he said, into the
principles and practice of chivalry, she detailed to him at full length
the Passage of Arms at Haflinghem, where she had distributed the prizes
among the victors.

Not much interested, I am sorry to say, in the description of this
splendid scene, or in the heraldic bearings of the different Flemish and
German knights, which the lady blazoned with pitiless accuracy, Quentin
began to entertain some alarm lest he should have passed the place where
his guide was to join him--a most serious disaster, from which, should
it really have taken place, the very worst consequences were to be
apprehended.

While he hesitated whether it would be better to send back one of his
followers to see whether this might not be the case, he heard the blast
of a horn, and looking in the direction from which the sound came,
beheld a horseman riding very fast towards them. The low size, and wild,
shaggy, untrained state of the animal, reminded Quentin of the mountain
breed of horses in his own country, but this was much more finely
limbed, and, with the same appearance of hardiness, was more rapid in
its movements. The head particularly, which, in the Scottish pony, is
often lumpish and heavy, was small and well placed in the neck of this
animal, with thin jaws, full sparkling eyes, and expanded nostrils.

The rider was even more singular in his appearance than the horse which
he rode, though that was extremely unlike the horses of France. Although
he managed his palfrey with great dexterity, he sat with his feet in
broad stirrups, something resembling shovels, so short in the leathers
that his knees were well nigh as high as the pommel of his saddle. His
dress was a red turban of small size, in which he wore a sullied plume,
secured by a clasp of silver, his tunic, which was shaped like those of
the Estradiots (a sort of troops whom the Venetians at that time levied
in the provinces on the eastern side of their gulf), was green in
colour, and tawdrily laced with gold, he wore very wide drawers or
trowsers of white, though none of the cleanest, which gathered
beneath the knee, and his swarthy legs were quite bare, unless for the
complicated laces which bound a pair of sandals on his feet, he had no
spurs, the edge of his large stirrups being so sharp as to serve to
goad the horse in a very severe manner. In a crimson sash this singular
horseman wore a dagger on the right side, and on the left a short
crooked Moorish sword, an