Along the darkening mountain-paths the two gentlemen (for such their outward bearing proclaimed them) caracoled together.  The one, seemingly the younger of the twain, wore a flaunting feather in his barret-cap, and managed a prancing Andalusian palfrey that bounded and curveted gayly.  A surcoat of peach-colored samite and a purfled doublet of vair bespoke him noble, as did his brilliant eye, his exquisitely chiselled nose, and his curling chestnut ringlets.

Youth was on his brow; his eyes were dark and dewy, like spring-violets; and spring-roses bloomed upon his cheek—­roses, alas! that bloom and die with life’s spring!  Now bounding over a rock, now playfully whisking off with his riding rod a floweret in his path, Philibert de Coquelicot rode by his darker companion.

His comrade was mounted upon a destriere of the true Norman breed, that had first champed grass on the green pastures of Aquitaine.  Thence through Berry, Picardy, and the Limousin, halting at many a city and commune, holding joust and tourney in many a castle and manor of Navarre, Poitou, and St. Germain l’Auxerrois, the warrior and his charger reached the lonely spot where now we find them.

The warrior who bestrode the noble beast was in sooth worthy of the steed which bore him.  Both were caparisoned in the fullest trappings of feudal war.  The arblast, the mangonel, the demiculverin, and the cuissart of the period, glittered upon the neck and chest of the war-steed; while the rider, with chamfron and catapult, with ban and arriere-ban, morion and tumbrel, battle-axe and rifflard, and the other appurtenances of ancient chivalry, rode stately on his steel-clad charger, himself a tower of steel.  This mighty horseman was carried by his steed as lightly as the young springald by his Andalusian hackney.

“’Twas well done of thee, Philibert,” said he of the proof-armor, “to ride forth so far to welcome thy cousin and companion in arms.”

“Companion in battledore and shuttlecock, Romane de Clos-Vougeot!” replied the younger Cavalier.  “When I was yet a page, thou wert a belted knight; and thou wert away to the Crusades ere ever my beard grew.”

“I stood by Richard of England at the gates of Ascalon, and drew the spear from sainted King Louis in the tents of Damietta,” the individual addressed as Romane replied.  “Well-a-day! since thy beard grew, boy, (and marry ’tis yet a thin one,) I have broken a lance with Solyman at Rhodes, and smoked a chibouque with Saladin at Acre.  But enough of this.  Tell me of home—­of our native valley—­of my hearth, and my lady-mother, and my good chaplain—­tell me of her, Philibert,” said the knight, executing a demivolt, in order to hide his emotion.

Philibert seemed uneasy, and to strive as though he would parry the question.  “The castle stands on the rock,” he said, “and the swallows still build in the battlements.  The good chaplain still chants his vespers at morn, and snuffles his matins at even-song.  The lady-mother still distributeth tracts, and knitteth Berlin linsey-woolsey.  The tenants pay no better, and the lawyers dun as sorely, kinsman mine,” he added with an arch look.