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.