"Don't call a fellow names, Ralph Lisle; you did not use to do so. I fear you have learnt bad manners since I have been away. It's well for you I've come back. But there's no time to be lost. Let me have something to eat, for I am parlous hungry."
And so Dicky Cheke really had returned. He gave an amusing account of his escape. It appeared that during the night some of the ghouls, who live by stripping the dead, took off his armour. The next morning he recovered consciousness, and when they were searching the field to bury the chief knights and lords, Dicky, thanks to his bad French, pretended to be a Breton. He was taken to a neighbouring cottage, and was carefully nursed by a kind peasant, who, believing him to be a young Breton of a noble family--for Dicky had quickness enough to pass himself off as a kinsman of poor young De Rohan--took great care of him, and he was eventually able to get to Rennes, which still held out for the Duke of Brittany, and from there his return was an easy matter. He fell in with Lord Broke, who rewarded the peasant, and sent Dicky over to the island as soon as possible.
Great were the rejoicings over Dicky, and the natural self-complacency of that young gentleman was considerably increased. He became a great hero in Newport, and was a very popular character throughout the island.
It was said that he paid considerable attentions to Mistress Magdalen Lisle, now not only the greatest heiress, but declared by those who admired brunettes the loveliest girl in the island.
He still resented that young lady having called him a "tom-tit," but was willing to forgive her if she would consent to share his nest. But report said that Mistress Lisle was waiting for someone else.
Ralph went back to Thruxton, and lived for some years with his father and mother, when the former died full of years and honour. Jasper came into the property. Ralph, now Sir Ralph Lisle, had previously been invited over to Briddlesford, and before old Sir William Lisle died, he had the satisfaction to know that the Knight, for whom his daughter waited, had arrived at last.
When Yolande heard of it--for Ralph rode over to Appuldurcombe to tell her--she said,--
"Ah, I told you true! Do you mind my saying--'When you reach the years of manhood, and are of an age to marry, the lady of your choice will be one who is now a girl of just that little one's age?' That little one was my niece, albeit I knew it not, and now you are of an age to marry, and she is to be your wife. So you see I was a true prophet, and you will marry the niece instead of the aunt. But why do I recall so much of the world? Go, my sweet nephew, make her as true a husband as thou hast been true knight. No more happy fate could he have wished thee than that a brave and noble man should possess the fairest lands and the fairest maid of all the fairest isle the blue seas of England gird."
And now, as old Dan Chaucer hath it, "Ther is ne moe to saie."
The Battle of St Aubin du Cormier was one of the most bloody, as well as hardest fought, as far as the vanguard of the Breton army was concerned, that ever took place on French soil. The French lost the brave James Galliot and twelve hundred men-at-arms, while the Breton army lost six thousand men, including Lord Woodville, and all those who wore red crosses; and among them the Breton nobles,--the Comtes de Leon, De Montfort, and Pont l'Abbé; while the poor young Seigneur De Rohan, who was only fifteen years old, was slain with the English pages and esquires.