“We have surfeited ourselves with law,” he said bitterly; “only to learn that the law bows itself to the man with the sword and the title.”
Denise leant back against the rough oak door-post.
“You will build the house again?” she asked.
He did not answer her for a moment.
“No, not yet,” he said at last. “The sword is the first tool that we Englishmen must handle. These Frenchmen laugh at us, calling us English swine, but the day is near when the tusks of the English boar shall be red with their blood.”
He spoke with the fierceness of the man of the sword, but Denise’s heart was with him, though her hands were held to be hands of mercy.
“Such men as Hubert of Kent, they are our need,” she said.
“Hubert! The land shall give us a hundred Huberts,” and his face blazed up at her. “It will be the bills of England against the spears of this hired scum from France and Flanders, these dogs in the service of dogs who have plundered our lands and shamed our women. They have laughed at us, robbed us, made a puppet of our king. ‘Get you to England,’ has been the cry, ‘It is a land of fools, of heavy men stupid with mead and swine’s flesh. Take what you will. The savages will only gape and grumble.’ But I tell you, Denise, the heart of England has grown hot with a slow, sure wrath. We are Normans no longer, nor Saxons, nor Danes. Men are gripping hands from sea to sea. God see to it, but the years will prove that England is England, the land of the English, and woe to those who shall trifle with our strength.”
Like a mocking voice came the cry of a horn, echoing tauntingly amid the hills. Another took up the blast, and yet another, cheerily braying through the young green of the woods. The two in the cell were mute for the moment, looking questioningly into each other’s eyes.
Aymery raised himself upon his elbow.