Nigel doffed his velvet cap and prayed also--prayed that
peace might remain at home, and good warfare, in which honor and
fame should await him, might still be found abroad. Then, waving
his hand to the people, he turned his horse's head and rode slowly
eastward. A moment later Aylward broke from the group of archers
and laughing girls who clung to his bridle and his stirrup straps,
and rode on, blowing kisses over his shoulder. So at last the two
comrades, gentle and simple, were fairly started on their venture.
There are two seasons of color in those parts: the yellow, when
the country-side is flaming with the gorse-blossoms, and the
crimson, when all the long slopes are smoldering with the heather.
So it was now. Nigel looked back from time to time, as he rode
along the narrow track where the ferns and the ling brushed his
feet on either side, and as he looked it seemed to him that wander
where he might he would never see a fairer scene than that of his
own home. Far to the westward, glowing in the morning light,
rolled billow after billow of ruddy heather land, until they
merged into the dark shadows of Woolmer Forest and the pale clear
green of the Butser chalk downs. Never in his life had Nigel
wandered far beyond these limits, and the woodlands, the down and
the heather were dear to his soul. It gave him a pang in his
heart now as he turned his face away from them; but if home lay to
the westward, out there to the eastward was the great world of
adventure, the noble stage where each of his kinsmen in turn had
played his manly part and left a proud name behind.
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