As Ralph grew stronger, his memory came back to him, and he asked for
details of the battle. He knew they were defeated, but he did not know
the extent of the catastrophe. Gradually the fearful nature of the
defeat dawned upon him; but it was long before he could realise it. The
noble Captain of the Wight, Maurice Woodville, all these strong and
lusty men, Dicky Cheke, all gone! It was too much. Ralph turned away,
and sobbed. The utter desolation of it all, his own physical
prostration, and the dreary prospect before him, completely overwhelmed
him, although he did not think of himself. He wished he had died. He
did not care to live. For some days after he learnt the news, Ralph was
listless and morose, and the knight seemed nearly as miserable. It was
with the utmost difficulty the girl was able to get either to take any
food, and she, poor child, at last was beginning to lose all interest in
anything. Their life was very uncomfortable. There was nothing to
divert them from their own sad thoughts. The Breton peasants with whom
they had taken refuge belonged to one of the Breton nobles, who had
fallen at St Aubin, and had hitherto proved themselves faithful enough.
But there was nothing beyond their natural good nature to keep them so.
It was true the money the fugitives had brought with them was ample
payment for the services performed, but when that was gone there seemed
little left to restrain the Bretons betraying them. In spite of the
proud boast of the Seigneur de Rohan--"Jamais Breton ne fit
trahison"--there was only too much likelihood that in a few days the
three fugitives would be delivered up to their enemies.
One day as they were sitting listlessly outside the cottage on a boulder
of granite, gazing wistfully at the sea sparkling among the innumerable
rocks which encumbered the large bay before them, the peasant woman came
out, and looking about her, approached the girl. After talking
earnestly for some time she went back to the house, and the girl turned
to her father with a face paler than usual.
"Father," she said, "we must get away at once. Marie says she has heard
men-at-arms are coming this evening, and we have but little time to
escape. She has given us warning at the peril of her life, so she says;
and there is an Englishman, she tells me, who has been asking about us
all round the country. He is a one-eyed young man, she says."
Ralph looked up. He had now heard of the treachery of Bowerman. He now
knew that the knight who had saved him was no other but Sir George
Lisle, and that the girl whose glove he had worn in the tournament was
Magdalen Lisle, niece of Yolande, and heiress to all the Lisle estates,
if only her father were restored to his proper position.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
The Captain of the Wight: A Romance of Carisbrooke Castle in 1488 — John Shaqi
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