perch. The employment made so habitual a part of the serious
education of youth, that the thegns smoothed their brows at the sight,
and deemed the boy worthily occupied. At another end of the room, a
grave Norman priest was seated at a table on which were books and
writing implements; he was the tutor commissioned by Edward to teach
Norman tongue and saintly lore to the Atheling. A profusion of toys
strewed the floor, and some children of Edgar's own age were playing
with them. His little sister Margaret [211] was seated seriously,
apart from all the other children, and employed in needlework.

When Alred approached the Atheling, with a blending of reverent
obeisance and paternal cordiality, the boy carelessly cried, in a
barbarous jargon, half German, half Norman-French:

"There, come not too near, you scare my hawk. What are you doing?
You trample my toys, which the good Norman bishop William sent me as a
gift from the Duke. Art thou blind, man?"

"My son," said the prelate kindly, "these are the things of childhood
--childhood ends sooner with princes than with common men. Leave thy
lure and thy toys, and welcome these noble thegns, and address them,
so please you, in our own Saxon tongue."

"Saxon tongue!--language of villeins! not I. Little do I know of it,
save to scold a ceorl or a nurse. King Edward did not tell me to
learn Saxon, but Norman! and Godfroi yonder says, that if I know
Norman well, Duke William will make me his knight. But I don't desire
to learn anything more to-day." And the child turned peevishly from
thegn and prelate.