“I know the fable,” answered Oliver, “and I comprehend your meaning. But I fear me that if I am caught in the toils they will be too tough for thy teeth. So no more of this. Whatever danger may await me I must face alone. But be of good cheer. Should fortune befriend me, as she may chance to do, I will forthwith send for you. Meanwhile, see to my good steed Ayoub, that he be fitly caparisoned to take the road when it pleases my Norman kinsman to place his foot in the stirrup. Begone!” CHAPTER IV CHRISTMAS I have mentioned that, long before Oliver Icingla retired to rest on Christmas Eve, the “Yule log” was placed on the hearth in the old hall of Oakmede. It was an important ceremony with the English of that generation--a ceremony the consequences of which they did not lightly regard. If the log continued to burn during the whole night and through all the ensuing day, the fact of its burning was deemed a happy prognostic for the family; if it was consumed or extinguished, the circumstance of its consumption or extinction was regarded as ominous of evil. Great, therefore, was the consternation in the home of the Icinglas when it was discovered, on the morning of Christmas Day, that the “Yule log” lay on the hearth half consumed, but burning no longer; and the intelligence on being conveyed to Dame Isabel filled her mind with the most gloomy forebodings as to the fate of her son; for the Norman lady, after living long among Saxons, had caught all their superstitions, and she had brooded so long in solitude over her sorrows that she had grown more superstitious than the Saxons themselves. Oliver Icingla was not much influenced by omens. Still his mind was ill at ease, and he did not think of his journey and its destination without considerable apprehension of suffering for the sake of a kinsman for whom, after the conversation of the previous evening, he had less liking than ever, and on whose conduct he looked with grave suspicion. No sign of apprehension, however, did he allow to escape him; but, having made the necessary preparations for his departure, and instructed Wolf, the varlet, to have the black steed saddled and bridled, he indicated his readiness to take the road as soon as it was De Moreville’s will and pleasure to set forth for London. Grim, haughty, and evincing no inclination to renew the irritating discussion that had been so unpleasantly interrupted, the Norman baron only replied by a nod, but immediately issued such orders as speedily brought his men-at-arms, mounted, into the courtyard, one of them leading the baron’s charger, harnessed and caparisoned. Before Oliver Icingla departed under De Moreville’s auspices, Dame Isabel, having taken leave of her son, summoned her kinsman to her presence in language which made the haughty Norman soliloquise in a strain much less complimentary to womankind than quite became a man who wore golden spurs and had taken the vows of chivalry.