lightly armed horse of that description which, from having been first introduced from Germany and Flanders, had acquired the name of reitters, even when the regiment was composed entirely of Frenchmen. The first body contained none but men of noble birth, and consisted principally of young gentlemen attached to the two great houses who raised it. Each carried his lance, to which weapon the men-at-arms of that day clung with peculiar tenacity, as a vestige of that ancient chivalry which people felt was rapidly passing away before improved science, but from which they did not like to part. Each also was splendidly armed; and gold and polished steel made their horses shine in the sunbeams. The reitters, however, were more simply clothed, and were composed of such persons from the wealthier part of the _classe bourgeoise_ as the love of arms, the distinctions generally affixed to military life, or feudal attachment to any particular house, brought from the very insecure tranquillity then afforded by their paternal dwellings, to the open struggle of the field. This corps, however, was not distinguished by the lance: a long and heavy sword, which did terrible execution in the succeeding wars, together with a number of pistols, each furnished with a rude flint lock, composed the offensive arms of the reitter. His armour, too, and his horse were both somewhat lighter than those of the man-at-arms; but his movements were, in consequence, more easy, and his march less encumbered. The whole body wound slowly on with very little disarray Of confusion, till, one by one, the several bands turned the angle of the wood, and disappeared in the distant forest. A few scattered parties followed; then a few stragglers, and then all was left to solitude, while nothing but a cloudy line of dust, rising up above the green covering of the trees, and two or three notes of the trumpet, told that such a force was near, or marked the road it took. Leonard de Monte gazed from the place of his concealment upon each party as it passed, and then waited for several minutes, listening with attentive ear till the trumpet sounded so faintly that it was evident his own small hunting-horn might be winded unheard by the retiring squadrons. He descended, however, in the first instance, to the bank of the stream where he had been previously sitting, and then gave breath to a few low notes, as of a huntsman recalling his dogs. The sounds were heard by his attendants, and instantly obeyed. The horses were led forth from the wood; and, while the two servants bestirred themselves to draw out the carriage from the brake in which it had been concealed, the youth beckoned the dwarf towards him, demanding--"Now, Bartholo! now! what think you of this?"