CHAPTER XIII. "I have deeply felt The mockery of the shrine at which my spirit knelt. Mine is the requiem of years in reckless folly passed, The wail above departed hopes on a frail venture cast." WHITTIEE. •••1 •'•!•,•- .. ,v JUi^(vifWit ACTING upon the hint of Adela, Prince Henry repaired immediately to Huntingdon and secured the good offices of Maude and her husband, in effecting a communication with the beautiful novice Matilda. He was thus enabled to counteract the efforts of his powerful rival "Warrenne, Earl of Surrey, to whom Rufus had promised her hand. Deeming it unsafe however to quit England, he tarried at court and passed his time in hunting and hawking, accord-ing to the manners of the age. The New Forest was the constant scene of dissolute pleasures. The sweet solemnity of the deep woods was daily disturbed by the Bacchanal revel, and the pure echoes of the dell were forced to answer the loose laugh and thoughtless imprecation. Godly men lifted up their voice against the corruptions of the age, and saintly priests warned by omens and dreams, admonished the Red King on a certain day, to avoid the glen in which Prince Richard was supposed to have contracted his fatal disease. But the impious Rufus, with studied contempt led the chase that way, diverting his attendants with ribald jests upon the warnings he had received. " Come, Deer's foot," said "Warrenne, tauntingly to Prince Henry, " yonder bounds the stag. The fair hand of Matilda to him who brings the antlered monarch down." " I have broken the string of my arblast, and must repair to the hut of this for-rester to replace it," replied Henry coldly. " Come on, ye laggards. Ho ! Tyrrel, thou and I alone will be in at the death," cried Rufus, putting spurs to his horse. As Henry entered the cottage, a weird wife rose up as if from the ground before him, chanting in Norman French, 104 HEROINES OP THE CRUSADES.