The Conqueror sat at the head of the board; on his right hand the Count d'Harcourt, head of an old Norman family, which still retained many traces of its Danish descent, and was as little French-like as Normans of that date could be; De le Pole, progenitor of a fated house, well-known in English history; De la Vere, the ancestor of future Earls of Oxford; Arundel, who bequeathed his name to a town on the Sussex coast, where his descendants yet flourish; Clyfford, unknowing of the fate which awaited his descendants in days of roseate hue; FitzMaurice, a name to become renowned in Irish story; Gascoyne, ancestor of a judge whose daring justice should immortalise his name; Hastings, whose descendant fell the victim of the Boar of Gloucester in later days; Maltravers, whose name was destined to be defiled at Berkeley Castle in Plantagenet times; Peverel, a name now familiar through the magic pen of Scott; Talbot, whose progeny, in times when the Normans' children had become the English of the English, burnt the ill-fated "Maid" at Rouen {xx}. There was a bishop present who blessed the meats, but Etienne could have spared the presence of Geoffrey of Coutances, whom he knew as the friend of Wilfred, and the author of many inconvenient (and, as Etienne thought, impertinent) inquiries about that young unfortunate, after the burning of the old priory. Who shall describe the splendour of that feast? We will not attempt it, nor will we try to analyse the feelings of the country youth so suddenly introduced into so brilliant an assembly. But amidst the intoxication of the scene his mind continually wandered to the sombre forests, the blackened marsh, the Dismal Swamp, and his desolated home; and he would almost have given his very soul to stand face to face, foot to foot, with his youthful rival, sword in hand, with none to interfere between them, and so to end the long suspense. While some such dream was floating before his imagination, and its details were painted vivid as life upon the retina of the mind, a quiet voice, but one not without some authority, whispered in his ears: "My son, I would fain ask thee of a youth in whom I am somewhat interested, and who is, I am told, yet alive, risen, as it were, from the dead--Wilfred of Aescendune." Etienne's face would have made a fine study for a painter, as he encountered the gaze of Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances. The bishop drew the youth gently into a deep embrasure, where a curtain before the opening veiled a window seat, for the feast was now over, and the guests were mingling in general conversation. "Father," said Etienne "am I, whom he has made an orphan, a fit witness?"