THE THREE KNIGHTS AND THE LADY ERRANT:

A TALE OF TRUE CHIVALRY.

BY EDWARD HOWARD, AUTHOR OF RATTLIN THE REEFER," JACK ASHORE," &c. &c.

MANY very beautiful things have been said by the best and the worst writers on that most beautiful of all subjects, woman. Some of these aphorisms we would repeat, did we not fear that our intelligent readers would immediately discover the plagiarisms; but the greater number of them we shall avoid, simply because they are not worth the repeating. But of this the gentler sex may be well assured, that whenever an author begins his essay by lauding excessively the ladies in general, some dreadfully disparaging story at their expense is most particularly to be feared.

Of the manifold and intensely good qualities of woman, we can say nothing new; and as to the other side of the question, if there be a dark side to it, we will not trump up old stories in order to open anew old grievances. The sex might have had their faults some very long time ago, but as to the present time- Well, show me an error that may be their peculiar and distinctive attribute, and I will show two excellent reasons for it-a liability from which the ladies have always been exempt, both de jure, and, which is better still, de facto also.

Having premised thus much, it will be understood, without any great effort of the discriminating faculties, that, in the tale of chivalry we are going to relate, nothing disrespectful is meant to the belles of the present day, who are as unlike the beauties of the feudal ages as any husband can wish. Is it possible to say more in their praise ?

In that year of redemption in which there was a great probability of all the southern part of Christendom being reduced to Mahometism and slavery by the victorious arms of the Turks, Hungary suffered excessively. The host of the prophet had swept through the whole land, and had left behind them that emphatic kind of peacethe solitude of the sword's making. In fact, the country was only safe for robbers, knights-errant, and damsels erring. The fields were fruitful in adventures, and nothing else; the villages were burned, the small towns in a state of ruin, and the larger ones in a state of siege.

The day had been sultry; the evening breeze had just begun to temper the oppressive heat, when a knight, armed cap-à-pie, emerged from the shades of a forest of tall cork-trees. No crustaceous animal, from the crab to the crocodile, was better provided with defensive armour than he. Before the man could be got at, he must have been cracked like a hazelnut. He was a fine specimen of six feet two of

humanity plated up in steel. His horse was a powerful animal of the Flemish breed-not swift, but gigantic, large-boned, and sinewy. He certainly would not have excelled among a field of hunters, or have cleared a fence with a ditch on either side; but at a solid, heavy charge, he would have borne down before him almost any obstacle that chivalry could have opposed to him.

The knight was resplendent in bright steel armour, relieved and ornamented by inlaid silver. He extolled himself in the name of Sir Blondelin Blanchefoi. In everything he affected the colour of white. His shield, which, at the moment he appeared from out the forest, hung suspended before his breast, was one surface of polished steel, with a silver sun wrought in its centre; under which was an inscription, in some villanous provincial language, to the effect that he championed unto the death for the purity of the Norman dames. If the noble knight had any faith in his motto, he must have early settled his worldly affairs. As we have before mentioned that the weather was extremely hot, it is not surprising that Sir Blondelin rode leisurely forward with his casque hooked on to his saddle, the long white plume of which almost swept the ground. Being bareheaded, he displayed a round, ruddy, sun-tanned face; a large mouth, with very thick lips; a nose, by no means too prominent, with wide and very open nostrils; a large merry blue eye; a forehead marvellously low-at which we must not be surprised, considering what he had undertaken to fight for; and thick, curly, sandy hair. He was a jovial fellow; and when he smiled, he displayed a row of immensely large, yet beautifully white teeth. He could not have been more than three-and-twenty, and his thick, bull-dog looking neck told of muscular strength but little less than Herculean.

With a hoarse cracked voice-for the man was thirsty-he was shouting out, with all the vigour of his lungs, what he was pleased to call a roundelay in honour of his lady-love. It would have been difficult to have determined, from the expression of his features, whether he was performing a task or doing himself a pleasure; if the latter, he was most assuredly alone in the enjoyment, for a more discordant noise could not well have marred the stillness of that beautiful evening. However, as there was no one to hiss, Sir Blondelin rode and sang on without interruption, but not without company.

