THE morning lacked a full hour of the time, when the cold December sun should pour his faint rays, as if in mockery, over the chilled and cheerless world, which at that season of the year they can neither fertilize nor beautify. A thick raw mist was drawn like a curtain over the universal face of nature; the skies looked blank and dismal; there was not a cloud of darker hue, not a speck of light, however pale, to relieve the solid wall of dull gray fog, which limited the view to a dozen feet around me. The air was piercingly cold, though perfectly breezeless; and it froze so keenly, that the sharp ringing sound of my horse's feet on the hard soil might have been heard at a mile's distance; while the moisture of the atmosphere hung in wreaths of hoary rime not only on my cloak and charger's mane, but on my eyebrows and the floating locks, which, at the period I speak of, were cultivated with peculiar care, as the distinctive marks of gentle blood. Indeed, so bitter was the morning, and so dreary the prospect that lay before me, that I almost blamed myself for having quitted the cabin in which I had passed the preceding night, although the motives for my expedition were in the highest degree pressing and important. What those motives were, employed as I now am in the relation of an event, which, bearing in no single point upon any portion of my past time, produced effects the most striking on my after life, I am neither at present inclined to relate, nor is it probable that my readers would find much either of profit or of pleasure in the perusal of occurrences so inti10

VOL. IV.

mately connected with facts, which have already become history, as to baffle all attempts at unravelling them from the skein in which their humble thread is blended. Suffice it to say, I am an Englishman, by birth noble, and by education, association, or prejudice if you will, a cavalier. Yes! with my eyes fully open to the danger and iniquity of those arbitrary doctrines, whether of church or state, which had filled the green homes of my native land with misery and blood,-perfectly conscious of the inability of the king to be a governor of freeborn men,-I yet drew my sword in every skirmish from the first unfolding of the banners of rebellion, to its final triumph on the scaffold of Whitehall. An ardent adorer of freedom in the abstract, I had lent all the energies of my mind, all the powers of my arm, to establish a tyranny which, at a later period of my life, I should probably with equal zeal have striven to overthrow. Dazzled by the influences of those splendid associations, that almost religious veneration for ancient institutions, merely because they are ancient, that false glare of nobility of accomplishment and of chivalrous honor, which served to conceal the injustice of the royal cause behind a halo no less delusive than it was brilliant, I had surrendered my mind to the romantic, rather than to the rational. The cry of patriotism was no less alive in the mouths of one than of the other party; and if liberty were the magic sound which swelled the chorus of the victors, there were still many among the vanquished to whom the shout of loyalty appeared to "become the mouth as well." Thus was it then with me; I had fared hardly, fought hardly, and gained small reward save hard blows. I had not, it is true, served through the desperate fights of Naseby and Long Marston without acquiring some reputation, which, if it were not so bright as that of Capel, Rupert, or Goring, was at least sufficient to obtain for me the appellation of an arch-malignant, and a fair proportion of the enmity of that singular being, who, assuredly, at some future day, when the clouds of party prejudice, of envy, and of detraction, shall have been dispersed, will be esteemed the greatest man that ever raised himself to a throne. Still, as the party to which I had attached myself had sunk, as it would seem, for many a year, it would perhaps have been better for me had I possessed no character whatever for bravery or talent, than to be notorious as one of the most constant, if not the most distinguished, adherents of the fallen dynasty. When all was over, and it was evident to men that the star of Cromwell was in the ascendant, and that of the Stuarts obscured perhaps for ever; when my master had expiated his crooked counsels with his blood, and his son had preserved himself from a similar fate only by a rapid flight; I found myself so situated, that I had but the choice of dying to no purpose for a lost cause, or of leaving the land of my ancestors at least till times should prove more favorable. To be brief, I made good my escape to France; and ere long, in default of better occupation, I found myself again in arms under the direction and patronage of no less a man than the celebrated Mazarin, in whose service I was employed, when engaged in the adventure which it is now my purpose to recite.

