his appearance was welcomed by such a burst of joyous and hilarious music from the battlements, as never before had waked the echoes of Scafell and Skiddaw. In that triumphant gush of music there were blended, not only the resounding clangor of the Norman kettle-drums and trumpets, with the clear notes of the mellow bugle, but the tones of a thousand instruments, scarce known on English soil, having been introduced only by the Crusaders from those Oriental climates, in which music is indigenous and native, and from which the retainers of Sir Yvo de Taillebois had imported, not the instruments only but the skill necessary to give them utterance and expression, and the very airs to which, in the cedar-vales, and among the haunted hills of Palestine, they had of old been vocal. The musical chime of many bells attuned, the silver clash of the cymbals, the roll of the Syrian atabals, the soft tones of the lute, and shrill strains of the Eastern reed-pipes, were blended strangely, but most sonorously with the stirring war-notes of the west. And instantly, as if awakened from sleep by that rejoicing strain, the little chapel bells of Bowness began to tinkle with small merry chimes, across the bright blue lake; and answering, yet further in the distance, though still clearly audible, so apt to the conveyance of sounds is the tranquillity and the clear vibrating air of those mountain regions, the full carillon of the magnificent Abbey of Kendal the stately ruins of which are still extant, as if to teach us boastful men of modern days, the superiority of our semi-barbarous ancestors, as we have the vanity to term them, rang out, proclaiming to the sparse population of the dales, "How fair a bride shall wed to-day." Around the Maypole on the green, already were assembled, not the vassals only of the great baron, his free-tenants and his serfs, rejoicing in one happy holiday, and in the prospect of gorging themselves ere nightfall throat-full of solid dainties and sound ale, but half the population of the adjacent valleys, hill-farmers, statesmen, as the small land-holders are still called in those unsophisticated districts, burghers from the neighboring towns, wandering monks and wandering musicians, a merry, motley multitude, all in their best attire, all wearing bright looks and light hearts, and expecting, as it would seem from the eager looks directed constantly toward the castle gates, the forthcoming of some spectacle or pageant, on which their interest was fixed.