So, seeing no help for it, since except her father, the brethren, the most of the other ladies and herself, who drank but water, gentle and simple alike, had begun to grow heated with wine, and were very urgent, Rosamund took the silk kerchief from her neck.  Then coming to the edge of the dais, where they were seated in the sight of all, she stood before her cousins, not knowing, poor maid, to which of them she should offer it.  But Godwin whispered a word to Wulf, and both of them stretching out their right hands, snatched an end of the kerchief which she held towards them, and rending it, twisted the severed halves round their sword hilts.  The company laughed at their wit, and cried: 

“The wine for the more handsome.  They cannot serve that thus.”

Rosamund thought a moment; then she lifted a great silver beaker, the largest on the board, and having filled it full of wine, once more came forward and held it before them as though pondering.  Thereon the brethren, as though by a single movement, bent forward and each of them touched the beaker with his lips.  Again a great laugh went up, and even Rosamund smiled.

“The book! the book!” cried the guests.  “They dare not rend the holy book!”

So for the third time Rosamund advanced, bearing the missal.

“Knights,” she said, “you have torn my kerchief and drunk my wine.  Now I offer this hallowed writing—­to him who can read it best.”

“Give it to Godwin,” said Wulf.  “I am a swordsman, not a clerk.”

“Well said! well said!” roared the company.  “The sword for us—­not the pen!” But Rosamund turned on them and answered: 

“He who wields sword is brave, and he who wields pen is wise, but better is he who can handle both sword and pen—­like my cousin Godwin, the brave and learned.”

“Hear her! hear her!” cried the revellers, knocking their horns upon the board, while in the silence that followed a woman’s voice said, “Sir Godwin’s luck is great, but give me Sir Wulf’s strong arms.”

Then the drinking began again, and Rosamund and the ladies slipped away, as well they might—­for the times were rough and coarse.

On the morrow, after most of the guests were gone, many of them with aching heads, Godwin and Wulf sought their uncle, Sir Andrew, in the solar where he sat alone, for they knew Rosamund had walked to the church hard by with two of the serving women to make it ready for the Friday’s mass, after the feast of the peasants that had been held in the nave.  Coming to his oaken chair by the open hearth which had a chimney to it—­no common thing in those days—­they knelt before him.

“What is it now, my nephews?” asked the old man, smiling.  “Do you wish that I should knight you afresh?”

“No, sir,” answered Godwin; “we seek a greater boon.”

“Then you seek in vain, for there is none.”

“Another sort of boon,” broke in Wulf.

Sir Andrew pulled his beard, and looked at them.  Perhaps the Prior John had spoken a word to him, and he guessed what was coming.