Men of Iron | Page 7

Prior had given the benediction and had signed the cross
upon his forehead, Myles's mother stooped and kissed his brow just

where the priest's finger had drawn the holy sign. Her eyes brimmed
bright with tears as she did so. Poor lady! perhaps she only then and for
the first time realized how big her fledgling was growing for his nest.
Henceforth Myles had the right to wear a sword.
Myles had ended his fifteenth year. He was a bonny lad, with brown
face, curling hair, a square, strong chin, and a pair of merry laughing
blue eyes; his shoulders were broad; his chest was thick of girth; his
muscles and thews were as tough as oak.
The day upon which he was sixteen years old, as he came whistling
home from the monastery school he was met by Diccon Bowman.
"Master Myles," said the old man, with a snuffle in his voice--"Master
Myles, thy father would see thee in his chamber, and bade me send thee
to him as soon as thou didst come home. Oh, Master Myles, I fear me
that belike thou art going to leave home to-morrow day."
Myles stopped short. "To leave home!" he cried.
"Aye," said old Diccon, "belike thou goest to some grand castle to live
there, and be a page there and what not, and then, haply, a gentleman-
at-arms in some great lord's pay."
"What coil is this about castles and lords and gentlemen-at-arms?" said
Myles. "What talkest thou of, Diccon? Art thou jesting?"
"Nay," said Diccon, "I am not jesting. But go to thy father, and then
thou wilt presently know all. Only this I do say, that it is like thou
leavest us to- morrow day."
And so it was as Diccon had said; Myles was to leave home the very
next morning. He found his father and mother and Prior Edward
together, waiting for his coming.
"We three have been talking it over this morning," said his father, "and
so think each one that the time hath come for thee to quit this poor
home of ours. An thou stay here ten years longer, thou'lt be no more fit

to go then than now. To-morrow I will give thee a letter to my kinsman,
the Earl of Mackworth. He has thriven in these days and I have fallen
away, but time was that he and I were true sworn companions, and
plighted together in friendship never to be sundered. Methinks, as I
remember him, he will abide by his plighted troth, and will give thee
his aid to rise in the world. So, as I said, to-morrow morning thou shalt
set forth with Diccon Bowman, and shall go to Castle Devlen, and there
deliver this letter which prayeth him to give thee a place in his
household. Thou mayst have this afternoon to thyself to make read such
things as thou shalt take with thee. And bid me Diccon to take the gray
horse to the village and have it shod."
Prior Edward had been standing looking out of the window. As Lord
Falworth ended he turned.
"And, Myles," said he, "thou wilt need some money, so I will give thee
as a loan forty shillings, which some day thou mayst return to me an
thou wilt. For this know, Myles, a man cannot do in the world without
money. Thy father hath it ready for thee in the chest, and will give it
thee to-morrow ere thou goest."
Lord Falworth had the grim strength of manhood's hard sense to upbear
him in sending his son into the world, but the poor lady mother had
nothing of that to uphold her. No doubt it was as hard then as it is now
for the mother to see the nestling thrust from the nest to shift for itself.
What tears were shed, what words of love were spoken to the only
man-child, none but the mother and the son ever knew.
The next morning Myles and the old bowman rode away, and no doubt
to the boy himself the dark shadows of leave-taking were lost in the
golden light of hope as he rode out into the great world to seek his
fortune.
CHAPTER 3
WHAT MYLES remembered of Falworth loomed great and grand and
big, as things do in the memory of childhood, but even memory could
not make Falworth the equal of Devlen Castle, when, as he and Diccon

Bowman rode out of Devlentown across the great, rude stone bridge
that spanned the river, he first saw, rising above the crowns of the trees,
those huge hoary walls, and the steep roofs and chimneys clustered
thickly together, like the roofs and chimneys of a town.
The castle was built upon a plateau-like rise of ground, which was
enclosed by the