Chapter I: Prologue: 1

CHAP.

I. I DESCRIBE MYSELF 11

II. JAMES WILDER 16

III. A SOUND WHICH REMINDS ME OF MY PAST 27

IV. INSTRUCTIONS PERFORMED 35

V. WE SAY GOOD-BYE 38

VI. --AND I START 42

VII. NORTH 44

VIII. THE DIMLY-PAINTED FACE 50

IX. GERALDINE 57

X. WE MEET 72

XI. THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK 78

XII. THE MORNING 89

XIII. "YOU WERE NOT DRESSED LIKE THIS" 102

XIV. THE BALLADE OF THE FALCON 109

XV. MY LETTER 112

XVI. THE BLACK HORSE AND THE WHITE 121

XVII. THE OLD OAK CHEST 126

XVIII. THE TRUMPETER 144

XIX. THE TRUMPETER 147

XX. THE RUBY WINE 151

XXI. "AND THEY LAID HIM TO HIS REST" 160

XXII. THE END 162

BALLAD OF THE ARRAS

Lo! where are now these armoured hosts
Mailed for the tourney _câp-a-pie_,
These dames and damozelles whose ghosts
Make of the past this pagentry?

O sanguine book of History!
Romance with perfume cloaks thy must,
But he who shakes the page may see
--Dust.

Stiff hangs the arras in the gloom;
I turn my head awhile to gaze:
Here lordly stallions fret and fume,
Here streams o'er briar and brake the chase.

Here sounds a horn, here turns a face,
How filled with fires of life and lust!
Wind shakes the arras and betrays
--Dust.

Ephemeral hand inditing this
Great hound that lolls against my knee,
Lips pursed in thought as if to kiss
Regret--full soon the time must be.

When one shall search, but find not ye,
For that dim moth whose labours rust
All forms in time or tapestry
--Dust.

Forth offspring to the perch and then
Clap wings--or fall, if find you must
This saddest fate of books or men
--Dust.

DEATH THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY