“My brave boy, the son of his father! Heaven bless and protect him, to plead my cause, in fitting time and mode, and assert his own rights!” But the voice of the knight became louder and louder, “Boy, minion! son of an ape! whose father pretended to bear the cross, when he should have hung for his villanies, on the highest in England! Go to my groom, and learn thy duty to my horse. He reports to me that you are refractory. Well, your wages are due. Take that, and that, and that,” and thrice the lash fell fiercely on the noble boy. “Well” he resumed, “dost hear thy mother’s voice? You know a mother’s shriek; that is her only tone! Oh fond fool! Well, you wish to see your mother, fillial fool: my strokes have given you a prettier face than a father’s art could patch up. Come beautiful child, and shew yourself to the proud gaze of a mother, on your cowardly father’s birthday.” “Cowardly! He would have driven you, Sir Osmund, from this nest. Cowardly!” The door was burst open, and Lady Mabel beheld her eldest son (a youth of fifteen) dragged in by the Welsh knight, her husband; his face was bloody, and there were marks of a livid hue on his cheeks and neck. “Mother,” exclaimed the knight, laughing at his blasphemy,--“mother, behold your son.” He approached, bowed his unwieldy form in mock reverence at her feet, whilst his sinister eye attempted to express sarcastic admiration and love. His hair hung, matted, over his Welsh outline of a face, and his ill-formed mouth, in smiling, became a hideous gash--gash! The boy rushed to his mother, and fondly placed his hand beneath her chin, to raise her countenance from the knight, kneeling in mockery. She kissed his forehead, and with her lips wiped off the blood, and hugged him to her bosom. He was a noble boy, and never had he crouched to his mother’s husband. “Mother, now I am safe.” “It is the fool’s birth-day,” said Sir Osmund, as he left his recumbent posture, “yes, it is, my sweet Mab. Rejoice, rejoice; shall I send my jester to help thee to a laugh?” “If in doing so” replied the spirited boy, “you send away yourself.” Once more he was struck to the ground, by the enraged knight. “Oh! Sir Osmund”--exclaimed Mabel, “save him! I shall tutor him to love thee fondly!” “That would be a difficult task, dear mother” answered the boy, with great indifference, as he arose and fixed a stern look of defiance upon Sir Osmund. The knight paced the room in boiling wrath, but his rage dared not meet the glance of that boyish eye, so powerful is innocence. He turned abruptly upon Lady Mabel, and said, “Harkee, Lady. Here you must be confined; these are my jailors, four in number, trusty fellows,” and he pulled out four keys, as he spoke. “Content yourself, good wife, and pray to Sir William to be relieved from Sir Osmund.” Mabel threw herself down on her knees, humbly before him.