Page:The Enchanted Knights; or The Chronicle of the Three Sisters.djvu/19

Rh and heard the shouts and huzzas of the wedding party just entering the forest. Sorrowfully she descended from the tower, put on a mourning dress, strewed her head with ashes, and wept for three days, her husband and daughters joining in her lament. On the fourth day the count left his mourning room to take an airing, and whilst crossing the yard he perceived a fine chest of solid ebony securely locked. He easily guessed the contents; the countess gave him the key which she had found in Wulfield’s room, he opened the chest with it, and found to his delight a hundred-weight of doubloons of the same coinage. Rejoiced at the sight, he forgot all his woes, bought falcons and horses, fine dresses for his wife and the pretty young ladies, took servants in his pay, and began again to riot and squander till the last doubloon was drawn from the chest. The treasure gone, he again fell into debt, and his impatient creditors plundered the castle so completely, that they left nothing but one old falcon. The countess and her daughter again boiled potatoes, and the count, with the falcon on his arm, rove daily through the fields, driven to this exercise by the monotony of his life. Once, as he cast the falcon, the bird flew high in the air,