'Better have been the centre of honesty.' 'And so it was in the time of St. Louis and his crusade. Do you know it, Humfrey?' 'Eh?' That was full permission. Ever since Honora had been able to combine a narration, Humfrey had been the recipient, though she seldom knew whether he attended, and from her babyhood upwards had been quite contented with trotting in the wake of his long strides, pouring out her ardent fancies, now and then getting an answer, but more often going on like a little singing bird, through the midst of his avocations, and quite complacent under his interruptions of calls to his dogs, directions to his labourers, and warnings to her to mind her feet and not her chatter. In the full stream of crusaders, he led her down one of the multitude of by-paths cleared out in the hazel coppice for sporting; here leading up a rising ground whence the tops of the trees might be overlooked, some flecked with gold, some blushing into crimson, and beyond them the needle point of the village spire, the vane flashing back the sun; there bending into a ravine, marshy at the bottom, and nourishing the lady fern, then again crossing glades, where the rabbits darted across the path, and the battle of Damietta was broken into by stern orders to Fly to come to heel, and the eating of the nuts which Humfrey pulled down from the branches, and held up to his cousin with superior good nature. 'A Mameluke rushed in with a scimitar streaming with blood, and--' 'Take care; do you want help over this fence?' 'Not I, thank you--And said he had just murdered the king--' 'Vic! ah! take your nose out of that. Here was a crop, Nora.' 'What was it?' 'You don't mean that you don't know wheat stubble?' 'I remember it was to be wheat.' 'Red wheat, the finest we ever had in this land; not a bit beaten down, and the colour perfectly beautiful before harvest; it used to put me in mind of your hair. A load to the acre; a fair specimen of the effect of drainage. Do you remember what a swamp it was?' 'I remember the beautiful loose-strifes that used to grow in that corner.' 'Ah! we have made an end of that trumpery.' 'You savage old Humfrey--beauties that they were.' 'What had they to do with my cornfields? A place for everything and everything in its place--French kings and all. What was this one doing wool-gathering in Egypt?' 'Don't you understand, it had become the point for the blow at the Saracen power. Where was I? Oh, the Mameluke justified the murder, and wanted St. Louis to be king, but--' 'Ha! a fine covey, I only miss two out of them. These carrots, how their leaves are turned--that ought not to be.'