By a Breton count, whose name I forget.
Now I go, by your leave, to tend my beast.
[He goes out.]

Elspeth:
That man is rude and froward of speech:
My ears are good, though my sight grows dim.

Thora:
Thurston is faithful. Thou canst not teach
Courtly nor servile manners to him.

SCENE--The Castle Hall.

THURSTON, RALPH, EUSTACE, and other followers of HUGO,
seated at a long table. HAROLD seated apart.

Thurston:
Who is that stranger, dark and tall,
On the wooden settle next to the wall--
Mountebank, pilgrim, or wandering bard?

Eustace:
To define his calling is somewhat hard;
Lady Thora has taken him by the hand
Because he has come from the Holy Land.
Pilgrims and palmers are all the rage
With her, since she shared in that pilgrimage
With Hugo. The stranger came yesterday,
And would have gone on, but she bade him stay.
Besides, he sings in the Danish tongue
The songs she has heard in her childhood sung.
That's all I know of him, good or bad;
In my own opinion he's somewhat mad.
You must raise your voice if you speak with him,
And he answers as though his senses were dim.

Thurston (to Harold):
Good-morrow, sir stranger.

Harold: Good-morrow, friend.

Thurston:
Where do you come from? and whither wend?

Harold:
I have travelled of late with the setting sun
At my back; and as soon as my task is done
I purpose to turn my face to the north--
Yet we know not what a day may bring forth.

Thurston:
Indeed we don't.

(To Eustace, aside): Nay, I know him now
By that ugly scar that crosses his brow;
And the less we say to him the better.
Your judgment is right to the very letter--
The man is mad.

Eustace: But harmless, I think;
He eats but little, eschews strong drink,
And only speaks when spoken to first.

Thurston:
Harmless or not, he was once the worst
And bitterest foe Lord Hugo had;
And yet his story is somewhat sad.

Eustace:
May I hear it?

Thurston: Nay, I never reveal
What concerns me not. Our lord may conceal
Or divulge at pleasure his own affairs,--
Not even his comrade Eric shares
His secrets; though Eric thinks him wise,
Which is more than I do, for I despise
That foolish science he learnt in R