a more true-hearted
vassal."

"Well, I wish we were back in Normandy, with Fru Astrida and Alberic. I
cannot bear that Lothaire. He is proud, and unknightly, and cruel. I am
sure he is, and I will never love him."

"Hush, my Lord!--beware of speaking so loud. You are not in your own
Castle."

"And Carloman is a chicken-heart," continued Richard, unheeding. "He
does not like to touch snow, and he cannot even slide on the ice, and he
is afraid to go near that great dog--that beautiful wolf-hound."

"He is very little," said Osmond.

"I am sure I was not as cowardly at his age, now was I, Osmond? Don't
you remember?"

"Come, Lord Richard, I cannot let you wait to remember everything; tell
your beads and pray that we may be brought safe back to Rouen; and that
you may not forget all the good that Father Lucas and holy Abbot Martin
have laboured to teach you."

So Richard told the beads of his rosary--black polished wood, with amber
at certain spaces--he repeated a prayer with every bead, and Osmond did
the same; then the little Duke put himself into a narrow crib of richly
carved walnut; while Osmond, having stuck his dagger so as to form an
additional bolt to secure the door, and examined the hangings that no
secret entrance might be concealed behind them, gathered a heap of rushes
together, and lay down on them, wrapped in his mantle, across the
doorway. The Duke was soon asleep; but the Squire lay long awake, musing
on the possible dangers that surrounded his charge, and on the best way
of guarding against them.

CHAPTER VII

Osmond de Centeville was soon convinced that no immediate peril
threatened his young Duke at the Court of Laon. Louis seemed to intend
to fulfil his oaths to the Normans by allowing the child to be the
companion of his own sons, and to be treated in every respect as became
his rank. Richard had his proper place at table, and all due attendance;
he learnt, rode, and played with the Princes, and there was nothing to
complain of, excepting the coldness and inattention with which the King
and Queen treated him, by no means fulfilling the promise of being as
parents to their orphan ward. Gerberge, who had from the first dreaded
his superior strength and his roughness with her puny boys, and who had
been by no means won by his manners at their first meeting, was
especially distant and severe with him, hardly ever speaking to him
except with some rebuke, which, it must be conf