Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up To any sudden act of mutiny! Julius Cæsar
Separated from the Lady Isabelle, whose looks had been for so many days his load-star, Quentin felt a strange vacancy and chillness of the heart, which he had not yet experienced in any of the vicissitudes to which his life had subjected him. No doubt the cessation of the close and unavoidable intercourse and intimacy betwixt them was the necessary consequence of the Countess having obtained a place of settled residence; for, under what pretext could she, had she meditated such an impropriety, have had a gallant young squire, such as Quentin, in constant attendance upon her?
But the shock of the separation was not the more welcome that it seemed unavoidable, and the proud heart of Quentin swelled at finding he was parted with like an ordinary postilion, or an escort whose duty is discharged; while his eyes sympathized so far as to drop a secret tear or two over the ruins of all those airy castles, so many of which he had employed himself in constructing during their too interesting journey. He made a manly, but, at first, a vain effort, to throw off this mental dejection; and so, yielding to the feelings he could not suppress, he sat him down in one of the deep recesses formed by a window which lighted the great Gothic hall of Schonwaldt, and there mused upon his hard fortune, which had not assigned him rank or wealth sufficient to prosecute his daring suit.
Quentin tried to dispel the sadness which overhung him by dispatching Charlet, one of the valets, with letters to the court of Louis, announcing the arrival of the Ladies of Croye at Liege. At length his natural buoyancy of temper returned, much excited by the title of an old romaunt which had been just printed at Strasbourg, and which lay beside him in the window, the title of which set forth,
How the Squire of lowe degree, Loved the King's daughter of Hongarie.
While he was tracing the "letters blake" of the ditty so congenial to his own situation, Quentin was interrupted by a touch on the shoulder, and, looking up, beheld the Bohemian standing by him.
Hayraddin, never a welcome sight, was odious from his late treachery, and Quentin sternly asked him, why he dared take the freedom to touch a Christian and a gentleman?
"Simply," answered the Bohemian, "because I wished to know if the Christian gentleman had lost his feeling as well as his eyes and ears. I have stood speaking to you these five minutes, and you have stared on that scrap of yellow paper, as if it were a spell to turn you into a statue, and had already wrought half its purpose."
"Well, what dost thou want? Speak, and begone!"
"I want what all men want, though few are satisfied with it," said Hayraddin; "I want my due; my ten crowns of gold for guiding the ladies hither."