"Or an adventurer," said Gilbert, smiling also, but more bitterly.
"Most of our ancestors were that," retorted the abbot, "and they have picked up a fair living by it," he added. "Let me see: Normandy, Maine, Aquitaine, Gascony—and England. Not a bad inheritance for a handful of pirates matched against the world."
"Yes, but the handful of pirates were Normans," said Gilbert, as if that statement alone should have explained the conquest of the universe. "But the world is half won," he concluded, with a rather hopeless sigh.
"There is enough to fight for yet," answered the abbot, gravely. "The Holy Land is not half conquered, and until all Palestine and Syria shall be one Christian kingdom under one Christian king, there is earth for Norman feet to tread, and flesh for Norman swords to hack."
Gilbert's expression changed a little, and a light came into his eyes.
"The Holy Land—Jerusalem!" The words came slowly, each with its dream. "But the times are too old. Who should preach another crusade in our day?"
"The man whose word is a lash, a sword, and a crown—the man who rules the world to-day."
"And who is that?" asked Gilbert.
"A Frenchman," answered the abbot—"Bernard of Clairvaux, the greatest man, the greatest thinker, the greatest preacher, and the greatest saint of these late days."
"I have heard of him," Gilbert answered, with a sick man's disappointment at not learning anything new. Then he smiled faintly. "If he is a miracle-worker, he might find me a good subject."