87 



TREVALLYAN: 

 A TALE OF CORNWALL. 



CHAPTER IV. 



(Continued from page 49.^ 



How tangled is the web of human life : who has skill sufficient to 

 unravel it ? This moment man is on the pinnacle of splendour — the 

 next finds him immersed in gloom and darkness. Now he careers 

 along like some noble ship with her canvas swelling to the auspicious 

 breezes of heaven — then, like her when the storm arises and she is 

 engulphedin the boiling billows, he is over-taken by calamity, and swal- 

 lowed up in the whirlpool of despair. So with Trevallyan. He had 

 been beloved by his sovereign — his ambition had been stimulated by 

 prosperity — high hopes and lofty aspirations had entwined themselves 

 around his heart — and, for a time, he had seemed to forget that the 

 tide which had flowed so fast, could ebb as quickly. But now his 

 sovereign's patronage was withdrawn — his ambition was transmuted to 

 despair, in the crucible of adversity — the hopes and aspirations which 

 had warmed his heart had fled, and left it chilled and withered — and 

 the fatal truth had been revealed to him, that the reflux of his fortune 

 had not only commenced, but was hmTying him down the dark stream 

 of hopeless ruin. 



But to recommence our narrative. The number of the antagonist 

 troops were widely dissimilar, the castle contained rather more than a 

 hundred men-at-arms, and fifty or sixty cross-bow-men. 



Mounds were raised around the castle, and barriers were erected, 

 from behind which the archers might securely send forth their deadly 

 shafts. No artillery, in the modem sense of the word was used, it not 

 having come into familiar use at that time, and being of a cumbrous and 

 unwieldly description ; but several engines for casting large and, 

 massive stones, to beat in doors, and to make breaches in the walls 

 were employed. 



