THE DAISY OF THE DALE 
307 
thie portrait of her mother. And as he sat down in the 
high-backed and heavy oaken chair, he rested with one 
hand on the hilt of his ponderous sword, and pressing to 
his brow the gauntleted palm of the other, exclaimed, 
“ Pretty sweeting 1 I have done thee grievous wrong thus 
to drive thee from thy bower, even at the very moment, 
perchance, when thou wert at thy devotions. Well, well 1 
after all he has but done as I myself would — I have won 
the empty casket, and he has carried off the prize; and 
to have won it, the brave young dog would no more have 
minded cracking my old crown with the scaling-ladder 
than a red squirrel minds splitting open a ripe hazel-nut 
to get at the kernel within. By Saint Swithin ! how the 
mailed rascals tumbled into the moat ! I could have 
laughed if I had not been an angered, to have seen Black 
Ralph swimming like a duck in his heavy armour; and 
as for Hubert, my henchman, I scarce could draw the 
helmet off his ears, so tightly was it fitted on when he 
pitched with his head upon tue drawbridge. By our 
Lady ! he is a bold and a daring knave, and hath as great 
a love for this Daisy as ever Chaucer had, maugre all the 
choice rhymes he hath made about it.” 
And the worthy old knight laughed so heartily, as he 
pictured his followers splashing about in the moat, that 
his visor slipped down, and he was compelled to call on 
his esquire to unbuckle the fastenings of his helmet. 
Pass we over the long ride of the young lovers, followed 
by their attendants, through the wild avenues of the 
forest, the couch which the Knight made among the 
broad-leaved Fern when the Daisy of the Dale was weary, 
and the blue Harebells that nodded about her beautiful 
head while she slept. Love was their guide, and lighted 
their way through the darksome forest-paths, guiding them 
over many a wild wold and lonely moor, and beside many 
a reedy mere, until he borught them beneath the walls of 
the city where her father was encamped. 
Wroth was that old knight when he heard that his castle 
was besieged; and he vowed, by the blood of the blessed 
Martyr of Canterbury, that from dungeon-floor to turret- 
steep he would not leave one stone above the other when 
he reached the stronghold of his enemy. 
But when the wars of the Roses were over, the king 
