er than a fool if he let his ladye-
love, with all her lands, slip through his fingers, when she was lawfully
his own. Patrick held that a monastery was a good place to be nursed in
if wounded, and a convenience for disposing of dull or weakly younger
sons; and he preferred that there should be some holy men to pray for
those who did the hard and bloody work of the world; but he had no desire
that any one belonging to himself should plunge into extra sanctity; and
the more he saw Malcolm developing into a man among men, the more he
opposed the notion of his dedicating himself.

A man! Yes; Malcolm was rising from his bed notably advanced in
manliness. As the King's keen eye had seen from the first, and as
Esclairmonde had felt, there was an elevation, tenderness, and refinement
in his cast of character, which if left to his natural destiny would have
either worn out his life early in the world, or carried him to the
obscure shelter of a convent. In the novelty of the secular life, and
temptations of all kinds, dread of ridicule, and the flood of excitements
which came with reviving health, that very sensitiveness led him astray;
and the elevated aims fell with a heavier fall when diverted from
heavenly palaces to earthly ones. Self-reproach and dejection drove him
further from the right course, and in proportion to the greater amount of
conscience he had by nature, his character was the more deteriorating.
His deeds were far less evil in themselves than those of many of his
companions, but inasmuch as they were not thoughtless in him, they were
injuring him more. But the sudden shock of Patrick's danger roused him
to a new sense of shame. King Henry's death had lifted his mind out of
the earthly atmosphere, and then the treasure of Esclairmonde's pure and
perfect trust seemed to be the one thing to be guarded worthily and
truly. It gave him weight, drew him out of himself, lifted him above the
boyish atmosphere of random self-indulgence and amusement. To be the
protector who should guard her vows for the heavenly Bridegroom to whom
her soul was devoted, was indeed a championship that in his eyes could
only have befitted Sir Galahad; and a Galahad would he strive to be, so
long as that championship held him to the secular life. James and
Bedford both told him he had won his spurs, and should have them on the
next fit occasion; but he had ceased to care for knighthood, save in that
half-consecrated aspect which h