OR

THE RED KING

A ROMANCE

"He feared GOD but little-man not at all."

WILLIAM OF MALMSBURY

James G. Grant

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. II

LONDON

SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET

MDCCCXXXVIII.

RUFUS.

CHAPTER I.

"SHEW me the noblest youth of present time,
Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth;
Some god or hero from the Olympian clime
Returned, to seek a consort upon earth;
Or, in no doubtful prospect, let me see
The brightest star of ages yet to be,
And I will mate and match him blissfully.'

And though a Spirit yet, and bright
With something of an angel's light,
A creature not too bright or good,
For human nature's daily food,

For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles!

Wordsworth.

CONSTANCE DE MOWBRAY followed with her eye the disappearing Abbess and attendant, until the gloom of the postern hid them,—then turned to her remaining companion, and in a tone which seemed to annihilate years, and make the past the present, uttered the single word "Raymond!"

It was an appeal from the restraint and formality which had yet hung with a chilling heaviness upon their greeting,-an appeal so eloquent, that the youth felt the blood rush to his brow, and knew not, perhaps, what fell from his lips, as they faltered forth the answering exclamation" Noble lady!"

"Noble lady!" she repeated, in accents of kindly reproach. "Oh, time and change! Once, Raymond, it was not thus! Why have we driven the Lady Abbess from her garden? True," she added, looking around" 'tis but a sorry

paradise-less fair, by the blushing of a thousand flowers, than mine at Bamborough—that little plot!—but why, why do I recall it? here, at least, the hand of culture is sometimes feebly busy-there, doubtless, all hath long been trampled into dust, desolateness-oblivion."

"The mailed hand and the armed heel," said Raymond, "give sorry tendance to garden beauty.-Evil visitants! they sow not, neither do they plant. Seven winters, Lady Con

"Seven winters," interrupted the lady, “have done much. They have frozen all that to my heart was once dear and genial. To me they have made Bamborough itself a haunted pile, darkened with terror and suspicion;—a thing of icy halls and cells-gloomy and voiceless chambers, where the tempests of the Cheviots beat unrepelled, and drift their benumbing snows even into the very bosoms that throbbed faithfully around the hearth-stone of my childhood!"

"Not into mine, Constance !" exclaimed Cour d'Acier, startled out of his reserve,-" not into mine: far other tempests have beat there, but