A.

"Before I lost my five poor wits,
I mind me of a Romish clerk,
Who sang how Care, the phantom dark,
Beside the belted horseman sits.
Methought I saw the griesly sprite
Jump up but now behind my Knight."

"Perhaps thou didst, knave," said Ivanhoe, looking over his shoulder;
and the knave went on with his jingle:

"And though he gallop as he may,
I mark that cursed monster black
Still sits behind his honor's back,
Tight squeezing of his heart alway.
Like two black Templars sit they there,
Beside one crupper, Knight and Care.

"No knight am I with pennoned spear,
To prance upon a bold destrere:
I will not have black Care prevail
Upon my long-eared charger's tail,
For lo, I am a witless fool,
And laugh at Grief and ride a mule."

And his bells rattled as he kicked his mule's sides.

"Silence, fool!" said Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, in a voice both majestic
and wrathful. "If thou knowest not care and grief, it is because thou
knowest not love, whereof they are the companions. Who can love without
an anxious heart? How shall there be joy at meeting, without tears at
parting?" ("I did not see that his honor or my lady shed many anon,"
thought Wamba the Fool; but he was only a zany, and his mind was not
right.) "I would not exchange my very sorrows for thine indifference,"
the knight continued. "Where there is a sun, there must be a shadow. If
the shadow offend me, shall I put out my eyes and live in the dark? No!
I am content with my fate, even such as it is. The Care of which thou
speakest, hard though it may vex him, never yet rode down an honest
man. I can bear him on my shoulders, and make my way through the world's
press in spite of him; for my arm is strong, and my sword is keen, and
my shield has no stain on it; and my heart, though it is sad, knows no
guile." And here, taking a locket out of his waistcoat (which was made
of chain-mail), the knight kissed the token, put it back under the
waistcoat again, heaved a profound sigh, and stuck spurs into his horse.

As for Wamba, he was munching a black pudding whilst Sir Wilfrid
was making the above speech, (which implied some secret grief on the
knight's part, that must have been perfectly unintelligible to the
fool,) and so did not listen to a single word of Ivanhoe's pompous
remarks. They travelled on by slow stages through the whole kingdom,
until they came to Dover, w