Magdalen, well knowing the reserved nature of her father, and not caring for the escort of Master Bowerman, especially after what she had overheard, resolved to go back to the nunnery; but she also made up her mind she would see the Hermit of St Catherine's on her way, and tell him of her anxiety.
She therefore took leave of her father, who seemed more affectionate than usual; and declining Bowerman's offer of accompanying her, she climbed the difficult path up the cliff, and disappeared over the brow of the gorge.
CHAPTER XX.
HOW THE CAPTAIN KEPT TRYST.
It was about a month after the tourney, when Ralph, who had entirely recovered from his wound, was summoned to attend the Captain of the Wight.
On entering the Lord Woodville's room, he found that nobleman standing before the fire in a contemplative attitude, and Ralph stood for a few moments in respectful silence.
Presently Lord Woodville looked up, and, noticing Ralph, resumed at once his usual manner.
"My young esquire," he said, "I have sent for thee because there is no one of my household whom I can trust more than thee."
Ralph coloured up with pleasure; he noticed with pride the change of title. He was no longer a page, but esquire to his lord. But what went to his heart far more than this was being addressed in such affectionate and trusting terms. Lord Woodville had won the boy's heart from the first by his noble bearing, handsome appearance, and lonely life. In the midst of a gay and martial household, always dignified, placid, and reserved, Lord Woodville seemed to him like some hero of romance, some knight-templar who had consecrated his life to God, and, unlike the common herd of monks, who withdrew from the world in timidity or selfish sloth, he remained in it to face the temptations, the pleasures, and the vices, and to face them not merely as an idle spectator, but as a splendid protest against the vanity of the world. Not pledged or bound by any such bonds as those by which weaker mortals sought to guard themselves from the allurements of life; not fleeing for protection to the feeble chains of monastic institutions, or even the semi-monastic life of the great military order which alone survived, but like a stout pinnacle of indestructible granite round which some stream for ever dashes its ceaseless waves, now striving to wear it away with the soft embrace and gentle murmurs of its softly wooing current, then dashing against the calm rock in the wild tumult of its turbid waters, and seeking to topple it from its base with the rage of its fierce turmoil, so stood out the life of the Lord Woodville in its tranquil strength.
Outwardly cold, but inwardly burning with the desire of martial fame; always the first in all warlike enterprise; a strict disciplinarian, but a most kind and gentle knight to all in distress or suffering, the Captain of the Wight was the beau ideal of a preux chevalier. In every battle of the fierce civil wars he had shown himself a daring man-at-arms, as well as a prudent chieftain, and, like his accomplished brother, he was devoted to the arts in times of peace. He was a strict observer of the religious life of the times, and although not blind to the many shortcomings of the clergy, yet he did all in his power to promote the influence of religion, and to improve all with whom he came in contact.