Chapter 33 - Page 2

"Tarry
we no more."

In the chancel they found Dick waiting, attended by a few young
men; and there were he and Joan united. When they came forth
again, happy and yet serious, into the frosty air and sunlight, the
long files of the army were already winding forward up the road;
already the Duke of Gloucester's banner was unfolded and began to
move from before the abbey in a clump of spears; and behind it,
girt by steel-clad knights, the bold, black-hearted, and ambitious
hunchback moved on towards his brief kingdom and his lasting
infamy. But the wedding party turned upon the other side, and sat
down, with sober merriment, to breakfast. The father cellarer
attended on their wants, and sat with them at table. Hamley, all
jealousy forgotten, began to ply the nowise loth Alicia with
courtship. And there, amid the sounding of tuckets and the clash
of armoured soldiery and horses continually moving forth, Dick and
Joan sat side by side, tenderly held hands, and looked, with ever
growing affection, in each other's eyes.

Thenceforth the dust and blood of that unruly epoch passed them by.
They dwelt apart from alarms in the green forest where their love
began.

Two old men in the meanwhile enjoyed pensions in great prosperity
and peace, and with perhaps a superfluity of ale and wine, in
Tunstall hamlet. One had been all his life a shipman, and
continued to the last to lament his man Tom. The other, who had
been a bit of everything, turned in the end towards piety, and made
a most religious death under the name of Brother Honestus in the
neighbouring abbey. So Lawless had his will, and died a friar.

Footnotes:

(1) At the date of this story, Richard Crookback could not have
been created Duke of Gloucester; but for clearness, with the
reader's leave, he shall so be called.

(2) Richard Crookback would have been really far younger at this
date.

(3) Technically, the term "lance" included a not quite certain
number of foot soldiers attached to the man-at-arms.