“’Tis merry, ’tis merry, in good green-wood, When the navis and merle are singing, When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry, And the hunter’s horn is ringing.”—Lady of the Lake.
As beautiful a summer’s morning as ever chased the stars from heaven, was dawning over that wide tract of waste and woodland, which still, though many a century has now mossed over the ancestral oaks which then were in their lusty prime, retains the name by which it was at that day styled appropriately—the “New Forest.” Few years had then elapsed since the first Norman lord of England had quenched the fires that burned in thirty hamlets; had desecrated God’s own altars, making the roofless aisles of many a parish church the haunt of the grim wolf or antlered red-deer; turning fair fields and cultured vales to barren and desolate wastes—to gratify his furious passion for that sport which has so justly been entitled the mimicry of warfare. Few years had then elapsed, yet not a symptom of their old fertility could now be traced in the wild plains waving with fern, and overrun with copsewood, broom, and brambles; unless it might be found in the profuse luxuriance with which this thriftless crop had overspread the champaign once smiling like a goodly garden with every meet production for the sustenance of man.
46 It was, as has been said, as beautiful a summer’s morning as ever eye of man beheld. The sun, which had just raised the verge of his great orb above the low horizon, was checkering the mossy greensward with long, fantastic lines of light and shadow, and tinging the gnarled limbs of the huge oaks with ruddy gold; the dew, which lay abundantly on every blade of grass and every bending wild-flower, had not yet felt his power, nor raised a single mist-wreath to veil the brightness of the firmament; nor was the landscape, that lay there steeped in the lustre of the glowing skies, less lovely than the dawn that waked above it: long sylvan avenues sweeping for miles through every variation of the wildest forest-scenery—here traversing in easy curves wide undulations clothed with the purple heather; here sinking downward to the brink of sheets of limpid water; now running straight through lines of mighty trees, and now completely overbowered as they dived through brakes and dingles, where the birch and holly grew so thickly mingled with the prickly furze and creeping eglantine as to make twilight of the hottest noontide. Such were the leading features of the country which had most deeply felt, and has borne down to later days most evident memorials of, the Norman’s tyranny.
Deeply embosomed in these delicious solitudes—surrounded by its flanking walls, and moat brimmed from a neighboring streamlet, with barbican and ballium, and all the elaborate defences that marked the architecture of the conquering race—stood Malwood keep, the favorite residence of Rufus, no less than it had been of his more famous sire. Here, early as was the hour, all was already full of life, full of the joyous and inspiriting confusion that still characterizes, though in a less degree than in those days of feudal pomp, the preparations for the chase. Tall yeomen hurried to and fro—some leading powerful and blooded chargers, which reared, and pawed the earth, and neighed till every turret echoed to the din; some47 struggling to restrain the mighty bloodhounds which bayed and strove indignantly against the leash; while others, lying in scattered groups upon the esplanade of level turf, furbished their cloth-yard shafts, or strung the six-foot bows, which, for the first time, had drawn blood in England upon the fatal field of Hastings.
It might be seen, upon the instant, it was no private retinue that mustered to the “mystery of forests,” as in the quaint phrase of the day the noble sport was designated. A hundred horses, at the least, of the most costly and admired breeds, were there paraded: the huge, coal-black destrier of Flanders, limbed like an elephant, but with a coat that might have shamed the richest velvet by its sleekness; the light and graceful Andalusian, with here and there a Spaniard, springy, and fleet, and fearless—while dogs, in numbers infinitely greater, and of races yet more various, made up the moving picture: bloodhounds to track the wounded quarry by their unerring scent; slowhounds to force him from his lair; gazehounds and lymmers to outstrip him on the level plain; mastiffs to bay the boar, “crook-kneed and dew-lapped like Thessalian bulls;” with terriers to unkennel beasts of earth, and spaniels to rouse the fowls of air. Nor were these all, for birds themselves were there, trained to make war on their own race: the long-winged hawks of Norway, with lanners from the isle of Man; merlins, and jerfalcons, and gosshawks. No tongue could tell the beauty of the creatures thus assembled: some scarcely half-reclaimed, and showing their wild nature at every glance of their quick, flashing eyes; some docile and affectionate, and in all things dependent upon man, to whom, despite caprice, and cruelty, and coldness, they are more faithful in his need than he, proud though he be, dare boast himself toward his fellow. No fancy could imagine the superb and lavish gorgeousness of their equipment.
