Day had begun to break as the party quitted the scene of devastation. The king and Suffolk, with the archers, returned to the castle; but Wyat, Surrey, and Richmond rode towards the lake, and proceeded along its banks in the direction of the forester's hut.
Their progress was suddenly arrested by the sound of lamentation, and they perceived, in a little bay overhung by trees, which screened it from the path, an old man kneeling beside the body of a female, which he had partly dragged out of the lake. It was Tristram Lyndwood, and the body was that of Mabel. Her tresses were dishevelled, and dripping with wet, as were her garments; and her features white as marble. The old man was weeping bitterly.
With Wyat, to dismount and grasp the cold hand of the hapless maiden was the work of a moment.
“She is dead!” he cried, in a despairing voice, removing the dank tresses from her brow, and imprinting a reverent kiss upon it. “Dead!—lost to me for ever!”
“I found her entangled among those water-weeds,” said Tristram, in tones broken by emotion, “and had just dragged her to shore when you came up. As you hope to prosper, now and hereafter, give her a decent burial. For me all is over.”
And, with a lamentable cry, he plunged into the lake, struck out to a short distance, and then sank to rise no more.
THUS ENDS THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE CHRONICLE OF WINDSOR CASTLE [ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]