’Say on, Rowland.  I owe thee something for long and faithful service.  An’ I can, I will.’

’Give me the roundhead’s mare that I may the better find her master.’

For Lady was still within the walls.  The marquis could not restore her, but neither could he bring himself to use her, cherishing the hope of being one day free to give her back to a reconciled subject.  But alas! there were very few horses now in Raglan stalls.

‘No, Rowland,’ he said, ’thou art the last who ought to get any good of her.  It were neither law nor justice to hand the stolen goods to the thief.’

He sat silent, and Rowland, not very eager, stood before him in silence also, meaning it to be read as indicating that to the wars except on that mare’s back he would not ride.  But the thought of the marquis had now taken another turn.

’Thou shalt have her, my boy.  Thou shalt not rust at home for the sake of a gouty old man and his claret.  But ere thou go, I will write out certain maxims for thy following both in the field and in quarters.  Ere thou ride, look well to thy girths, and as thou ridest say thy prayers, for it pleaseth not God that every man on the right side should live, and thou mayst find the presence in which thou standest change suddenly from that of mortal man to that of living God.  I say nothing of orthodoxy, for truly I am not one to think that because a man hath been born a heretic, which lay not in his choice, and hath not been of his parents taught in the truth, that therefore he must howl for ever.  Not while blessed Mary is queen of heaven, will all the priests in Christendom persuade me thereof.  Only be thou fully persuaded in thine own mind, Rowland; for if thou cared not, that were an evil thing indeed.  And of all things, my lad, remember this, that a weak blow were ever better unstruck.  Go now to the armourer, and to him deliver my will that he fit thee out as a cuirassier for his majesty’s service.  I can give thee no rank, for I have no regiment in the making at present, but it may please his majesty to take care of thee, and give thee a place in my lord Glamorgan’s regiment of body-guards.’

The prospect thus suddenly opened to Scudamore of a wider life and greater liberty, might have dazzled many a nobler nature than his.  Lord Worcester saw the light in his eyes, and as he left the room gazed after him with pitiful countenance.

‘Poor lad! poor lad!’ he said to himself; ’I hope I see not the last of thee!  God forbid!  But here thou didst but rust, and it were a vile thing in an old man to infect a youth with the disease of age.’

Rowland soon found the master of the armoury, and with him crossed to the keep, where it lay, above the workshop.  At the foot of the stair he talked loud, in the hope that Dorothy might be with the fire-engine, which he thought he heard at work, and would hear him.  Having chosen such pieces as pleased his fancy, and needed but a little of the armourer’s art to render them suitable, he filled his arms with them, and following the master down, contrived to fall a little behind, so that he should leave the tower before him, when he dropped them all with a huge clatter at the foot of the stair.  The noise was sufficient, for it brought out Dorothy.  She gazed for a moment as, pretending not to have seen her, he was picking them up with his back towards her.