"What can I think, Ulf, but that the good widow has lost her senses through grief at the death of her lord, the noble Edmund, else would the dove never mate the black crow."
"Yea, she was pale as death as she entered the church."
"Well she may be; she liketh not the match, only she would save the estates for her boy's sake."
"Will she be able to save them?"
"So the Conqueror hath promised. Wilfred, our young lord, is to inherit if he live; and if he die, then that dark young French lad--a true cub of the old wolf."
"If he live. Well, I would not wager much upon his chance of a long life in that case."
"Nor I; but we must not say so, if we value our ears, or our necks even."
Long and loud was the revelry in the castle of Aescendune that night; as it is written in the old ballad of Imogene:
"The tables groaned with the weight of the feast,
And many and noble were the guests."
But no spectral form sat beside the bride, although there were not wanting those who half imagined the dead Edmund might appear--roused even from the grave, to see the seat he had occupied so many years in honour and worth, filled by this dark-browed Norman stranger.