trouble, and made war with all his neighbours in his own fashion.
Rare was the prey that the old Black Wolf of the Pyrenees was wont
to bring up to his lair, and right merry were the feastings there.
Well I do remember how my father and brothers used to sound their
horns as a token that they did not come empty-handed, and then,
panting up the steep path, would come a rich merchant, whose ransom
filled our purses half a year after, or a Knight, whose glittering
armour made him a double prize, or--"

"What! you were actually--"

"Freebooters, after the fashion of our own Quatre fils Aymon,"
answered Gaston, composedly. "Yes, Beranger d'Albricorte was the
terror of all around, and little was the chance that aught would
pursue him to his den. So there I grew up, as well beseemed the
cub of such a wolf, racing through the old halls at my will."

"Your mother?" asked Eustace.

"Ah! poor lady! I remember her not. She died when I was a babe,
and all I know of her was from an old hag, the only woman in the
Castle, to whom the charge of me was left. My mother was a noble
Navarrese damsel whom my father saw at a tourney, seized, and bore
away as she was returning from the festival. Poor lady! our grim
Castle must have been a sad exchange from her green valleys--and
the more, that they say she was soon to have wedded the Lord of
Montagudo, the victor of that tourney. The Montagudos had us in
bitter feud ever after, and my father always looked like a
thunderstorm if their name was spoken. They say she used to
wander on the old battlements like a ghost, ever growing thinner