Wilfred's
monastic church, said at daybreak--for the Normans were very exact
in such duties--after which they fenced, rode, or wrestled, and in
mimic war gained an appetite for breakfast.
They ate dried meats, as a rule, with their cakes of bread, and
washed them down with thin wine or mead, much diluted, and then the
forest was generally the rendezvous.
On winter evenings, or when the weather was very bad, the chaplain
was expected to teach them a little reading or writing in Latin or
Norman French--never in English; and this was almost all the
learning they acquired, in the modern sense of the word.
But they knew a hundred things modern boys know nothing at all
about, and every muscle and nerve was braced to be steady and true,
whether for fight or sport. Our young pages could find their way in
the deep woods by observing the moss on the trees, or the sides on
which the oaks or elms threw their branches the most freely; and
when benighted they could sleep with patience on a couch of
withered leaves, and not suffer with a cold in the head the next
day. They feared neither wolf nor bear, nor, for that matter,
anything save disgrace.
The imputation of cowardice, or of any mean vice, such as lying,
was only to be avenged by bloodshed.
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