agons,
she placed them on the table, and said in a tone rather asserting a
fact than asking a question, "Thou art Saxon, father--Deny it not," she
continued, observing that Cedric hastened not to reply; "the sounds of
my native language are sweet to mine ears, though seldom heard save from
the tongues of the wretched and degraded serfs on whom the proud
Normans impose the meanest drudgery of this dwelling. Thou art a
Saxon, father--a Saxon, and, save as thou art a servant of God, a
freeman.--Thine accents are sweet in mine ear."

"Do not Saxon priests visit this castle, then?" replied Cedric; "it
were, methinks, their duty to comfort the outcast and oppressed children
of the soil."

"They come not--or if they come, they better love to revel at the boards
of their conquerors," answered Urfried, "than to hear the groans of
their countrymen--so, at least, report speaks of them--of myself I can
say little. This castle, for ten years, has opened to no priest save
the debauched Norman chaplain who partook the nightly revels of
Front-de-Boeuf, and he has been long gone to render an account of his
stewardship.--But thou art a Saxon--a Saxon priest, and I have one
question to ask of thee."

"I am a Saxon," answered Cedric, "but unworthy, surely, of the name of
priest. Let me begone on my way--I swear I will return, or send one of
our fathers more worthy to hear your confession."

"Stay yet a while," said Urfried; "the accents of the voice which thou
hearest now will soon be choked with the cold earth, and I would
not descend to it like the beast I have lived. But wine must give me
strength to tell the horrors of my tale." She poured out a cup, and
drank it with a frightful avidity, which seemed desirous of draining the
last drop in the goblet. "It stupifies," she said, looking upwards as
she finished her drought, "but it cannot cheer--Partake it, father, if
you would hear my tale without sinking down upon the pavement." Cedric
would have avoided pledging her in this ominous conviviality, but the
sign which she made to him expressed impatience and despair. He complied
with her request, and answered her challenge in a large wine-cup; she
then proceeded with her story, as if appeased by his complaisance.

"I was not born," she said, "father, the wretch that thou now seest me.
I was free, was happy, was honoured, loved, and was beloved. I am now a
slave, miserable and degraded--the sport of my masters' passions while
I had yet