The sight in question was a gallows, from which rotted, pendant, the corpse of an unhappy Englishman, hanged for killing a deer.
"If every oak in Aescendune woods bore such acorns, civilised folk might soon be happy."
Wilfred uttered a deep malediction, which he could not suppress, and, leaving the party, disappeared from sight in the woods.
One of the Norman lads looked after him with some little appearance of sympathy, and when he had gone, said:
"Is it like gentlemen to torment each other thus?"
"Not each other, certainly!"
"He is your brother in a way, the son of your stepmother, the lady of Aescendune."
"He is in a way, but some brothers would be better out of the way than in it, besides--why does he not show fight? A Norman would with half the provocation."
"You could not fight with him," said Louis de Marmontier, who was the youngest of the pages who were learning "chivalry" at the castle of Aescendune, in company with Etienne and Wilfred, under the fostering care of the baron.
"I don't know," said the fierce young Norman, and, breaking off the conversation, switched savagely at the head of a thistle close at hand, which he neatly beheaded.