It was over, and the aisle was strewn with the gay flowers of early summer, as our Hubert and his bride left the sacred pile.  But one adieu to the father, who would not leave his monastery even then, but who fell upon Hubert’s neck and wept while he cried, “My son, my dear son, God bless thee;” and the bridal train rode off to the castle above, where the marriage feast was spread.

Then Earl Simon to his onerous duties, and the happy pair to keep their honeymoon at Walderne.

Oh, the joy of that leafy month of June, in the wild woods, all loosed from care.  Hubert seemed to have found true happiness, if it could be found on earth.  And Martin, he too was happy, in his work of love and reconciliation.

It was an oasis in life’s pilgrimage, when man might well fancy he had found an Eden upon earth again.  And there we would fain leave our two friends and cousins.

Epilogue.

A few words respecting the fate of our chief characters must close our story.  We need not tell our readers the future of the great earl—­it is written on the pages of history.  But his work did not die on the fatal field of Evesham.  It lived in the royal nephew, through whose warlike skill he was overthrown, and who speedily arrived at the conclusion that most of the reforms of his uncle were founded upon the eternal principles of truth and justice.  Hence that legislation which gained for Edward, the greatest of the Plantagenets, and the first truly English king since Harold, the title of the “English Justinian.”

Hubert was not with his lord when he fell.  He had been selected to be of the household of Simon’s beloved Countess Eleanor, and he was with her at Dover when the fatal news of Evesham arrived.  He could only cry, “Would God I had died for him,” while the countess abandoned herself to her grief.

Edward soon sought a reconciliation with the countess, who, it will be remembered, was his father’s sister; which being effected, she passed over to France with her only daughter, to join her sons already there; and King Louis received her with great kindness, while Hubert and his companions of her guard were received into the favour of Edward, and exempted from the sweeping sentence of confiscation passed in the first intoxication of triumph upon all the adherents of the Montforts.

Brother Roger died in peace at a great age, at the Priory of Lewes, growing in grace as he grew in years, until at last he passed away, “awaiting,” as he said, “the manifestation of the sons of God,” amongst whom, sinner though he had been, he hoped to stand in his lot in the latter days.

Ralph of Herstmonceux, who had been happily preserved from death at the battle of Evesham, followed his father to Dover, where they joined the countess in the defence of that fortress, and shared the forgiveness extended to her followers.  So completely did Edward forgive the family, that we read in the Chronicles how King Edward, long afterwards, honoured Herstmonceux with a royal visit on his road to make a pious retreat at the Abbey of Battle.  Ralph succeeded his father, and we may be sure lived on good terms with Hubert.