Always he marched in advance,
Warring in Flanders and France,
Doughty with sword and with lance
Famous in Saracen fight,
Rode in his youth, the Good Knight,
Scattering Paynims in flight.
Brian, the Templar untrue,
Fairly in tourney he slew;
Saw Hierusalem too.
Now he is buried and gone,
Lying beneath the gray stone.
Where shall you find such a one?
Long time his widow deplored,
Weeping, the fate of her lord,
Sadly cut off by the sword.
When she was eased of her pain,
Came the good lord Athelstane,
When her ladyship married again.
The next chapter begins naturally as follows; "I trust nobody will suppose, from the events described in the last chapter, that our friend Ivanhoe is really dead." He is of course cured of his wounds, though they take six years in the curing. And then he makes his way back to Rotherwood, in a friar's disguise, much as he did on that former occasion when we first met him, and there is received by Athelstane and Rowena,—and their boy!—while Wamba sings him a song:
Then you know the worth of a lass,
Once you have come to forty year!
No one, of course, but Wamba knows Ivanhoe, who roams about the country, melancholy,—as he of course would be,—charitable,—as he perhaps might be,—for we are specially told that he had a large fortune and nothing to do with it, and slaying robbers wherever he met them;—but sad at heart all the time. Then there comes a little burst of the author's own feelings, while he is burlesquing. "Ah my dear friends and British public, are there not others who are melancholy under a mask of gaiety, and who in the midst of crowds are lonely! Liston was a most melancholy man; Grimaldi had feelings; and then others I wot of. But psha!—let us have the next chapter." In all of which there was a touch of earnestness.