"
And Wilfred vanished to give orders out of doors.
An hour had passed away; the dead had been removed, the English to
be decently buried--for there was an old church built by Elfwyn of
Aescendune, during the Danish wars {xi}, and around it lay the
graves of those who had died in troublous times; there English
priests were still found to serve at the altar; Norman tyranny did
not spare the English Church any more than the English nobility.
But the Norman dead were simply carried to a quagmire of bottomless
depth which absorbed the bodies, and furnished a convenient though
dreadful grave.
And in this division of the slain, young Eadwin, pierced with four
wounds, was found; and the arrows, yet remaining, showed at once
that he had not fallen in fair strife.
The search for Etienne, still unsuccessful, was being eagerly
pursued, when Wilfred returned, bent on questioning Pierre, and
beheld the dead body of Eadwin.
He was deeply moved, for he had loved the poor lad, his foster
brother, well, and could not easily restrain his emotion, but so
soon as he was master of himself, the desire for vengeance
superseded softer emotions, and he ordered the wounded Pierre to be
brought before him.
He had no difficulty in learning the truth.
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