The boy shook his head, looked once more curiously at the old woman and the hut, and departed, muttering—
"I should be sorry to stand in Osric's shoes; but then he is a favourite;" and young Louis of Trouville, page to Brian for the good of his education, rode down the brook.
"After all, he is no gentleman. Why did my lord choose a page from amongst the peasants?"
Many had asked that question before.
CHAPTER XXIII THE PESTILENCE (AT BYFIELD)
The time had passed away slowly at the lazar-house at Byfield. Life was tedious there to most people, least of all to the good Chaplain, Father Ambrose; for he loved his poor lepers with a love which could only come direct from Him Who loved us all. He did not feel time lag. Each day had its appointed duties: in holy offices of prayer and praise, or in his labour of love, the days sped on. He felt the strain, it is true, but he bore it. He looked for no holiday here; it could never come. He was cloistered and confined by that general belief in the contagion of leprosy, which was so strong in the world that many would have slain a leper had they met him outside the defined boundaries, or set their mastiffs to tear him in pieces.
One day Father Ambrose was seated in his cell after Terce, when one of the attendants came to him with a serious and anxious face.