"Well, did he disappear?"
"I looked again, and I thought he retreated into the woods, for he
was gone."
"Did he seem to see you?"
"He did not speak."
"Well," said the chaplain, "we will say a mass for him tomorrow, to
quiet his disturbed spirit, and he will, perhaps, vex us no more,
poor lad."
Etienne and Louis were very anxious to hear all the details of
Pierre's ghostly encounter, and questioned him very closely. The
former vowed he would have challenged the spectre; he did not fear
Wilfred living, nor would he fear him dead.
The whole conversation at the castle hearth that night was about
ghosts, demons, witches, warlocks, vampires, werewolves, and
such-like; and about two hours before midnight our young Normans
went to bed pleasantly terrified.
It was All Saints' Day, the day appointed for the consecration of
the new Priory of St. Deny's. The monks from Coutances had arrived.
The bishop of that diocese, already known to our readers, had
reached Aescendune to perform the ceremony, by permission of the
Bishop of Worcester, the sainted Wulfstan, in whose jurisdiction
the priory lay; and there was a grand gathering of Norman barons
and their retainers.
Strange it was that the same Epistle and Gospel which still serve
in the English Prayer Book for that day should have been read in
the ears of the Norman warriors--that they should have heard the
Beatitudes in the Gospel:
"Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called the children of God:
Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy:"
--and then gone forth to work out their own righteousness in the
manner peculiar to their nation.
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