But all idea of fear passed away on the instant; for the knight's face was open and calm, though grave, and his voice was gentle, and even subdued, as he spoke. "Soh!" he said, "what is this, Kenric, which causes us, in coming down to see if we might not heal up thy heart and cheer thy spirits by good tidings, to find worse sorrow, for which we looked not, nor can reverse it by any mortal doing. Who is the boy?" "Pardon that I rise not, beausire, to reply to you," answered the serf, "but this right leg of mine will not bear me; and when the hand of sickness hold us down, good will must make shift in lieu of good service. It is my nephew Adhemar, Sir Philip, the only son of my youngest brother Edgar, who was drowned a year since in the great flood of the Idle." "In striving to rescue my old blind destrier Sir Roland, ah! I remember him; a stout and willing lad! But I knew not, or forgot, that he was thy brother. And so this is his son," he added, striding up to the side of the rude bier, and laying his broad hand upon his brow. "He is young," he said, musingly, "very young to die. But we must all die one day, Kenric; and who knows but it is best to die young?" "At least, the ancient Greeks and Romans said so," interposed Yvo de Taillebois, speaking for the first time. "They have a proverb, that, whomsoever the gods love, dies young." "I think it _is_ best, beausire," answered the serf; "it is never cold in the grave, in the dreariest storms; nor sultry in the scorching August. And they are never hungry there, nor sorefooted, nor weary unto death. I think it is best to die young, before one has tasted overmuch sorrow here on earth to burden his heart and make him stubborn and malicious. It was this I was saying to old Bertha, as your noblenesses entered; but she has never held her head up since my brother, Edgar, died; he was her favorite, since she always held that he had most favor of our grandfather." "She is very old?" said Sir Philip, half questioning, half musing. "She is very old?" "Above ninety years, Sir Philip, I have heard Father Eadbald say, who died twenty years since, at the abbey, come next Michaelmas. It should have been he who married her. Her mother was the last free woman of our race. We had three hydes of land, I've heard her tell, in those days, down by the banks of Idle, held of old Waltheof, who gave his name to this your noble castle. But they are all gone before us, and we must follow them when our day comes. And then, as I tell Bertha, we shall be free, all, if not equal; for the most virtuous must be _first_ there, as Father Engelram tells us. May Mary and the saints be about us!"