"Will you go up to London with my father?" she said.

"No," he answered, in the same stern voice.  "I shall go alone, and lay my virgin sword at my king's feet."

"No," he answered, in the same stern voice.  "I shall go alone, and lay my virgin sword at my king's feet."

His sister looked at him with intense love and pride. They were the only children of Colonel Newbolt, who had served the Republican cause throughout the Civil Wars so well that Cromwell had rewarded him with gifts of land and property which had belonged to old Royalist families, who had either disappeared in the struggle or been dispossessed. The most important of these was the Abbey de Lisle, a lovely estate in Westmorland, amidst the moors and fells, just bordering upon Yorkshire. The house had been an old monastery of great fame. Its chapel had been one of exquisite beauty a hundred years before, but under Thomas Cromwell's ruthless hand, in the reign of Henry VIII, when monasteries and abbeys were sacked, it had been reduced to ruins, and so remained, unroofed, with the grass growing up the nave and through the aisles. Ivy clambered round the delicate pillars, and moss lay thick on the steps leading up to the broken altar.

His sister looked at him with intense love and pride. They were the only children of Colonel Newbolt, who had served the Republican cause throughout the Civil Wars so well that Cromwell had rewarded him with gifts of land and property which had belonged to old Royalist families, who had either disappeared in the struggle or been dispossessed. The most important of these was the Abbey de Lisle, a lovely estate in Westmorland, amidst the moors and fells, just bordering upon Yorkshire. The house had been an old monastery of great fame. Its chapel had been one of exquisite beauty a hundred years before, but under Thomas Cromwell's ruthless hand, in the reign of Henry VIII, when monasteries and abbeys were sacked, it had been reduced to ruins, and so remained, unroofed, with the grass growing up the nave and through the aisles. Ivy clambered round the delicate pillars, and moss lay thick on the steps leading up to the broken altar.

It had been bestowed by Henry on the De Lisles, and with it, as was believed by many, a curse had been inherited, uttered by the last monk who passed out of the monastery grates. It ran thus: "The abbey and its lands shall go from the De Lisles, even as it came to them, by fire and sword".

It had been bestowed by Henry on the De Lisles, and with it, as 

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