" When the men of Chalus
came on the walls to defend it against the scaling-parties of King
Richard, they were like so many skeletons in armor; they could hardly
pull their bowstrings at last, or pitch down stones on the heads of his
Majesty's party, so weak had their arms become; and the gigantic Count
of Chalus--a warrior as redoubtable for his size and strength as Richard
Plantagenet himself--was scarcely able to lift up his battle-axe upon
the day of that last assault, when Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe ran him
through the--but we are advancing matters.
What should prevent me from describing the agonies of hunger which the
Count (a man of large appetite) suffered in company with his heroic sons
and garrison?--Nothing, but that Dante has already done the business
in the notorious history of Count Ugolino; so that my efforts might be
considered as mere imitations. Why should I not, if I were minded to
revel in horrifying details, show you how the famished garrison drew
lots, and ate themselves during the siege; and how the unlucky lot
falling upon the Countess of Chalus, that heroic woman, taking an
affectionate leave of her family, caused her large caldron in the castle
kitchen to be set a-boiling, had onions, carrots and herbs, pepper and
salt made ready, to make a savory soup, as the French like it; and when
all things were quite completed, kissed her children, jumped into the
caldron from off a kitchen stool, and so was stewed down in her flannel
bed-gown? Dear friends, it is not from want of imagination, or from
having no turn for the terrible or pathetic, that I spare you these
details.
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