'Yesterday your countess and her counsellors were sore distressed,' Emma went on; 'for, as ye know, the unfortunate squire, Stephen le Hareau, and those who followed him, believed that the earl was slain; but we would not vex ye with our grief till doubt was changed into certainty. Doubt _is_ changed into certainty;--but a certainty of life, not death!' A roar of cheers rent the air again. 'Yes, your lord lives!' cried Emma. 'His first field is lost, but it will not be his last! He is wounded, sorely, but not dangerously. See! so the letter says! His way is open to Denmark. This gallant Dane has borne his message across field and over flood, faithfully, as he helped to carry the earl himself from the battlefield.' She turned to the messenger beside her, who clashed his great axe upon his round wooden shield, with its strange embossing of iron nails, and shouted 'Waes hael!' Then Emma told again the story of the earl's rescue, though she did not reveal his hiding-place, lest there should be traitors in the camp, and how he intended to take ship for Denmark to ask aid of King Sweyn, 'who,' she said,'has already promised it. Then the earl will seek his own fair lands in Bretagne, and he will call his vassals to his standard, and come across the sea at the head of a great host to relieve his faithful garrison in Blauncheflour. Is any man so mean of heart that he will not vow to good St. Nicholas to do his best to keep the castle to that hour? If so, let him declare himself a _noding_, and quit the company of gallant men!' 'Not one! Not one!' rang round the castle yard, and echoed back from the high stone tower of the keep, reverberating in tumultuous thunder from base to summit. Then old Sir Hoël de St. Brice took off his plumed barret, and waved it in the air, where he stood behind his lady, his eyes humid and his lips quivering, as he echoed, 'Not one!' Sir Alain de Gourin, listening with a strange expression of satirical disdain on his florid countenance, rattled his sword from its sheath and waved it in the air, where he stood behind his lady, and shouted with a lusty voice, 'Not one!' 'I thank ye, friends!' cried the countess. 'To your strong arms and your loyal hearts I commit my fate and that of my lord. St. Nicholas give ye fortitude!' Turning to a page who stood beside her with a silver tray, she took a velvet purse from it, and scattered broad pieces amongst the soldiery. 'A largesse! a largesse!' they cried; and all was joy and hilarity. 'Ye shall taste a vintage better than ever grew even in the vineyards of Hereford or Kent,' cried the countess; and she gave orders to the steward to broach a cask of French wine which had been amongst her brother's gifts at the bride-ale; an order which called forth a fresh burst of applause. 'Drink it,' cried Emma, 'to the safe return of your lord!' CHAPTER XVII. HOW RALPH CAME HOME.