maybe months, while the count was striving to wring the utmost
ransom from him. The lads would doubtless have been slain had they
been detected in making their escape or overtaken on the way, and
the attempt was therefore one that required courage as well as
devotion to their lord. I doubt not that you would exhibit both
qualities did opportunity offer, but I question whether you could
have walked the distance they did, and that on such scanty fare.
We Normans are too apt to trust wholly to our horses' legs to the
neglect of our own, and although I have no doubt that you could
ride as far as a horse could carry you, I warrant that you could
hardly have performed on foot the journey from Beaurain in twice
the time in which they did it. They must have exercised their legs
as well as their arms, and although in a campaign a Norman noble
depends upon his war horse both on the march and on the day of
battle, there may often be times when it is well that a knight
should be able to march as far as any of the footmen in the army.
Well, Agnes, and what have you to say to these Saxon youths? Methinks
your eyes are paying more attention to them than to your missal."

"I can read my missal at any hour, father, but this is the first
time that I have seen young Saxon nobles. I thought there would
have been more difference between them and us. Their hair is fairer
and more golden and their eyes bluer, but their dress differs in
no way from our own." She spoke in a matter-of-fact and serious
air, as if it were a horse or a dog that she was commenting upon,
and both Beorn and Wulf smiled, while Guy laughed outright.

"It is little wonder that their attire is like ours, Agnes," he
said, "seeing that they were furnished with it by the duke's orders.
You do not suppose that after being tossed about on the sea and