wood. Whatever were its darker features, the Norman
conquest brought with it a more advanced civilisation, especially
as expressed in architecture {xxx}.

Within her bower, as the retiring apartments of the lady of the
castle were termed, sat Edith of Aescendune, not the first who had
borne that name. She had now passed middle age, and her years would
soon number half a century, yet time had dealt very kindly with
her, and but few shades of grey appeared amidst her locks. The
traces of a gentle grief were upon her, but men said she mourned
for the absence of her lord and her eldest son, and her thoughts
seemed far away from the embroidery at which she worked with her
maidens--an altar frontal for the priory church.

She thought of the far East--of the sandy wastes of Syria. Or her
fancy painted the holy city, with her dear ones as worshippers in
its reconquered shrines.

For she had not found an unkind lord in Etienne. The scenes which
he had passed through, as related in the earlier pages of this
Chronicle, had produced fruit for good, which Lanfranc (under whose
spiritual guidance he placed himself) had zealously tended and
fostered.

He dared not think of his father, of whose guilt he could not but
be unwillingly convinced; nor was it true in his case:

"He who's convinced against his will
Is but an unbeliever still."

But there was one act of mercy of which he had been the object,
which above all influenced and changed his heart towards the
English. And that was the Christian charity he had received from
the aged Englishwoman, the nurse of Wilfred, whose son Eadwin he
had so cruelly slain in the Dismal Swamp.

Acting under the advice of Lanfranc, he had sought and obtained
Edith in marriage, and had thereby, like Henry Beauclerc, united
the claims of conquerors and conquered in his person. He had
obtained from the king a promise of free pardon to all the refugees
yet in the Dismal Swamp, where it will be remembered the poor
English had fled, who were unfit to accompany Wilfred to the Camp
of Refuge, and had thereupon invited them all to rebuild their old
homes and dwell in them.

At first they would not trust him, but through the mediation of
Father Kenelm and of poor old Hilda, he succeeded in gaining their
confidence, and he did not betray their trust.

So Norman and Englishman were happily united at Aescendune, and in
spite of some little difficulties, arising from the airs the
conquerors could not