Such was the building into which Etienne de Malville entered, not
without religious awe, as the pealing organ--then recently
introduced by the Normans--rolled its volume of sound through the
vaulted aisles.
The monks were all in the choir, which was lighted by torches and
tapers. In the nave a few laity of the town were scattered--here a
knight or soldier, there a mechanic.
Suddenly, as Etienne took his place, the tread of many armed heels
broke the silence, and penetrated up the aisle.
The sound ceased; those who caused it were already in their chosen
places, and the monks had begun the Psalms, when Etienne heard a
peculiarly stern and deep voice near at hand taking up the sacred
words of Israel's royal singer, with which the worshipper seemed
familiar.
Then, for the first time, he perceived that the Conqueror--the
mightiest of earth's warriors--was he from whom the voice
proceeded, kneeling without state in the midst of his subjects,
lords and vassals, to join in the late evening service of the
church {xix}.
CHAPTER XIX. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CONQUEROR.
The mighty Conqueror of England was the central figure of the age
in which he lived--the greatest soldier of an age of soldiers, and
not less statesman than warrior.
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