But we must cut this chapter short; suffice it to say, that after a brief halt they resumed their route; camped that night under the shelter of a clump of trees on the downs, and the next day, at Devizes, effected a junction with the troops of Earl Robert of Gloucester, who, having left his sister safe in Arundel Castle, was on his way to secure Bristol, attended by only twelve horsemen.
FOOTNOTE:
[15] It was a cruciform structure, a huge tower on the intersection of the arms of the cross, the present chancel was not then in existence, a smaller sanctuary of Norman architecture supplied its place. The old church had been destroyed with the village in that Danish invasion of which we have told in the tale of Alfgar the Dane, which took place in 1006, and the place had lain waste till the manor was given to Reading Abbey, under whose fostering influence it had risen from its ashes.
CHAPTER XII THE HERMITAGE
For many days Evroult and Richard, the sons—unhappy, leprous sons—of Brian Fitz-Count, bore their sad lot with apparent patience in the lazar-house of Byfield; but their minds were determined, come weal or woe, they would endeavour to escape.
"Where there is a will," says an old proverb, "there is a way,"—the chance Evroult had spoken of soon came.
It was the hour of evening recreation, and in the spacious grounds attached to the lazar-house, the lepers were walking listlessly around the well-trodden paths, in all stages of leprous deformity; it was curious to note how differently it affected different people; some walked downcast, their eyes on the ground, studiously concealing their ghastly wounds; some in a state of semi-idiotcy—no uncommon result—"moped and mowed"; some, in hopeless despair, sighed and groaned; and one cried "Lost, lost," as he wrung his hands.
There were keepers here and there amongst them, too often lepers themselves. The Chaplain, too, was there, endeavouring to administer peripatetic consolation first to one, then to another.