For these were King Arthur's men (as Richard had read)--the warriors who
had helped the blameless king "to drive the heathen and to slay the
beast, to fell the forest and let in the sun."

The lonely desolation of the place, and its natural sublimity, combined
with the recollection of his late deadly peril, tinged the young man's
thoughts with an unusual seriousness; and yet he could not restrain the
cynicism that was habitual to him whenever his attention was compelled
to solemn subjects.

"Now, are these poor folks--whose creed must have been any thing but
orthodox, by all accounts--all in eternal torments, I wonder, or only
waiting to be so, for a few hundreds of years longer? Such was my
mother's friend, Joanna's, comfortable creed, and it is shared, as I
understand, by all the most excellent people. How much better (if so)
would it have been for them to have been born and cradled on this rock
as sea-gulls! Gad, to dwell here and fight for a king about whose very
existence posterity is to be in doubt in this world, and then to go to
the devil! What a nightmare view of life it seems! If, an hour ago or
so, things had turned out otherwise with _me_, I should have solved the
problem for myself. I almost wish I had. And yet it was not so when I
was clinging tooth and nail to the cliff yonder; and these folks would
not have died if they could have helped it, neither. There's something
ugly in black Death that disinclines man to woo her. This wind bites to
the marrow, and I'll go. I've seen Gethin now, and there's an end." He
turned, and walked as slowly as the blast would let him toward the gate.
"And yet, if it was warmer, and summer-time," continued he, "I should
like to sketch these things, or some of them, especially if Harry were
with me." He came out, and locked the door, and once more stood in the
shelter of it, with the key in his hand. "She'll be glad I went back for
this, and know that it was done for her sake. If she had but money,
now--this girl--and was a lady, and all that! Or if I could choose whom
I would!" He began to descend slowly, step by step; the furious gale
forgotten; his late escape from death unremembered; one thought alone
monopolizing his mind--the thought that monopolizes all men's minds (or
nearly all) at his age. It was here that his hat had blown off, and her
soft curls had played about his face; it was there that he had first
clasped her waist, and had not been rebuked. Then he fell to th