so long as they did not wander about
unguarded, there was little danger of any fresh attack upon them,
and if one should by chance be made, with the aid of the men they
had they could hold the Hall against a company until help was
summoned. Moreover, at heart, none of them believed that Saladin
or his emissaries would stir in this business before the spring,
or more probably until another year had passed. Still, they
always set guards at night, and, besides themselves, kept twenty
men sleeping at the Hall. Also they arranged that on the lighting
of a signal fire upon the tower of Steeple Church their
neighbours should come to succour them.

So the time went on towards Christmas, before which the weather
changed and became calm, with sharp frost.

It was on the shortest day that Prior John rode up to the Hall
and told them that he was going to Southminster to buy some wine
for the Christmas feast. Sir Andrew asked what wine there was at
Southminster. The Prior answered that he had heard that a ship,
laden amongst other things with wine of Cyprus of wonderful
quality, had come into the river Crouch with her rudder broken.
He added that as no shipwrights could be found in London to
repair it till after Christmas, the chapman, a Cypriote, who was
in charge of the wine, was selling as much as he could in
Southminster and to the houses about at a cheap rate, and
delivering it by means of a wain that he had hired.

Sir Andrew replied that this seemed a fair chance to get fine
liquor, which was hard to come by in Essex in those times. The
end of it was that he bade Wulf, whose taste in strong drink was
nice, to ride with the Prior into Southminster, and if he liked
the stuff to buy a few casks of it for them to make merry with at
Christmas--although he himself, because of his ailments, now
drank only water.

So Wulf went, nothing loth. In this dark season of the year when
there was no fishing, it grew very dull loitering about the Hall,
and since he did not read much, like Godwin, sitting for long
hours by the fire at night watching Rosamund going to and fro
upon her tasks, but not speaking with her overmuch. For
notwithstanding all their pretense of forgetfulness, some sort of
veil had fallen between the brethren and Rosamund, and their
intercourse was not so open and familiar as of old. She could not
but remember that they were no more her cousins only, but her
lovers also, and that she must guard herself lest she see