their sad and distant
wanderings. He paused: the sound was not from the garden, nor the roof.
After much scrutiny, he discovered a small aperture of about a foot
square, that was originally a window, but latterly had been choked by
the matted ivy which overspread its bars. The voice was as of one who
has tasted the weariness of life, and would fain put away the cup that
was all bitterness. It sung, but the song was more a murmur than a lay,
sorrowful as the winter's wind that roams through the long and
clustering grass in some old churchyard, telling,--

"Of blighted hopes and prospects shaded,
Of buried hopes remember'd well,
Of ardor quench'd, and honour faded."

With a trembling hand the Ranger sought to disentangle the ivy; but this
he found it almost impossible to effect in consequence of the pain
arising from his left arm whenever he slung himself by it. At length he
in some degree succeeded, but could see nothing, except that light came
up from a chamber, which, he then believed, must be lighted from
beneath, though the window did not look into the garden. The voice still
continued; it was one of the songs of Provence that was sung--the wail
of a young girl over the body of her dead lover, the burthen of which
was that of the Psalmist of old:--

"I shall go to thee,
But thou canst never come to me."

There was no poetry in the song, but the sentiment touched the heart of
the afflicted Robin. His breast heaved and heaved, like the swell of the
troubled sea, and then tears burst in torrents from his eyes, and
relieved his burning and dizzy brain.

"I never thought to have wept again," he said, "and I bless God for the
ease it gives me; yet why should I bless that which has cursed me?" And
again his heart returned to its bitterness; the hand that so often had
attuned it to gentleness, was cold--cold in death. Alas! resignation is
the most difficult lesson in the Christian code; few there are who learn
it to perfection--it requires a long and a melancholy apprenticeship!

Again he endeavoured to withdraw the ivy, and once ventured to speak;
but he dreaded to raise his voice. "At all events," thought Robin, "I
will send him a token;" and, extending his hand, he dropped the paper
containing the lock of hair which had been given him by the blithe
landlady of the Oliver's Head. The ringlet was received, for on the
instant the singing ceased, and presently Walter De Guerre called alou