48 A long, keen bugle-blast rang from the keep, and in an instant a hundred bows were strung, a hundred ready feet were in the stirrup. Again if rang, longer and keener than before, and every forester was in his saddle; while from the low-browed arch, bending their stately heads quite to their saddle-bows, over the echoing drawbridge a dozen knights rode forth, the followers and comrades of their king.
Scarcely above the middle size, but moulded in most exquisite proportion, thin-flanked, deep-chested, muscular, and lithe, and agile, there was not one of all his train, noble, or squire, or yeoman, who could display a form so fitted for the union of activity with strength, of beauty with endurance, as could the second William. His hair, from which he had derived his famous soubriquet, was not of that marked and uncomely hue which we should now term red, but rather of a bright and yellowish brown, curled closely to a classical and bust-like head; his eye was quick and piercing; his features, severally, were well formed and handsome; yet had the eye a wavering, and restless, and at times even downcast expression; and the whole aspect of the face told many a tale of pride, and jealousy, and passion—suspicion that might be roused to cruelty, and wilfulness that surely would be lashed by any opposition to violent and reckless fury. But now the furrows on the brow were all relaxed, the harsh lines of the mouth smoothed into temporary blandness. “Forward, messires!” he cried, in Norman-French; “the morning finds us sluggards. What, ho! Sir Walter Tyrrel, shall we two company to-day, and gage our luck against these gay gallants?”
“Right jovially, my liege,” returned the knight whom he addressed. A tall, dark-featured soldier rode beside his bridle-rein, bearing a bow which not an archer in the train could bend. “Right jovially will we—an’ they dare cope with us! What sayest thou, De Beauchamp—darest thou wager thy black boar-hound against a cast of merlins—thyself and Vermandois49 against his grace and me?”
“Nay, thou shouldst gage him odds, my Walter,” Rufus interposed; “thy shaft flies ever truest, nor yield I to any bow save thine!”
“To his, my liege?” cried Beauchamp, “thou yield to his! Never drew Walter Tyrrel so true a string as thou; he lacks the sleight, I trow, so ekes it out with strength! Tyrrel must hold him pleased if he rate second i’ the field.”
“How now, Sir Walter?” shouted the king; “hearest thou this bold De Beauchamp, and wilt thou yield the bucklers?—not thou, I warrant me, though it be to thy king!”
“So please your highness,” Tyrrel answered; “’tis but a sleight to ’scape our wager—’scaping the shame beside of yielding! He deems us over-strong for him, and so would part us!”
“Nay, by my halydom,” Rufus replied with a gay smile, “but we will have it so. We two will ride in company, each shooting his own shaft for his own hand. I dare uphold my arrow for twenty marks of gold, and my white Alan, against thy Barbary bay. Darest thou, Sir Walter?”
“I know not that—I dare not!” answered Tyrrel; “but your grace wagers high, nor will I lightly lose Bay Barbary: if so our wager stand, I shoot no roving shaft.”
“Shoot as thou wilt, so stands it!”
“Amen!” cried Tyrrel, “and I doubt not to hear your grace confess Tyrrel hath struck the lordlier quarry.”
“Away, then, all! away!” and, setting spurs to his curveting horse, the monarch led the way at a hard gallop, followed by all his train—a long and bright procession, their gay plumes and many-colored garments offering a lively contrast to the deep, leafy verdure of July, and their clear weapons glancing lifelike to the sunshine.
50 They had careered along, with merriment and music, perhaps three miles into the forest, when the deep baying of a hound was heard, at some short distance to the right, from a thick verge of coppice. Instantly the king curbed in his fiery horse, and raised his hand on high, waving a silent halt. “Ha! have we outlaws here?” he whispered close in the ear of Tyrrel. “’Fore God, but they shall rue it!”
Scarcely had he spoken, when a buck burst from a thicket, and, ere it made three bounds, leaped high into the air and fell, its heart pierced through and through by the unerring shaft of an outlying ranger, who the next instant stepped out of his covert, and, catching sight of the gay cavalcade confronting him—the sounds of whose approach he must have overlooked entirely in the excitement of his sport—turned hastily as if to fly. But it was all too late: a dozen of the king’s retainers had dashed their rowels into their horses’ flanks the instant he appeared, and scarcely had he discovered their advance before he was their prisoner.
