r the death of thy father?"

"They issued from the woods, seized the castle--the few defenders
left had fled to Warwick--and then summoned the whole neighbourhood
to arms. The bale fires were blazing on every hill. The Count of
Warwick bid me tell you, my liege, that he will hold his castle
till aid arrives, but that he is powerless to check the wave of
insurrection which is spreading over the country far and wide."

"It is well; our banner shall be unfurled and these English shall
feel the lion's wrath, which they have provoked. Tomorrow is
Ascension Day--the truce of God--on Friday we march. Meanwhile I
commend thee to the abbot's hospitality; he will bring thee to the
banquet tomorrow after the High Mass. Remember, a true warrior
should be as devout in church as fearless in the field."

Etienne left the presence, assured that the death of his father
would be speedily avenged, and slept more soundly that night than
he had since the fatal fire in the marshes. He loved his father,
and it must be remembered that he knew not that father's crimes.
Not for one moment did he suspect that he had been concerned in the
burning of the monastery, nor did he dream that there had been
aught in the death of the Lady of Aescendune save the hand of
nature.

The one absorbing passion of his life at this moment was hatred of
his successful rival--not so much as his rival, but as the murderer
of his father.

All the Norman inhabitants of the neighbourhood crowded the abbey
church on the morrow, and were present at the Mass of the day; the
poor English were there in small numbers; they could not worship
devoutly in company with their oppressors, but frequented little
village sanctuaries, too poverty stricken to invite Norman
cupidity, where, on that very account, the poor clerics of English
race might still minister to their scattered flocks, and preach to
them in the language Alfred had dignified by his writings, but
which the Normans compared to the "grunting of swine."

And the service in the church over, how grand was the company which
met in the banqueting hall of the palace on the island!

The Conqueror sat at the head of the board; on his right hand the
Count d'Harcourt, head of an old Norman family, which still
retained many traces of its Danish descent, and was as little
French-like as Normans of that date could be; De le Pole,
progenitor of a fated house, well-known in English history; De la
Vere, the ancestor of futur