Chapter 14 - Page 2

according to ancient custom, from the middle of the apartment to
the warmest side of a large grate, filled with charcoal, and her
guest was placed on her right, as the seat of honour. Berwine then
arranged in due order the females of the household, and, having
seen that each was engaged with her own proper task, sat herself
down to ply the spindle and distaff. The men, in a more remote
circle, betook themselves to the repairing of their implements of
husbandry, or new furbishing weapons of the chase, under the
direction of the steward Hundwolf. For the amusement of the family
thus assembled, an old glee-man sung to a harp, which had but four
strings, a long and apparently interminable legend, upon some
religious subject, which was rendered almost unintelligible to
Eveline, by the extreme and complicated affectation of the poet,
who, in order to indulge in the alliteration which was accounted
one great ornament of Saxon poetry, had sacrificed sense to sound,
and used words in the most forced and remote sense, provided they
could be compelled into his service. There was also all the
obscurity arising from elision, and from the most extravagant and
hyperbolical epithets.

Eveline, though well acquainted with the Saxon language, soon left
off listening to the singer, to reflect for a moment on the gay
fabliaux and imaginative _lais_ of the Norman minstrels, and
then to anticipate, with anxious apprehension, what nature of
visitation she might be exposed to in the mysterious chamber in
which she was doomed to pass the night.

The hour of parting at length approached. At half an hour before
mid-night, a period ascertained by the consumption of the huge
waxen torch, the ball which was secured to it fell clanging into
the brazen basin placed beneath, and announced to all the hour of
rest. The old glee-man paused in his song, instantaneously, and in
the middle of a stanza, and the household were all on foot at the
signal, some retiring to their own apartments, others lighting
torches or bearing lamps to conduct the visitors to their places
of repose. Among these last was a bevy of bower-women, to whom the
duty was assigned of conveying the Lady Eveline to her chamber for
the night. Her aunt took a solemn leave of her, crossed her
forehead, kissed it, and whispered in her ear, "Be courageous, and
be fortunate."

"May not my bower-maiden, Rose Flammock, or my tire-woman, Dame
Gillian, Raoul's wife, remain in the apartment with me for this
night?" said Eveline.

"Flammock-Raoul!" repeated Ermengarde, angrily; "is thy household
thus made up? The Flemings are the cold palsy to Britain, the
Normans the burning fever."

"And the poor Welsh