ung Duke held
out to him--"This is joy unlooked for!"

"Walter!--Walter, the huntsman!" cried Richard. "Is it you? Oh, how is
Fru Astrida, and all at home?"

"Well, my Lord, and wearying to know how it is with you--" began
Walter--but a very different tone exclaimed from behind the pilgrim,
"What is all this? Who is stopping my way? What! Richard would be
King, and more, would he? More insolence!" It was Lothaire, returning
with his attendants from the chase, in by no means an amiable mood, for
he had been disappointed of his game.

"He is a Norman--a vassal of Richard's own," said Carloman.

"A Norman, is he? I thought we had got rid of the robbers! We want no
robbers here! Scourge him soundly, Perron, and teach him how to stop my
way!"

"He is a pilgrim, my Lord," suggested one of the followers.

"I care not; I'll have no Normans here, coming spying in disguise.
Scourge him, I say, dog that he is! Away with him! A spy, a spy!"

"No Norman is scourged in my sight!" said Richard, darting forwards, and
throwing himself between Walter and the woodsman, who was preparing to
obey Lothaire, just in time to receive on his own bare neck the sharp,
cutting leathern thong, which raised a long red streak along its course.
Lothaire laughed.

"My Lord Duke! What have you done? Oh, leave me--this befits you not!"
cried Walter, extremely distressed; but Richard had caught hold of the
whip, and called out, "Away, away! run! haste, haste!" and the words were
repeated at once by Osmond, Carloman, and many of the French, who, though
afraid to disobey the Prince, were unwilling to violate the sanctity of a
pilgrim's person; and the Norman, seeing there was no help for it,
obeyed: the French made way for him and he effected his escape; while
Lothaire, after a great deal of storming and raging, went up to his
mother to triumph in the cleverness with which he had detected a Norman
spy in disguise.

Lothaire was not far wrong; Walter had really come to satisfy himself as
to the safety of the little Duke, and try to gain an interview with
Osmond. In the latter purpose he failed, though he lingered in the
neighbourhood of Laon for several days; for Osmond never left the Duke
for an instant, and he was, as has been shown, a close prisoner, in all
but the name, within the walls of the Castle. The pilgrim had, however,
the opportunity of picking up tidings which made him perceive the true
state of things: he learnt the d