It was over, there was not much talk, the hearts of all were too full, and what there was ran in a subdued strain; the dear old lady was in tears, for Cuthbert had become a second Robin, and it was like losing her son again.
Before they parted, Sir Robert brought a sword from the armoury.
“It was my poor Robin’s; wear it, my son, for his sake, for thou art worthy of it.”
Their disguises were at hand, and they assumed them and departed, after a warm farewell and many deep expressions of gratitude.
Cuthbert felt a little sad at first, but the invigorating air, and the restoration to life and action soon revived his spirits, and the love of adventure, never wanting in the young, shed its glamour over him, as they rode over Woodbury Common on their way to Glastonbury.
And thence from that breezy height, looking back, he caught his last view of Dartmoor.
[46] “He shall feed me in a green pasture, and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.”--_Psalm_ xxiii. 2.
[47] Witness, for instance, the case of Lord Dacre, of Hurstmonceux, executed for an offence which, a few generations earlier, would hardly have been considered an offence at all. Like Percy of Chevy Chase he had gone hunting in his neighbour’s grounds; a fray took place and he slew a gamekeeper. Henry would hear of no excuse, and the noble paid for the peasant’s blood on the scaffold at Tyburn, June 29th, 1541.
[48] Sir Walter Raleigh, born six years later, in 1552.
In the library of Castle Redfyrne sat Sir John, the present lord of that ancient manor, at a writing table placed in the embrasure of a gothic window, whence he could look over the broad acres he had made his own.
In the shelves were ranged many printed books and curious manuscripts, in part the plunder of Glastonbury Abbey; and in truth never was typography clearer, or more beautiful than in the first century of its existence; nor on the other hand was caligraphy, as exemplified in ancient missals and breviaries, ever more a work of art than when about to be superseded by the printing press.
But Sir John was not thinking of these things, his evil heart was full of bitterness.
There is an old Spanish proverb,--“The man who has injured thee, will never forgive thee.” Sir John had injured his brother’s child, deeply, cruelly, and he could not forgive him.