“Hubert, you are such a one as women will love; one, too, who, I fear me, will be a lover of women, for that weakness goes with strength and manhood by Nature’s laws.  Be careful of women, Hubert, and if you may, choose those who are not false and cling to her who is most true.  Oh, you will wander far; I read it in your eyes that you will wander far, yet shall your heart stay English.  Kiss me and begone!  Lad, are you forgetting your spare arrows and the bull-hide jerkin that was your father’s?  You will want them both to-day.  Farewell, farewell!  God and His Christ be with you—­and shoot you straight and smite you hard.  Nay, no tears, lest my eyes should be dimmed, for I’ll climb to the attic and watch you fight.”

CHAPTER II

THE LADY BLANCHE

So I went, with a sore heart, for I remembered that when my father and brothers were drowned, although I was then but a little one, my mother had foreseen it, and I feared much lest it might be thus in her own case also.  I loved my mother.  She was a stern woman, it was true, with little softness about her, which I think came with her blood, but she had a high heart, and oh! her last words were noble.  Yet through it all I was pleased, as any young man would have been, with the gift of the wonderful sword which once had been that of Thorgrimmer, the sea-rover, whose blood ran in my body against which it lay, and I hoped that this day I might have chance to use it worthily as Thorgrimmer did in forgotten battles.  Having imagination, I wondered also whether the sword knew that after its long sleep it had come forth again to drink the blood of foes.

Also I was pleased with another thing, namely, that my mother had told me that I should live my life and not die that day by the hand of Frenchmen; and that in my life I should find love, of which to tell truth already I knew a little of a humble sort, for I was a comely youth, and women did not run away from me, or if they did, soon they stopped.  I wanted to live my life, I wanted to see great adventures and to win great love.  The only part of the business which was not to my taste was that command of my mother’s, that I should go to London to sit in a goldsmith’s shop.  Still, I had heard that there was much to be seen in London, and at least it would be different from Hastings.

The street outside our doors was crowded with folk, some of the men making their way to the market-place, about whom hung women and children weeping; others, old people, wives and girls and little ones fleeing from the town.  I found the two sailormen who had been with me on the boat, waiting for me.  They were brawny fellows named Jack Grieves and William Bull, who had been in our service since my childhood, good fishermen and fighters both; indeed one of them, William Bull, had served in the French wars.

“We knew that you were coming, Master, so we bided here for you,” said William, who having once been an archer was armed with a bow and a short sword, whereas Jack had only an axe, also a knife such as we used on the smacks for cleaning fish.