Hereupon they all bent their way down the long-winding stairs, and afterwards to the chapel, which, as if for the protection of the castle, stood at one corner of the outer wall near the eastern gateway. There the squires laid down the bright-gleaming armour before the altar. Sir Hugh placed the great sword in his son’s hand, and gave him his blessing, then quitted the chapel with all his attendants. The young man was thus left alone, and, with his drawn sword and graceful demeanour, seemed almost like a supernatural guardian of the sanctuary. CHAPTER V. How Sir Otto watched his Armour through the night. Aloft in the chapel-roof there shone, from afar, a single lamp, illuminating in such manner the fine Gothic arches, with their richly-carved branches and foliage, that one might have deemed himself under the shade of a long leafy avenue in a wood, and have looked up through the trees for the clear blue light of heaven. Meanwhile the ground of the chapel (like the earth itself to the weak eyes of mortals) remained, with all its forms and imagery, dim and doubtful. At first the young knight’s thoughts were wholly devout and religious. He knelt down with his hands folded over his sword-hilt, and holding up the cross, with which it was surmounted, like a crucifix before him, lifted up his eyes to the richly-fretted and illumined church-roof, reflecting by some natural associations on an event which had left deep impressions on his youthful mind. He remembered that his now sainted mother had died on a journey, without any other shelter than that of the forest trees. She was no longer able to speak with him, but, with sweet smiles and eyes still intelligent, had pointed to the brightblue vernal sky that was then visible above them. With his mother’s death other associations were soon united, till by degrees his attention came back again to his situation at the present moment. It occurred to him, with a feeling of self-reproach, how little he had hitherto thought of the chapel in which he was thus left alone at midnight, and, with a mixed emotion of curiosity and awe, he started up from his place at the altar.