broad, level, and fructifying rivers, where
glided the white sail in the service of commerce, uninterrupted by rock
and torrent, beside lively quiet villages, whose external decency and
cleanliness expressed the ease and comfort of the inhabitants,--she
gleamed upon the feudal castle of many a Baron and Knight, with its deep
moat, battlemented court, and high belfry--for the chivalry of Hainault
was renowned among the nobles of Europe--and her light displayed at a
distance, in its broad beam, the gigantic towers of more than one lofty
minster.

Yet all this fair variety, however, differing from the waste and
wilderness of his own land, interrupted not the course of Quentin's
regrets and sorrows. He had left his heart behind him when he departed
from Charleroi, and the only reflection which the farther journey
inspired was that every step was carrying him farther from Isabelle. His
imagination was taxed to recall every word she had spoken, every look
she had directed towards him, and, as happens frequently in such cases,
the impression made upon his imagination by the recollection of these
particulars, was even stronger than the realities themselves had
excited.

At length, after the cold hour of midnight was past, in spite alike of
love and of sorrow, the extreme fatigue which Quentin had undergone the
two preceding days began to have an effect on him, which his habits
of exercise of every kind, and his singular alertness and activity
of character, as well as the painful nature of the reflections which
occupied his thoughts, had hitherto prevented his experiencing. The
ideas of his mind began to be so little corrected by the exertions of
his senses, worn out and deadened as the latter now were by extremity of
fatigue, that the visions which the former drew superseded or perverted
the information conveyed by the blunted organs of seeing and hearing,
and Durward was only sensible that he was awake, by the exertions which,
sensible of the peril of his situation, he occasionally made to
resist falling into a deep and dead sleep. Every now and then, strong
consciousness of the risk of falling from or with his horse roused him
to exertion and animation, but ere long his eyes again were dimmed by
confused shades of all sorts of mingled colours, the moonlight landscape
swam before them, and he was so much overcome with fatigue, that the
Count of Crevecoeur, observing his condition, was at length compelled
to order two of his