THE

Crusade of S. Louis.

CHAPTER I.

T was S. Barnabas' eve, and the coming festival gave fair promise of meriting its ancient epithet, and of being indeed Barnaby the Bright. The sun, now almost on the horizon, left a track of glory on the broad Seine; the sky was without a speck; there was scarcely a breath to move the aspen or the lime; the kine were in the stall, the sheep in the fold; and the weary peasant was crossing the dewy sward, or winding through the overgrown lane that led to his cottage. The business of the day was over; the forge was silent, the spinning-wheel still; nature itself, like the good man preparing for his end, was full of repose; it was the time that brings to the mind of the traveller thoughts of the season when the cares and turmoil of life shall equally draw to their conclusion, and that night approach from whence there is no awakening until resurrection-day.

And yet it was hardly on thoughts like these that the minds of those travellers dwelt, with whom the course of our tale will render us for a while fellow-pilgrims. On the eastern bank of the Seine, at the time of which we write,

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that is the year of grace 1248, a bridle-road ran southward to Rouen, sometimes so broken up as to be almost impassable, sometimes lost in the morass, or overgrown by the underwood, but nevertheless carried on, and following the windings of the river, almost to the gates of Paris itself. Along this road, and apparently bound for Paris, a knight and some few retainers were advancing as fast as the roughness of the ground and the manifest weariness of their horses would allow them to proceed.

"So ho, Saladin !" exclaimed the knight, as the noble animal on which he was mounted stumbled for the third or fourth time; "you think the way long, good beast, and, by my faith, I am of the same opinion too. If we have not journeyed more than two leagues since that peasant called it but one to Mantes, may I never see passage-of-arms again! How say you, sir squire ?"

"In faith, my good lord," returned the squire, "it will matter little to us this night whether it be two leagues or twenty that we have to go-for there sets the sun, and a glorious end he is making; and after sunset, neither for love nor for money will the burghers of Mantes open their gates to gentle or simple."

"We must rest somewhere to-night, and that well," returned the other, 66 or S. Denys shall we never reach to-morrow. Methinks I see a spire right before us, and on the same side of the river: and with our Lady's grace, and for the love of the Sepulchre, perchance some good yeoman there will give us a barn and a litter of straw; more we shall not need."

"This place, an it please your lordship," said one of the men-at-arms, "is called Limay; and hard by the church, if my memory serves me, there is a castle belonging to a right worthy knight, who, I doubt not, would joyfully take in any benighted man, more especially such as bear arms for the Cross."

"What is his name, sirrah?" demanded the knight.

"He is called the Sieur de Joinville," returned the man. "I have heard of him," replied the other, "and have

ever known him named with the best. Ride on, sirrah, and do him to wit that Sir Everard de Blechingley, now on his way to good King Louis at Saint Denys, and bound by vow to Holy Land, prays him for one night's lodging for himself and his meinie."

"I will do so, my lord," answered the soldier, whose name was Raoul Beauvoisin; and he rode on.

"Now, Sir Everard de Blechingley," said the squire, “I would fain ask how you are minded to do; whether to hold on with the French court, who, as I constantly hear, purpose to take the sea at Aigues Mortes, or but to pay your duty to the king and then hurry onwards, as best we may, and embark, which is ever the readiest port, at Marseilles ?"

"In truth, good squire," answered Sir Everard, "I leave that, and a many other things, to the future to settle. But, if I hold in the same mind as now, the quickest journey is ever the best."

"In good sooth," said Ralph de Vaux, the esquire, "these have been idle days. Not a chance for stirring spirits in England, nor in France neither, till it pleased our Lady that this enterprise should be set a-foot. But now, no fear of such dull times, thanked be God and King Louis therefor!"

He was interrupted by the return of Beauvoisin, with a grave yet somewhat portly personage, evidently the seneschal of the castle, who, mounted on an ambling palfrey, rode forward with great dignity.

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"Sir Everard de Blechingley," he said, " my lord, the Sieur de Joinville, seneschal of Champagne and lord of Limay, greets you well; and he prays that you will agrace by resting both yourself and yours in his castle to-night; and if you are so minded, on the morrow he will bear you company to Saint Denys, being himself bound thither, and that on the same errand as yourself."

"I am much bounden to him," answered De Blechingley; "herein has he proved that fame, whom men call a grievous liar, hath not been false in her report of the Sieur

de Joinville. But I will pray you, good sir seneschal, to lead on; for both men and horses are well nigh spent with their journey."

"Marry, my lord, and with right good will," returned the seneschal, reining round his palfrey. "You shall find great preparations toward," he continued ; for my lord and others set forth to-morrow, and are bound, as I said, for the Holy Land."

"That is good hearing for me," replied the English knight; "it is ever better to travel in company than alone. But who, I pray you, be they that are to set on to-morrow with your lord?"

"There is Monseigneur of Anjou," replied the seneschal; "there is the Count de la Marche; there is the Count de Vendome, and Sir Amaury de Chatelherault, he that men say is to marry my lord's daughter."

"I knew not that the Sieur de Joinville had a daughter," returned Sir Everard.

"Two; and they are as fair as ever were born," continued the garrulous old man; "and I say so that ought to know, for forty-and-four years I have held office in this castle, and that is twice as long—ay, and not a few months to boot-as the oldest of them, the Lady Marguerite, hath known it or the world itself."

"A fair church, by my honour!" said Sir Everard, as the little party rode by it; "and, as I think, not long set up."

“True, sir knight," answered the seneschal; "it was edified at the cost of good Queen Blanche. But now I will pray you all to have a care," he added, as he turned to the left and led on through a somewhat steep lane, that, from the over-arching boughs, must have been gloomy in the brightest noon, and in that twilight obscurity was perplexing and dangerous. Arrived at the summit of a low hill, the castle stood out nobly against the grey sky, and from basementmoulding to parapet was one blaze of light. Conspicuous above the brilliance of the other windows, the oriel of the great hall shone forth resplendently; and the shadows, that