Then the smells, the sounds, the cries. Ralph had never enjoyed life before. All the instincts of his race came out in him,--of that ancient race of the island, whose origin was lost in the dim vista of antiquity, whose lands belonged to the mysterious sons of Stur long before the Norman Conquest, and passed by marriage to De Lisle, if indeed De Lisle was not simply the Norman form of expression for the original lord of the island, for who could more worthily be called "de insula" or "of the island" or "De Lisle" than that family which was above all others "of the island?" since the possessions of the "filius Azor" or "Stur" are the most important of any, as recorded in Domesday book.
The instincts of his sea-girt ancestors rose in him, and Ralph Lisle gazed at the dancing water with eager delight.
The scene of confusion that then followed delighted him still more. The getting the horses on board, the telling off the various parties each to its own barge, the excitement of pushing out into the stream, or warping the larger vessels off to their kedge anchors, which were dropped in the middle of the fairway, all this was delicious, and Ralph felt he was in a wonderful dream.
"Mind your eye, young Popinjay!" bawled a burly seaman. "Stand clear o' that warp now," as Ralph took his stand on a large coil of rope near the bows. "Such a gay bird as you should know better than to stand on a warp that way. Did yer think 'twas a doormat?"
In a few minutes the barge was hauled out into the stream, the anchor was right up and down.
"Haul away there," called the captain.
Out flapped the big foresail in the breeze, the jib was run out, the anchor was up, and hanging at the bows, already the water was chattering under her stem.
"Now then, my lads, shake out that mainsail. Look alive there!" bawled the skipper, and the great white sail dropped down from the mainmast and longyard, where it had been brailed up, and swelled out in the breeze, louder chattered the wavelets under the bow, and merrily the seamen sheeted home the ropes.
Ralph had now time to look round him. He was on the same barge as Lord Woodville and his immediate escort. The horses with the grooms and men-at-arms were on a large barge that was running alongside of them. On their right, but a little astern, was another barge containing the rest of the troop, and among them Ralph was glad to see the beggar man and his daughter.
The baggage and vanguard had gone on early in the morning, under the charge of Tom o' Kingston.