e was quite enough excitement in it, and especially as we went down
that rope; though indeed, you are so strong that I felt that I was
quite safe with you."

Roger laughed.

"I could have carried two of you; and sooth, you did not show your
confidence at the time, for you held on so tightly to the rope that I
began to think that we should never get to the bottom."

"You told me to hold tight," Janet said, indignantly.

"Yes, yes, that was natural enough. The difficulty was, that you would
not let go, and at each knot it was as much as I could do to get you to
let it slide through your fingers."

"Very well, Master Roger. Then I shall take care not to let you lower
me down a rope again."

"I trust there will never be the need," Roger laughed; "but indeed,
although your weight was as nothing, I felt uneasy myself as we went
down; for I feared that I might grip you too tightly, seeing that I am
altogether unaccustomed to the handling of girls."

"Well, I suppose, Roger," Jessie said, "that now the wars are over, you
will be marrying and settling down."

"I don't know how that might be," Roger replied, slowly. "I do not say
that the matter has never entered my mind; and seeing that I am now
seven-and-thirty, 'tis one that should not be much longer delayed. I
mean not that I have ever thought as to who should be the woman, but I
have thought whether, when the time comes that Sir Oswald takes him a
wife, it would not be well that I should do the same.

"But I know not how I stand. The abbot of Alnwick has, so far, allowed
me to go out into the world, to unfrock myself, and to become a
man-at-arms instead of a peaceful monk; but I have not been dispensed
from my vows of celibacy and, were I to marry, the matter might be
taken up by the Church, and I might be put to many and sore penances,
and punishments, for the breach of them."

The others all laughed at the seriousness with which Roger had answered
the girl's jesting remark.

"It is a matter that I have never thought of before, Roger," Oswald
said; "but assuredly it would, as you say, be fitting and right that,
when I take a mistress, you should do so also--like master like man,
you know. Since your thoughts have been turned that way, I will see the
abbot, next time I go to Alnwick, and lay the case before him. Of a
truth you have made a most excellent man-at-arms, and 'tis equally
certain that you were an exceedingly bad monk. It would doubtless be
well that