terval, Marmaduke again recovered, and his eyes turned
with pain from the glare of a light held to his face.

"He wakes, Father,--he will live!" cried a sweet voice. "Ay, he will
live, child!" answered a deeper tone; and the young man muttered to
himself, half audibly, as in a dream, "Holy Mother be blessed! it is
sweet to live." The room in which the sufferer lay rather exhibited
the remains of better fortunes than testified to the solid means of the
present possessor. The ceiling was high and groined, and some tints
of faded but once gaudy painting blazoned its compartments and hanging
pendants. The walls had been rudely painted (for arras [Mr. Hallam
("History of the Middle Ages," chap. ix. part 2) implies a doubt whether
great houses were furnished with hangings so soon as the reign of Edward
IV.; but there is abundant evidence to satisfy our learned historian
upon that head. The Narrative of the "Lord of Grauthuse," edited by Sir
F. Madden, specifies the hangings of cloth of gold in the apartments in
which that lord was received by Edward IV.; also the hangings of white
silk and linen in the chamber appropriated to himself at Windsor.
But long before this period (to say nothing of the Bayeux
Tapestry),--namely, in the reign of Edward III. (in 1344),--a writ was
issued to inquire into the mystery of working tapestry; and in 1398 Mr.
Britton observes that the celebrated arras hangings at Warwick
Castle are mentioned. (See Britton's "Dictionary of Architecture
and Archaelogy," art. "Tapestry.")] then was rare, even among the
wealthiest); but the colours were half obliterated by time and damp. The
bedstead on which the wounded man reclined was curiously carved, with a
figure of the Virgin at the head, and adorned with draperies, in which
were wrought huge figures from scriptural subjects, but in the dress
of the date of Richard II.,--Solomon in pointed upturned shoes, and
Goliath, in the armour of a crusader, frowning grimly upon the sufferer.
By the bedside stood a personage, who, in reality, was but little past
the middle age, but whose pale visage, intersected with deep furrows,
whose long beard and hair, partially gray, gave him the appearance of
advanced age: nevertheless there was something peculiarly striking in
the aspect of the man. His forehead was singularly high and massive; but
the back of the head was disproportionately small, as if the intellect
too much preponderated over all the animal qualities for str