almost every other description of vocal music; and it is even said
that great festivals on certain occasions were preluded by no less an
effort of lungs and memory than the entire songs bequeathed to us by
King David! This day, however, Hugoline, Edward's Norman chamberlain,
had been pleased to abridge the length of the prolix grace, and the
company were let off; to Edward's surprise and displeasure, with the
curt and unseemly preparation of only nine psalms and one special hymn
in honour of some obscure saint to whom the day was dedicated. This
performed, the guests resumed their seats, Edward murmuring an apology
to William for the strange omission of his chamberlain, and saying
thrice to himself, "Naught, naught--very naught."

The mirth languished at the royal table, despite some gay efforts from
Rolf, and some hollow attempts at light-hearted cheerfulness from the
great Duke, whose eyes, wandering down the table, were endeavouring to
distinguish Saxon from Norman, and count how many of the first might
already be reckoned in the train of his friends. But at the long
tables below, as the feast thickened, and ale, mead, pigment, morat,
and wine circled round, the tongue of the Saxon was loosed, and the
Norman knight lost somewhat of his superb gravity. It was just as
what a Danish poet called the "sun of the night," (in other words, the
fierce warmth of the wine,) had attained its meridian glow, that some
slight disturbance at the doors of the hall, without which waited a
dense crowd of the poor on whom the fragments of the feast were
afterwards to be bestowed, was followed by the entrance of two
strangers, for whom the officers appointed to marshal the
entertainment made room at the foot of one of the tables. Both these
new-comers were clad with extreme plainness; one in a dress, though
not quite monastic, that of an ecclesiastic of low degree; the other
in a long grey mantle and loose gonna, the train of which last was