She little knew that if only the Yorkist party, whose hopes were centred on the imprisoned Earl of Warwick, could upset the present government, her father would be a person of great distinction, and she would be the heiress of the Lisle property. It was well worth Bowerman, or any other aspiring youth, doing all he could to win her favour. Besides these substantial worldly advantages, she was a very sweet girl, with a fair face and noble nature. Entirely unspoilt by luxury, and brought up in the severe school of poverty and hardship, she had often compared herself to the "Blind Beggar’s Daughter of Bednall Green," and would shyly wonder if her fate would be like that of "pretty Bessie," and whether her adventures would end "with joy and delight," and she should have for a bridegroom "the gentle young knight "Who lived in great joy and felicitie, With his fair ladie, dear pretty Bessie." When she had neatly put all the things away on some ledges of the cave which served for shelves, she went to the entrance and looked out. She noticed that the old boat, which was usually hidden under a deep cleft in the rock, out of reach of the highest tides, was now hauled down, and lying ready for launching, and that there were sundry kegs and bundles in it, looking as if there were preparations for an expedition. The salt smell of the sea came up fresh and keen from the tumbling waves below, and the girl looked wistfully towards the south. She felt very lonely, more so now than ever, for her father, always preoccupied before, seemed gloomier of late, and to notice her less than he used. There had been much going to and fro on the part of the seamen, and Magdalen had herself brought a missive from the Hermit only the day before, which had caused a great display of feeling on the part of her father, a flush of fierce joy passing over his countenance, as he muttered, after reading the cartel,-- "At last! Thank the saints! the matter will be settled once for all." While Magdalen stood looking down the strange water-worn chasms, she was startled by hearing Bowerman say in a scoffing voice, but in an undertone, to Simon,-- "Marry, Simon, we are to take no part in the fray, eh?" And then he laughed derisively, while the seaman added gruffly,-- "Not us! Well, I never; that be a good ’un. But I’ll have some of their fine harness and gew-gaws, if I swing for it." "Tush, man! thou canst have them easy enough; but ’tis their lives first we must have. He’s sure to be there. He makes such a stir about him; all the more since this wound of his. Curse the weak stroke! why couldn’t it have gone home?" broke off the esquire bitterly. "Ay, ay, ’twas a bungling business that. He was but a greenhorn at that sort of work, whoever he was," said the seaman, eyeing Bowerman with a grim twinkle in his bleared eyes, as he went on furbishing up a steel breastpiece. "But he’s a fine youth, that I will say," he added.