horses and mules, and see their train lack nothing. Let them have change of vestments if they require it, and fire, and water to wash, and wine and ale; and bid the cooks add what they hastily can to our evening meal; and let it be put on the board when those strangers are ready to share it. Say to them, Hundebert, that Cedric would himself bid them welcome, but he is under a vow never to step more than three steps from the dais of his own hall to meet any who shares not the blood of Saxon royalty. Begone! see them carefully tended; let them not say in their pride, the Saxon churl has shown at once his poverty and his avarice.”

The major-domo departed with several attendants, to execute his master’s commands. “The Prior Aymer!” repeated Cedric, looking to Oswald; “the brother, if I mistake not, of Giles de Mauleverer, now lord of Middleham?”

Oswald made a respectful sign of assent.

“His brother sits in the seat, and usurps the patrimony, of a better race, the race of Ulfgar of Middleham; but what Norman lord doth not the same? This prior is, they say, a free and jovial priest, who loves the wine-cup and the bugle-horn better than bell and book. Good; let him come, he shall be welcome. How named ye the Templar?”

“Brian de Bois-Guilbert.”

“Bois-Guilbert,” said Cedric, still in the musing, half-arguing tone, which the habit of living among dependents had accustomed him to employ, and which resembled a man who talks to himself rather than to those around him—“Bois-Guilbert? that name has been spread wide both for good and evil. They say he is valiant as the bravest of his order; but stained with their usual vices, pride, arrogance, cruelty, and voluptuousness; a hard-hearted man, who knows neither fear of earth, nor awe of heaven. So say the few warriors who have returned from Palestine. —Well; it is but for one night; he shall be welcome too.—Oswald, broach the oldest wine-cask; place the best mead, the mightiest ale, the richest morat, the most sparkling cider, the most odoriferous pigments,3 upon the board; fill the largest horns.—Templars and Abbots love good wines and good measure.—Elgitha, let thy Lady Rowena know we shall not this night expect her in the hall, unless such be her especial pleasure.”

“But it will be her especial pleasure,” answered Elgitha, with great readiness, “for she is ever desirous to hear the latest news from Palestine.”

Cedric darted at the forward damsel a glance of hasty resentment; but Rowena, and whatever belonged to her, were privileged and secure from his anger. He only replied, “Silence, maiden; thy tongue outruns thy discretion. Say my message to thy mistress, and let her do her pleasure. Here, at least, the descendant of Alfred still reigns a princess.” Elgitha left the apartment.

“Palestine!” repeated the Saxon; “Palestine! how many ears are turned to the tales which dissolute crusaders, or hypocritical pilgrims, bring from that fatal land! I too might ask.—I too might inquire—I too might listen with a beating heart to fables which the wily strollers devise to cheat us into hospitality—but no.—The son who has disobeyed me is no longer mine; nor will I concern myself more for his fate than for that of the most worthless among the millions that ever shaped the cross on their shoulder, rushed into excess and blood-guiltiness, and called it an accomplishment of the will of God.”

He knit his brows, and fixed his eyes for an instant on the ground; as he raised them, the folding doors at the bottom of the hall were cast wide, and, preceded by the major-domo with his wand, and four domestics bearing blazing torches, the guests of the evening entered the apartment.


  By PanEris using Melati.

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