"Pray was the lad in any manner dear to Wilfred?"
"He was his foster brother," said Etienne, covering his face as conscience smote him, for he remembered the death of Eadwin, and the way in which the mother of the murdered boy had returned good for evil.
"Then, my son, thou canst not acquit thyself of blame."
"But even if I were in fault so far, father, the terrible events which have occurred since do not lie at my door--the burning of the monastery, the death of my poor father."
"Only so far as this, that all might have been prevented hadst thou received Wilfred as a brother, for thou didst drive him to the woods--according to thine own account. But depend upon it, there is more behind. A brave youth like Wilfred would not have fled simply for fear of the combat, nor would one who loved his own people, as your story proves, have connived at the burning of an English monastery--monks and all. Nay, my son, the mystery is not solved yet; in God's own time it will be, and depend upon it, there will be much to forgive on both sides. Think of this when thou repeatest thy paternoster tonight; for the present we will close this conference."
[CHAPTER XX]. THE MESSENGER FROM THE CAMP OF REFUGE.
A fortnight only had passed since the scenes described in our last chapter, and we must again take our readers to Aescendune.
It was the hour of the evening meal in the castle hall where so lately Hugo sat in his pride, and in his place sat his youthful rival, Wilfred.
Scarcely of age, the vicissitudes of his life had made a man of him before his time, and a stranger would have credited him with many more years than he really possessed. His face was bronzed with the sun, and his features had assumed all the appearance of early manhood, while there was a gravity in his expression befitting a born leader of men, such as his warlike grandfather, Alfgar, had been in the old Danish wars sixty years earlier.
The accustomed features of an English feast, as distinct from a Norman banquet, have been dwelt upon too often in these Chronicles to need recapitulation here, and we shall only beg our readers to suppose the eating over, the wine and mead handed round, and the business of the evening begun.