In the heart of the forest of St. Germain, at a considerable distance from any of the roads, or even by-paths of the wood, lay a deep dingle or dell, which probably had been a gravel-pit many centuries before, and might have furnished forth sand to strew the halls of Charlemagne, for aught I know to the contrary. However, so many ages had elapsed since it had been employed for such purpose, that many a stout oak had sprung, and flourished, and withered round about it, and had left the ruins of their once princely forms crumbling on its brink. At the time I speak of, a considerable part of the dell itself was filled up with tangled brush-wood, which a long hot season had stripped and withered; and over the edge hung a quantity of dry shrubs and stunted trees, forming a thick screen over the wild recess below. One side, and one side only, was free of access, and this was by means of a small sandy path winding down into the bottom of the dell, between two deep banks, which assumed almost the appearance of cliffs as the road descended. This little footway conducted, it is true, into the most profound part of the hollow, but then immediately lost itself in the thick underwood, through which none but a very practised eye would have discovered the means of entering a deep lair of ground, sheltered by the steep bank and its superincumbent trees on one side, and concealed by a screen of wood on every other. On the night I have mentioned, this well concealed retreat was tenanted by a group of men, whose wild attire harmonized perfectly with the rudeness of the scene around. The apparel of almost every class was discernible among them, but each vesture plainly showed, that it had long passed that epoch generally termed "better days;" and indeed, the more costly had been their original nature, the greater was their present state of degradation. So that what had once been the suit of some gay cavalier of the court, and which doubtless had shone as such in the circles of the bright and the fair, having since passed through the hands of the page, who had perhaps used it to personate his master, and the _fripier_, who had tried hard to restore it to a degree of lustre, and the poor petitioner who had bought it and borne it second-hand to court, and lost both his labour and his money--having passed through these, and perhaps a thousand other hands, it had gradually acquired that sort of undefinable tint, which ought properly to be called old-age colour, and at present served, and only served, to keep its owner from the winds of heaven. At the same time the buff jerkin which covered the broad shoulders of another hard by, though it had never boasted much finery, had escaped with only a few rusty stains from its former intimacy with a steel cuirass, and a slight greasy gloss upon the left side, which indicated its owner's habit of laying his hand upon his sword.