subjects. "No schism in thy Church? The clerk seemed a peaceful man,
and a humble."

"An there were schism in my Church," said the fiery Duke, "my brother
of Bayeux would settle it by arguments as close as the gap between
cord and throttle."

"Ah! thou art, doubtless, well read in the canons, holy Odo!" said the
King, turning to the bishop with more respect than he had yet evinced
towards that gentle prelate.

"Canons, yes, Seigneur, I draw them up myself for my flock conformably
with such interpretations of the Roman Church as suit best with the
Norman realm: and woe to deacon, monk, or abbot, who chooses to
misconstrue them." [61]

The bishop looked so truculent and menacing, while his fancy thus
conjured up the possibility of heretical dissent, that Edward shrank
from him as he had done from Taillefer; and in a few minutes after, on
exchange of signals between himself and the Duke, who, impatient to
escape, was too stately to testify that desire, the retirement of the
royal party broke up the banquet; save, indeed, that a few of the
elder Saxons, and more incorrigible Danes, still steadily kept their
seats, and were finally dislodged from their later settlements on the
stone floors, to find themselves, at dawn, carefully propped in a row
against the outer walls of the palace, with their patient attendants,
holding links, and gazing on their masters with stolid envy, if not of
the repose at least of the drugs that had caused it.