“A Saxon, by my soul,” cried Rufus, with a savage scowl, “taken red-hand, and in the fact! Out with thy wood-knife, Damian! By the most holy Virgin, we will first mar his archery, and then present him with such a taste of venison as shall, I warrant me, appease his hankering for one while. Off with his thumb and finger! off with them speedily, I say, an’ thou wouldst ’scape his doom! Ha! grinnest thou, villain?” he continued, as a contortion writhed the bold visage of his victim, who, certain of his fate, and hopeless of resistance or of rescue, yielded with stubborn resolution to his torturers—“an’ this doth make thee smile, thou shalt laugh outright shortly! Hence with him, now, Damian and Hugonet; and thou, Raoul, away with thee—set toils enow, uncouple half a score of brachs and slowhounds, and see thou take me a right stag of ten ere vespers!—Barebacked shalt thou ride on him to the forest, thou unhanged Saxon thief, and see how his horned51 kinsmen will entreat thee! See that the dog escape ye not, or ye shall swing for it. Bind him, and drag him hence to the old church of Lyme; hold him there, on your lives, till sunset! And ye—lead thither his wild charger: we will sup there upon the greensward, as we return to Malwood, and thou shalt make us merry with thy untutored horsemanship. Now for our wager, Walter! Forward—hurrah!” and on again they dashed, until they reached the choicest hunting-ground of all that spacious woodland—the desolate and desert spot where once had stood the fairest village of the land.
Unroofed and doorless, in different stages of decay, a score or two of cottages, once hospitable, happy homes of a free peasantry, stood here and there amid the brushwood which had encroached upon the precincts; while in the midst the desecrated church of Lyme reared its gray tower, now overgrown with ivy, and crumbling in silent ruin. Upon the cross which crowned the lowly tower, there sat, as they approached, a solitary raven—nor, though the whoop and horn rang close below his perch, did he show any sign of wildness or of fear; but, rising slowly on his wing, flapped round and round in two or three slow circles, and then with a hoarse croak resumed his station. The raven was a favorite bird with the old hunters; and when the deer was slain he had his portion, thence named “the raven’s bone.” Indeed, so usual was the practice, that this bird, the wildest by its nature of all the things that fly, would rarely shun a company which its sagacity descried to be pursuers of the sylvan game.
“What! sittest thou there, old black-frock, in our presence?” shouted the king, bending his bow; “but we will teach thee manners!” Still, the bird moved not, but again sent forth his ominous and sullen croak above the jocund throng. The bow was raised—the cord was drawn back to the monarch’s ear: it twanged, and the next moment the hermit-bird came fluttering52 down, transfixed by the long shaft, with painful and discordant cries, and fell close at the feet of Rufus’s charger.
There was a murmur in the crowd; and one, a page who waited on the king, whispered with a pale face and agitated voice into his fellow’s ear: “I have heard say—
‘Whose shaft ’gainst raven’s life is set, Shaft’s feather his heart-blood shall wet!’”
The red king caught the whisper, and turning with an inflamed countenance and flashing eye on the unwitting wakener of his wrath—“Dastard and fool!” he shouted; and, clinching his gloved hand, he dealt the boy so fierce a blow upon the chest, that he fell to the earth like a lifeless body, plunging so heavily upon the sod head-foremost, that the blood gushed from nose, ears, mouth, and he lay senseless and inanimate as the surrounding clay. With a low, sneering laugh, the tyrant once more spurred his charger forward, amid the smothered execrations of his Norman followers, boiling with indignation for that one of their noble and victorious race should have endured the foul wrong of a blow, though it were dealt him by a monarch’s hand. And there were scowling brows, and teeth set hard, among the very noblest of his train; and, as the glittering band swept on, the father of the injured boy—a dark-browed, aged veteran, who had couched lance at Hastings to win the throne of earth’s most lovely island for that base tyrant’s sire—reined in his horse, and, leaping to the earth, upraised the body from the gory turf, and wiped away the crimson stream from the pale features, and dashed pure water, brought from a neighboring brooklet in a comrade’s bacinet, upon the fair young brow—but it was all in vain! The dying child rolled upward his faint eyes; they rested on the anxious lineaments of that war-beaten sire, who, stern and fiery to all else, had ever to that motherless boy been soft and tender as a woman. “Father,” he gasped, while a brief, painful smile illuminated with a transient gleam53 his ashy lips—“mercy, kind mother Mary! Father—father”—the words died in the utterance; the dim eyes wavered—closed; the head fell back upon the stalwart arm that had supported it, and, with one long and quivering convulsion, the innocent soul departed!
Some three or four—inferior barons of the train, yet each a gentleman of lineage and prowess in the field, each one in his own estimate a prince’s peer—had paused around the desolate father and his murdered child; and now, as the old man gazed hopelessly upon the features of his first-born and his only, the sympathy which had moistened their hard eyes and relaxed their iron features was swallowed up in a fierce glare of indignation, irradiating their scarred and war-seamed visages with that sublime expression, from which, when glowing on the face of a resolute and fearless man, the wildest savage of the forest will shrink in mute dismay. The father, after a long and fearful struggle with his more tender feelings—wringing his hard hands till the blood-drops started redly from beneath every nail—lifted his face, more pale and ashy in its hues than that of the inanimate form which he had loved so tenderly; and as he lifted it he caught the fierce glow mantling on the front of each well-tried companion, and his own features lightened with the self-same blaze: his hand sank downward to the hilt of the long poniard at his girdle, and the fingers worked with a convulsive tremor as they griped the well-known pommel, and an exulting smile curled his mustached lip, prophetic of revenge. Once more he bowed above the dead; he laid his broad hand on the pulseless heart, and printed a long kiss on the forehead; then lifting, with as much tenderness as though they still had sense and feeling, the relics of the only thing he loved on earth, he bore them from the roadside into the shelter of a tangled coppice; unbuckled his long military mantle, and spreading it above them, secured it at each corner by heavy stones, a temporary54 shelter from insult or intrusion. This done, in total silence he rejoined his friends, who had foreborne to offer aid where they perceived it would be held superfluous. Without one word, he grasped the bridle of his charger, tightened his girths, and then, setting no foot to stirrup, vaulted almost without an effort into the steel-bound demipique. Raising his arm aloft, he pointed into the long aisles of the forest, wherein the followers of Rufus had long since disappeared.
“Our thoughts are one!” he hissed, in accents scarcely articulate, between his grinded teeth; “what need of words? Are not we soldiers, gentlemen, and Normans, and shall not deeds speak for us?”
Truly he said, their thoughts were one!—for each had severally steeled his heart as by a common impulse: and now, without a word, or sign, or any interchange of sentiments, feeling that each understood the other, they wheeled their horses on the tyrant’s track, and at a hard trot rode away, resolved on instant vengeance.
Meanwhile, the hunters had arrived at their appointed ground. The slowhounds were uncoupled and cast loose; varlets with hunting-poles, and mounted grooms, pressed through the underwood; while, in each open glade and riding of the forest, yeomen were stationed with relays of tall and stately gazehounds, to slip upon the hart the instant he should break from the thick covert. The knights and nobles galloped off, each with his long-bow strung, and cloth-yard arrow notched and ready, to posts assigned to them—some singly, some in pairs; all was replete with animation and with fiery joy.
According to the monarch’s pleasure, Tyrrel rode at his bridle-hand, for that day’s space admitted as his comrade and his rival. Two splendid bloodhounds, coal-black, but tawny on the muzzle and the breast, so accurately trained that they required no leash to check their ardor, ran at the red king’s heel;55 but neither page nor squire, such was his special mandate, accompanied their master. And now the loud shouts of the foresters and the deep baying of the pack gave note that the chase was on foot; and by the varied cadences and different points whence pealed the soul-exciting clamors, Rufus, a skilful and sagacious sportsman, immediately perceived that two if not three of the noble animals they hunted must have been roused at once. For a few seconds he stood upright in his stirrups, his hand raised to his ear, lest the slight summer breeze should interrupt the welcome sounds.
“This way,” he said, in low and guarded tones, “this way they bend; and with the choicest buck—hark to old Hubert’s holloa! and there, there, Tyrrel, list to that burst—list to that long, sharp yell! Beshrew my soul, if that be not stanch Palamon—that hound is worth ten thousand. Ha! they are now at fault. Again! brave Palamon again! and now they turn; hark how the echoes roar! Ay, they are crossing now the Deer-leap dingle; and now, now, as their notes ring out distinct and tuneful, they gain the open moorland. Spur, Tyrrel, for your life! spur, spur! we see him not again till we reach Bolderwood”—and, with the word, he raised his bugle to his lips, and wound it lustily and well till every oak replied to the long flourish.
