“Then you are not of gentle blood?”
“That depends upon what you mean by gentle blood. I am not of Norman blood by my father’s side, although my mother may be, from whom I get my dark features: my father was descended from the old English lords of Michelham, who lived on the island for ages before the Conquest; my mother’s family is unknown to me.”
“Indeed! what became of your English forbears?”
“Robert de Mortain contrived their ruin, but dearly did his race pay for it in the justice of God. His ghost, or that of his son, still haunts Pevensey: but all that is past and gone. Earl Simon sometimes says (you heard him perhaps the other day) that the English are of as good blood as the Normans, and that he should be proud to call himself an Englishman.
“He is worthy of the name,” said Martin, and Hubert smiled; “but it is not that—I want to be a scholar, and by and by a priest.”
“The very thing they wanted to make me, and I wouldn’t for the world; what a pity we could not change places. Ah! what is that?”
A crushing of brambles and parting of bushes was heard, and lo! a deer, with a little fawn by its side, came across the glade, looking very frightened. The mother was restraining her own speed for the sake of the little one, but every moment got ahead, involuntarily, then stopped, and strove by piteous cries to urge the fawn to do its best.
What did it mean? The mystery was soon explained, the deep bay of a hound was heard close behind.
Martin’s deep sympathies with the animal creation were aroused at once, and he stood in the opening the deer had made, his short hunting spear in hand.
“Take care—what are you about!” cried Hubert.