"Yes.—And it's a very handsome young man also, that walks by the side of him," replied Father Murphy.
"His hands are chained as if he were a prisoner; and he looks like a foreigner," observed Mr. Montagu, who had relapsed into one of his fits of abstraction: "I wonder what can bring him there!"
"La! Mr. Montagu, how you talk!" exclaimed his wife, "you know my nephew Lord Edmund, has just gained a battle, and what can be more natural than that he should have taken prisoners?"
"True," rejoined Mr. Montagu with the utmost naïveté, "I never thought of that!"
"Och, and it's a barbarous custom that of putting chains about the hands of the prisoners," said Father Murphy, "as if it was not bad enough to be a prisoner without looking, like one."
"Poor fellow!" cried Clara, "I should like to go and let him loose. He looks very melancholy!"
"How great my nephew Lord Edmund looks!" continued Mrs. Montagu: "I declare it he were a real king he couldn't have a grander appearance. And then to see the poor old gentleman his father, my brother-in-law, Sir Ambrose, sitting there hand-in-hand with the Duke of Cornwall himself—I declare it does my heart good to look at them!"
Whilst Mrs. Montagu was thus exulting in the reflected grandeur that shone upon her, from being sister-in-law to the person who sat hand-in-hand with the duke, the joy and delight of that exalted personage had been almost as great as her own.
His impatience during the whole procession from London had been excessive; and the moment he saw Edmund, he rubbed his hands in ecstasy, and jumping up in his seat almost overturned Sir Ambrose, who was also bending forward eagerly gazing upon his son. "There! there he is!" cried the duke. "Look how handsome he is! Oh the young rogue! there'll be many a heart lost to-day, I warrant me! Look at him, how the colour comes into his cheeks as the Queen speaks to him! Look! Now he helps her on her horse—and now see, he's looking round for us! There I caught his eye—see, Sir Ambrose! don't you see him?—Surely you ar'n't crying, my old friend? Why you'll make me as great a fool as yourself—God bless him! I am sure I don't know any thing we have to cry at; but we are two old simpletons."
Father Morris, who had joined the procession of monks, was almost as much affected as his patron. Indeed his affection for Edmund seemed the only human passion remaining in his ascetic breast. Cold even to frigidity in his exterior, Father Morris seemed to regard the scenes passing around him but as the moving figures of a magic lantern, which glittered for a moment in glowing colours, and then vanished into darkness, leaving no trace behind:—whilst he, unmoved as the wall over which the gaudy but shadowy pageant had passed, saw them alternately vanish and re-appear without the slightest emotion being excited in his mind. Under this statue-like appearance, however, Father Morris concealed passions as terrific as those which might be supposed to throb in the breast of a demon: though never did his self-command seem relaxed for a moment, but when the interests of Edmund were in question. On the present occasion, however, joy swelled in his bosom almost to suffocation, as he raised his eyes to Heaven, and, wringing his hands together, exclaimed, "Oh! it is too—too much!"