“No more a noble count, I trow,
A humble shepherd seem I now!”
though he could not think what the lines meant, yet he went on till he had got far away into a distant forest, where all was savage and wild, and where there was nothing to remind him of the scenes he had passed through. There he alighted from his good steed, and threw himself on the hard ground. The sword which he had been wont to raise so bravely against the enemies of his country clanked listlessly by his side, the sharp rocks cut his cheeks, and his noble blood flowed from the rents, while he felt them not, for his heart bled with other and deeper wounds; but all the time there ran in his head the lines,—
“No more a noble count, I trow,
A humble shepherd seem I now!”
After he had lain there some time, and the passion of his sorrow had so far cooled down that he began to take notice of the objects around him, he observed two milk-white doves perched lovingly side by side on the branches over his head, yet fluttering full of fear and trouble. Full of his own recent suffering, he felt singular compassion for the two frightened birds; and searching for the cause of their distress, he perceived a great hawk hovering in the air above, in ever-nearing circles, and with glaring eyes preparing to pounce on his luckless prey. The count at once understood their danger, and picking up a stone, threw it with such force and dexterous aim, that it brought down the greedy hawk dead upon the ground. The doves no sooner found themselves delivered from their pursuer, than they gave every token of gladness and delight, hopping from branch to branch, fluttering away and pursuing each other, and then again loving each other in the gentlest way.
The count could not bear to see their happiness, it reminded him of his loss; so he got up and wandered on into a dark cave where he could see nothing, and there laid him down; and the lines running in his head lulled him to sleep,—
“No more a noble count, I trow,
A humble shepherd seem I now!”