always looked upwards, as if all her consolation came from thence. "I do not understand, sir," she said, simply, "what you have observed has to do with my Richard; but if you are sure the book won't harm him, won't shake his faith, or make him think too highly of worldly gifts-" She paused, and then added, “You, sir, being a Christian man, know best. I am certain it teaches plenty of hope for this world, and great reliance upon human gifts."

"Your pardon, my good lady," said the bookseller, "but which of our gifts is not divine?"

"Aye, sir, but we must acknowledge their origin; and, as my dear husband used to say, not be too fond of setting the farthing candle of reason to give light to the sun of revelation. He made me understand that."

She rose to withdraw.

"I fear you are not satisfied, even now ?"

She shook her head. "I pray night and day that he may be so guided as to win heaven. I would fain know what to do," she continued, still more feebly; "you are so good to him, sir! May God bless you for it! But the lad― and that book. I wish he had taken to it when my sight was strong, I could have read it then now, if he reads it to me, I think he picks out the passages he knows I would like, and leaves the rest."

"Did he ever read you the great man's epitaph, written by himself?"

"Yes, sir; there is hope in the last lines, about his appearing (after death) in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by THE AUTHOR. Certainly, no bad man (Christianly speaking) could frame that."

"Bad man!" repeated the bookseller. “Why there are scores of editions of his works!" This, as a proof of his goodness, did not strike the widow.

"Then, sir, you are quite satisfied with Richard." The poor woman's hands trembled as she folded them together, and the long-suppressed tears flowed over her cheeks. "I beg your pardon for troubling you—I have no right to do so, you are so kind to him; only, sir, please to remember that he has two fathers in heaven, and that I-poor creature that I amfeel accountable to both. I cannot sleep by night; I fear I neglect my duty, and yet I fear to overtax his; he gains knowledge so quickly that I tremble for his faith; and when I am sitting alone, between the dimness of my own sight and of the twilight, a thin, filmy shadow stands before me, and I think that I