Those who could see the pilgrim’s face saw the tears start in his eyes as he accepted Felicia’s gift and turned towards his lonely hermitage. Many years did he live there, many a time did he come to the castle yard, and his daily companion was Felicia’s child, Sir Guido’s son. Day after day did he talk to him of adventures of knights in the Holy Land, of those that had fallen fighting for the sepulchre, and those who had passed through the fiery ordeal of that expedition. At last death came upon him.
“Dear boy,” said he to Sir Guido’s son, “take this ring to thy mother, and bid her, if she would see me ere I die, come hither quickly.”
“Mother, dear mother,” said the youth when he entered Felicia’s chamber, “the good pilgrim is sorely ill; he sends you this ring, and bids you see him ere he die.”
Felicia cast one look upon the ring. “Haste, haste, my child!” she exclaimed, “it is my lord’s, your father’s ring; come, come to the forest!”
Quickly as she rushed to the hermitage, she found but the dead body of her husband.
“Woe, woe is me!” she exclaimed, casting herself on the cold corpse, “woe, woe is me! where are now my alms? My husband asked charity of me and I knew him not; thy father talked with thee, my child, he embraced thee, and thou knewest him not. O Guido! thou didst look upon thy wife, and didst not tremble; thou didst look upon thy child, and kissed him, and blessed him; alas, alas! my husband.”
“I should be loth to agree with Percy, that so beautiful a tale should have been resigned to children,” said Herbert, as soon as Lathom had concluded his version of the old tale.
“No wonder that the pilgrimage of the warrior was such a favorite with all nations, as to be claimed by nearly all as peculiarly their own,” said Thompson.
“It was very early translated into French, and is alluded to in a Spanish romance, written somewhere about 1430. But now, that, as the old ballad says,
“‘The story is brought to an end,