Part 22

XXXIV.

“He hanged these poor chaps, but I fancy that, perhaps, The other men’s lot was the sorest; Without clothes, shoes, or caps, but with plenty of slaps, He turned them adrift in the forest.

XXXV.

“Some starved, sank, and died; some few went beside Themselves with cold, hunger, and sorrow. ‘Twas little you spied of the Montmolon pride, When you looked at this place on the morrow.

XXXVI.

“That truculent Goth, Sir Tracy, took both Our lord and his beautiful daughter. ‘To wed me,’ he quoth, ‘though the damsel be loth, To reason I soon shall have brought her.’

XXXVII.

“I, escaping from hurt, more by chance than desert (My brother on Tracy’s estate is), Have lived, I assert, sitting here in the dirt, Upon nothing but berries and praties.

XXXVIII.

“I was wounded, indeed; don’t you see how I bleed? And I’ve had ne’er a surgeon, which is hard; But my master’s sad need, and the loss of his breed, ‘Tis that, sir, which sticks in my gizzard.

XXXIX.

“My {236}strength ‘gins to fail: want of beef and of ale (How well I remember the brewin’!) My frame doth assail; but I’ve told you the tale, And your eyes may behold the sad ruin.”

XL.

He stopped: faint and sore, he could utter no more, But sank on the ground, softly sighing; His troubles were o’er: he was turned of four-score, And was dead ere he knew he was dying.

XLI.

Sir Roderick stood at the tidings aghast: Sad change from glad anticipation; But he spoke out at last; not too loud or too fast, But in accents of deep indignation.

XLII.

“By all that is holy, by all that is blue, By the eyes of adorable Ida, Sir Marmaduke Tracy shall bitterly rue The moment when first he espied her!

XLIII.

“I vow and declare, and I solemnly swear, That, fearless of dagger or bullet, I’ll rout out that bear from his murderous lair, And slit his detestable gullet.

XLIV.

“My life to the project henceforth I devote; All else to this one shall knock under, Till I fasten my hand on his treacherous throat And tear the vile spoiler asunder!

XLV.

“When {237}next here I tread, it shall be to be wed; But I mustn’t stay now any longer; This old fellow’s dead--there’s no more to be said, He has perished of wounds and of hunger.”

XLVI.

Then he turned his horse round (who sprang off with a bound, Accustomed in battle to dash on), And with clattering sound, galloped over the ground In a most irrepressible passion.

XLVII.

Two months had elapsed since that terrible day When the Montmolon castle was taken, And the baron and Ida were carried away With small prospect of “saving their bacon.”