At a respectful distance behind him was his squire-a lean, strong man, with a dark hard countenance, and a most villanous hungry aspect. His jaws were tremendous, and his teeth, sharp, huge, and straggling, gave him a wolfish look, that might well startle young people of both sexes, particularly if they were plump. Though infinitely worse armed, he was nearly as well mounted as his master; and so he needed to be, for he carried, in the first place, Sir Blondelin's huge war-lance in his right hand. Immediately before him, on the saddle-bow, was a large skin, containing some four or five gallons of a strong but execrably-tasted wine, so vicious with resin, that no one but a knight-errant or his squire could have smacked their lips after drinking it. An iron pot hung on the one side of him, containing a rude tinder-box, some salt, a piece of soap, a shaving-box, and two very detestable razors; whilst attached to one of the three legs

of the said pot was a serviceable billet for cutting wood, and which, when the occasion offered itself, was found as useful in lopping off the limb of a man as of a tree. To balance all these implements of housekeeping that hung on the left side of the squire, there was a capacious bag of meal on the right, among which were safely stored sundry pieces of fat bacon, neats' tongues, and a few lengths of strongly garlicked German sausage. Behind him was lashed the carcass of a newly-slaughtered sheep. We mention all these particulars to show that knights-errant did not formerly, as is vainly supposed, travel over vast plains and deserts for weeks and months, living with the squires only upon the memory of their loves and the breath of honour. Of course, their chroniclers have been too proud or too busy to notice these mean and sordid things: so that the readers of romances have been led into the error that heroes never ate but at kingly banquets; drank, but out of golden goblets, at the sound of the trumpet; or slept, but under silken canopies, on beds of down, in the arms of beauty, excepting, merely for the sake of variety, now and then upon the flinty rock.

Guiscardo was the name of Sir Blondelin's squire; and he was armed with a good cross-bow that shot iron bolts, and which made very ugly bruises; a straight, sharp, two-edged sword; and a couteau de chasse, that performed the service of a dagger, with a point made expressly for the purpose of being thrust through the bars of a vizor, and thus thrusting out the life of any helpless unhorsed man in iron whom it might be convenient to despatch. Altogether, the knight and his squire made a pair of very formidable homicides.

The knight and squire jogged on leisurely through the open country for about half a mile-the former still labouring at his roundelay, and the latter solacing himself by munching and sucking the end of a German sausage, which he held in his left hand, his right supporting perpendicularly his master's lance. As they proceeded, the knight, who was about a hundred paces in advance, descried, first, a clump of trees; then a white tomb in the midst of them; and lastly, a knight, like himself, completely armed, apparently keeping guard over the monument. At this spectacle, Sir Blondelin Blanchefoi drew up suddenly, and turning his head, shouted to his faithful squire, who had just time to hurry his sausage into the meal unperceived.

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Holla, Sir Varlet lace on my helmet, and give me my lance! It seemeth to me that we shall run a course with that valiant knight, for he is pricking towards us."

"Run me no courses fasting," said Guiscardo, doggedly, as he completely put his master into what might well be called an iron safe, by closing the bars of his helmet and lacing on his shield. Sing on your song, sir master of mine; and should he interrupt us, I'll hit him on the vizor with a bolt that shall make his teeth chatter."

"Thou sayest well, Guiscardo. In truth, though I lack not courage, I have more stomach for the breast of that mouton that thou bearest behind thee, and which we will cook anon, than for a turn d l'outrance. So up goes my song, let the devil and the black knight take it as they list."

But the black knight, just then, seemed inclined to take nothing

amiss; so, having reconnoitered the strangers, he quietly took himself back to his station before the tomb, with his lance couchant and his vizor down. His whole appearance was black as night; there was nothing seen bright about him but the sharp steel-head of his spear, for his charger was as black as himself.

Sir Blondelin's way lying directly past where the black knight seemed thus standing in defiance, it was impossible for the latter not to hear the refrain of the white knight's song; which, if unmusical before, was trebly harsh as it was grated through the bars of his helmet, to this effect :

"Whilst life shall to this frame endure,

I never will my faith resign!
The sex are fair, but still more pure,
O, Bellarosa! Bella mine!

Thou and all thy sex are pure!"

Whilst Sir Blondelin was chanting out, à pleine gorge, this confession of faith-casting, however, sideways, all the time, a sheep's-eye at the terrible-looking black knight, and strenuously trying to appear very unconcerned -the dark warrior spurred forwards, and touching the plume of Sir Blondelin with the tip of his lance, roared out, "Sir Knight, thou liest in thy throat!"

