--Begone, I pray thee--follow thine own fate,
and leave me to mine."

Cedric would have enquired farther into the purpose which she thus
darkly announced, but the stern voice of Front-de-Boeuf was heard,
exclaiming, "Where tarries this loitering priest? By the scallop-shell
of Compostella, I will make a martyr of him, if he loiters here to hatch
treason among my domestics!"

"What a true prophet," said Ulrica, "is an evil conscience! But heed him
not--out and to thy people--Cry your Saxon onslaught, and let them sing
their war-song of Rollo, if they will; vengeance shall bear a burden to
it."

As she thus spoke, she vanished through a private door, and Reginald
Front-de-Boeuf entered the apartment. Cedric, with some difficulty,
compelled himself to make obeisance to the haughty Baron, who returned
his courtesy with a slight inclination of the head.

"Thy penitents, father, have made a long shrift--it is the better for
them, since it is the last they shall ever make. Hast thou prepared them
for death?"

"I found them," said Cedric, in such French as he could command,
"expecting the worst, from the moment they knew into whose power they
had fallen."

"How now, Sir Friar," replied Front-de-Boeuf, "thy speech, methinks,
smacks of a Saxon tongue?"

"I was bred in the convent of St Withold of Burton," answered Cedric.

"Ay?" said the Baron; "it had been better for thee to have been a
Norman, and better for my purpose too; but need has no choice of
messengers. That St Withold's of Burton is an owlet's nest worth the
harrying. The day will soon come that the frock shall protect the Saxon
as little as the mail-coat."

"God's will be done," said Cedric, in a voice tremulous with passion,
which Front-de-Boeuf imputed to fear.

"I see," said he, "thou dreamest already that our men-at-arms are in
thy refectory and thy ale-vaults. But do me one cast of thy holy office,
and, come what list of others, thou shalt sleep as safe in thy cell as a
snail within his shell of proof."

"Speak your commands," said Cedric, with suppressed emotion.

"Follow me through this passage, then, that I may dismiss thee by the
postern."

And as he strode on his way before the supposed friar, Front-de-Boeuf
thus schooled him in the part which he desired he should act.

"Thou seest, Sir Friar, yon herd of Saxon swine, who have dared to
environ this castle of Torquilstone--Tell them whatever thou hast a mind
of the weakness of this fortalic