Though we write of a period so remote, strange to say the window is there still in the old wall, against which the Moors have more than once hurled their strength in vain, and it projects like a carved stone cage of three pointed arches, supported by the head and wings of a time-worn and gigantic figure of grotesque design; and thereat was a fair young face, that grew bright with joy when the young knight drew near.
The latter was a typical Spaniard, vigorous, tall, and well developed in figure; black haired, with eyes full of fire; dark, well-defined eyebrows, and features sharp and grave. Save that he wore a species of Moorish basinet, bright as silver, with a tippet of mail; he was clothed in chain armour to the tips of his fingers and the soles of his feet, for the land teemed with fighting and peril, and no man ventured abroad save completely equipped. His spurs were goads without rowels, and a cross-hilted sword hung in his glittering belt.
The girl who welcomed his approach was not a religieuse, for young ladies were boarded in convents then as now; but her costume declared her to be of rank, as it was of shiny, golden-yellow silk, trimmed with black of the same material, tightly sleeved to the wrist; and she wore her thick, dark hair plaited in several divisions, after the old Gothic custom that lingered still in Spain.
Her complexion was fair and bright; her features delicate and harmonious; she was bewitching rather than beautiful—quite enough so to be the heroine even of a romance! and the Madre Abadesa of Miraflores, who had very special instructions given her regarding the care of this young lady, had accorded her the secluded apartment with the projecting window—a circumstance which led to the young knight discovering and making her acquaintance, a fact that would have filled the good lady with intense dismay—for by flirting their falcons, the young pair had come to a flirtation, and rather more, between themselves.
In those days he who bore the hawk on his left wrist in the most graceful way, was deemed the most accomplished cavalier; and to please ladies, it was the fashion to play flirty tricks with the pinions of their hawks. Thus, more than once, when passing, had the strange knight's hawk flown upward to the full length of its silken jess to flirt with the merlin on the hand of the lady, and hence it came to pass that the owners met as we find them. In those days people seem to have fallen in love more suddenly and desperately than they do in our railway times, and their love seemed always to delight in struggling with difficulties.
There was much of the Romeo and Juliet passionate tenderness in the suddenly-developed regard of these two, but we cannot suppose that the lovers of those days spoke more 'on stilts' than those of the present time. The old story that was first told in Eden will have ever the tender trivialities and endearing epithets, so we shall imagine all these said, and come to prose at once.
'Your name, señor mio—dear love rather—in all your visits you have never yet told it to me?' she said softly.
'I have to win it yet,' he replied.
'Where?' she asked.
'Where does a hidalgo win his name save in battle against the Moorish curs? When so won, you shall know it. But yours, sweet lady?'