Sir Blondelin immediately reined up, wheeled round, and rode back a sufficient space to run a course at the assaulter. But Guiscardo, who fully expected something of the sort, was prepared for this crisis; and not wishing his dinner delayed, or altogether lost, by such a foolish process and one so unsatisfactory as fighting, shot his bolt from his cross-bow, with an aim so good and a force so great, that he broke down two of the bars of the pugnacious knight's vizor, and gave him a very bloody mouth, which caused him to spit, hiss, and cough through his helmet in a very unknightly manner.

But Guiscardo, with the rueful countenance, was not to have the

battle all his own way. Another unexpected combatant came upon the arena. As the black knight was, if we may use the expression, upon permanent duty, he had not trusted wholly to that Providence which cares for things so innocent as sparrows. He had, also, his squire with him and his provender; and they had built themselves a little hut near the tomb, in which both master and servant were wont to retire during the night, and several times in the day also, in order to partake of needful refection. At the beginning of this affray, Rubert, the black knight's squire, was very commendably employed in preparing his own and his master's supper, by roasting about half a stone of swine's flesh before the fire, using his long narrow sword for a spit. Not being able readily to disengage the flesh from the sword, he sallied forth with the meat upon his weapon in one hand, and his shepherd's sling in the other. Seeing it was an assault of long shot, and whilst his mouth was watering at the relishing sight and savoury odour of the half-roasted pork, Guiscardo received a rounded pebble full on the side of his jaws that made them rattle like dice in a box. Thus, so far, the combat might be said to be even.

When the black knight had sufficiently cleared his mouth from

blood to enable him to speak distinctly, he began to curse and swear in a most unchivalrous manner at the white knight; who, forgetting the dignity of his golden spurs, was laughing now, as heartily as he was singing a little while before, at the grimaces of both the black knight and his own trusty squire.

"Sir knight-Sir buffoon!" stuttered and spluttered forth the black knight, “this ribaldry is very unseemly; and thou art dishonoured in permitting in thy presence a belted knight to be smitten by the hand of a villain: wherefore I challenge thee to mortal combat."

"Who art thou, thou dark man with the bloody mouth ?" answered Sir Blondelin, assuming as much dignity as his broad face could express. "Sir Blondelin Blanchefoi wars not with unknown wanderers, and sings unquestioned his own roundelay."

This, certainly, was the countercheck quarrelsome, and was met more than half-way but whilst this little affair is ripening so satisfactorily, we must say a few words on the proceedings of the subordinates. Guiscardo, when his sense of pain from the rude blow of the stone had a little abated, drew out his cross-bow and prepared himself for retaliation. But Rubert was on his guard. Twang went the string of the bow, and aside sprang Rubert. The bolts began to grow scarce; and as Guiscardo was mounted, and Rubert on foot, the former determined to trust no more to his missiles, but charge at once. Rubert, perceiving the wicked intention, retreated in good order, and gained the inside of the door of the hut at the moment when Guiscardo was barred all entry by the size of himself and horse taken together. Rubert, filling up the door-way with his sword pointed, with the pork still spitted upon it, they mutually sounded a parley. The roast pork was the most potent pacificator.

Guiscardo stood in much need of revenge, but more of luncheon; for dining to-day, seeing the bellicose state of the two principals, seemed very problematical: and as the hurt he had received was nothing very serious, by some secret understanding, in which there was but little waste of words, the two squires were amicably seated over the fire, each doing his best to complete the cooking of the pork, and tempering the heat by huge glasses of strong ale that Rubert very hospitably displayed.

We well know, that had our veracious romance been written in the usual style, not a word of all this would have transpired. The whole of this transaction would have been cavalierly dismissed in some such manner as this:-"The two trusty squires of the right valorous knights retired within the hut, in order to settle some important point on the law of the tournament,” &c. &c.

Return we to our knights, who were too much heated with their own dispute to notice the termination of that of their squires. When Sir Blondelin had asked the name of the stranger, and had so courageously asserted his own right to sing his own song, he was thus fiercely replied to:

"Sir Blondelin Blanchefoi, know that to me thou art not wholly unknown. I have heard of thy deeds of arms; albeit it has not yet been my fate to witness them. Also, know thou that I am called Sir Lugubricius Lollodine, or the Black Knight of Disappointment. I