ing behind Fitzosborne's chair.

"Clerk," said William, eying deliberately the sallow face of the
ecclesiastic; "I know thee of old; and if the Church have sent me an
envoy, per la resplendar De, it should have sent me at least an abbot."

"Hein, hein!" said Taillefer, bluntly, "vex not my bon camarade, Count
of the Normans. Gramercy, thou wilt welcome him, peradventure, better
than me; for the singer tells but of discord, and the sage may restore
the harmony."

"Ha!" said the Duke, and the frown fell so dark over his eyes that the
last seemed only visible by two sparks of fire. "I guess, my proud
Vavasours are mutinous. Retire, thou and thy comrade. Await me in my
chamber. The feast shall not flag in London because the wind blows a
gale in Rouen."

The two envoys, since so they seemed, bowed in silence and withdrew.

"Nought of ill-tidings, I trust," said Edward, who had not listened to
the whispered communications that had passed between the Duke and his
subjects. "No schism in thy Church? The clerk seemed a peaceful man,
and a humble."

"An there were schism in my Church," said the fiery Duke, "my brother of
Bayeux would settle it by arguments as close as the gap between cord and
throttle."

"Ah! thou art, doubtless, well read in the canons, holy Odo!" said the
King, turning to the bishop with more respect than he had yet evinced
towards that gentle prelate.

"Canons, yes, Seigneur, I draw them up myself for my flock conformably
with such interpretations of the Roman Church as suit best with the
Norman realm: and woe to deacon, monk, or abbot, who chooses to
misconstrue them." [61]

The bishop looked so truculent and menacing, while his fancy thus
conjured up the possibility of heretical dissent, that Edward shrank from
him as he had done from Taillefer; and in a few minutes after, on
exchange of signals between himself and the Duke, who, impatient to
escape, was too stately to testify that desire, the retirement of the
royal party broke up the banquet; save, indeed, that a few of the elder
Saxons, and more incorrigible Danes, still steadily kept their seats, and
were finally dislodged from their later settlements on the stone floors,
to find themselves, at dawn, carefully propped in a row against the outer
walls of the palace, with their patient attendants, holding links, and
gazing on their masters with stolid envy, if not of the repose at least
of the drugs that had caused it.

CHAPTER I