wash, and wine and ale; and bid the cooks add what they hastily
can to our evening meal; and let it be put on the board when
those strangers are ready to share it. Say to them, Hundebert,
that Cedric would himself bid them welcome, but he is under a vow
never to step more than three steps from the dais of his own hall
to meet any who shares not the blood of Saxon royalty. Begone!
see them carefully tended; let them not say in their pride, the
Saxon churl has shown at once his poverty and his avarice."

The major-domo departed with several attendants, to execute his
master's commands.

"The Prior Aymer!" repeated Cedric, looking to Oswald, "the
brother, if I mistake not, of Giles de Mauleverer, now lord of
Middleham?"

Oswald made a respectful sign of assent. "His brother sits in
the seat, and usurps the patrimony, of a better race, the race of
Ulfgar of Middleham; but what Norman lord doth not the same? This
Prior is, they say, a free and jovial priest, who loves the
wine-cup and the bugle-horn better than bell and book: Good; let
him come, he shall be welcome. How named ye the Templar?"

"Brian de Bois-Guilbert."

"Bois-Guilbert," said Cedric, still in the musing, half-arguing
tone, which the habit of living among dependants had accustomed
him to employ, and which resembled a man who talks to himself
rather than to those around him---"Bois-Guilbert? that name has
been spread wide both for good and evil. They say he is valiant