Trembling with choler, he hardly restrained himself until the prescribed signal; then, as if he would make an end of his opponent, he aimed his weapon with a direct thrust towards the heart; but Stanley, confident in his own might, was fully prepared for the blow, as the event sufficiently proved; for the French knight was seen to reel from his saddle, the point of his enemy’s lance being driven completely through his armour.  He rolled backwards on the ground, and so vigorous had been the attack, that his horse’s back was broken, and they lay together, groaning piteously, besmeared with blood and dust, to the sore dismay of his companions.  Stanley suddenly alighted, and helped the pages to undo his armour; but ere his beaver could be unclasped he had fainted by loss of blood, and being borne off the field, he shortly afterwards expired.

The king was mightily pleased with this great prowess of the victor, insomuch that he knighted him on the spot, and, according to the old ballad, gave him goodly manors—­

                           “For his hire,
    Wing, Tring, and Iving, in Buckinghamshire.”

He had so won, likewise, on the hitherto impenetrable disposition of Isabella, that when he came to render his homage at her feet, she trembled and could scarcely give the customary reply.

Raising his visor, and uncovering his helmet from the grand guard—­a plate protecting the left side of the face, shoulder, and breast—­he made a lowly obeisance at the gate of his mistress’s pavilion, at the same time presenting the stolen favour he had now so nobly won.  With a tremulous hand she bound it round his arm.

“Nay, thy chaplet, lady,” shouted a score of tongues from the inquisitive spectators.  Isabella untied a rich chaplet of goldsmith’s work, ornamented with rose-garlands, from her hair, and threw it over his helmet.  Still armed with the gauntlets, which, either through hurry or inadvertence, he had neglected to throw aside, as was the general courtesy for the occasion, the knight seized her hand, and with a grasp gentle for any other occasion, pressed it to his lips.  The lady uttered a subdued shriek, whether from pain or surprise, it boots not now to inquire; mayhap, it was the remembrance of the mailed hand she had felt in her dream, and to which her fingers, yet tingling with the pressure, bore a sufficient testimony.  Sir John bent lowlier than before, with one hand on his breast, in token of contrition.  A thousand strange fancies, shapeless and undefined, rushed by, as the maiden looked on the warrior.  It was the very crisis of her dream; her heart seemed as though it would have leapt the walls of its tenement,—­and she was fain to hide her face under the folds of her mantle.

“Now, on my halidome,” said the king, “there be two doves whose cooing would be the better for a little honest speech.  Poor hearts! it were a pity their tongues had bewrayed their desire.  Fitz-Walter, summon them hither.”