Ralph

“ So complete was his abstraction, however, that Ralph, usually as quick-sighted as any man, did not observe that he was followed by a shambling figure, which at one time stole behind him with noiseless footsteps, at another crept a few paces before him, and at another glided along by his side; at all times regarding him with an eye so keen, and a look so eager and attentive, that it was more like the expression of an intrusive face in some powerful picture or strongly-marked dream, than the scrutiny even of a most interested and anxious observer. ”

“ What is it most like, Ralph--like woman's love, or Heaven's bounty, or the rays of Hope, that stream between the close dwellings of man's earthly aspirations, gilding the straws upon his onward way, and making the stones on his path shine like jewels?"
"Like woman's love, methinks," said Ralph, "because, as you say, it pours from sources we do not see, brightens the dimmer air that it pervades, and often lends a luster to worthless objects, which shine in its light alone." ”

“ Said Ralph: "Thou meanest, I suppose, that she is fair to look on, and soft-spoken when she is pleased?"
"I mean far more than that," said the carle; "surely is she most heavenly fair, and her voice is like the music of heaven: but withal her deeds, and the kindness of her to us poor men and husbandmen, are no worse than should flow forth from that loveliness."
"Will you be her servants?" said Ralph, "or what are ye?" Said the carle: "We be yeomen and her vavassors; there is no thralldom in our land." "Do ye live in good peace for the more part?" said Ralph. ”

“ Ralph had prejudices, timid ones, but there was strength in their numbers. Ralph approved and disapproved. Ralph shook his head over Elizabeth's smoking and nodded it over her needlework. Ralph liked womanly women; well, Elizabeth liked manly men. If she wasn't a womanly woman, Ralph wasn't a manly man. Oh, poor little Ralph, what a beast she was!
What did she want? She had the Ogden children, they were an interest and they represented her pocket money—if only Joan were older! After all, better a home with a kind brother at Seabourne than life on a pittance in London. ”

“ Quoth Ralph: "And must thou lead me thy very self, mayest thou not abide in some safe place my going and returning? So many and sore as the toils and perils of the way may be." "What!" she said, "and how shall I be sundered from thee now I have found thee? Yea, and who shall lead thee, thou lovely boy? Shall it be a man to bewray thee, or a woman to bewray me? Yet need we not go tomorrow, my beloved, nor for many days: so sweet as we are to each other. ”

“ But Ralph said (for he knew not what to say) : "Keep a good heart, maiden; maybe he is safe and sound; oft are young men fond to wander wide, even as I myself."
She looked at him hard and said: "If thou hast stolen thyself away from them that love thee, thou hast done amiss. Though thou art a lord, and so fair as I see thee, yet will I tell thee so much."
Ralph reddened and answered nought; but deemed the maiden both fair and sweet. But she said: "Whether thou hast done well or ill, do no worse; but abide till the Chapmen come from Higham, on their way to the Burg of the Four Friths. ”

“ Ralph brake in: "Nay, nay, it is not so, it is not so!" "Hearken, youngling!" quoth Richard; "I deem that it was thus. Her love for thee was so kind that she would have thee happy after the sundering: therefore she was minded that thou shouldest find the damsel, who as I deem loveth thee, and that thou shouldest love her truly."
"O nay, nay!" said Ralph, "all this guess of thine is naught, saying that she was kind indeed. Even as heaven is kind to them who have died martyrs, and enter into its bliss after many torments." ”

“ Ralph sprang up, still not utterly awake, and cried out, "Who art thou, carle?" The man laughed, and said: "Yea, thou art still the same brisk lad, only filled out to something more warrior-like than of old. But it is unmeet to forget old friends. Why dost thou not hail me?"
"Because I know thee not, good fellow," said Ralph. But even as he spoke, he looked into the man's face again, and cried out: "By St. Nicholas! but it is Roger of the Ropewalk. But look you, fellow, if I have somewhat filled out, thou, who wast always black-muzzled, art now become as hairy as a wodehouse. ”

