318 WHISPERS FROM FAIRVLAND. [vI.

 

moreover determined to accomplish his purpose.
Alas! had I ever taken care that he should receive
instruction, had I ever attended to him myself, had
his sainted mother been spared, how different it would
all have been! Neglected, slighted, uneducated, un-
taught save by the early lessons of his dead mother
and the natural instincts of good which Christina
-imparted to all around her, the boy had no self-
control, nothing to draw him back from the evil pur-
pose which he meditated.

‘He drilled and disciplined his band as well as
he was able, and taught them to rely upon him and
obey his directions. They did so only too well. My
departure was watched, and the very next day
measures were taken to surprise the castle. Some-
thing postponed the attack until the night before my
return, so that had I dealt more mercifully with my
neighbour, or even spared their flocks and herds to
his people, the evil might yet have been averted. But
it was not to be! On that fatal evening, the full force
of the robber band, some fifty men, fell suddenly upon
the unsuspecting garrison. It was the supper hour,
and they were together in the banqueting hall when
the attack commenced.

‘Taken at such disadvantage, resistance against a
force four times their number was simply impossible.
I gathered from my retainer that Sir Smith, the lion-
hearted man that he was, performed prodigies of
valour, and that no less than five of the robbers fell
by his hand. They say, but I cannot think it true,
that it was Rudolf, the remorseless Rudolf himself,
who struck the fatal blow which at last felled him to