of being overthrown. To the
boy there seemed indeed to have been no battle either of Church or
State, or with enemies in open field in which Mertouns had not fought.
Long before the Conquest, Normandy had known their high-strung spirit
and fiery valour. At Senlac, Guilbert de Mertoun had stood near William
of Normandy when he gave his command to his archers that they should
shoot into the air, whereby an arrow sought English Harold for its mark
and pierced him through eye and brain, leaving him slain, and William
conqueror. This same Guilbert, William had loved for his fierce bravery
and his splendid aim in their hunting the high deer, of whom 'twas said
the monarch "loved them as if he had been their father;" and when the
Domesday Book was made, rich lands were given to him that, as the King
said--there should be somewhat worthy of his holding to be recorded
therein. It had been a Guilbert de Mertoun who rode with Rufus when he
would cross to Normandy to put down insurrection there. These two were
alike in their spirit (therefore little Roxholm had ever worshipped
both), and when they reached the seashore in a raging storm, and the
sailors, from fear, refused to put forth, and Rufus cried, "Heard ye
ever of a King who was drowned," 'twas Guilbert who sprang forward
swearing he would set sail himself if others would not, and so stirred
the cowards with his fierce passionate courage that they obeyed the
orders given them and crossed the raging sea's arm in the tempest,
Guilbert standing in their midst spurring them with shouts, while the
wind so raged that only a man of giant strength could have stood
upright, and his voice could scarce be heard above its fury. And 'twas
he who was at the front when the insurgents were overpowered. Of this
one, of whom 'twas handed down that he was of huge build, and had beard
and hair as flaming as Rufus's own, there were legends which made him
the idol of Roxholm's heart in his childhood. Again and again it had
been his custom to demand that they should be repeated to him--the
stories of the stags he had pierced to the heart in one day's hunting
in the New Forest--the story of how he was held in worship by his
villeins, and of his mercifulness to them in days when nobles had the
power of life and death, and to do any cruelty to those in servitude to
them.

In Edward the Third's time, when the Black Death swept England, there
had lived another Guilbert who, having for consort a lovely,