“ As he passed up the Great Cloister there was no sound but from a bird or two singing in the afternoon sunlight of the garth; each cell-door, with its hatch for the passage of food, was closed and silent; and Ralph felt a curious quickening of his heart as he thought of the human life passed in the little houses, each with its tiny garden, its workshop, its two rooms, and its paved ambulatory, in which each solitary lived. How strangely apart this place was from the buzz of business from which he had come! ”

“ Nor did Ralph say a word. Not to triumph in what had been done on his behalf,—or at least not to seem to triumph,—that was the lesson which he had taught himself. He fully sympathised with Gregory; and therefore he stood silent and sad by his side. That there must have been some triumph in his heart it is impossible not to imagine. It could not be but that he should be alive to the glory of being the undoubted heir to Newton Priory. ”

“ Ralph spake and said: "Belike it was a woman;" and his voice sounded loud in the quiet place. She smiled on him and kissed his cheek, and said: "Nay, nay, dear Champion, it is not so. God rest his soul! many a year he has been dead."
Said Ralph: "Many a year! what meanest thou?" "Ah!" she said, "fear not! as I am now, so shall I be for thee many a year. Was not thy fear that I should vanish away or change into something unsightly and gruesome? Fear not, I say; am I not a woman, and thine own?" ”

“ Oh, Ralph's almost down, Ralph's almost down!
Ralph. Susan, inspire me, now have up again.
Wife. Up, up, up, up, up, so, Ralph; down with him, down with him, Ralph!
Cit. Fetch him over the hip, boy.
Wife. There, boy; kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, Ralph!
Cit. No, Ralph, get all out of him first.
Ralph. Presumptuous man, see to what desperate end
Thy treachery hath brought thee; the just gods,
Who never prosper those that do despise them,
For all the villanies which thou hast done
To knights and ladies, now have paid thee home
By my stiff arm, a knight adventurous. ”

“ Said Ralph: "Be content, thou mayst not slay him; he was a great and mighty man, a baron who bore a golden sun on a blue field. Thou mayst not slay him." "Yea," said the old man, "but I will, or he me."
"Live in peace," said Ralph, "for I slew him then and there."
The old man held his peace a while, and then he said: "I know the man, for he hath been here aforetime, and not so long ago. But if he be dead, he hath a brother yet, an exceeding mighty man: he will be coming here to vex us and minish us." ”

“ Ralph stood looking on him with his hand on the latch of the gate, but when the man came thereto he tore it open roughly and shoved through at once, driving Ralph back, so that he well-nigh overset him, and so sprang to his horse and swung himself into the saddle, just as Ralph steadied himself and ruffled up to him, half drawing his sword from the scabbard the while. But the man-at-arms cried out, "Put it back, put it back! If thou must needs deal with every man that shoveth thee in his haste, thy life is like to be but short." ”

“ The last sad quarrel between Ralph and his brother had followed on a thousand lesser ones, which had embittered the lives of both.
"Ah, how often our poor mother urged us to love one another!" thought Ralph, now a worn elderly man, as he recalled the days of his youth. "How she spoke to us of the meekness and gentleness which should be shown by every Christian, and taught us that he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city! ”

“ People left him to his sorrow as a man is left to an incurable habit, an unfortunate tie: they ignored it, or looked over its head if they happened to catch a glimpse of it at his elbow.
These glimpses were given to them more and more rarely. The smothered springs of life were bubbling up in Ralph, and there were days when he was glad to wake and see the sun in his window, and when he began to plan his book, and to fancy that the planning really interested him. ”

“ At length Ralph laid down his pen, and threw himself back in his chair as though he had made up his mind to allow the obtrusive current of reflection to take its own course, and, by giving it full scope, to rid himself of it effectually.
‘I am not a man to be moved by a pretty face,’ muttered Ralph sternly. ‘There is a grinning skull beneath it, and men like me who look and work below the surface see that, and not its delicate covering. ”

