Hugh de Moreville had for years ceased to give Oliver the slightest uneasiness. The active career, indeed, of that Norman of Anglo-Normans had closed with his escape from Lincoln. For months after his arrival at Mount Moreville he had remained shut up in that stronghold, fretting and fuming, giving way to wild bursts of rage, and devising every kind of wild scheme for redeeming the disasters of the baronial party. But all his schemes ended in air, and meantime want of food, want of sleep, and constant worry did the wear and tear of years. His hair became grey, his countenance haggard, and his form, lately so erect and so strong, began to bend under the load of regret, of remorse, and mortification, and disappointed ambition. At forty-five he had the appearance of an old man, and he gave way to fancies which made the faithful Hornmouth apprehensive that his lord’s reason was departing. De Moreville’s habits, indeed, became most eccentric; and when he sauntered broodingly from the castle from which in other days he had been wont to ride forth with the air of a man who claimed an immense superiority over his kind, he made a point of saluting any children whom he met, “to the end,” as he humbly expressed it, “that he might have a return of the benediction of the Innocents.” Gradually the inclination he had expressed to seek consolation in the cloister became stronger, and at length the world, in which he had played so conspicuous a part, learned that De Moreville, the haughty and iron-handed, was a monk in the abbey of Dryburgh. But it ought to be mentioned that in a feudal age, when life presented such violent contrasts, this created no surprise, for many warriors as haughty and stern as De Moreville took the cowl, and endeavoured to make their peace with Heaven by ending their days in penance and prayer. When, therefore, Oliver Icingla reached years of legal discretion, he did homage for his mother’s inheritance, and took possession of Chas-Chateil without an obstacle being interposed; and he was even now returning from the court of the King of Scots, at the castle of Roxburgh, whither he had repaired to go through the feudal ceremony which was to constitute him lord of Mount Moreville.