Dan.

'We watched for Robert of Normandy,' said the knight. 'De Aquila was
like Witta. He suffered no idleness. In fair weather we would ride
along between Bexlei on the one side, to Cuckmere on the
other--sometimes with hawk, sometimes with hound (there are stout hares
both on the Marsh and the Downland), but always with an eye to the sea,
for fear of fleets from Normandy. In foul weather he would walk on the
top of his tower, frowning against the rain--peering here and pointing
there. It always vexed him to think how Witta's ship had come and gone
without his knowledge. When the wind ceased and ships anchored, to the
wharf's edge he would go and, leaning on his sword among the stinking
fish, would call to the mariners for their news from France. His other
eye he kept landward for word of Henry's war against the Barons.

'Many brought him news--jongleurs, harpers, pedlars, sutlers, priests
and the like; and, though he was secret enough in small things, yet, if
their news misliked him, then, regarding neither time nor place nor
people, he would curse our King Henry for a fool or a babe. I have
heard him cry aloud by the fishing boats: "If I were King of England I
would do thus and thus"; and when I rode out to see that the
warning-beacons were laid and dry, he hath often called to me from the
shot-window: "Look to it, Richard! Do not copy our blind King, but
see with thine own eyes and feel with thine own hands." I do not think
he knew any sort of fear. And so we lived at Pevensey, in the little
chamber above the Hall.

'One foul night came word that a messenger of the King waited below.
We were chilled after a long riding in the fog towards Bexlei, which is
an easy place for ships to land. De Aquila sent word the man might
either eat with us or wait till we had fed. Anon jehan, at the
stair-head, cried that he had called for horse, and was gone. "Pest on
him!" said De Aquila. "I have more to do than to shiver in the Great
Hall for every gadling the King sends. Left he no word?"

"'None," said Jehan, "except"--he had been with De Aquila at
Santlache--"except he said that if an old dog could not learn new
tricks it was time to sweep out the kennel."

"'Oho!" said De Aquila, rubbing his nose, "to whom did he say that?"

"'To his beard, chiefly, but some to his horse's flank as he was
girthing up. I followed him out," said jehan the Crab.

"'What was his shield-mark?"

"'Gold horseshoes on black,