ark a schemer in high matters. And already the Conqueror
had himself appeared at Edward's Court in England, and prepared his way
thither.

I was near sixteen years old, and I stood tall for my years, some five
foot and a half, and for a lad I was well made, if yet lacking my full
strength and girth round the chest, such a lad as in two years more
Geoffrey my grandson will grow to, if God will. Fair I should have been
if I were not burnt black with the hot sun pouring through the salt air,
and my fair hair clustered crisp and neat round my temples and neck. So
stood I, no doubt a fair and honourable youth, at the entering in of the
abbot's inner chamber.

And the abbot, sitting in his carven chair amid his rolls of parchment
and instruments of writing, raised me swiftly as I stooped to kiss his
hand. Dark-eyed, hawk-nosed, with black hair not yet flecked with snow,
there was an awe and stateliness in him whether he spoke to gentle or to
simple. He was a Norman, and being such feared none, and had his will,
and when it was possible mixed a rare gentleness with his acts and
words.

"Son," said he, "thou hast been happy here?"

The keen eyes were fixed upon me, and I could not but answer the truth,
even had I wished to lie.

"Yes, holy father," I answered.

"And thou wouldst stay here ever?" The eyes were still upon me, and they
searched my soul as a bright flush, I knew, rose to my cheek, and I
hesitated how to answer. Then suddenly, as I stood in doubt, they seemed
to change, and it was as if sunlight gleamed over a landscape that
before lay dark and grim, for the abbot smiled upon me with the kindest
of all smiles. "Thou feelest no calling to the cloister and the cowl,
the book and the pen, the priesthood, and the life of prayer?"

"Ah, no, holy Father." I had gained my tongue, and spoke boldly, if
reverently. "Books and prayer are good; but I am young, and there is a
world beyond these grey walls, and my kinsmen fight and do rather than
pray or read."

"The eaglet beats his wings against his cage already," said the abbot,
kindly; "it is indeed a shapely bird. Thou art right, lad. There is a
world outside, where men strive and fight and do--how blindly and how
wildly thou knowest not. But the battle is not to the strong or the race
to the swift, though so it seem. Go, then, out into the world boldly but
warily, and be thou a good soldier, as thou art a good scholar. Thine
uncle shall know of these words between