I, Felix, having in the bye-gone times had much familiarity and friendship with our two backsliding novices, Urswick the Whiteheaded from Pangbourne, and John-à-Blount from Maple-Durham, did much marvel how it fared with them since their apostacy, and did diligently seek them out in the great press which came with the countess, to the end that I might talk gently with them upon their transgressions, and obtain from them some knowledge of what had become of the little Alice and my prime friend young Arthur de Bohun, hoping hereby to gain tidings grateful and cheerful to the ear of the good and bountiful Ladie Alfgiva. But neither in the evening nor in the morning could I see Urswick or John among the people of the countess. Yet in the morning, just before the departure, I gave a bowman my only piece of money, and learned from him that a part of Matilda's host with sundry wains and horse-litters had not come with her unto Reading, but had taken a shorter road for Winchester; and so I did conclude that my two quondam comrades had gone with that company, and I did comfort myself with thinking that they had yet so much grace left in them as to have been averse to come back and witness our exceeding great misery. Yet did the archer spoil this my comfort by telling me that two black-eyed damsels had gone with that division, riding like men upon big war-horses. Of children the man knew nought; nor he nor any man of the meaner sort had been allowed to look into the wains or to approach the litters. There might be children, he said, among this moveable and vagrant host, but he had seen none. Here again did I grieve, for I loved Alice and Arthur right well, and would have laid down an untold treasure in gold to have it in my power to speak comfortably unto the Ladie Alfgiva. At the command of Father Anselm the monks of the house, and we the novices likewise, did form in processional order, and accompany Matilda from our gates even unto the Hallowed Brook, that branch of the swift and clear Kennet which floweth by the township; and halting on the bank of that holy and peaceful water, which ought not to have heard such notes, Father Anselm made us chaunt _Hosanna_ and _Jubilate_, and promised to the Angevin countess a bloody and complete victory over all her enemies. And hence, upon _famam vulgi_, the trifling and ungrounded talk of the common people, who, in parts remote from Reading, knew not the violence which had been used, it was proclaimed to the world that the abbat and monks of Reading, in this unhappy year eleven hundred and forty-one, had received the empress-queen with the highest honours, and had made themselves her servants and beadsmen. _Pater de Coelis, Deus, miserere nobis!_ VI.