ooth the way and prepare the welcome.
Yes! even the meanest of the aftercomers--even he who now vents his
gratitude,--is thine everlasting debtor! Thine, how largely is the
honour, if his labours, humble though they be, find an audience wherever
literature is known; preaching in remotest lands the moral of forgotten
revolutions, and scattering in the palace and the marketplace the seeds
that shall ripen into fruit when the hand of the sower shall be dust,
and his very name, perhaps, be lost! For few, alas! are they, whose
names may outlive the grave; but the thoughts of every man who writes,
are made undying;--others appropriate, advance, exalt them; and millions
of minds unknown, undreamt of, are required to produce the immortality
of one!

Indulging meditations very different from those which the idea of
Petrarch awakens in a later time, the Cavalier pursued his path.

The valley was long left behind, and the way grew more and more faintly
traced, until it terminated in a wood, through whose tangled boughs the
sunlight broke playfully. At length, the wood opened into a wide glade,
from which rose a precipitous ascent, crowned with the ruins of an old
castle. The traveller dismounted, led his horse up the ascent, and,
gaining the ruins, left his steed within one of the roofless chambers,
overgrown with the longest grass and a profusion of wild shrubs; thence
ascending, with some toil, a narrow and broken staircase, he found
himself in a small room, less decayed than the rest, of which the roof
and floor were yet whole.

Stretched on the ground in his cloak, and leaning his head thoughtfully
on his hand, was a man of tall stature, and middle age. He lifted
himself on his arm with great alacrity as the Cavalier entered.

"Well, Brettone, I have counted the hours--what tidings?"

"Albornoz consents."

"Glad news! Thou givest me new life. Pardieu, I shall breakfast all the
better for this, my brother. Hast thou remembered that I am famishing?"

Brettone drew from beneath his cloak a sufficiently huge flask of wine,
and a small panier, tolerably well filled; the inmate of the tower threw
himself upon the provant with great devotion. And both the soldiers, for
such they were, stretched at length on the ground, regaled themselves
with considerable zest, talking hastily and familiarly between every
mouthful.

"I say, Brettone, thou playest unfairly; thou hast already devoured more
than half the pasty: push it hitherwa