with
anger, were now calm and subdued.

"Farewell! Henry de Stramen," said Gilbert, as he leaped into the
saddle.

"Farewell!" replied his antagonist, and, almost side by side, they
proceeded in the direction of the bell.

A deadly feud was raging between the families of Hers and Stramen. It
had continued for more than twenty years, and now burned with unabated
fury. It originated in some dispute between Gilbert's father and the
Lord Robert de Stramen, Henry's uncle, which resulted in the death of
the latter. The Baron of Hers was charged with the murder, and, though
he persisted in declaring his innocence, Henry's impetuous father, the
Lord Sandrit de Stramen, swore over the dead body of his brother to take
a bitter revenge on the Baron of Hers and all his line. Henry de Stramen
had been nursed in the bitterest hostility to all who bore the name of
Hers, and the unrelenting persecution of the Lord Sandrit had made
Gilbert detest most cordially the house of Stramen. It was with mutual
hatred, then, that the two young men had met at the spring. They knew
each other well, for they had often fought hand to hand, with their
kinsmen and serfs around them. Now they were alone, and what a triumph
would be the victor's! but the bell, the Tell of peace, the
silver-tongued herald of the truce of God, had sheathed their weapons.

It could not have been without a severe struggle that the two mortal
foes rode quietly in the same direction, with but a few yards between
them. They were not half an hour in the saddle when they discovered the
spire of the church they were both in search of, rising gracefully above
the trees. As they emerged from the forest, they could see stretching
before them a broad expanse of hill and dale, wood and field. Scattered
here and there were the humble dwellings of the forester and husbandman,
and, from their midst, towering above them, like Jupiter among the
demigods, stately and stern rose the old castle of the house of Stramen.
The western sky was still bathed in light, and shared its glories with
the earth; airy clouds, ever changing their hues, sported, like
chameleons, on the horizon; the stream that wound around the castle
seemed sheeted with polished silver: the herds and flocks were all
still, and the voice of the birds was the only sound; and, amid this
beauty and repose, how lovely and majestic was that finely moulded
Gothic church!

Henry de Stramen tied his horse to a tree, and was soo