A loud flourish of trumpets now proclaimed that the Captain of the Wight was mounting at the door of his hall, and in another minute Sir Edward Woodville, in complete armour, only wearing a velvet bonnet ornamented with an ostrich plume placed jauntily on one side of his head, rode out in front of the line-- "On his brest, a bloodie crosse he bore, The deare remembrance of his dying Lord, For whose swete sake that glorious badge he wore, And dead--as living ever--him adored. Upon his shield the like was also scored-- For soveraine hope, which in His helpe he had." Glancing down the line, and acknowledging the general salute with which he was greeted, the Captain of the Wight gave the order to march, and placing himself with his esquires and pages in the centre of the column, the little force moved off. They tramped over the drawbridge, amid the cheers of the small body of men left to garrison the castle, and defiled down the steep road to Newport. The march through the town was one long leave-taking. Master Paxhulle looked at the cavalcade with mingled feelings of satisfaction and chagrin. He was glad to have so formidable a rival as Tom o’ Kingston removed out of his way, but he did not at all like to see the interest Mistress Bremskete took in him, or the sobs of grief, intermixed with ejaculations of admiration, which broke from her from time to time. "Marry, Master Paxhulle, that’s what I call a man. Oh! when shall I see his like again?" "Cheer up, Mistress Bremskete, there’s a-many as good as he, and much more likely to make an honest woman comfortable." "Nay, nay; ’tis a parlous brave man, and one of a brave heart withal. ’Tis a tender man, and one as’d let a woman have her own way. And to think of his going to be killed in France!" "Nay! Now nay! Mistress Bremskete, ’tis the French they’re going to kill!" "Ah, well, ’twill be a weary time for many a loving heart ’till they be come back again." And so it seemed, to judge by the weeping women who were bidding their friends good-bye. The head of the column was now passing over Copping Bridge, and their glancing spear-points and fluttering pennons could be seen over the hedges of the long lane which led up to the central ridge of the island. After they had mounted the crest of Arreton Down, which divided the fertile and sunny vale of Newchurch from the dense woods of the northern shores of the island, a glorious view met their eye. The gleaming bay of Sandown, bounded by the beetling cliffs of Culver on the east, looking like walls of ivory rising from the azure sea; while on the west loomed up the grandly swelling ridge of Boniface Down, and the dim headland of Dunnose. Below lay the fertile land, smiling in the morning sun, with hamlet, farm-house, and church nestling in sheltering copse or woody dell.