CHAPTER IX.

LOVE AND WAR.





When Richard reached home and recounted the escape he had had, an
imprecation, the first he had ever heard him utter, broke from his
father's lips. With the indiscrimination of party spirit, he looked
upon the warder's insolence and attempted robbery as the spirit and
behaviour of his master, the earl being in fact as little capable of
such conduct as Mr. Heywood himself.

Immediately after their early breakfast the next morning, he led his
son to a chamber in the roof, of the very existence of which he had
been ignorant, and there discovered to him good store of such armour
of both kinds as was then in use, which for some years past he had
been quietly collecting in view of the time--which, in the light of
the last rumour, seemed to have at length arrived--when strength
would have to decide the antagonism of opposed claims. Probably also
it was in view of this time, seen from afar in silent approach,
that, from the very moment when he took his education into his own
hands, he had paid thorough attention to Richard's bodily as well as
mental accomplishment, encouraging him in all manly sports, such as
wrestling, boxing, and riding to hounds, with the more martial
training of sword-exercises, with and without the target, and
shooting with the carbine and the new-fashioned flint-lock pistols.