ment Godolphin's steed still shrunk back from the
rushing tide: deep darkness was over the water; and the horseman saw not
the height of the opposite banks. The shout of the gipsy sounded to his
ear like the cry of the dead whom he had left: he dashed his heels into
the sides of the reluctant horse, and was in the stream.

"Light--light the torches!" cried the gipsy; and in a few moments the
banks were illumined with many a brand from the fire, which the rain
however almost instantly extinguished; yet, by that momentary light,
they saw the noble animal breasting the waters, and perceived that
Godolphin, discovering by the depth his mistake, had already turned the
horse's head in the direction of the ford: they could see no more, but
they shouted to Godolphin to turn back to the place from which he had
plunged; and, in a few minutes afterwards, they heard, several yards
above, the horse clambering up the rugged banks, which there were steep
and high, and crushing the boughs that clothed the ascent. They thought,
at the same time, that they distinguished also the splash of a heavy
substance in the waves; but they fancied it some detached fragment of
earth or stone, and turned to their tent, in the belief that the daring
rider had escaped the peril he had so madly incurred. That night the
riderless steed of Godolphin arrived at the porch of the Priory, where
Constance, alarmed, pale, breathless, stood exposed to the storm,
awaiting the return of Godolphin, or the messengers she had despatched
in search of him.

At daybreak his corpse was found by the shallows of the ford; and the
mark of violence across the temples, as of some blow, led them to guess
that in scaling the banks his head had struck against one of the tossing
boughs that overhung them, and the blow had precipitated him into the
waters.

LETTER FROM CONSTANCE, COUNTESS OF ERPINGHAM, TO * * *.

August, 1832.

"I have read the work you have so kindly compiled from the papers
transmitted to your care, and from your own intimate knowledge of those
to whom they relate;--you have in much fulfilled my wishes with singular
success. On the one hand, I have been anxious that a History should be
given to the world, from which lessons so deep and, I firmly believe,
salutary, may be generally derived: on the other hand, I have been
anxious that it should be clothed in such disguises, that the names of
the real