altar of Notre Dame in Paris; but he ap proached the king with an air so mean and proud, so full of pretension and emptiness, and with a touch withal of base and plebeian confidence in his costly prize, that the king would have laughed outright, had not another and a nobler form stood beside him, bearing in his mantle somewhat which he seemed anxious, yet trembling, to offer to his sovereign."

"And what was that," said Sir Aymer, smiling," which King Philip held of dearer preciousness than beauty or than gold ?"

King Philip," quoth the bishop, "looked more earnestly on the youth, and bade him advance and show the prize he had won. From the folds of his bloody mantle the youth drew forth an infant, the child of an heretic Albigeois, (who had got, Heaven knows how, into the castle,) and whom its parent was about to cast into the flames, when the youth, baptizing it in his blood, whose trace the forehead of the infant yet bore, hasted to offer it to his sovereign, as the most precious

relic of the ruins. At sight of this prize, King Philip demanded the name of the youth; whose blood, fast streaming through his broken armour, made the sacrifice of the drops with which he had assoiled his wretched burden more precious and more perilous every moment.Men call me Paladour, my liege,' said the youth, bending beneath the keen regards of Philip's eagle eye- but my birth, my descent, are all unknown to me; mine infant life began with mystery, and not a ray hath yet broke on the dark and thorny path I have trod to manhood.' 'It is the destiny of some to be the last of a mighty race,' replied the king, and of others to be the first; take thou no shame, youth, that the latter and better fate is thine. I trust to the promise of thy gracious and manly form, that the honours now bestowed on thee will flourish in thine own house unto the end of many generations Grace à Dieu, so much of holy writ have we learned from our chaplain BigordPaladour, kneel down.' The youth obeyed. 'Rise up, Sir Paladour,' said the king, after

a short whisper with an old knight (who was as skilful in toys of heraldry as if he had emblemed the banners of the twelve tribes when camping in the wilderness)—' Rise up, Sir Paladour de la Croix Sanglante, knight banneret, dubbed on the field of battle by the hand of thy liege lord.'-' And now,' he said, 'let our surgeon look heedfully to his wounds, or France may lose the stoutest lance in her host, and chivalry the fairest flower in her ample field of honour and of gentleness."

"And what said the young knight to this golden prodigality of royal praise and honour?" asked Sir Aymer, touched for a moment with generous admiration; then relapsing into the habit which time and indulgence had made inveterate, he loosely addedmarry, that night I warrant the fairest maid in the vicinage, not the royal chirurgeon, found ready salve for his wounds; and the young knight would rather have pledged his new-won spurs than wanted his will."

"No-on my life-on my soul, he would not," broke forth Amirald with all the fervour

of young enthusiasm, and the freshness of untainted purity-"the breast over which so holy a blazon is spread can nourish none but holy thoughts and pure."

"Be not in such haste to enshrine thy demigod, sir boy," said the bishop, with a proud laugh of dissolute derision; "men say the infant was a promising one, and that the youth had a fatherly care of it-not without

"I have neither parent nor child," said the stranger, speaking for the first time after a long interval.

As he spoke, the breeze wafted aside his mantle; and the moon, which now rode high, threw her bright full light on the cognizance of Sir Paladour de la Croix Sanglante. The effect of the discovery, made thus involuntarily, was strikingly marked by the different modes in which it was recognised by the bishop, Sir Aymer, and his youthful companion. The former, full of fire and interest while the relater of a narrative which he believed unknown to the hearers, felt all that interest lost when its

genuine hero appeared; and, after a few words of cold but courteous compliment to Sir Paladour, he was silent;-not so old Sir Aymer; after causing his steed to make sundry caracoles, he swore, " by Mary's knight, a gentler passage of knighthood might not be found in story;"-while Amirald, springing from his steed, bowed his knee beside Sir Paladour's stirrup, and with resistless enthusiasm pressed his lips to his glove of mail.

At this moment the sound of a bell, heard deeply amid the silence of night, struck the ears of the crusaders. They paused, and reined up their steeds. The sound was repeated. Though their armed train was now left far behind, their courage defied all thought of danger; but there was something unspeakably solemn in the sound thus heard at night, on the verge of a lone heath whose limits were lost in darkness, for the moon was again concealed in heavy clouds, and the bishop's attendants had not yet lit the torches with which they were provided. In a few moments, during which scarce a breath was drawn, from