“What Arnold?” asked Gottfried, with anxiety.

“Arnold the Lion, as he is called,” said the warrior, “and one of the chiefs of these rebels.” (Gottfried turned pale and raised his eyes to heaven.) “I learned that this audacious Arnold had joined his camp, and I felt that my duty called me immediately to the field.  I therefore left my family and my house, and have shown the rebels that my arm and my heart are as strong as ever,”

“Have you encountered this Arnold?” asked Gottfried, hardly daring to ask this question.

“Have I encountered him!” cried the chevalier.  “And who but myself could have——?”

“They are waiting for prayers,” said Erard, opening the door.  “Dear grandpapa, will you come?”

The old man followed the child, and his tearful eyes soon rested on the Book of God.

“Grandpapa, you are weeping!” said Erard, approaching the old man.  “What is the matter?  Are you suffering?”

“Listen to the word of consolation,” said Gottfried, making the child sit down; “and may the Spirit of Jesus himself address it to our hearts.”

He read then from the book of Psalms, and said a few words on resignation to the will of God, and in his humble prayer supplicated God to remember the chevalier and his family, and to bless him in the house whither he had been brought in his mercy.  “Amen!  Amen!” repeated all the servants.

CHAPTER III.

THEOBALD’S ACCOUNT OF HIS CONFLICT WITH ARNOLD THE LION—­HATRED OP ENEMIES—­DISTRESS OF THE FAMILY.

“You are pious people,” said the chevalier to Gottfried, in the afternoon of the same day, and while Erard was present.  “Religion is a good thing.”

“One who loves Jesus is always happy,” said the child.

“Let them love Jesus!” replied the warrior.  “But this is what I heard last evening, when I was about to fight the Lion.”

“I pray you,” said Gottfried, do not talk any more now; it will increase your sufferings.”

“I do not suffer,” replied the chevalier, “This leg is very painful, it is true; but it is only a leg,” added he, smiling.  “Ought I to make myself uneasy about it?”

“You fought with a lion, then, last evening?” asked Erard, with curiosity, “Was he very large and strong?”

Gottfried would have sent Erard away, for he feared for him the story of the chevalier; but the latter asked that he might be allowed to remain.  “Erard must become a man,” added he.  “My children know what a battle is.  Let Erard then not be afraid at what I am about to say.

“My name is Theobald,” continued the chevalier, “and from my earliest youth I was surnamed the iron-hearted, because I never cried at pain, and never knew what it was to be afraid.  My father, one of the powerful noblemen of Bohemia, accustomed me, from my earliest years, to despise cold, hunger, thirst and fatigue; and I was scarcely Erard’s age when I seized by the throat and strangled a furious dog that was springing upon one of my sisters.