Ralph Hornmouth stuck steadily to De Moreville till the Norman baron turned monk; and when De Moreville hid his head in a cowl, and his body in a cloister, Hornmouth made a complete transfer of his fidelity to Oliver Icingla, and pursued life as if unconscious that he had made a change of masters. Ever ready to ride at half an hour’s notice from Chas-Chateil to Mount Moreville, and from Mount Moreville to Oakmede, where the hall of the Icinglas had again risen in stately proportion from its ashes and ruins, he was worth his weight in gold during troublous times; and as for political creed, Hornmouth was content to leave that to the warrior whose banner he followed. He had ridden willingly with De Moreville to fight for Prince Louis and the Norman barons, and he was prepared to ride as cheerfully with the Icingla to fight for King Henry to the cry of “St. Edward!” It was, as he thought, for the Anglo-Norman baron or the Anglo-Saxon Hlaford to take the responsibility of choosing a side; it was his duty to fight his best on whatever side they drew their swords. And De Moreville’s daughter no longer inhabited the great mansion in Ludgate, from the balcony of which she looked forth on the cavalcade that escorted the boy-king through the city of London, but a much humbler dwelling on the banks of the Thames, near Scotland-yard, where stood the palace with which, in an earlier age, Edgar had gifted Kenneth, and in which the King of Scots still resided when he came to Westminster to enact his part at a coronation. Dame Waledger was still her guardian and companion, an arrangement most convenient to both; for Beatrix had no kinswoman to whom she could cling for protection, and Sir Anthony, living at his manor in Berkshire, was in the habit of carousing so freely in the day and contending with so many imaginary antagonists at night, that the dame, not indifferent to her own safety in life and limb, dreaded nothing so much as living under the same roof with a husband who might any night slay her, under the delusion that he was engaged in mortal combat with the wild boar which he had encountered under the oak at Donnington. But one circumstance had much changed the colour of Beatrix’s life: Oliver Icingla had not persisted in avoiding her company and praying to be delivered from the temptation of seeing her. On the contrary, as time wore off the impression that had been left by his frightful dream, the memory of the romantic interview at Chas-Chateil had returned upon him with an effect before which other considerations rapidly gave way. In short, while the Icingla was returning from the North, Beatrix had the prospect of being his bride ere Christmas; and as he passed the village of Charing, riding side by side with Hornmouth, and talking to the tall greyhound, De Moreville’s daughter was uppermost in his thoughts, and her hand seemed to beckon him on as his journey southward drew to an end.