too good a master for such a set of ungrateful
slaves--when they armed against him, and broke into his peaceful house,
what could there be in their intention but murder?--when they banded
themselves with the Wild Boar of Ardennes, the greatest homicide in
the marches of Flanders, what else could there be in their purpose but
murder, which is the very trade he lives by? And again, was it not one
of their own vile rabble who did the very deed, by thine own account?
I hope to see their canals running blood by the flight of their
burning houses. Oh, the kind, noble, generous lord, whom they have
slaughtered!--Other vassals have rebelled under the pressure of imposts
and penury but the men of Liege in the fullness of insolence and
plenty."

He again abandoned the reins of his war horse, and wrung bitterly the
hands, which his mail gloves rendered untractable. Quentin easily
saw that the grief which he manifested was augmented by the bitter
recollection of past intercourse and friendship with the sufferer, and
was silent accordingly, respecting feelings which he was unwilling to
aggravate, and at the same time felt it impossible to soothe. But the
Count of Crevecoeur returned again and again to the subject--questioned
him on every particular of the surprise of Schonwaldt, and the death of
the Bishop, and then suddenly, as if he had recollected something which
had escaped his memory, demanded what had become of the Lady Hameline,
and why she was not with her kinswoman?

"Not," he added contemptuously, "that I consider her absence as at all a
loss to the Countess Isabelle, for, although she was her kinswoman,
and upon the whole a well meaning woman, yet the Court of Cocagne never
produced such a fantastic fool, and I hold it for certain that her
niece, whom I have always observed to be a modest and orderly young
lady, was led into the absurd frolic of flying from Burgundy to France,
by that blundering, romantic old match making and match seeking idiot!"

[Court of Cocagne: a fabled land intended to ridicule the stories of
Avalon, the apple green island, the home of King Arthur. "Its houses
were built of good things to eat: roast geese went slowly down the
street, turning themselves, and inviting the passersby to eat them;
buttered larks fell in profusion; the shingles of the houses were of
cake." Cent. Dict. Cocagne has also been called Lubberland.]

What a speech for a romantic lover to hear! and to hear, too, when it
wou