"
And we modern English must remember that we are the descendants of
old English and Normans combined. They came to "high mettle" the
blood of our race, and when the conquerors and the conquered were
moulded into one people, the result was the Englishmen who won
Crecy and Agincourt against overwhelming odds, whose very name was
a terror to continental soldiery, as Froissart abundantly
testifies.
Grieve as we may over the tyranny and wrong of the Conquest,
England would never have been so great without it as she afterwards
became.
Etienne knelt in the abbey chapel until the last worshippers had
gone out, when a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a gentle
voice said:
"The King awaits thee, my son, in the abbot's audience chamber."
In spite of his boldness, Etienne felt a strange tremor as he
passed through the cloisters and approached the dreaded monarch.
But he himself belonged to the same stern race, and when the
folding doors opened, and he saw the King seated in the abbot's
chair, he had perfectly recovered his composure. With winning grace
he bent the knee before his liege, and gazed into that face whose
frown was death.
But it was not frowning now; the expression was almost paternal,
for the Conqueror loved a gallant youth.
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