“Now, my son, I know why I looked at thee—I knew thy father. Nay, I administered the last rites of Holy Church to him. I was travelling through the woods and following a short route to the great abbey of Battle, when a band of the outlaws burst forth from an ambush.
“‘Art thou a priest, portly father?’ they said irreverently.
“‘Good lack,’ said I, ‘I am, but little of worldly goods have I. Thou wilt not plunder God’s ambassadors of their little all?’
“‘Nay! But thou must come with us, and thy retinue must tarry here till we bring thee back.’
“‘You will not harm me?’ said I, fearing for my throat. ‘It is as thou hearest a hoarse one, and often sore, but it is my only one.’
“They laughed, and one said:
“‘Nay, father, we swear by Him that died that we will bring thee safe here again ere sundown.’
“So they led me away, and anon they blindfolded me, and led my horse. What a mercy poor Whitefoot was sure footed, and did not stumble, for the way was parlous difficult.
“And at last they took the bandage from off mine eyes, and I saw I was in their encampment, in the innermost recesses of a swampy tangled wood. There, in a sort of better-most cabin, lay a young man, dying—wounded, as I afterwards learned, in an attack upon the Lord of Herst de Monceux.
“A goodly man of some thirty years was he, and a goodly end he made. He told me his story, and as the lips of dying men speak the truth, I believed him. He was the last representative of that English family which before the Conquest owned this very island and its adjacent woods and fields {[24]}. He was very like thee—he stands before me again in thee. Didst thou never hear of thy descent before?”