265 CHAPTER XII. "See how the morning opes her golden gates, Shakspeare. THE day, which was fixed for the Lady Bona de Godolphin to take the veil, was now at hand, but it was one of gloom and sorrow throughout the castle. The lady abbess arrived early to conduct her to the Retreat, the Lord and Lady Godolphin being passive consenters to the arrangement, which would take away their daughter from them for ever, not knowing what to do for the best, in the melancholy state of her mind, and it being a proposition to which she had given her consent. The lady-maiden rose early on the morning, and immediately went to her small bed of flowers, whose tints seemed to be more than usually rich and gay. The roses were fresher and more numerous, and the violets and snowdrops no longer drooped their heads. She gathered a large supply of flowers, and decked her robe of white all over with them. She clustered a few into a bouquet, and placed them in her bosom. The lively colours of the flowers, and the arrangement she made, recalled her deadened hopes, and enlivened her breast with a passing thought that her happiness might still return, but the thought did not tarry long enough to leave any impression behind it. Thinking more of her lost lover than what she was doing, she then mounted her favorite turret, and seated herself, fixing her eye towards the spot from whence her lover receded from her view, but her eye was fixed on vacancy. Here she rested all the morning without interruption, for it was considered highly unadvisable to thwart her harmless inclina tions, which appeared to afford her all the consolation she was susceptible of. At length, she rose to go, but she returned to take a last look. She went again, but returned to take another. This she did over and over again. At last she advanced once more determined that this look should be the last. Her left hand was on her forehead, parting her silken tresses, while her right hand was on her heart. Her glance lingered on the same spot, but it was dimmed by a rising tear, the first and only tear that had come to her relief since the sad news she had heard that her lover was slain. Her vivid fancy pictured to her imagination, her lover on his coal-black steed, the plume of his helmet nodding, and her silk scarf waving with the wind as he vanished from her sight, but it was but the lively shadow of a retentive, fond, but despairing memory. She cast one more long and lingering look, when her eye caught the appearance of a glittering object issuing from the green avenue, which led from the forest to the Castle. She dashed off the tear, that she might see the clearer, and the next moment, in a burst of delight, she exclaimed, "O! God be thanked. 'Tis he-'tis he, I know him from my scarf, which covers his noble breast." She did not wait for a second look, but descended the turret, flew over the drawbridge, and was a long way down the avenue, ere the inhabitants of the castle recovered from their surprise at her flight, and the exclamation which escaped her, as she went, " "Tis he'tis he, I know him from my scarf.” 66 It was Sir Lionel, Baron de Darbye, making his way to Godolphin Castle, at the head of a numerous body of his vassals, the Arab by his side, and Fidelfo waving his banner of white silk, with its quarterings, ordered by King Richard. Sir Lionel's anxious eye soon beheld the lady-maiden upon the turret, and now saw her hastening down the avenue. He vaulted from his steed, and the next moment he caught his lady-love in his arms, when all speech was denied to them in a delirium of joy. The horn at the castle gate was now sounded with a long and cheering blast, which astonished the inmates, and Peg of the Dell passed through the porch, flourishing her "white-heart," and exclaiming incessantly, "This child of chance, By sword and lance, Sir Lionel now entered the Castle Court, the lady-maiden Bona leaning on his arm. Nothing ever surpassed the joy which the return of Ludolph-ennobled-diffused throughout that part of the country. At day-break of the morning after the frightful storm, Sir Lionel beheld the barque stranded on the beach, and left "high and dry," the crew and his men safe, and busy landing from the wreck all the valuables. He then quickly made his way to Brooksby Castle -which he now named "Darbye Castle-" where he found assembled, a large body of his vassals, whose satisfaction was unbounded at the safe return of their lord, whom they |