eret, who brought a whole army of vassals to his king's
side, would look with utter scorn from one end of his long table on
the poor _lackland_ knights seated at the other. How much greater his
scorn for the simple varlets, grooms, pages, &c., fed upon his
leavings! Seated at the lowermost end of the tables close to the door,
they scraped the dishes sent down to them, often empty, from the
personages seated above beside the hearth. It never would cross the
great lord's mind, that those below would dare to lift eyes of fancy
towards their lovely mistress, the haughty heiress of a fief, sitting
near her mother, "crowned by a chaplet of white roses." Whilst he bore
with wondrous patience the love of some stranger knight, appointed by
his lady to bear her colours, he would have savagely punished the
boldness of any servant who looked so high. Of this kind was the
raging jealousy shown by the Lord of Fayel, who was stirred to deadly
wrath, not because his wife had a lover, but because that lover was
one of his household, the castellan or simple constable of his castle
of Coucy.

The deeper and less passable seemed the gulf between the great
heiress, lady of the manor, and the groom or page who, barring his
shirt, had nothing, not even his coat, but what belonged to his
master, the stronger became love's temptation to overleap that gulf.

The youth was buoyed up by the very impossibility. At length, one day
that he managed to get out of the tower, he ran off to the Witch and
asked her advice. Would a philtre serve as a spell to win her? Or,
failing that, must he make an express covenant? He never shrank at all
from the dreadful idea of yielding himself to Satan. "We will take
care for that, young man: but hie thee up again; you will find some
change already."

* * * * *

The change, however, is in himself. He is stirred by some ineffable
hope, that escapes in spite of him from a deep downcast eye, scored by
an ever-darting flame. Somebody, we may guess who, having eyes for him
alone, is moved to throw him, as she passes, a word of pity. Oh,
rapture! Kind Satan! Charming, adorable Witch!

He cannot eat nor drink until he has been to see the latter again.
Respectfully kissing her hand, he almost falls at her feet. Whatever
she may ask him, whatever she may bid him do, he will obey her. That
moment, if she wishes it, he will give her his golden chain, will give
her the ring upon his finger, t