"I don't know," said the fierce young Norman, and, breaking off the
conversation, switched savagely at the head of a thistle close at
hand, which he neatly beheaded.
The others quite understood the action and the bitterness with
which he spoke, for they knew that he considered himself defrauded
of the lands of Aescendune by the arrangements Bishop Geoffrey had
effected in favour of Wilfred.
Meanwhile, plunging into a thicket, and crossing a brook, Wilfred
arrived by a shorter route first at the hall, and made his way to
his mother's bower, situated in a portion of the ancient building
not yet destroyed, although doomed to make way for Norman
improvements.
The lady of Aescendune sat lonely in her bower; her features were
pale, and she seemed all too sad for one so highly born, and so
good a friend to the suffering and the poor; her gaze was like that
of one whose thoughts are far away--perhaps they had strayed into
Paradise in search of him whose loss was daily making earth more
like a desert to her.
Wilfred came and stood beside her, and her hand played with his
flowing hair until she felt that he was sobbing by her side.
"What is the matter, my dear boy?"
"Matter! I cannot bear it any longer. I must break the promise thou
hast forced me to give.
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