It might have amused a close and philosophical observer, to note the promptitude with which the young cavaliers, in particular, rose in their saddles, as if casting aside the lounging mien of grovelling traders, in order to appear what they really were, men accustomed to the tourney and the field. On the ramparts the change was equally sudden and great. All appearance of drowsiness vanished; the soldiers spoke to each other in suppressed but hurried voices; and the distant tramp of feet announced that messengers were dispatched in various directions. Some ten minutes elapsed in this manner, during which an inferior officer showed himself on the ramparts, and apologized for a delay that arose altogether from the force of discipline, and on no account from any want of respect. At length a bustle on the wall, with the light of many lanterns, betrayed the approach of the governor of the town; and the impatience of the young men below, that had begun to manifest itself in half-uttered execrations, was put under a more decent restraint for the occasion. "Are the joyful tidings that my people bring me true?" cried one from the battlements; while a lantern was lowered from the wall, as if to make a closer inspection of the party at the gate: "Am I really so honoured, as to receive a summons from Don Ferdinand of Aragon, at this unusual hour?" "Cause thy fellow to turn his lantern more closely on my countenance," answered the king, "that thou may'st make thyself sure. I will cheerfully overlook the disrespect, Count of Treviño, for the advantage of a more speedy admission." ""Tis he!" exclaimed the noble: “I know those royal features, which bear the lineaments of a long race of kings; and that voice have I heard, often, rallying the squadrons of Aragon, in their onsets against the Moors. Let the trumpets speak up, and proclaim this happy arrival; and open wide our gates, without delay." This order was promptly obeyed, and the youthful king entered Osma, by sound of trumpet, encircled by a strong party of men-at-arms, and with half of the awakened and astonished population at his heels. "It is lucky, my Lord King," said Don Andres de Ca brera, the young noble already mentioned, as he rode familiarly at the side of Don Ferdinand, "that we have found these good lodgings without cost; it being a melancholy trutn, that Master Ferreras hath, negligently enough, mislaid the only purse there was among us. In such a strait, it would not have been easy to keep up the character of thrifty traders, much longer; for, while the knaves higgle at the price of every thing, they are fond of letting their gold be seen." "Now that we are in thine own Castile, Don Andres," returned the king, smiling, we shall throw ourselves gladly on thy hospitality, well knowing that thou hast two most beautiful diamonds always at thy command." "I, Sir King! Your Highness is pleased to be merry at my expense, although I believe it is, just now, the only gratification I can pay for. My attachment for the Princess Isabella hath driven me from my lands; and even the humblest cavalier in the Aragonese army, is not, just now, poorer than I. What diamonds, therefore, can I command?" "Report speaketh favourably of the two brilliants that are set in the face of the Doña Beatriz de Bobadilla; and I hear they are altogether at thy disposal; or, as much so, as a noble maiden's inclinations can leave them with a loyal knight." "Ah! my Lord King! if indeed this adventure end as happily as it commenceth, I may, indeed, look to your royal favour, for some aid in that matter." The king smiled, in his own sedate manner; but the Count de Treviño pressing nearer to his side, at that moment, the discourse was changed. That night, Ferdinand of Aragon slept soundly; but with the dawn, he and his followers were again in the saddle. The party quitted Osma, however, in a manner very different from that in which it had approached its gate. Ferdinand now appeared as a knight, mounted on a noble Andalusian charger; and all his followers had still more openly assumed their proper characters. A strong body of lancers, led by the Count of Treviño, in person, composed the escort; and on the 9th of the month, the whole cavalcade reached Dueñas, in Leon, a place quite near to Valladolid. The disaffected noVOL. I. 3 bles crowded about the prince to pay their court, and he was received as became his high rank and still higher destinies. Here the more luxurious Castilians had an opportunity of observing the severe personal discipline by which Don Ferdinand, at the immature years of eighteen, for he was scarcely older, had succeeded in hardening his body, and in stringing his nerves, so as to be equal to any deeds in arms. His delight was found in the rudest military exercises; and no knight of Aragon could better direct his steed in the tourney, or in the field. Like most, of the royal races of that period, and indeed of this, in despite of the burning sun under which he dwelt, his native complexion was brilliant, though it had already become embrowned by exposure in the chase, and in the martial occupations of his boyhood. Temperate as a Mussulman, his active and wellproportioned frame seemed to be early indurating, as if Providence held him in reserve, for some of its own dispensations