“Nay, nay, Lord Richard,” said the old lady, “I love not that tale. That was ere the Norman learnt courtesy, and rudeness ought rather to be forgotten than remembered, save for the sake of amending it. No, I will rather tell you of our coming to Centeville, and how dreary I thought these smooth meads, and broad soft gliding streams, compared with mine own father’s fiord in Norway, shut in with the tall black rocks, and dark pines above them, and far away the snowy mountains rising into the sky. Ah! how blue the waters were in the long summer days when I sat in my father’s boat in the little fiord, and—”
Dame Astrida was interrupted. A bugle note rang out at the castle gate; the dogs started to their feet, and uttered a sudden deafening bark; Osmond sprung up, exclaiming, “Hark!” and trying to silence the hounds; and Richard running to Sir Eric, cried, “Wake, wake, Sir Eric, my father is come! Oh, haste to open the gate, and admit him.”
“Peace, dogs!” said Sir Eric, slowly rising, as the blast of the horn was repeated. “Go, Osmond, with the porter, and see whether he who comes at such an hour be friend or foe. Stay you here, my Lord,” he added, as Richard was running after Osmond; and the little boy obeyed, and stood still, though quivering all over with impatience.
“Tidings from the Duke, I should guess,” said Fru Astrida. “It can scarce be himself at such an hour.”
“Oh, it must be, dear Fru Astrida!” said Richard. “He said he would come again. Hark, there are horses’ feet in the court! I am sure that is his black charger’s tread! And I shall not be there to hold his stirrup! Oh! Sir Eric, let me go.”
Sir Eric, always a man of few words, only shook his head, and at that moment steps were heard on the stone stairs. Again Richard was about to spring forward, when Osmond returned, his face showing, at a glance, that something was amiss; but all that he said was, “Count Bernard of Harcourt, and Sir Rainulf de Ferrières,” and he stood aside to let them pass.
Richard stood still in the midst of the hall, disappointed. Without greeting to Sir Eric, or to any within the hall, the Count of Harcourt came forward to Richard, bent his knee before him, took his hand, and said with a broken voice and heaving breast, “Richard, Duke of Normandy, I am thy liegeman and true vassal;” then rising from his knees while Rainulf de Ferrières went through the same form, the old man covered his face with his hands and wept aloud.
“Is it even so?” said the Baron de Centeville; and being answered by a mournful look and sigh from Ferrières, he too bent before the boy, and repeated the words, “I am thy liegeman and true vassal, and swear fealty to thee for my castle and barony of Centeville.”
“Oh, no, no!” cried Richard, drawing back his hand in a sort of agony, feeling as if he was in a frightful dream from which he could not awake. “What means it? Oh! Fru Astrida, tell me what means it? Where is my father?”
