Kneel, kneel, and take her yielded

hand;

Thank her with raptures, simple boy! Should tears and trembling speak thy joy?"

"O hush, my sire! To prayer and tear

Of mine thou hast refused thine ear; But now the awful hour draws on, When truth must speak in loftier tone."

XXX.

He took Matilda's hand: "Dear maid, Couldst thou so injure me," he said, "Of thy poor friend so basely deem, As blend with him this barbarous scheme?

Alas! my efforts made in vain, Might well have saved this added pain.

But now, bear witness earth and heaven,

That ne'er was hope to mortal given,
So twisted with the strings of life,
As this to call Matilda wife!
1 bid it now for ever part,
And with the effort bursts my heart!"
His feeble frame was worn so low,
With wounds, with watching, and
with woe,

That nature could no more sustain
The agony of mental pain.
He kneel'd-his lip her hand had
press'd,

Just then he felt the stern arrest.
Lower and lower sunk his head,-
They raised him, but the life was
fled!

Then, first alarm'd, his sire and

train

Tried every aid, but tried in vain. The soul, too soft its ills to bear, Had left our mortal hemisphere, And sought in better world the meed, To blameless life by Heaven decreed.

XXXI.

The wretched sire beheld, aghast, With Wilfrid all his projects past, All turn'd and centred on his son, On Wilfrid all-and he was gone.

And I am childless now," he said,

The outmost crowd have heard a sound,

Like horse's hoof on harden'd ground: Nearer it came, and yet more near,The very death's-men paused to hear. 'Tis in the churchyard now-the tread

Hath waked the dwelling of the dead!
Fresh sod, and old sepulchral stone,
Return the tramp in varied tone.
All eyes upon the gateway hung,
When through the Gothic arch there
sprung

A horseman arm'd, at headlong speed

Sable his cloak, his plume, his steed. Fire from the flinty floor was spurn'd, The vaults unwonted clang return'd!

One instant's glance around he threw From saddlebow his pistol drew. Grimly determined was his look! His charger with his spurs he strookAll scatter'd backward as he came,

For all knew Bertram Risingham! Three bounds that noble courser gave;

The first had reach'd the central nave, The second clear'd the chancel wide, The third-he was at Wycliffe's side. Full levell'd at the Baron's head, Rung the report-the bullet spedAnd to his long account, and last, Without a groan dark Oswald passed! All was so quick that it might seem A flash of lightning, or a dream.

ХХХІІІ.

While yet the smoke the deed conceals,

Bertram his ready charger wheels; But flounder'd on the pavement-floor The steed, and down the rider bore, And, bursting in the headlong sway, The faithless saddle-girths gave way. 'Twas while he toil'd him to be freed, And with the rein to raise the steed,

That from amazement's iron trance
All Wycliffe's soldiers waked at once.
Sword, halbert, musket-butt, their
blows

Hail'd upon Bertram as he rose;
A score of pikes, with each a wound,
Bore down and pinn'd him to the
ground;

But still his struggling force he rears, 'Gainst hacking brands and stabbing

spears;

But Basil's voice the deed forbade;
A mantle o'er the corse he laid:-
"Fell as he was in act and mind,
He left no bolder heart behind:
Then give him, for a soldier's meet,
A soldier's cloak for winding sheet."

XXXIV.

No more of death and dying pang, No more of trump and bugle clang, Though through the sounding woods there come

Banner and bugle, trump and drum. Arm'd with such powers as well had freed

Young Redmond at his utmost need,
And back'd with such a band of horse,
As might less ample powers enforce;
Possess'd of every proof and sign
That gave an heir to Mortham's line,
And yielded to a father's arms
An image of his Edith's charms,-
Mortham is come, to hear and see
Of this strange morn the history.
What saw he?-not the church's
floor,

Cumber'd with dead and stain'd with