that called for great bodily vigour, as well as for deep forethought and a vigilant sagacity. During the four or five days that followed, the noble Castilians who listened to his discourse, knew not of which most to approve, his fluent eloquence, or a wariness of thought and expression, which, while they might have been deemed prematurely worldly and cold-blooded, were believed to be particular merits in one destined to control the jarring passions, deep deceptions, and selfish devices, of men. CHAPTER II. "Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam; WORDSWORTH. WHILE John of Aragon had recourse to such means to enable his son to escape the vigilant and vindictive emis saries of the King of Castile, there were anxious hearts in Valladolid, awaiting the result with the impatience and doubt that ever attend the execution of hazardous enterprises. Among others who felt this deep interest in the movements of Ferdinand of Aragon and his companions, were a few, whom it has now become necessary to introduce to the reader. Although Valladolid had not then reached the magnificence it subsequently acquired as the capital of Charles V., it was an ancient, and, for the age, a magnificent and luxurious town, possessing its palaces, as well as its more inferior abodes. To the principal of the former, the resi dence of John de Vivero, a distinguished noble of the kingdom, we must repair in imagination; where companions more agreeable than those we have just quitted, await us, and who were then themselves awaiting, with deep anxiety, the arrival of a messenger with tidings from Dueña. The particular apartment that it will be necessary to imagine, had much of the rude splendour of the period, united to that air of comfort and fitness that woman seldom fails to impart to the portion of any edifice that comes directly under her control. In the year 1469, Spain was fast approaching the termination of that great struggle which had already endured seven centuries, and in which the Christian and the Mussulman contended for the mastery of the peninsula. The latter had long held sway in the southern parts of Leon, and had left behind him, in the palaces of this town, some of the traces of his barbaric magnificence. The lofty and fretted ceilings were not as glorious as those to be found further south, it is true; still the Moor had been here, and the name of Veled Vlid, since changed to Valladolid, denotes its Arabic connection. In the room just mentioned, and in the principal palace of this ancient town, that of John de Vivero, were two females, in earnest and engrossing discourse. Both were young, and, though in very different styles, both would have been deemed beautiful in any age or region of the earth. One, indeed, was surpassingly lovely. She had just reached her nineteenth year, an age when the female form has received its full developement in that generous climate; and the most imaginative poet of Spain,, a country so renowned for beauty form in the sex, could not have conceived of a person more symmetrical. The hands, feet, bust, and all the outlines, were those of feminine loveliness; while the stature, without rising to a height to suggest the idea of any thing masculine, was sufficient to ennoble an air of quiet dignity. The beholder, at first, was a little at a loss to know whether the influence to which he submitted, proceeded most from the perfection of the body itself, or from the expression that the soul within imparted to the almost faultless exterior. The face was, in all respects, worthy of the form. Although born beneath the sun of Spain, her lineage carried her back, through a long line of kings, to the Gothic sovereigns; and its frequent intermarriages with foreign princesses, had produced in her countenance, that intermixture of the brilliancy of the north, with the witchery of the south, that probably is nearest to the perfection of feminine loveliness. Her complexion was fair, and her rich locks had that tint of the auburn which approaches as near as possible to the more marked colour that gives it warmth, without attaining any of the latter's distinctive hue. "Her mild blue eyes," says an eminent historian, "beamed with intelligence and sensibility." In these indexes to the soul, indeed, were to be found her highest claims to loveliness, for they bespoke no less the beauty within, than the beauty without; imparting to features of exquisite delicacy and symmetry, a serene expression of dignity and moral excellence, that was remarkably softened by a modesty that seemed as auch allied to the sensibilities of a woman, as to the purity f an angel. To add to all these charms, though of royal kood, and educated in a court, an earnest but meek sincerity presided over every look and thought, as thought was Detrayed in the countenance, adding the illumination of truth to the lustre of youth and beauty. The attire of this princess was simple, for happily the taste of the age enabled those who worked for the toilet to consult the proportions of nature; though the materials were rich, and such as became her high rank. A single cross of diamonds sparkled on a neck of snow, to which it was attached by a short string of pearls; and a few rings, decked with stones of price, rather cumbered than adorned |