“Danian,” he said at length, turning to the principal of his followers, who stood nearer to his person and a little way apart from the others—“Danian, art sure this was the place and day? How the dog Saxons tarry—can they have learnt our purpose?” “Surely not—surely not, fair sir,” returned the squire, “seeing that I have mentioned it to no one, not even to Raoul, or Americ, or Guy, who know no more than their own battle-axes the object of their ambush. And it was pitch dark when we left the castle, and not a soul has seen us here; so it is quite impossible they should suspect—and hark! there goes the bell; and see, sir, see—there they come trooping through the oak trees down the hill!” And indeed, as he spoke, the single bell of the small chapel began to chime with the merry notes that proclaim a bridal, and a gay train of harmless, happy villagers might be seen, as they flocked along, following the footsteps of the gray-headed Saxon monk, who, in his frock and cowl, with corded waist and sandalled feet, led the procession. Six young girls followed close behind him, dressed in blue skirts and russet jerkins, but crowned with garlands of white May flowers, and May wreaths wound like scarfs across their swelling bosoms, and hawthorn branches in their hands, singing the bridal carol in the old Saxon tongue, in honor of the pride of the village, the young and lovely Marian. She was indeed the very personification of all the poet’s dreams of youthful beauty; tall and slender in her figure, yet exquisitely, voluptuously rounded in every perfect outline, with a waist of a span’s circumference, wide sloping shoulders, and a bust that, for its matchless swell, as it struggled and throbbed with a thousand soft emotions, threatening to burst from the confinement of her tight-fitting jacket, would have put to shame the bosom of the Medicean Venus. Her complexion, wherever the sun had not too warmly kissed her beauties, was pure as the driven snow, while her large, bright blue eyes, red laughing lip, and the luxuriant flood of sunny golden hair, which streamed down in wild, artless ringlets to her waist, made her a creature for a prince’s, or more, a poet’s adoration. But neither prince nor poet was the god of that fair girl’s idolatry; but one of her own class, a Saxon youth, a peasant—nay, a serf—from his very cradle upward the born thrall of Hugh de Mortemar, lord of the castle and the hamlet at its foot, named, from its situation in the depths of Charnwood, Ashby in the Forest. But there was now no graven collar about the sturdy neck of the young Saxon, telling of a suffering servitude; no dark shade of gloom in his full glancing eye; no sullen doggedness upon his lip, for he was that day, that glad day, a freeman—a slave no longer—but free, free, by the gift of his noble master—free as the wild bird that sung so loudly in the forest—free as the liberal air that bore the carol to his ears. His