lf upon
the walls with her little son, (who bellowed like a bull, and did
not like the fighting at all,) pointing the guns and encouraging the
garrison in every way--better feelings returned to the bosom of the
Knight of Ivanhoe, and summoning his men, he armed himself quickly and
determined to go forth to the rescue.

He rode without stopping for two days and two nights in the direction of
Rotherwood, with such swiftness and disregard for refreshment, indeed,
that his men dropped one by one upon the road, and he arrived alone at
the lodge-gate of the park. The windows were smashed; the door stove
in; the lodge, a neat little Swiss cottage, with a garden where the
pinafores of Mrs. Gurth's children might have been seen hanging on the
gooseberry-bushes in more peaceful times, was now a ghastly heap
of smoking ruins: cottage, bushes, pinafores, children lay mangled
together, destroyed by the licentious soldiery of an infuriate monarch!
Far be it from me to excuse the disobedience of Athelstane and Rowena to
their sovereign; but surely, surely this cruelty might have been spared.

Gurth, who was lodge-keeper, was lying dreadfully wounded and expiring
at the flaming and violated threshold of his lately picturesque home. A
catapult and a couple of mangonels had done his business. The faithful
fellow, recognizing his master, who had put up his visor and forgotten
his wig and spectacles in the agitation of the moment, exclaimed, "Sir
Wilfrid! my dear master--praised be St. Waltheof--there may be yet
time--my beloved mistr--master Athelst . . ." He sank back, and never
spoke again.

Ivanhoe spurred on his horse Bavieca madly up the chestnut avenue. The
castle was before him; the western tower was in flames; the besiegers
were pressing at the southern gate; Athelstane's banner, the bull
rampant, was still on the northern bartizan. "An Ivanhoe, an Ivanhoe!"
he bellowed out, with a shout that overcame all the din of battle:
"Nostre Dame a la rescousse!" And to hurl his lance through the midriff
of Reginald de Bracy, who was commanding the assault--who fell howling
with anguish--to wave his battle-axe over his own head, and cut off
those of thirteen men-at-arms, was the work of an instant. "An Ivanhoe,
an Ivanhoe!" he still shouted, and down went a man as sure as he said
"hoe!"

"Ivanhoe! Ivanhoe!" a shrill voice cried from the top of the northern
bartizan. Ivanhoe knew it.

"Rowena my love, I come!" he roared on his part. "V