"The wolves have ravaged it, father; our own pious brethren are ejected; English swine root in its precincts."
The abbot coloured.
"Who has dared to do this impiety?" he thundered.
"The English rebels and outlaws, who have long lain hidden in the woods, led by the son of the rebel lord who fell at Senlac."
"The brethren--are they safe?"
"They are on their journey hither; the saints have protected them--no thanks to the English."
"And how dared the stripling thou namest to do such deeds; where was thy father, the Baron?"
"He was foully slain in an ambush:" and Etienne, who strove to keep cool, could not restrain a strange quivering of the lips.
"Come, tell me all, my son; God comfort thee."
Etienne began his tale, and the reader will easily guess that Wilfred's character fared very badly at his hands--that without any wilful falsehood, of which indeed this proud young Norman was incapable, so distorted a version of the facts known to our readers was presented, that the abbot shuddered at the daring bloodthirstiness and impiety of one so young as this English lad.