Quentin Durward
Page 21
CHAPTER XIX: THE CITY
Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up To any sudden act of mutiny.
JULIUS CAESAR
Separated from the Lady Isabelle, whose looks had been for so many dayshis loadstar, Quentin felt a strange vacancy and chillness of the heart,which he had not yet experienced in any of the vicissitudes to whichhis life had subjected him. No doubt the cessation of the close andunavoidable intercourse and intimacy betwixt them was the necessaryconsequence of the Countess's having obtained a place of settledresidence, for under what pretext could she, had she meditated such animpropriety, have had a gallant young squire such as Quentin in constantattendance upon her?
But the shock of the separation was not the more welcome that it seemedunavoidable, and the proud heart of Quentin swelled at finding he wasparted with like an ordinary postilion, or an escort whose duty isdischarged, while his eyes sympathised so far as to drop a secret tearor two over the ruins of all those airy castles, so many of which he hademployed himself in constructing during their too interesting journey.He made a manly, but, at first, a vain effort to throw off this mentaldejection, and so, yielding to the feelings he could not suppress,he sat him down in one of the deep recesses formed by a window whichlighted the great Gothic hall of Schonwaldt, and there mused upon hishard fortune, which had not assigned him rank or wealth sufficient toprosecute his daring suit.
Quentin tried to dispel the sadness which overhung him by dispatchingCharlet, one of the valets, with letters to the court of Louis,announcing the arrival of the Ladies of Croye at Liege. At length hisnatural buoyancy of temper returned, much excited by the title of an oldromaunt [a poetical romance] which had been just printed at Strasbourg,and which lay beside him in the window, the title of which set forth--
How the Squire of lowe degree Loved the King's daughter of Hungarie.
[An old English poem reprinted in Hazlitt's Remains of Early PopularPoetry of England.]
While he was tracing the "letters blake" of the ditty so congenial tohis own situation, Quentin was interrupted by a touch on the shoulder,and, looking up, beheld the Bohemian standing by him.