oing
you don't know where. What's your object? Nothing. You don't know
yourself."

"Indeed!"

"No, you don't; you're a dreamer."

"I am afraid it is true."

"I hate dreams." After a pause, in a lower voice, "Have you any money?"

Felix took out his purse and showed him the copper pieces.

"The eldest son of Constans Aquila with ten copper pieces," growled
Oliver, rising, but taking them all the same. "Lend them to me. I'll try
them on the board to-night. Fancy me putting down _copper!_ It's
intolerable" (working himself into a rage). "I'll turn bandit, and rob
on the roads. I'll go to King Yeo and fight the Welsh. Confusion!"

He rushed into the forest, leaving his spear on the sward.

Felix quietly chipped away at the block he was shaping, but his temper,
too, was inwardly rising. The same talk, varied in detail, but the same
in point, took place every time the brothers were together, and always
with the same result of anger. In earlier days Sir Constans had been as
forward in all warlike exercises as Oliver was now, and being possessed
of extraordinary physical strength, took a leading part among men.
Wielding his battle-axe with irresistible force, he distinguished
himself in several battles and sieges.

He had a singular talent for mechanical construction (the wheel by which
water was drawn from the well at the palace was designed by him), but
this very ingenuity was the beginning of his difficulties. During a long
siege, he invented a machine for casting large stones against the walls,
or rather put it together from the fragmentary descriptions he had seen
in authors, whose works had almost perished before the dispersion of the
ancients; for he, too, had been studious in youth.

The old Prince was highly pleased with this engine, which promised him
speedy conquest over his enemies, and the destruction of their
strongholds. But the nobles who had the hereditary command of the siege
artillery, which consisted mainly of battering-rams, could not endure to
see their prestige vanishing. They caballed, traduced the Baron, and he
fell into disgrace. This disgrace, as he was assured by secret messages
from the Prince, was but policy; he would be recalled so soon as the
Prince felt himself able to withstand the pressure of the nobles. But it
happened that the old Prince died at that juncture, and the present
Prince succeeded.

The enemies of the Baron, having access to him, obtained his confidence;
the Baron w