* * * * *
But to return to Raymond Buckland and his adventures. As squire to Sir John Hacket, the Constable of the King's Castle of Portchester, he was now a member of the knight's household, spending the greater part of his time within the grey walls of the fortress.
Four years had made a great change in Raymond's appearance. He was now a youth of twenty, tall and well built. Thanks to his surroundings, he was skilled in the arts of warfare, and few could withstand him at the jousts and spear-runnings that were frequently held in the extensive grass-grown square that formed the outer bailey of the castle. Moreover, his monkish training admirably fitted him for the more clerkly duties that fell to him, and by his diligence, intelligence, and courage he was held in high esteem by the fiery old knight.
Redward, too, for his tried devotion and experience was made head master-bowman of the Constable's company, and, when occasion served, Sir John was not above asking his advice in the ordering of the castle and its defences.
But over Raymond hung a dark cloud of perplexity. The image of the fair Lady Audrey was ever present in his mind, and, encouraged by the Constable's prediction that in due course he might be entitled to wear the gilded spurs of knighthood, his hopes ran high of one day being in a position to win the maiden's heart and hand. But to his unbounded surprise, Raymond found that his father was tacitly opposed to this, his dearest wish. With difficulty Redward had been persuaded to allow the young squire to wait upon Sir Reginald Scarsdale, when that knight wished to thank him for his services. Any mention of the name of Scarsdale served to plunge the master-bowman into moodiness and silence, and any question that the lad put to his sire on the subject was turned in a way that puzzled Raymond in no small degree.
One day an event happened that was to transfer the lad from the pleasant life of ease at the castle to a far more active and dangerous sphere.
How well Raymond remembered it in after years. That morning he and another squire had mounted the four-storeyed Norman keep, and from the battlements looked down upon the scene below. It was a striking picture; the keep stood at the north-west-angle of the huge fortified enclosure. Immediately beneath the east and south faces of the donjon lay the inner bailey. In the far corner of the outer bailey stood the church, and close by was the water-gate, at which lay the Constable's state barge. Away to the south stretched the wide expanse of Portsmouth Harbour, its waters dotted with the sails of high-sided cogs and other merchant vessels, as they threaded their way up the sinuous deep-water channels that led to the castle.
Immediately opposite the water-gate was the landport, or gateway giving access to the castle from the land. The lads could follow the line of the dusty road as it passed through the little village, swept round the head of the harbour, and eventually was lost in the distance as it ran towards the City of London.
"Look, Raymond," exclaimed his companion, a Hampshire lad named Oswald Mant. "A horseman approaches, and, my faith, he does not spare his steed!"
"'Tis not one of the company?"