weakness and grace; cared not for child, or even horse or hound, and
held the love of women in contempt, saying that a soldier should have
no time to marry until he was old and spent; and that then it was too
late. It even made Ralph sorry that Robert had no love for Tremontes
or for his father, or for any of those whom he had left behind; for a
knight's face, said Ralph, should be set forward in gladness, but he
should look backward in love and recollection. But Robert understood
nothing of such talk; or cared not; and indeed there was little to
blame in him; for he was courteous and easy in peace; and he was
strong and valiant and joyful in war. He made no friend, but he was
admired by many and feared by some.

Then, when Robert was within a few days of twenty-five, came a
messenger, an old and gross man-at-arms with rusty armour, riding on a
broken horse; he was one of the merry comrades of Robert's childhood;
but Robert seemed hardly to know him, though he acknowledged his
greeting courteously, and stayed not to talk, but opened the letter he
had brought, and read gravely; and when he had read he said to the
messenger, "So my lord is dead." And the messenger would have babbled
about the end that the Lord Marmaduke had made, which indeed had been
a bitter one, but Robert cut him short, and asked him a plain question
or two about affairs, and frowned at his stumbling answers; and then
Robert went to his uncle, and after due obeisance said, "Sir, my
father, it seems, is dead, and with your leave I must ride to
Tremontes and take my inheritance." And the Lord Ralph, seeing no sign
of sorrow, said, "Your father was a great knight." "Ay, once," said
Robert, "doubtless, but as I knew him more tree than man." And
presently he took horse and rode all night to Tremontes; and when the
old man-at-arms would have ridden beside him, and reminded him with a
poor smile of some passages of his childhood, Robert said sourly,
"Man, I hate my childhood, and will hear no word of it; and you and
your fellow-knaves treated me ill; and your kindness was worse than
your anger. Ride behind me."

So they rode sadly enough, until at evening, with a great red sunset
glowing in the west, and smouldering behind the tree-trunks, he saw
the dark tower of Tremontes looking solemnly out above the oaks. Then
the man-at-arms asked humbly that he might ride forward and announce
the new lord's coming; but Robert forbade him, and rode alone into the
cou