By this time the crates were completely unpacked, and the armour, with the swords and daggers, laid upon the table, where the two lads surveyed them in silent admiration.
"Put them on," Sir Ralph said. "I know that you are longing to do so, and it would be strange were you not. Do you buckle them on the lads, dame. You have done me the service many a time, and it is right that you should be the first to do it for Albert. Aline, do you wait upon Edgar. As you are new to such work, your mother will show you how to do it, but seeing that he has struck five mortal blows in your defence, it is right that you should do him this service."
Aline coloured with pleasure. Her mother first instructed her how to arm Edgar, and then herself buckled on Albert's harness. Their swords were girt on, and the casques added last of all.
"They look two proper esquires, wife," the knight said; "and as we ride to-morrow I shall make but a sorry show beside them."
"Ah, father," said Albert, "but your armour has many an honourable mark, and it can be seen that, if it is not as bright as ours, 'tis in battle that its lustre has been lost, while all can see that, bright as our armour may be, it has not had the christening of battle."
"Well put!" his mother said, softly. "There was no more noble figure than your father when I first buckled his armour on for him. It was a new suit he had taken from a great French lord he had overthrown in battle, and I was as proud of him as I now feel of you, for you have shown yourself worthy of him, and though your arms are unmarked, 'tis but because your battles were fought before you had them."
"We had hardly ventured to hope for this, dame," Sir Ralph said, with a strange huskiness in his throat. "No knight could have begun a career more creditably or more honourably. Three times has he fought—once on behalf of you and Aline, twice for men and women in danger. In what better causes could he have first fleshed his sword? Now, unbuckle him at once, dame, that he may write in my name a letter of thanks to this noble Fleming. I have not written a letter for years, and our friend would scarce be able to decipher it were I to try." Then he went on, as she removed Albert's casque: "There was good taste as well as judgment in the purchase of those arms, Agatha. To me who knows what arms are, they are superb, but to the ordinary eye they would seem no better than those generally worn by knights or by esquires of good family; whereas, had he bought one of these damascened suits it would at once have attracted attention, and the lads would have been taken for great nobles. I doubt not that guided the stout alderman in his choice. He is a man of strong sense and sober taste, and had he not been born a merchant he would have made a rare good fighter."
As soon as Albert's harness was taken off he sat down and wrote, in his fair clerkly hand, a letter of the warmest thanks on the part of Sir Ralph, Edgar, and himself to Van Voorden. After this had been sent off, the swords and daggers were examined and admired, Sir Ralph declaring the former to be of the finest Toledo steel and the latter to come from Damascus. Edgar had said little, but he was even more delighted with his new acquisition than Albert. To have a good suit of armour had been his greatest ambition, but his father was by no means wealthy, and he had thought that his only chance of obtaining such a suit would be to overthrow some French noble in battle.
The next morning they were up betimes, and mounted a few minutes before the hour at which the city gates would be opened. Sir Ralph and his dame rode first, Aline took her place between her brother and Edgar, the latter keeping a watchful eye over her horse, which was fresh after six or seven days' idleness. The two retainers rode behind, having the ladies' valises strapped behind them. The city churches rang out the hour when they were within a hundred yards of the gate, and as this opened, Van Voorden, with his daughter behind him on a pillion, rode out to meet them, followed by two mounted men.
"That is thoughtful and courteous of him, dame," the knight said. "He might well have come alone; but it is kindly of him as well as courteous to bring his daughter."