“Reginald!” said the old Baron, with a slight inclination of the head, which he was in the habit of using when he wished to throw dignity into his admonitions. “Ears hear thee,” said the son, without stirring from the huge oaken table upon which, after the fatigues of the chase, he was reclining. “I have ordered that we should be alone, my son,” said the old man, “because I have to discourse to thee a matter which deeply and nearly concerns thy welfare. Pour for thy father, Reginald.” Reginald obeyed; and, after performing for himself the same office, resumed his attitude, with an aspect which was ludicrously divided between the resolution to attend and the propensity to inattention. “Twenty years have gone by, Reginald, since thou didst become the hope of the house of which thou wilt shortly be the head. Ere thou hast other twenty years to look back upon, thou wilt have lost the guidance of thy father, and I shall sleep by the side of mine.” “Sir Hugh sleeps in the abbey,” said Reginald. “He doth,” resumed his adviser. “He was a knight of name and fame, and wielded a good sword at Hastings.” “As touching the sword,” said Reginald, totally unconscious of any metaphorical meaning implied in his father’s words, “it hangs above him in the abbey. Marry, it is somewhat rusty, but nevertheless a good sword.” “But, Reginald, to come to the point----” “Thou dost remind me how that it was broken against the fifth rib of Egwulph, surnamed the Impetuous, a good knight and a true--although a Saxon.” The look of the young man had in it something of animation as he expressed his hereditary contempt of the Saxon race. To his father, however, this demonstration of feeling did not seem altogether so welcome as it might have been upon another occasion. He contracted his huge shaggy eyebrows, turned his eyes from his son to the wine-cup, and from the wine-cup to his son, stroked his chin, folded his arms, and, in short, assumed an attitude of thought, which was little less ridiculous than the thoughtlessness of his companion. After a pause of some minutes, he began to speak, sending out his words with all the caution and circumspection of a Fabius. “Of a truth, Reginald, the Saxon thanes are in breeding and courtesy rough, and in no way able to compete with the bearing of our Norman knights; but they are not, as thy speech would signify, altogether to be contemned. There is among them much might of arm, and courage of heart; and Sir Hugh was wont to say there were few cravens at Hastings.”