friendly refection, the more will the Latin sound unctuous
and musical. I have journeyed since daybreak, and am now hungered and
faint."

"Alack, alack!" cried the abbot, plaintively, "thou knowest little, my
son, what hardships we endure in these parts, how larded our larders, and
how nefarious our fare. The flesh of swine salted--"

"The flesh of Beelzebub," cried Mallet de Graville, aghast. "But comfort
thee, I have stores on my sumpter-mules--poulardes and fishes, and other
not despicable comestibles, and a few flasks of wine, not pressed, laud
the saints! from the vines of this country: wherefore, wilt thou see to
it, and instruct thy cooks how to season the cheer?"

"No cooks have I to trust to," replied the abbot; "of cooking know they
here as much as of Latin; nathless, I will go and do my best with the
stew-pans. Meanwhile, thou wilt at least have rest and the bath. For the
Saxons, even in their convents, are a clean race, and learned the bath
from the Dane."

"That I have noted," said the knight, "for even at the smallest house at
which I lodged in my way from London, the host hath courteously offered
me the bath, and the hostess linen curious and fragrant; and to say
truth, the poor people are hospitable and kind, despite their uncouth
hate of the foreigner; nor is their meat to be despised, plentiful and
succulent; but pardex, as thou sayest, little helped by the art of
dressing. Wherefore, my father, I will while the time till the poulardes
be roasted, and the fish broiled or stewed, by the ablutions thou
profferest me. I shall tarry with thee some hours, for I have much to
learn."

The abbot then led the Sire de Graville by the hand to the cell of honour
and guestship, and having seen that the bath prepared was of warmth
sufficient, for both Norman and Saxon (hardy men as they seem to us from
afar) so shuddered at the touch of cold water, that a bath of natural
temperature (as well as a hard bed) was sometimes imposed as a
penance,--the good father went his way, to examine the sumpter-mules, and
admonish the much suffering and bewildered lay-brother who officiated as
cook,--and who, speaking neither Norman nor Latin, scarce made out one
word in ten of his superior's elaborate exhortations.

Mallet's squire, with a change of raiment, and goodly coffers of soaps,
unguents, and odours, took his way to the knight, for a Norman of birth
was accustomed to much personal attendance, and had all respect