“ Then was Ralph overflowing with thanks, but the Lord heeded him naught, but looked askance at him and sourly. And he rose up withal, and led the damsel by the hand into another chamber; and she minced in her gait and leaned over to the Lord and spake softly in his ear and laughed, and he laughed in his turn and toyed with her neck and shoulders. ”

“ The King was a tall man, a proper man of war; long-legged, black bearded, and fierce-eyed. Some word he had heard of Ralph's gift, therefore he was gracious to him; he spake and said: "Thou hast come across the mountains a long way, fair Sir; prithee on what errand?" Answered Ralph: "For no errand, lord, save to fare home to mine own land." "Where is thine own land?" said the King, stretching out his legs and lying back in his chair. "West-away, lord, many a mile," said Ralph. "Yea," quoth the King, "and how far didst thou go beyond the mountains? As far as Utterbol?" ”

“ And lo, one while when I look on thee thou art my dear and sweet child, as thou wert years agone, and I love thee dearly and finely; and another while thou art a great and mighty man, and I fear thee; so much greater thou seemest than we poor upland folk."
Then smiled Ralph for love and happiness, and he said: "Father, I am thy child in the house and at the board, and that is for thine helping. And I am thy champion and the fierce warrior afield, and that also is for thine helping. Be of good cheer; for thine house shall not wane, but wax." ”

“ Ralph goes up also to-morrow;—and though he does not purpose to hunt you up, I hope that you may meet. You know what I think of him, and how much I wish that you two could be friends. He is as generous as the sun, and as just as he is generous. Every Newton ought to make him welcome as one of the family. ”

“ He dearly loved to see the men at work, and listen to their cheerful voices as they laboured. Even the smell of the pine or cedar shavings was perfume to Ralph, and the way he used to climb about and wander over and through the ship, when she was little more than ribs, knees, and beams, was quite amusing. ”

“ So they cast on more wood, and pineapples, and sweet it was to Ralph to see her face come clear again from out the mirk of the wood. Then they sat down again together and she said: "We two are seeking the Well at the World's End; now which of us knows more of the way? who is to lead, and who to follow?" Said Ralph: "If thou know no more than I, it is little that thou knowest. Sooth it is that for many days past I have sought thee that thou mightest lead me." ”

“ Ralph had come to bid his last good-night to him who lay thereon. It was in this room that he himself had been born. He might never enter it again.
How the strong man was laid low! All his pride of strength had shrunk to this! “The lofty looks of men shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down.” What indeed was man, whose breath was in his nostrils! ”

“ Their lord's presence was anxiously looked for. The ruddy glow of their mirth had become dim. Sir Ralph, they hoped, would either unmask this mischievous intruder, or eject him from the premises; he having the credit of being able to master aught in the shape of either mortal or immortal intelligences.
At length he came, clad in his usual suit of black velvet. A swarthy and ill-favoured wight he was, with a beard, as the story goes, that would have swept off the prickly gorse-bush in its progress. He was received with a great show of humility, and all made their best obeisance. ”

“ Ralph tried to think, as he started on, whether there was anything that he could have, or see, or do, that would increase his happiness. But there was nothing in the whole world now, nothing more, he said to himself, that he could think to ask for.
"Where loyal hearts and true,
Stand ever in the light." ”

“ Then was all the throng mingled together, and folk trod the embers of the bale under foot, and scattered them hither and thither all over the square.
All this while men were going about with pitchers of wine and ale, and other good drinks; and every man drank freely what he would, and there was the greatest game and joyance.
But now was Ralph exceeding weary, and he said: "Father, mightest thou lead me out of this throng, and show me some lair where I may sleep in peace, I would thank thee blithely." ”

“ Astonished for the moment, Ralph fell back a couple of paces, and surveyed him from head to foot. A spare, dark, withered man, of about his own age, with a stooping body, and a very sinister face rendered more ill-favoured by hollow and hungry cheeks, deeply sunburnt, and thick black eye-brows, blacker in contrast with the perfect whiteness of his hair ”