The consecrated tapers blazed around the swathed and shrouded corpse, and sent long streams of light through the open door and lattices of the humble dwelling, as though it had been illuminated for a high rejoicing. The death hymn was chanted, and the masses sung by the gray brothers from the near Saxon cloister. The dole to the poor had been given, largely, out of the lord's abundance; and the voices of the rioting slaves, emancipated from all servitude and sorrow, for the nonce, by the humming ale and strong metheglin, were loud in praises of their bounteous master, until, drenched and stupefied with liquor, and drunk with maudlin sorrow, they staggered off to their respective dens, to snore away the fumes of their unusual debauch, until aroused at dawn by the harsh cry of the task-master. By degrees the quiet of the calm summer night sank down over the dwelling and garden of Kenric, as guest after guest departed, until no one remained save one old Saxon brother, who sat by the simple coffin, telling his beads in silence, or muttering masses for the soul of the dead, apparently unconscious of any thing passing around him. The aged woman had been removed, half by persuasion, half by gentle force, from the dwelling-room, and had soon sunk into the heavy and lethargic slumber which oftentimes succeeds to overwhelming sorrow. The peaceful moonlight streamed in through the open door of the cheerless home, like the grace of heaven into a disturbed and sinful heart, as one by one the tapers flickered in their sockets and expired. The shrill cry of the cricket, and the peculiar jarring note of the night-hawk, replaced the droning of the monkish chants, and the suppressed tumult of vulgar revelry; but, though there was solitude and silence without, there was neither peace nor heart-repose within. Sorely shaken, and cruelly gored by the stag in trunk and limbs, and yet more sorely shaken in his mind by the agitation and excitement of the angry scene with his master, and by the internal conflict of natural selfishness with strong conscientious will, Kenric lay, with his eyes wide open, gazing on his dead nephew, although his mind was far away, with his head throbbing, and his every nerve jerking and tense with the hot fever. But by his side, soothing his restless hand with her caressing touch, bathing his burning temples with cold lotions, holding the soft medicaments to his parched lips, beguiling his wild, wandering thoughts with gentle lover's chidings, and whispering of better days to come, sat the fair slave girl, Edith, his promised wife, for whose dear sake he had cast liberty to the four winds, and braved the deadly terrors of the unforgiving Norman frown.