It waS not until more than three weeks after the King had leftDevlen Castle that Lord George and his company of knights andarchers were ready for the expedition to France. Two weeks ofthat time Myles spent at Crosbey-Dale with his father and mother.
It was the first time that he had seen them since, four yearsago, he had quitted the low, narrow, white-walled farmhouse forthe castle of the great Earl of Mackworth. He had neverappreciated before how low and narrow and poor the farm-housewas. Now, with his eyes trained to the bigness of Devlen Castle,he looked around him with wonder and pity at his father's humblesurroundings. He realized as he never else could have realizedhow great was the fall in fortune that had cast the house ofFalworth down from its rightful station to such a level as thatupon which it now rested. And at the same time that he thusrecognized how poor was their lot, how dependent upon the charityof others, he also recognized how generous was the friendship ofPrior Edward, who perilled his own safety so greatly in affordingthe family of the attainted Lord an asylum in its bitter hour ofneed and peril.
Myles paid many visits to the gentle old priest during those twoweeks' visit, and had many long and serious talks with him. Onewarm bright afternoon, as he and the old man walked together inthe priory garden, after a game or two of draughts, the youngknight talked more freely and openly of his plans, his hopes, hisambitions, than perhaps he had ever done. He told the old man allthat the Earl had disclosed to him concerning the fallen fortunesof his father's house, and of how all who knew thosecircumstances looked to him to set the family in its old placeonce more. Prior Edward added many things to those which Mylesalready knew--things of which the Earl either did not know, ordid not choose to speak. He told the young man, among othermatters, the reason of the bitter and lasting enmity that theKing felt for the blind nobleman: that Lord Falworth had been oneof King Richard's council in times past; that it was not a littleowing to him that King Henry, when Earl of Derby, had beenbanished from England, and that though he was then living in theretirement of private life, he bitterly and steadfastly opposedKing Richard's abdication. He told Myles that at the time whenSir John Dale found shelter at Falworth Castle, vengeance wasready to fall upon his father at any moment, and it needed onlysuch a pretext as that of sheltering so prominent a conspiratoras Sir John to complete his ruin.
Myles, as he listened intently, could not but confess in his ownmind that the King had many rational, perhaps just, grounds forgrievance against such an ardent opponent as the blind Lord hadshown himself to be. "But, sir," said he, after a little space ofsilence, when Prior Edward had ended, "to hold enmity and tobreed treason are very different matters. Haply my father wasBolingbroke's enemy, but, sure, thou dost not believe he isjustly and rightfully tainted with treason?""Nay," answered the priest, "how canst thou ask me such a thing?
Did I believe thy father a traitor, thinkest thou I would thustell his son thereof? Nay, Myles, I do know thy father well, andhave known him for many years, and this of him, that few men areso honorable in heart and soul as he. But I have told thee allthese things to show that the King is not without some reason tobe thy father's unfriend. Neither, haply, is the Earl of Albanwithout cause of enmity against him. So thou, upon thy part,shouldst not feel bitter rancor against the King for what hathhapped to thy house, nor even against William Brookhurst--I meanthe Earl of Alban--for, I tell thee, the worst of our enemies andthe worst of men believe themselves always to have right andjustice upon their side, even when they most wish evil toothers."So spoke the gentle old priest, who looked from his peacefulhaven with dreamy eyes upon the sweat and tussle of the world'sbattle. Had he instead been in the thick of the fight, it mighthave been harder for him to believe that his enemies ever hadright upon their side.
"But tell me this," said Myles, presently, "dost thou, then,think that I do evil in seeking to do a battle of life or deathwith this wicked Earl of Alban, who hath so ruined my father inbody and fortune?""Nay," said Prior Edward, thoughtfully, "I say not that thoudoest evil. War and bloodshed seem hard and cruel matters to me;but God hath given that they be in the world, and may He forbidthat such a poor worm as I should say that they be all wrong andevil. Meseems even an evil thing is sometimes passing good whenrightfully used."Myles did not fully understand what the old man meant, but thismuch he gathered, that his spiritual father did not think ill ofhis fighting the Earl of Alban for his temporal father's sake.
So Myles went to France in Lord George's company, a soldier offortune, as his Captain was. He was there for only six months,but those six months wrought a great change in his life. In thefierce factional battles that raged around the walls of Paris; inthe evil life which he saw at the Burgundian court in Parisitself after the truce--a court brilliant and wicked, witty andcruel--the wonderful liquor of youth had evaporated rapidly, andhis character had crystallized as rapidly into the hardness ofmanhood. The warfare, the blood, the evil pleasures which he hadseen had been a fiery, crucible test to his soul, and I love myhero that he should have come forth from it so well. He was nolonger the innocent Sir Galahad who had walked in pure white upthe Long Hall to be knighted by the King, but his soul was ofthat grim, sterling, rugged sort that looked out calmly from hisgray eyes upon the wickedness and debauchery around him, andloved it not.
Then one day a courier came, bringing a packet. It was a letterfrom the Earl, bidding Myles return straightway to England and toMackworth House upon the Strand, nigh to London, without delay,and Myles knew that his time had come.