It was in vain that I endeavored to banish my recollection of the pinchng cold, by indulging in bright reveries of a glorious and happy future; it

was in vain that I strove to animate my flagging spirits by anticipating the stirring scenes in which 1 expected ere long to be engaged, or by picturing to myself the manner in which it would become me to act in this or that emergency; it was in vain that I whistled, or hummed some bacchanal or martial tune;-the dulness of the time oppressed me-my mind had assimilated itself, as it were, to the coloring of surrounding objects, and I felt as miserable as though I were about to ascend that scaffold which had terminated the career of many of my brave companions. Yet it could not be the weather only that had cast so deep a gloom over a spirit naturally buoyant and excitable;-many a day had I mounted guard in back and breast-piece, when the frost was so keen, that it would have been no less perilous to have touched the barrel of my musquetoon with ungloved hand, than to have grasped a bar fresh glowing from the furnace; many a day had I ridden from dawn to dusk in soaking rain, and after grooming my jaded horse, though chill and famished, jested and laughed as merrily as the most jovial ruffler of a court. But now it seemed as if there were a vast black shadow covering, as with a mighty wing, the whole horizon of my mind. I felt as though I were abandoned by the world, surrendered to sure destruction, devoted, doomed, and at the same time I felt no care, no anxiety, no excitement. I, who in times of peril have felt the fiery blood dancing through my veins with the eagerness, the rapture of the strife,-I, the enthusiastic, reckless soldier, should have entered the fray, had a cause for fray occurred, in dogged, sullen, calm desperation. Thus had I ridden onward for some miles, when the gradual brightening of the atmosphere, not in any one quarter of the heavens, but all over the firmament, gave token, not that the fog was about to melt away, but that the hours of the night were ended. My road lay through a vast unbroken plain, without an ascent to scale, or a valley to descend for miles on miles; the highway stretched, as it were, into interminable distance, bounded on either side by rows of that to me most dismal and monotonous of trees, the poplar; the misty state of the morning cut off all view beyond these limits, but it was evident that had the eye been at liberty to roam over the landscape, there would have been but little either of variety or beauty in the view. I had already passed through several extensive tracts of woodland, which bore, however, no resemblance to the lovely woods of my own England, with their bosky dells and open glades, their gnarled oaks and silvery birches, gleaming out from the dark hollies and waving fern; in these forests of France, all was monotonous, tame, and regular. A long straight vista, sweeping right onward through ranks of trees undistinguished by their single magnitude, and unbroken by dewy lawn or brooklet, an occasional carrefour, or point of union to several avenues, as perfect each in resemblance to the other, as Will Shakspeare's kings of Banquo, with a broken cross, or defaced guide-post in the centre, presented a picture of desolation and dreary sameness, which I am at a loss for words to describe. I had ridden thus, as I have said, for miles,—not a human being had crossed my eyes, not a human dwelling had I passed,-even the rude huts of the charcoal burners, which are in general to be met with at brief intervals in the taillis, which

compose the greater proportion of the French woodlands, were wanting. Nay, more, not a deer or rabbit had hurried athwart my path, not a chirrup had I heard from bird or insect,-it seemed as if I were passing through a country buried in profound midnight slumber; the constant clack of my charger's hoofs on the frozen road, waking the echoes as we passed along, had grown so wearisome to my ear, that I should have welcomed a thunder-clap for its variety.

Suddenly my horse pricked up his ears, and though I could hear no sound, whinnied repeatedly; and at length, quickening his pace, gave vent to his impatience in long shrill neighings. Once or twice, it is true, I fancied an answering neigh to be borne to my ears from the remote distance; but if it were so, the sounds were so faint that they might have passed for an echo. Nevertheless, though little confident in the truth of what I heard or imagined, I suffered Bayard to continue at the more rapid trot into which he had struck at the time of his first uneasiness. After proceeding thus about a mile, the sharp ringing report of a shot came down the road, and ere I could strike my spurs into the horse's side, another and another, followed, or rather accompanied, by the most fearful screams I ever remember to have witnessed. They were not the cries of terror, nor of pain, but of the most wild and horror-stricken frenzy.—Peal upon peal, volume upon volume, they rang through my brain, till my blood positively curdled in my veins, and I felt the cold creeping over my head, with a sensation as though every hair were standing erect, "like quills upon the fretful porcupine." The terror which came upon me,—for terror it was, was not of the body, but of the soul. Not a second, nor the hundredth part of a second, did I pause ;-my rapier loosened in its scabbard, its hilt brought forward in readiness for my grasp, a long petronel in my right hand, and my reins gathered firmly in my left, I dashed along the causeway at a pace which must in a few minutes have brought me up to anything not winged; for out of hundreds that I have backed, never did I bestride a beast to match in speed, or blood, or bottom, with that brave horse.

