"Hem! and how? Mayst thou thrive better than I in this swine-sty!"

"You remember," renewed De Graville, "that Lanfranc, the Lombard, was
pleased to take interest in my fortunes, then not the most
flourishing, and after his return from Rome, with the Pope's
dispensation for Count William's marriage with his cousin, he became
William's most trusted adviser. Both William and Lanfranc were
desirous to set an example of learning to our Latinless nobles, and
therefore my scholarship found grace in their eyes. In brief since
then I have prospered and thriven. I have fair lands by the Seine,
free from clutch of merchant and Jew. I have founded a convent, and
slain some hundreds of Breton marauders. Need I say that I am in high
favour? Now it so chanced that a cousin of mine, Hugo de Magnaville,
a brave lance and franc-rider, chanced to murder his brother in a
little domestic affray, and, being of conscience tender and nice, the
deed preyed on him, and he gave his lands to Odo of Bayeux, and set
off to Jerusalem. There, having prayed at the tomb," (the knight
crossed himself,) "he felt at once miraculously cheered and relieved;
but, journeying back, mishaps befell him. He was made slave by some
infidel, to one of whose wives he sought to be gallant, par amours,
and only escaped at last by setting fire to paynim and prison. Now,
by the aid of the Virgin, he has got back to Rouen, and holds his own
land again in fief from proud Odo, as a knight of the bishop's. It so
happened that, passing homeward through Lycia, before these
misfortunes befell him, he made friends with a fellow-pilgrim who had
just returned, like himself, from the Sepulchre, but not lightened,
like him, of the load of his crime. This poor palmer lay broken-
hearted and dying in the hut of an eremite, where my cousin took
shelter; and, learning that Hugo was on his way to Normandy, he made