peasant quaffed the same vintage of wine, and the same brimming beer. To all Lady Ludmila distributed pleasant compliments with impartiality; yet unusually keen observers did detect a watchfulness for Lord Drda’s comfort, a confidence of phraseology, and a willingness to confer light commissions that betokened an interest not the less because not obvious or avowed. His wax light found its place with strict regularity; a flower graced his chamber; and a water pitcher ever replenished intimated a larger interest in his personal welfare than the attention itself announced.
In the midst of all this confidence and joy the dreadful intelligence arrived from Prague;—-the lord of the castle and its dependent castles, the center of all this honor and congratulation, suddenly and with brutal violence beaten down and flung into a dungeon, at the instant when his loyal heart entrusted his person, wholly unattended, to the honor of his prince, and his liege homage spoke eloquently in the graceful gift of affectionate courtesy to his sovereign’s queen! Men felt stunned with overpowering indignation. Wrath, fury, and then suppressed resentment occupied all minds. The best lord in Bohemia, and the greatest; the noblest heart and most devoted subject; the greatest councilor, and most illustrious and successful statesman; the truest knight and most honorable upholder of Bohemian chivalry, with ineffable baseness entrapped by an appeal to his own honor, and insidiously made the victim of royal duplicity by his own loyal trustfulness! Worse than
