aid a few words on
resignation to the will of God, and in his humble prayer supplicated God
to remember the chevalier and his family, and to bless him in the house
whither he had been brought in his mercy. "Amen! Amen!" repeated all the
servants.

CHAPTER III.

THEOBALD'S ACCOUNT OF HIS CONFLICT WITH ARNOLD THE LION--HATRED OP
ENEMIES--DISTRESS OF THE FAMILY.

"You are pious people," said the chevalier to Gottfried, in the
afternoon of the same day, and while Erard was present. "Religion is a
good thing."

"One who loves Jesus is always happy," said the child.

"Let them love Jesus!" replied the warrior. "But this is what I heard
last evening, when I was about to fight the Lion."

"I pray you," said Gottfried, do not talk any more now; it will increase
your sufferings."

"I do not suffer," replied the chevalier, "This leg is very painful, it
is true; but it is only a leg," added he, smiling. "Ought I to make
myself uneasy about it?"

"You fought with a lion, then, last evening?" asked Erard, with
curiosity, "Was he very large and strong?"

Gottfried would have sent Erard away, for he feared for him the story of
the chevalier; but the latter asked that he might be allowed to remain.
"Erard must become a man," added he. "My children know what a battle is.
Let Erard then not be afraid at what I am about to say.

"My name is Theobald," continued the chevalier, "and from my earliest
youth I was surnamed _the iron-hearted_, because I never cried at pain,
and never knew what it was to be afraid. My father, one of the powerful
noblemen of Bohemia, accustomed me, from my earliest years, to despise
cold, hunger, thirst and fatigue; and I was scarcely Erard's age when I
seized by the throat and strangled a furious dog that was springing upon
one of my sisters.

"War has always been my life. This has now lasted nearly four years, and
my sword has not been idle. The Hussites and the Calixtans[2] have felt
it."

At these words Erard, who was sitting beside the bed of the chevalier,
rose and went to a window, at the farther end of the room.

"I had spent some weeks with my family, when I learned that the enemy
was approaching, and that one of their principal chiefs had just joined
them. This chief was the Lion."

_Erard, rising_. Grandpapa, perhaps it was----.

"Be silent, my son," said Gottfried.

"Our camps had been in sight of each other two days," continued
Theobald, "when we decided at last to attack