large and flourishing) exhibited a very different appearance to that which it now displays. During the turbulent and troublous reign of John, Margate, together with many other towns upon the shores of Thanet, was indeed but a "mere gate:" a miserable looking sea-built hamlet or fishing village, having a watch-tower erected upon the part now designated as the fort-a sort of beacon containing a barrel of pitch in readiness to blaze intelligence of the hostile sail, or peradventure serve as a landmark during rough weather. The veritable sea-gate situate in a gap of the cliff, from which the place derives its name, and which frowning portcullis-like in the chalky height, was a sort of coast-guard substitute to hinder rogues and pirates from coming up into the country, on this side the island, to rob and plunder its inhabitants. In place, indeed, of the handsome dwellings of the present day, in which so many visitors spend their summer vacation, the reader must imagine a squallid collection of huts. It was in the immediate vicinity of this town that, on the opening of our story, a spectacle might be seen, that for some reason or the other which has never yet been satisfactorily urged, is never again to be witnessed in England. It was a hawking party. They came on attended by all those appliances and means" of which the good Lady Berners has so amply and learnedly discoursed-whose book, by the way, we commend to the best attention of our readers. The principal personage of this gallant cavalcade, who rode in front, was a man of some fifty years of age. A moment's glance would have sufficed to convince the spectator that he was no common person. His frame was large and powerful, his bearing majestic, and his countenance noble; and he sate his horse as one who had been more accustomed to the thunder of the captains and the shouting, than to the idle sports of the field or the chase. Sir Gilbert Daundelyonne, for such' was his name, was accompanied on either hand by the new charge with which he had thus encumbered himself, also began to trouble his mind. The young esquire, although brave as the steel he wore, was a youth of a gentle disposition, somewhat different from the haughty, overbearing, and turbulent spirits of the young nobles of his day; and as the maiden gazed upon his handsome features and answered his queries, he felt more and more interested in her helpless condition. "I have neither friend nor protector," she said, "but the woman they have just killed— no home, but the hut I dare no more return to. Oh! do not desert me, or you will have released me from the present danger only to abandon me to a worse fate." The youth hesitated; he was perplexed in the extreme; he knew not what to do. A devil seemed to whisper strange thoughts into his ear, when suddenly the swell of the choir in Salmstone chapel sounded from the building. It seemed a holy monitor to warn him from evil. "Ha!" he said, "I will give you shelter here; you shall take sanctuary till I return. Yonder fat monk, whom I see approaching, will summon hither the harbinger of the her charge I can safely leave you." grange; in "And your name?" said the maiden, looking tearfully in his face, "I have never before experienced so much kindness; let me hear the name of one so noble-looking and good, that I may set it in my prayers.' As the youth gazed upon the lovely girl, he resigned her to the female harbinger of Salmstone, with strict charge to tend her well till his return, and applying the spur to his steed, once more galloped into the town. "I pray you," said the maiden, as she lingered at the gate, "who is yonder good youth ?" "Trouble not yourself about him," said the withered nun, as she drew her in and closed the portal," such rencontres are dangerous and require aves and credos to obliterate them. The Lord of Folkstone and Goulstone is nevertheless a good youth he is esquire to Sir Gilbert Daundelyonne, one who hath kissed the blessed tomb, and fought the holy war in Palestine under |