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While Froda's wounds were healing Edwald would sometimes wander, when the shades of evening fell dark and silent around, on the flowery terraces beneath the windows of Hildegardis, and sing pleasant little songs; amongst others the following: "Heal fast, heal fast, ye hero-wounds; O knight, be quickly strong; Beloved strife For fame and life, O tarry not too long!"
Could there be any walking so delightful as that which these afforded? Surely not! Ah! Madge and Helen were probably just starting for their walk now. Did they know of her banishment? would they laugh at the thought of Queen Hildegardis vegetating for three months at a wretched "Glenfield!" The brakeman's voice rang clear and sharp through the car.
The assembled people laughed as at a strange masquing device; but Edwald and Froda had their own almost shuddering thoughts concerning it, which, however, neither imparted to the other. The kettle-drums rolled, the trumpets sounded, and led by the aged duke, Hildegardis advanced, richly apparelled, but more dazzling through the brightness of her own beauty.
He also fashioned, on the breastplate of his armour, overlaid with silver, a golden image in half relief, which represented Aslauga in her veil of flowing locks, that he might make known, even at the beginning of the tournament "This knight, bearing the image of a lady upon his breast, fights not for the hand of the beautiful Hildegardis, but only for the joy of battle and for knightly fame."
Hildegardis forbade it not, hoping that she should thus divert the attention of her maidens, while she gave herself up more deeply and earnestly to the varying imaginations which flitted through her mind. The messenger found the place already deserted; and the strange old woman alone in the midst, laughing immoderately.
Don't look at your clothes, you foolish boy," she continued, with a touch of Queen Hildegardis' quality, yet with a kindly intonation which was new to that potentate. "I am not going to teach your clothes. You are not your clothes!" cried Her Majesty, wondering at herself, and a little flushed with her recent victory over the "minx." The boy's face brightened again.
A wild unequal combat arose in the darkness of night, for that beaming light had disappeared. Freda and Edwald were driven asunder, and only at a distance heard each other's mighty war-cry. Hildegardis, startled from her magic sleep, uncertain whether she were waking or dreaming, fled bewildered and weeping bitterly into the deep shades of the alder-thicket.
So saying, the good-natured giant sat himself down again, and listened while his wife unfolded her plan; and what the plan was, we shall see by and by. Meanwhile let us take a peep at Hilda, or Hildegardis, as she sits in her own room, all unconscious of the plot which is hatching in the parlor below. She is a tall girl of fifteen.
And, ah! Hildegardis herself, overcome by surprise, had greeted him with a blush and a look of kindness; it seemed to him as if the overwhelming joy of victory were already gained.
At this time it happened that a man who held himself to be very wise, and who filled the office of secretary to the aged guardian of Hildegardis, came to the two knightly friends to propose a scheme to them.
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