"
"Yea, she was pale as death as she entered the church."
"Well she may be; she liketh not the match, only she would save the
estates for her boy's sake."
"Will she be able to save them?"
"So the Conqueror hath promised. Wilfred, our young lord, is to
inherit if he live; and if he die, then that dark young French
lad--a true cub of the old wolf."
"If he live. Well, I would not wager much upon his chance of a long
life in that case."
"Nor I; but we must not say so, if we value our ears, or our necks
even."
Long and loud was the revelry in the castle of Aescendune that
night; as it is written in the old ballad of Imogene:
"The tables groaned with the weight of the feast,
And many and noble were the guests."
But no spectral form sat beside the bride, although there were not
wanting those who half imagined the dead Edmund might appear--roused
even from the grave, to see the seat he had occupied so many years in
honour and worth, filled by this dark-browed Norman stranger.
"Let us drink," said the courtly bishop, "to the health and
happiness of Norman lord and English lady, and may their union be a
type of the union betwixt the two people, who, forgetting that they
met as worthy foes at Senlac, may live as brethren under the
noblest king in Christendom.
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