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"This is truly a singular man," said Monk; "he is without any arms; he has an ambuscade placed somewhere yonder." "General," said he, as if he had divined Monk's thought, "you wish we should be alone; that is very right, but a great captain ought never to expose himself with temerity. It is night, the passage of the marsh may present dangers; be accompanied."
It healed her to listen to it. And suddenly before her eyes there rose a vision of Monk's Crofton, cool, green, and peaceful under the mild English sun, luring her as an oasis seen in the distance lures the desert traveller... She became aware that the master of Monk's Crofton had placed his hand on hers and was holding it in a tightening grip. She looked down and gave a little shiver.
But as he rested himself, drawing his monk's hood closely over his head and trying to warm his freezing feet with the skirts of his rough brown frock, he reflected that if he ever got safely across the frontier he would be treated as a patriot, as a man who had suffered for the cause, and certainly as a man who deserved to be rewarded.
The latter conducted himself like a past-master in the art of flattery: he admired all Monk's tactics, and the ordering of his camp; he joked very pleasantly upon the circumvallations of Lambert's camp, who had, he said, very uselessly given himself the trouble to inclose a camp for twenty thousand men, whilst an acre of ground would have been quite sufficient for the corporal and fifty guards who would perhaps remain faithful to him.
Stephen Battiscombe was the second son of Mr Battiscombe of Langton Park, who had several other sons and daughters. He had been an officer in General Monk's army, and had consequently retained his paternal estates, although he had been compelled to part with some of his broad acres in order to secure the remainder.
But sorrow of such a dreadful kind as this is, in truth, if we will but yield to it, a sort of initiation or revelation, rather than an obscurer of truth; and, by the time that my three days were over I thought I saw where my duty lay, and to what all those events tended. Very well then; I would go back to the monk's life once more if they would have me.
The monk's pale face became livid, and a smile of so strange an expression overspread it, that Raoul, whose eyes were fixed upon him, felt an involuntary and unaccountable uneasiness. "He is some spy of the Imperialists," said the viscount, putting his hand upon his pistols. A stern and menacing glance from the monk replied to the accusation. "Well, sir," said De Guiche, "will you answer?"
Besides, he who had gazed at life with open eyes had never yet beheld a brave young warrior, soon after reaping well-earned renown, yearn for the monk's cowl. Doubt, suffering, and a miraculous escape from terrible peril had inspired the joyous-hearted Heinz with the desire to renounce the world.
The clump of bushes before him was now obscured by a thin white cloud. As he watched he was aware of a figure that stood out distinctly before him. He was a man of his own height, thick-set, serious-looking, in a monk's mantle and hood. O'Hagan gave a hurried glance, and as hurriedly turned his head away again. The face of the man exactly resembled his own.
Saint Bernard, I understand, says, 'My son, think of the worms when thou art disposed to cherish thyself in a looking-glass. It is to go far. Saint Bernard was a monk, and it is a monk's way to think of nastiness; but he was right in the main. Your soul is the chief part of you. Now to finish: when we are at Gracedieu thou shalt confess and go to Mass.
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