Away they flew, driving their foaming chargers, now through the tangled underwood with tightened reins, now with free heads careering along the level glades, now sweeping over the wide brooks that intersect the forest as though their steeds were winged, and now, at distant intervals, pausing to catch the fitful music of the pack. After a furious chase of at least two hours, the sounds still swelling on their right, nearer and nearer as they rode the farther, the avenue through which they had been galloping for many minutes was intersected at right angles by one yet wider though neglected, and, as it would seem, disused,56 for many marshy pools might be seen glittering to the sun, which was now fast descending to the westward, and many plants of ash and tufted hazels had sprung up, marring the smoothness of its surface. Here, by a simultaneous motion, and as it seemed obedient to a common thought, both riders halted.
“He must cross, Tyrrel, he must cross here,” cried the excited monarch; “ay, by the life of Him who made us—and that before we be ten minutes older. I will take stand even here, where I command both alleys: ride thou some fifty yards or so, to the right; stand by yon rowan sapling. And mark me—see’st thou yon scathed but giant oak?—Now, if he pass on this side, mine is the first shot; if on the other, thine. I will not balk thy fortunes; meddle not thou with mine!”
They parted—the king sitting like a statue on his well-trained but fiery Andalusian, the rein thrown loosely on the horse’s neck, and the bow already half bent in the vigorous right hand; the baron riding, as he had been commanded, down the neglected avenue, till he had reached the designated tree, when he wheeled round his courser and remained likewise motionless, facing the king, at that brief interval.
Nearer and nearer came the baying of the pack, while ever and anon a sharp and savage treble, mixed with the deeper notes, gave token to the skilful foresters that they were running with the game in view. Nearer it came, and nearer; and now it was so close, that not an echo could be traced amid the stormy music: but with the crash no human shout was blended, no bugle lent its thrilling voice to the blithe uproar, no clang of hoofs announced the presence of pursuers. All, even the best and boldest riders, saving those two who waited there in calm, deliberate impatience, had long been foiled by the quick turns and undiminished pace maintained by the stout quarry.
The crashing of the branches might now be heard distinctly, as they were separated by some body in swift motion; and next57 the laboring sobs of a beast overdone with toil and anguish; the waving of the coppice followed in a long, sinuous line, resembling in some degree the wake of a fleet ship among the rolling billows. Midway it furrowed the dense thicket between the king and Tyrrel, but with an inclination toward the former. His quick eye noted his advantage: his bow rose slowly and with a steady motion to its level; it was drawn to its full extent—the forked steel head pressing against the polished yew, the silken string stretched home to the right ear. The brambles were forced violently outward, and with a mighty but laborious effort the hunted stag dashed into the more open space. Scarcely had he cleared the thicket, before a sharp and ringing twang announced the shot of Rufus. So true had been his aim, that the barbed arrow grazed the withers of the game—a hart of grease, with ten tines on his noble antlers—leaving a gory line where it had razed the skin; and so strong was the arm that launched it, that the shaft, glancing downward, owing to the king’s elevation and the short distance of the mark at which he aimed, was buried nearly to the feathers in the soft, mossy greensward. The wounded stag bounded at least six feet into the air; and Tyrrel, deeming the work already done, lowered his weapon. But the king’s sight was truer. Raising his bridle-hand to screen his eyes from the rays, now nearly level, of the setting sun—“Ho!” he cried, “Tyrrel, shoot—in the fiend’s name shoot!”
Before the words had reached his ear, the baron saw his error; for, instantly recovering, the gallant deer dashed onward, passing immediately beneath the oak-tree which Rufus had already mentioned. Raising his bow with a rapidity which seemed incredible, Tyrrel discharged his arrow. It struck, just at the correct elevation, against the gnarled trunk of the giant tree; but, swift as was its flight, the motion of the wounded deer was yet more rapid: he had already crossed the open58 glade, and was lost in the thicket opposite. Diverted from its course, but unabated in its force, the Norman shaft sped onward; full, full and fairly it plunged into the left side of the hapless monarch, unguarded by the arm which he had cast aloft. The keen point actually drove clear through his body, and through his stout buff coat, coming out over his right hip; while the goose-feather, which had winged it to its royal mark, was literally dabbled in his life-blood!
