It was a large cottage for that period, divided into three rooms, the outer and larger one for living, the two inner and smaller for bedchambers. Its construction was simple and not unlike those raised by the dwellers in the wild parts of the earth now. Larches or pines, about the thickness of a man's leg, had been cut down, shaped with an axe, driven into the earth at the intervals of half a yard, willow-twigs had been twined round them, the interstices had been filled with clay, cross beams had been laid upon the level summits of the posts, a roof of bark supported on lighter timber placed upon it, slightly shelving from the ridge, and the outer fabric was complete. Then the inner partitions had been made, partly with bark, partly with skins, stretched from post to post; light doors swung on hinges of leather, small apertures covered with semitransparent skin formed the windows, and a huge aperture in the roof over a hearth, whereon rested a portable iron grate, served for chimney.
A table, roughly made, stood upon trestles, two or three seats, like milking-stools, supplied the lack of chairs—such was the furniture of the living room.
Over the fire sat the occupants of the house—whom we must particularly introduce to our readers.
The first and most conspicuous was an old man, dressed mainly in vestments of skin, but the one impression he produced upon the beholder was "fallen greatness." Such a face, such noble features, withered and wrinkled though they were by age; long masses of white hair, untouched by barber or scissors, hung down his back, and a white wavy beard reached almost to his waist.
By his side, attentive to his every word, sat a youth of about sixteen summers, and he was also worthy of notice—he seemed to combine the characteristic features of the two races, Norman and English—we will not use that misnomer "Saxon," our ancestors never called themselves by other name than English after the Heptarchy was dissolved. His hair was dark, his features shapely, but there was that one peculiarity of feature which always gives a pathetic look to the face—large blue eyes under dark eyebrows.
The third person was evidently of lower rank than the others, although this was not evident from any distinction of dress, for poverty had obliterated all such tokens, but from the general manner, the look of servitude, the air of submission which characterised one born of a race of thralls. In truth she was the sole survivor of a race of hereditary bondsmen, who had served the ancestors of him whom she now tended with affectionate fidelity amidst poverty and old age.
Let us listen to their conversation, and so introduce them to the reader.
"And so, grandfather," said the boy in a subdued voice of deep feeling, "you saw him, your father, depart for the last time—the very last?"
"I remember, as if it were but yesterday, when my father gathered his churls and thralls[5] around him at our house at Kingestun under the downs to the west: there were women and children, whose husbands and fathers were going with him to join the army of Harold at London; they were all on foot, for we had few knights in those days, but ere my father mounted his favourite horse—'Whitefoot'—he lifted me in his arms and kissed me. I was but five years old, and then he pressed my mother to his bosom, she gave one sob but strove to stifle it, as the wife of a warrior should. Then all tried to cry—'Long live Thurkill of Kingestun.'