Meanwhile he was growing in mind and body; he had now passed his seventeenth birthday, and was beginning to think himself a man; but where were the vassals whose leader and chieftain he was born to be?--where?
The people of Aescendune were diminishing daily--the English people thereof, we should say, for the places of those who fled their homes, and went no one knew whither, were filled by Normans, French, Bretons, or other like "cattle," as Wilfred called them in his wrath.
Everywhere he heard the same "jabbering" tongue, that Norman French--French with a Danish accent, and he liked it little enough. Good old English was becoming rare; the strangers compared it to the grunting of swine or the lowing of cattle, in their utter scorn of the aborigines.
Were the descendants of Hengist, Horsa, Ella, Cerdic, Ercenwin, Ida, Uffa, and Cridda to bear this? and more especially was he, Wilfred, the grandson of the heroic Alfgar, whose praises as the companion in arms of the Ironside had been sung by a hundred minstrels, and told again and again at the winter's fire in the castle hall--was he to bear this contumely? He could not much longer.
And then that scowling, dark, frowning, old Baron--there was a world of deadly mischief in his dark eye, which looked like light twinkling at the bottom of a black well. Once when Etienne was uttering some polished sarcasm at Wilfred's expense, the English lad caught the father's look, and there was something in it which puzzled him for a day or two.
Wilfred knew the baron did not like him, and felt that the hatred was all the more deadly for never being expressed. He sometimes thought that his stepfather wished him to quarrel with Etienne, in the full belief that Norman skill must prevail, in case of a combat.
Single combat. Well, the pages were always talking about it. Etienne knew a brave knight who took his stand on a bridge, horse and all complete, and when any one came by of equal rank, this strange bridge warden had two questions to ask; first:
"Wilt thou acknowledge the Lady Adeliza of Coutances to be the most peerless beauty in the world?"
Supposing the newcomer not to be in love, and to be willing to admit the superiority of the fair charmer, then to him the bridge warden further added:
"Wilt thou admit that I am a better knight than thou--better with horse, sword, and lance?"