Without a breath, a groan, a struggle, the Conqueror’s son dropped lifeless from his saddle. His horse, freed from the pressure of the master-limbs that had so well controlled him, reared upright as the monarch fell, and, with a wild, quick snort of terror, rushed furiously away into the forest. The bloodhounds had already, by the fierce cunning of their race, discovered that their game was wounded, and had joined freshly with his old pursuers; while he, who did the deed, gazed for one moment horror-stricken on the work of his right hand, and then, without so much as drawing nigh to see if anything of life remained to his late master, casting his fatal bow into the bushes, put spurs to his unwearied horse, and drew not bridle till he reached the coast; whence, taking ship, he crossed the seas, and fell in Holy Land, hoping by many deeds of wilful bloodshed—such is the inconsistency of man—to win God’s pardon for one involuntary slaughter.
Hours rolled away. The sun had set already, and his last gleams were rapidly departing from the skies, nor had the moon yet risen, when six horsemen came slowly, searching as it were for traces on the earth, up the same alley along which Tyrrel and the king had ridden with such furious speed since noontide. The lingering twilight did not suffice to show the features of the group, but the deep tones of the second rider were those of the bereaved and vengeful father.
59 “How now?” he said, addressing his words to the man who led the way, mounted upon a shaggy forest-pony; “how now, Sir Saxon!—is it for this we saved thee from the tyrant’s hangmen, that thou shouldst prove a blind guide in this matter?”
“Norman,” replied the other, still scanning, as he spoke, the ground dinted and torn by the fresh hoof-tracks, “my heart thirsts for vengeance not less than thine; nor is our English blood less stanch, although it be less fiery, than the hottest stream that swells the veins of your proud race! I tell you, Rufus hath passed here, and he hath not turned back. You shall have your revenge!”
Even as he spoke, the beast which he bestrode set his feet firm and snuffed the air, staring as though his eyeballs would start from their sockets, and uttering a tremulous, low neigh. “Blood hath been shed here! and that, I trow, since sunset! Jesu! what have we now?” he cried, as his eye fell upon the carcass that so lately had exulted in the possession of health, and energy, and strength, and high dominion. “By Thor the Thunderer, it is the tyrant’s corpse!”
“And slain,” replied the father, “slain by another’s hand than mine! Curses, ten thousand curses, on him who shot this shaft!” While he was speaking he dismounted, approached the body of his destined victim, and gazed with an eye of hatred most insatiably savage upon the rigid face and stiffening limbs; then drawing his broad dagger—“I have sworn!” he muttered, as he besmeared its blade with the dark, curdled gore—“I have sworn! Lie there and rot,” he added, spurning the body with his foot. “And now we must away, for we are known and noted; and, whoso did the deed, ’tis we shall bear the blame of it. We must see other lands. I will but leave a brief word with the monks of Lymington, that they commit my poor boy to a hallowed tomb, and then farewell, fair England!” And they, too, rode away, nor were they ever seen again on60 British soil; nor—though shrewd search was made for them until the confessor of Tyrrel, when that bold spirit had departed, revealed the real slayer of the king—did any rumor of their residence or fortunes reach any mortal ear.
The moon rose over the New Forest broad and unclouded, and the dew fell heavy over glade and woodland. The night wore onward, and the bright planet set, and one by one the stars went out—and still the king lay there untended and alone. The morning mists were rising, when the rumbling sound of a rude cart awoke the echoes of that fearful solitude. A charcoal-burner of the forest was returning from his nocturnal labors, whistling cheerfully the burden of some Saxon ballad, as he threaded the dark mazes of the green-wood. A wiry-looking cur—maimed, in obedience to the forest-law, lest he should chase the deer reserved to the proud conquerors alone—followed the footsteps of his master, who had already passed the corpse, when a half-startled yelp, followed upon the instant by a most melancholy howl, attracted the attention of the peasant. After a moment’s search he found, although he did not recognise, the cause of his dog’s terror; and, casting it upon his loaded cart, bore it to the same church whereat but a few hours before the living sovereign had determined to glut his fierce eyes with the death-pangs of his fellow-man. Strange are the ways of Providence. That destined man lived after his intended torturer! And, stranger yet, freed from his bonds, that he might minister unto the slaughter of that self-same torturer, he found his purpose frustrate—frustrate, as it were, by its accomplishment—his meditated deed anticipated, his desperate revenge forestalled.—“Verily, vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord, “and I will repay it.”