As the thought of unmanly violence against an imprisoned captive came into his mind, by chance his hand came into contact with a hard object in his pouch or gypsire.  He drew it forth.  It was the key of Martin’s dungeon.

“Oh, joy!  Oh, good luck!  It would take twelve smiths to force that door—­meanwhile Martin would die of starvation and thirst.”

Should he send it back?

“No, no!”

He clutched that key with joy.  He kissed it, he hugged it.

“I may perish in the battlefield, but he dies with me.  Martin, thou art mine.  Thy doom is sealed, and all without design.”

Thanks to the saints, if any there be, or rather to the opposite powers.

We will not follow the royal army on its onward march to the seacoast, where they hoped to secure the two Cinque Ports—­Winchelsea and Pevensey, so as to keep open their communications with the continent.  How Peter of Savoy, the then lord of the “Eagle,” entertained them at the Norman castle, which had arisen on the ruins of Anderida; how they sacked Hamelsham and ravaged Herstmonceux.  Then, finally, took up their quarters at Lewes; the king, as became his piety, at the priory; the prince, as became his youth, at the castle with John, Earl de Warrenne; to await the approach of the barons.

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There, in that priory, anticipating the rest which awaiteth the people of God, the once fiery and headlong prodigal, Roger of Walderne, spent his peaceful old age.  He was quite happy about his gallant son, and felt assured that he should not die until he had once more clasped him to his paternal breast, when he would joyfully chant his Nunc Dimittis.

On that very night when Hubert thought that his father came to his cell, with assurance of hope, the father too dreamed that he saw his son in that cell, and gave him the comforting assurance related; and when he awoke he said;

“Hubert my son is yet alive.  I shall see him ere I die.  I had given the first born of my body for the sin of my soul, but God hath provided a better offering, and Isaac shall be restored.”

But yet another strange occurrence confirmed his hope and faith.  For a long time the ghostly apparition had ceased to trouble him.  Its appearances had been but occasional since he took refuge in the house of God, but still it did sometimes reappear.  The sceptic will see in the spectre but the pangs of conscience taking a bodily form, but even if only the creature of the imagination, it was equally real to the sufferer.