But wherever a monastery was built roads were made, marshes drained, and the whole country rose in civilisation, while for the learning of the nineteenth century to revile monastic lore is for the oak to revile the acorn from which it sprang.

Here the wayfarer found a shelter; here the sick their needful medicine; here the children an instructor; here the poor relief; and here, above all, one weary of the incessant strife of an evil world might find peace.

On the morning succeeding the arrival of the great Earl of Leicester, that doughty guest was seated in the prior’s chamber, in company with his host.  The day was most uninviting without, but the fire blazed cheerfully within.  The snow kept falling in thick flakes, which narrowed the vision so that our friends could hardly see across the moat, but the fire crackled on the great hearth where five or six logs fizzed and spluttered out their juices.

“My journey is indeed delayed,” said the earl, “yet I am most anxious to reach London and present myself to the king.”

“The weather is in God’s hands; we may pray for a change, but meanwhile we must be patient and thankful that we have a roof over our heads, my lord.”

“And it gives me full time to hear particulars about the boy whom I left in your care—­a wilful, petted urchin, ten years of age he was then.”

“The lad is docile; he has scant inclination towards the Church, but he shows the signs of his high lineage in a hundred different ways.”

“High lineage?” said the earl, with a smile and a look of inquiry.

“We had supposed him of thy kindred; he bears every sign of noblesse and does not disgrace it,” said the prior, himself of the kindred of the “lords of the eagle.”

“He is the son of a brother crusader.”

“The father is not living?”

“No, he fell in Palestine, within sight of the earthly Jerusalem, and I trust has found admittance into the Jerusalem which is above; he committed the boy to my care—­

“But let them bring young Hubert hither.”

The prior tinkled a silver bell, which lay upon the table, and a lay brother appeared, to whom he gave the necessary order.  A knock at the door was soon heard, and a lad of some fourteen years entered in obedience to the prior’s summons, and stood at first abashed before the great earl.

Yet he was not a lad wanting in self confidence; he was tall and slender, his features were regular, his hair and eyes light, his face a shapely oval; there was a winning expression on the features, and altogether it was a persuasive face.

“Dost thou remember me, my son?” asked the earl, as the boy knelt on one knee, and kissed his hand gracefully.

“It seems many years since thou didst leave me here, my lord.”

“Ah! thy memory is good—­hast thou been happy here? hast thou done thy duty?”

“It is dull for an eaglet to be brought up in a cave.”