I
warrant she will forgive you this time; and if you will but plead
your cause in good earnest, it may be that I shall yet have the
pleasure of treading a measure at your wedding feast."

The blushing smith was easily persuaded to this course, and bade
farewell to his companion in eager haste. He was clad only in his
working apron, and his hands were grimy from his toil; but his open
face was comely and honest enough to please the fancy of any
maiden, and Paul thought to himself that Mistress Joan would scarce
reject so stalwart a champion after the fright and the shock of the
previous week but one. As Will Ives's wife she would be safer and
better protected than as Farmer Devenish's unwedded daughter.

As for himself, thoughts of love and marriage had seldom entered
his mind, and had always been dismissed with a light laugh. As he
had said to Will, he was wedded to a cause, to a resolute aim and
object, and nothing nearer or dearer had ever yet intruded itself
upon him to wean away his first love from the object upon which it
had been so ardently bestowed. The little prince--as in his
thoughts he still called him sometimes--was the object of his
loving homage. King Henry was too little the man, and Queen
Margaret too much, for either of them to fulfil his ideal or win
the unquestioning love and loyalty of his heart; but in Edward,
Prince of Wales, as he always called him, he had an object worthy
of his admiration and worship.

Everything he heard about that princely boy seemed to agree with
what he remembered of him in bygone years. He and not the gentle
and half-imbecile king would be the real monarch of the realm; and
who better fitted to reign than such a prince?

The kindly welcome he received at the Priory from Brother Lawrence
and the prior himself was pleasant to one who had so long been a
mere wanderer on the face of the earth. The beautiful medieval
building, with its close-shorn turf and wide fish ponds, was a
study in itself, and lay so peacefully brooding in the pale
November sunshine, that it was hard to realize that the country
might only too soon be shaken from end to end by the convulsions of
civil war.

Paul was eagerly questioned as to what he knew of the feeling of
the country, and he could not deny that there was great discontent
in many minds at the thought of the return to power of the
Lancastrian king. The monks and friars shook their heads, and
admitted with a sigh that they feared the w