peremptoriness.

"By the nose of John, but it must be a king has deigned to honor me with
his commands," laughed the priest. "Raise your visor, My Lord, I
would fain look upon the countenance from which issue the commands of
royalty."

The priest was a large man with beaming, kindly eyes, and a round jovial
face. There was no bite in the tones of his good-natured retort, and so,
smiling, the boy raised his visor.

"By the ear of Gabriel," cried the good father, "a child in armor!"

"A child in years, mayhap," replied the boy, "but a good child to own as
a friend, if one has enemies who wear swords."

"Then we shall be friends, Norman of Torn, for albeit I have few
enemies, no man has too many friends, and I like your face and your
manner, though there be much to wish for in your manners. Sit down and
eat with me, and I will talk to your heart's content, for be there one
other thing I more love than eating, it is talking."

With the priest's aid, the boy laid aside his armor, for it was heavy
and uncomfortable, and together the two sat down to the meal that was
already partially on the board.

Thus began a friendship which lasted during the lifetime of the good
priest. Whenever he could do so, Norman of Torn visited his friend,
Father Claude. It was he who taught the boy to read and write in French,
English and Latin at a time when but few of the nobles could sign their
own names.

French was spoken almost exclusively at court and among the higher
classes of society, and all public documents were inscribed either in
French or Latin, although about this time the first proclamation written
in the English tongue was issued by an English king to his subjects.

Father Claude taught the boy to respect the rights of others, to espouse
the cause of the poor and weak, to revere God and to believe that the
principal reason for man's existence was to protect woman. All of virtue
and chivalry and true manhood which his old guardian had neglected to
inculcate in the boy's mind, the good priest planted there, but he could
not eradicate his deep-seated hatred for the English or his belief that
the real test of manhood lay in a desire to fight to the death with a
sword.

An occurrence which befell during one of the boy's earlier visits to his
new friend rather decided the latter that no arguments he could bring to
bear could ever overcome the bald fact that to this very belief of the
boy's, and his ability to back it up wit