ed and unshorn locks of
yellow hair as fitfully and as vividly as the last gleams of the sun
shoot through the clouds of an approaching thunderstorm, which still,
however, are gilded by its beams. His manly features showed the
progress of wasting illness, and his beard, neglected and untrimmed,
had overgrown both lips and chin. Casting himself from side to side, now
clutching towards him the coverings, which at the next moment he flung
as impatiently from him, his tossed couch and impatient gestures showed
at once the energy and the reckless impatience of a disposition whose
natural sphere was that of the most active exertion.

Beside his couch stood Thomas de Vaux, in face, attitude, and manner
the strongest possible contrast to the suffering monarch. His stature
approached the gigantic, and his hair in thickness might have resembled
that of Samson, though only after the Israelitish champion's locks had
passed under the shears of the Philistines, for those of De Vaux were
cut short, that they might be enclosed under his helmet. The light of
his broad, large hazel eye resembled that of the autumn morn; and it was
only perturbed for a moment, when from time to time it was attracted by
Richard's vehement marks of agitation and restlessness. His features,
though massive like his person, might have been handsome before they
were defaced with scars; his upper lip, after the fashion of the
Normans, was covered with thick moustaches, which grew so long and
luxuriantly as to mingle with his hair, and, like his hair, were dark
brown, slightly brindled with grey. His frame seemed of that kind which
most readily defies both toil and climate, for he was thin-flanked,
broad-chested, long-armed, deep-breathed, and strong-limbed. He had not
laid aside his buff-coat, which displayed the cross cut on the shoulder,
for more than three nights, enjoying but such momentary repose as the
warder of a sick monarch's couch might by snatches indulge. This Baron
rarely changed his posture, except to administer to Richard the medicine
or refreshments which none of his less favoured attendants could
persuade the impatient monarch to take; and there was something
affecting in the kindly yet awkward manner in which he discharged
offices so strangely contrasted with his blunt and soldierly habits and
manners.

The pavilion in which these personages were, had, as became the time,
as well as the personal character of Richard, more of a warlike than a