It was only by the exercise of the utmost energy that the soldiery and camp followers of the Normans were prevented from looting the castle. They were somewhat appeased by an unlimited supply of ale from the cellars, and promises of money. Bonfires were lit in the enclosure, and carcasses of sheep and oxen roasted thereat, the whole resolving itself into a grand carousal of drinking, singing, and rough jollity. A certain number of the better class were admitted to the castle, where the same kind of thing was repeated in much the same fashion.
In the large hall the leaders feasted and drank with little more of refinement and seemliness than the vulgar people, except that they drank wine and mead.
"Well, Captain Reynard!" said the Count. "Is all well?"
"All well, sire; the gates secured, the place explored, and, I think I may add, the Saxons so thoroughly routed and cowed that they will have little stomach for more fighting yet awhile."
"That may be; but I fancy we should be found very unprepared if they dared venture an attempt to rescue their leader."
"You may depend upon me, Count, to keep a sharp look-out; I shall not close my eyes in sleep until the sun rises to-morrow. But I have no fear the Saxons will attempt a rescue. As I said, they are so thoroughly beaten, and the remnant so glad to be able to escape with their lives, that they will venture no more."
An exceedingly busy and anxious time was spent by Alice and her maids in their efforts to protect the domestics left in charge from the drunken frolics of both officers and men-at-arms. This would have been a task utterly beyond their powers but for the watchful eye and stern discipline of the Count, who, despising the drunken excesses of his lieutenants, with ceaseless care and watchfulness kept watch and ward within and without the castle.
Alice and Jeannette, too, with the curiosity of their sex, and with ever-increasing interest, explored the rooms of the castle, marvelling greatly at the many tokens of taste and refinement manifested therein, and which they little expected to find in the castle of a Saxon chieftain.
Said Alice, "My interest grows strangely from day to day, Jeannette, in this Saxon chieftain. I see no evidence of the boorishness I have always associated with the lives of the Barons of England. Now also that he is in such sore distress, and hath so sad a fate before him, my heart grieves sorely for him."