Notwithstanding the rate, however, at which I dashed along the forest road, such was the unusual distance at which the sounds had reached my ear,-owing, doubtless, to the peculiar state of the atmosphere, no less than to the almost unnatural silence of the country,-that more minutes had elapsed, than I had counted upon seconds, before I reached the scene of the affray.

The spectacle that met my eyes,-the mist having yielded in a considerable degree to the increasing power of the sunlight,-—was perhaps even more singular than terrible, although its horrors were sufficient to have struck a chill to the heart of one less used, than I had been, to scenes of rapine and of bloodshed.

A travelling carriage, one of the huge and cumbrous vehicles of the age, lay in the centre of the carrefour, evidently overset by the struggles of the affrighted brutes, one of which was stretched out motionless,-unless the fitful quivering of his limbs, fast draining of their life-blood, might be termed motion,-while the others kicked, flung, and screamed in all the

wild confusion of vice and terror. A little way in the rear of the carriage lay the driver, slain by the passage of a bullet with its ghastly wound, which had shattered his head almost to atoms; his death must have been instantaneous, but had it not, the ponderous wheels, which had both passed over his body, from hip to shoulder, severing it almost in sunder, would have been sufficient to divorce the spirit from a giant's trunk. The door of the carriage, forced from within, stood open, and a dark colored fluid, trickling through the aperture, proved that even more of horror had been wrought, than met the eye. It must not be supposed that all, which I have here endeavored to portray, met my eyes in the fearful excitement of that first moment. My quick glance fell upon two men engaged in mortal conflict. Many a time, before and since, have I witnessed the strife of men in every different aspect; on the tented field, "i' the imminent deadly breach," in single duel, or in confused meleè; but never! never did I see such deadly hate glare from the eyes of human beings-such desperate contempt of life-such fierce determination to kill-as manifested themselves in every look, in every motion, of those two combatants. I had leisure enough to mark them well; for my horse, having almost trampled on the body of the slaughtered servant, swerved so wildly from the carcass, though he had borne me without a start or stumble over scores, aye, hundreds, in many a pitched field,—and strove so fiercely against the spur and rein, as I endeavored again to bring him up, that well nigh a minute had elapsed ere I could reach the spot. They were both men in the prime of life, strong, finely formed, and active; and, even before I could distinguish their features, I had been powerfully impressed, by the striking similarity of their forms, and general appearance. One seemed perhaps some six years older than the other; but neither did his activity seem so far impaired, or his strength increased by the difference, as to render him an unequal match for his antagonist. At a glance I perceived that they were gentlemen, and that too of no ordinary rank or station; not by their dress, indeed, for it seemed that,-whether for purposes of disguise, or for some other motive, their habits were below, rather than above, their situation in life; but by the contour of their heads, the flowing and soft hair that floated down their necks, the smallness of their hands, and above all, that general grace and dignity of person, which are as certain tokens of nobility in man, as are the clean limbs, flashing eye, expanded nostril, and full veins, signs of blood in the-I had well nigh said—more noble animal, which man so frequently debases to be the minister of his crimes, the instrument of his passions.

There they stood, hand to hand, and foot to foot, glaring in each other's faces with an expression of fiendish malignity-stamping, lunging, springing to and fro, their long bright rapiers flashing at every thrust, each, as it seemed, wholly indifferent whether he lived or died himself, so he should slay before he fell. Darting from my horse, I rushed towards them, blade in hand, with the intent of mastering their weapons; but such was the rapidity and fury of their fencing, that I perceived, at once, there was more probability of interference on my part accelerating than preventing a fatal result. With two swordsmen nearly equal, and such it