Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/127

 another for relief. I have read an old tale of chivalry so thoroughly exemplifying this state of feeling, and affording so natural an example of the changes and counterchanges with which gold and silver are staked against each other in the dangerous game, that I cannot forbear quoting it here.

"A certain knight had long loved a damsel at the court of the King of France; but she, albeit, accepting the service of none other, treated him with such coldness and duresse, that he at length obtained the title of the 'Patient Knight,' and she of the 'Scornful Ladye.' In vain he sat at her feet in hall; in vain wore her colours in the lists; in vain added to his cognizance the motto 'Sans espérance,' above the representation of a dungeon-grate, to signify the hopelessness of his captivity. She looked upon him coldly as the winter moon looks on a frozen lake: she turned from him pitilessly