“I know not; they have been much reduced both in numbers and in power, and give small trouble now to the nobles and men of high degree.  Many have been hanged.”

“Does Grimbeard yet live?”

“I know not.”

“Father, I start on my search tomorrow; give me thy blessing and pray for me.”

Martin could not sleep.  He stood long at the window of his cell in a dreamy reverie.  The story of the last Thane of Michelham, as related in the Andredsweald, had often been told around the camp fires, and although he was only in his thirteenth year when he left them, it was all distinctly imprinted in his memory.  Oh! how strange it seemed to him to be there on the spot, which but for the conquest of two centuries agone would perhaps have still been the home of his race!  But he did not indulge in sentimental sorrow.  He believed in the Fatherhood of God, and that all things work for good to them that love Him.

What a dawn it was!  A reddening of the eastern sky; a low band of crimson; then rays like an aurora shooting upwards into the mid heavens; then such tints of transparent opal and heavenly azure overspread the skies all around, that Martin drank in the beauty with all his soul, and almost wept for joy, as he thought it a foretaste of the new heavens and the new earth, wherein he hoped to dwell, and whereon his heart was already surely fixed.  And as he gazed upon the distant woods, wherein dwelt the kindred he came to seek, he prayed in the words of an old antiphon: 

“O Day Spring, brightness of the Eternal Light and Sun of Righteousness, come and lighten those that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death.”

Chapter 17:  The Castle Of Fievrault.

It was the province of Auvergne in France.  Through the forest, deep and gloomy, rode our Hubert and his squire, with the six men-at-arms, a few days after their departure from England.  They had gained the soil of France, and had found the town in Auvergne which bore the name of the De Fievrault family, and early in the following morning they started for the old chateau, which they were forewarned they would find in ruins, to seek the fated sword.

It was added that the place was haunted, and that they would do well to return before nightfall.

The road which led thither was evidently but seldom trodden.  It abounded in sunken ruts, wherein lurked the adder.  It led by sullen pools, where the bittern boomed and the pike swam, his silver side glittering like a streak of light beneath the dark surface, as he sought his finny prey.  Now it was marshy and muddy, now it was tangled with thorns, now impeded by fallen trees.  So thick was the verdure that the sky could not often be seen.

“I should be sorry, Almeric,” said the young knight to his squire, “to traverse this route by night.  Yet unless we make better use of our legs it will happen to us to have the choice either of encountering the wolves of the forest or the phantoms of the castle.”