Forest Days. G. P. R. James

things no more!"

      "It is all true," said Robert of the Lees, "but the same, good youth, is the case with every earthly joy; each day has its pleasure, each year of our life has things of its own. As the spring brings the fruit, and the autumn brings the corn, so every period of man's existence has its apportioned good and evil. I have ever found it so, from infancy till this day, now eight-and-thirty years, and you will find it likewise. You will love another--differently, but as well; with less tenderness, but more trust; with less passion, but with more esteem; and you will be happier with her than you would have been with this idle one; for passion dies soon, killing itself with its own food; esteem lives, and strengthens by its own power. Shake not thy head, Ralph. I know it is vain to talk to thee as yet, for sorrow and disappointment blind a man's eyes to the future, and he will look at nothing but the past."

      "But of the Earl of Ashby," said young Harland, little cheered, to say the truth, by his companion's reasoning; "how can you get such a hold of him as will make him constrain his own kinsman to give up his paramour?--Alas! that I should call her so!"

      "Take your bridle over your arm," replied the forester; "come with me, and I will tell you more. You want rest, and food, and reflection; but nothing can be done before to-morrow, so we shall have plenty of time to discuss the means, and to arrange the plan."

      CHAPTER VII.

      Upon the edge of the merry forest-land, on the side nearest to Derbyshire, not far from the little river Lind, and surrounded at that time by woods which joined the district on to Sherwood itself, there rose, in the days I speak of, a Norman castle of considerable extent. It had been built in the time of William Rufus--had been twice attacked in the turbulent reign of Stephen--had been partly dismantled by order of Henry II.--and had been restored under the dominion of the weak tyrant John. Being not far from Nottingham, it was frequently visited by noble and royal personages, and was often the scene of the splendid and ostentatious hospitality of the old baronage of England.

      It has now crumbled down, indeed, and departed; the ploughshare has passed over most of its walls, and the voice of song and merriment is heard in it no more. The lower part of one of the square flanking-towers in the outer wall is all that remains of the once magnificent castle of Lindwell; and a dingly copse, where many a whirring pheasant rises before the sportsman, now covers the hall and the lady's bower.

      In the days of which I speak, however, it was in its greatest splendour, having come into the possession of the Earl of Ashby by his father's marriage, and being the favourite dwelling of the race. It was situated upon a gentle eminence, and the great gate commanded a view over some sixty or seventy acres of meadow land, lying between the castle and the nearest point of the wood; and for the distance of nearly three miles on the Sherwood side, though there was no cultivated land--except, indeed, a few detached fields here and there--the ground assumed more the aspect of a wild chase than a forest, with the thick trees grouping together to the extent of an acre or two, and then leaving wide spaces between, as pasture for the deer and other wild animals, only broken by bushes and hawthorns.

      This district was properly within the limits of Sherwood; but, as all persons know, who are acquainted with the forest laws, certain individuals frequently possessed private woods in the royal forest, which was the case of the Earl of Ashby in his manor of Lindwell; and, whether or not he had originally any legal right of chase therein, such a privilege had been secured to the manor in the reign of John, by the king's special grant and permission. His rights of vert and venison, then, as they were called, extended over a wide distance around, and it was reported that some disputes had arisen between himself and his sovereign, whether he had not extended the exercise of those rights somewhat beyond their legitimate bounds.

      In the same merry month of May, however, of which we have just been writing, and but one day after the occurrences took place which have just occupied our attention, a gay party issued forth from the gates of the castle, and took its way in the direction of Nottingham. We have called it gay, and it was so altogether: gay in colouring, gay in movement, gay in feeling. At the head of it appeared three light-hearted young women, a lady and her two maids, all about the same age, and none of them having as yet numbered twenty years. Their clothing, was rich and glittering; and they were followed by a page, possessing all the requisite qualities for his office in saucy boldness and light self-confidence. Three or four yeomen came next, who, having been left behind while their lord went with numerous attendants upon a distant progress, had necessarily had all the love and the merriment of the lower hall to themselves. The horses which bore the whole party were fresh, proud, and spirited; and never, perhaps, was more brightness of appearance and heart embodied in one group than in that which took its way down from the castle gate and through the meadows below; but we must pause, for a moment upon the fair leader of the cavalcade, for she is worth a short description.

      The Earl's daughter, Lucy de Ashby, wanted yet a few months of that period when girlhood may be said to end and womanhood begin; where the teens--which are so longingly looked for by the child--come to their end, and the third ten of the allotted seven begins. Oh, how long do the five tens that are to follow appear, when viewed from the brow of the hill of youth! And yet the two that are gone contain the brightest and the sweetest part of our apportioned time.

      Lucy looked not older than her years, for she was small and delicately formed; but yet there was the fulness of womanhood in every line. Her face had not much colour, and yet it was not pale, but the whole hue was warm and healthy, and fairer than that of the southern nations of Europe, though still evidently the complexion of what is now called a brunette. The brow, the nose, the lips, the chin, were all beautifully cut; though the model was not Greek, for the forehead was wider and higher, and there was a slight, a very slight wave in the line between the brow and the nose. The eyebrows were dark, small, and long, slightly depressed in the middle over the eye, but by no means either arched or strongly defined, according to the eastern notions of beauty, but, on the contrary, shaded softly off, so as only to show a definite line to beholders when at a little distance. The eyes beneath them were large and long, but with the deep black eyelashes, which she had derived from her mother, shading them so completely, that the sparkling of the dark iris was only clearly seen when she looked up.

      That, however, was often the case; for in her gay liveliness, when she had said some little thing to tease or to surprise, she would still raise the "fringed curtain" of her eye to mark the effect it produced, and to have her smile at anything like astonishment that appeared upon the countenance of those who heard her.

      The lip, too, was full of playfulness; for, indeed, sorrow had but sat there once, and tears were very unfrequent in those dark, bright eyes. There had been people seen, perhaps, more beautiful in mere feature, but few more beautiful in expression, and certainly none ever more captivating in grace of movement and in variety of countenance. Her dress was full of gay and shining colours, but yet so well assorted, so harmonious in their contrast, that the effect could not be called gaudy.

      The same was not the case with her two women, who, with the pleasant familiarity of those times, were chattering lightly to their mistress as they rode along, upon the ordinary subject of women's thoughts in all ages--alas! I mean dress. There was, on the contrary, a good deal of gaudiness about their apparel, and their taste did not appear to be of the most refined kind.

      "Nay, dear lady," said one of them, "I would have put on the robe of arms when I was going to Nottingham to wait for my father. It does look so magnificent, with the escutcheon of pretence for Minorca just on your breast, the silver field on one side, and the azure field on the other, and the beautiful wyverns all in gold."

      "I cannot bear it, silly girl," replied the lady; "to hear you talk about wearing the fields, one would suppose that I was a piece of arable land; and as to coats of arms, Judith, I like not this new custom; women have nothing to do with coats of arms. I put it on once to please my brother, but I will never wear it again, so he may cut the skirt off and use it himself next time he goes to a tournament."

      "Dear, now, lady, how you jest," replied the girl; "he could never get it on; why, Lord Alured's thigh is thicker than your waist; and I do declare I think it much handsomer than that azure and gold you are