fought with equal courage on either side, with
the same resolution to conquer or die. Along
a front a couple of miles in length, there was
a continual rush of squadrons charging with
rage or forming again to repeat their onslaught.
Many were the bloody coats of mail; many
the broken swords and battered helmets;
many the warriors who fell never more to
rise.

How William, the gentle, the preux,
surpassed all others; how brave Néel multiplied
himself when his squadrons were tottering
under the adversaries' shock; how a knight,
who was never known and whose name is not
found in any book, unhorsed the king; how
Henri remounted without contusion or wound;
how Hamon of the Teeth was taken up dead,
while the most valiant of his knights perished
with him; how the young Duke of Normandy,
by slaying Hardré, gave the finishing stroke
which decided the battle; how the routed
troops, in their efforts to escape, rushed into
water twenty feet deep; how the heaped-up
corpses choked the stream, until the water-mills
were stopped and the river ran red with
blood as far as Caen, we leave the ancient
chroniclers to relate at length.

When the slaughter came to an end at last,
the king and the duke, transported with joy,
returned from the pursuit to the Val-des-Dunes
and divided the immense booty which they
found heaped together. Neither of them was
above taking his share of the profits. They
then set about removing the wounded and
burying the dead; after which Henri, without
further delay, led back his army to France,
William betaking himself to Rouen.

The insurrection was crushed. By natural
selection William took the lead, surviving this
struggle for power and life by the same
sustaining and repressive force which makes the
wild bull lord of the herd. Weak arms, lax
muscles easily tired, unsteady sitters in their
saddles, were speedily put out of the way,
leaving no lineal descendant behind them. The
Franco-Normans, the better butchers, enjoyed
the butchers' privilege of turning to account
their fellow-creatures' deaths.

Néel fled to Britany, as the beaten animal
retreats to the wilderness. All his domains
were confiscated, though he was graciouly
pardoned some years afterwards. In 1054, he
had certainly recovered the heritage of his
fathers. Guy shut himself up in his Chateau
of Brionne, where William very soon besieged
him. Forced to capitulate, his life was spared
and he retired into Burgundy. Grimoult de
Plessis, delivered up to the conqueror, was
thrown into prison in Rouen. Accused of being
the principal author of the conspiracy, he was
found strangled in gaol the very day when he
was to justify himself by a judicial duel. They
buried him in his irons. His castle was
demolished by the duke's order, and the barony of
Plessis with all its dependencies was given to
the cathedral of Bayeux, and not to "Madame
Sainte Marie of Rouen," as Benoit erroneously
relates. Certain of the rebel lords the duke
exiled, or put to death, causing their castles to
be razed; others obtained their pardon. Renouf
was amongst the latter. But what matters it
to the master bison what becomes of the rivals
whom he has gored and driven off, so long as
he founds a dynasty reigning by the grace of
God and the right of the strongest?

      THE LATE MISS HOLLINGFORD.

                       CHAPTER IX.

THE winter was passing away at this time,
and spring days were beginning to shine. I
walked out of my bedroom into the bright
March world, and saw the primroses laughing
in the hollows. I thought my heart broke
outright when I heard the first lark begin to
sing. After that things went still further
wrong. John came to take me out for a drive
one day, and I would not go. I could not
go. And the Tyrrells were staying at the
hall.

Whether it was that Rachel shunned me of
her own wish, or because she saw that I had
learned to despise her, I do not know; but we
kept apart. My poor soul was quite adrift.
Anguish for the past, disgust at the present,
terror of the future, all weighed on it. If I had
known of any convent of saintly nuns, such as I
had read of in poems and legends, who took
the weary in at their door and healed the sick,
who would have preached to me, prayed with
me, let me sit at their feet and weep at their
knees till I had struggled through this dark
phase of my life, I would have got up and fled
to them in the night, and left no trace behind
me.

I hated to stay at the hall, and yet I
stayed. Mr. Hill—kind heart!—said he
would bar the gates, and set on the dogs if I
attempted to move. He and his wife both
fancied at this time to make a pet of me. I
had been ill in their house, and I must get well
in their house. They would warrant to make
the time pleasant. So the Tyrrells were bidden
to come and stay a month. Grace Tyrrell
arrived with her high spirits, her frivolity, her
odour of the world, took me in her hands, and
placed herself at once between me and Rachel.
She found me weak, irritable, woe-begone. She
questioned, petted, coaxed. Partly through
curiosity, and partly through good-nature, she
tried to win my confidence, and in an evil hour
I told her all my trouble. I listened to her
censure, scoffs, counsels, and my heart turned
to steel against John.

She was older than I by five or six years.
I was a good little simple babe, she said, but
she, she knew the world. It was only in story-books,
or by younglings like me that lovers
were expected to be true. Miss Leonard was
an "old flame," and, if all that was said might
be true, would be heiress of Hillsbro'. Yes,
yes, she knew I need not blaze out. I had