e not so easily satisfied.
Those were days when all men's souls were open to omens good and bad.
They earnestly advised him not to hunt that day. William jested at their
fears, vowed that no dream should scare him from the chase, yet, uneasy
at heart, perhaps, let the hours pass without calling for his horse.
Midday came. Dinner was served. William ate and drank with unusual
freedom. Wine warmed his blood and drove off his clinging doubts. He
rose from the table and ordered his horse to be brought. The day was
young enough still to strike a deer, he said.

The king was in high spirits. He joked freely with his guests as he
mounted his horse and prepared for the chase. As he sat in his saddle a
woodman presented him six new arrows. He examined them, declared that
they were well made and proper shafts, and put four of them in his
quiver, handing the other two to Walter Tyrrell.

"These are for you," he said. "Good marksmen should have good arms."

Tyrrell took them, thanked William for the gift, and the hunting-party
was about to start, when there appeared a monk who asked to speak with
the king.

"I come from the convent of St. Peter, at Gloucester," he said. "The
abbot bids me give a message to your majesty."

"Abbot Serlon; a good Norman he," said the king. "What would he say?"

"Your majesty," said the monk, with great humility, "he bids me state
that one of his monks has dreamed a dream of evil omen. He deems the
king should know it."

"A dream!" declared the king. "Has he sent you hither to carry shadows?
Well, tell me your dream. Time presses."

"The dream was this. The monk, in his sleep, saw Jesus Christ sitting on
a throne, and at his feet kneeled a woman, who supplicated him in these
words: 'Saviour of the human race, look down with pity on thy people
groaning under the yoke of William.'"

The king greeted this message with a loud laugh.

"Do they take me for an Englishman, with their dreams?" he asked. "Do
they fancy that I am fool enough to give up my plans because a monk
dreams or an old woman sneezes? Go, tell your abbot I have heard his
story. Come, Walter de Poix, to horse!"

The train swept away, leaving the monkish messenger alone, the king's
disdainful laugh still in his ears. With William were his brother Henry,
long at odds with him, now reconciled, William de Breteuil, and several
other nobles. Quickly they vanished among the thickly clustering trees,
and soon broke up into small groups