"Idonea was my wife. She was of Bayeux--daughter of Robert the deacon. I had her but two years in this misty island. A short sickness bore her off."
"She fretted ever for Normandy. I think it was as well she died."
Alftrude eyed him gravely, reflectively. Suddenly she shook with silent laughter.
"Oh! oh!" she cried when she had recovered her voice, in answer to his manifest surprise, "ye would have laughed, Son of Scrob, had ye seen a sight that mine eyes beheld three nights ago. Know that Ulwin will ever have the swine and the fowls to wander in and out of the house, as they were mankind, that they may eat up the scraps of food which he throweth by among the rushes. Upon that night, my husband's mother and I had gone aloft with the maidens, when a mad hubbub arose--Ulwin shouting, threatening, praying--with such grunts and shrieks besides, ye would have thought the Fiend himself was there. We hurried down, and there stood my good brother, smiting upon his bed with a flail as strongly as his quaking hand would let him--and the fattest pig tangled in the covering of fat Ulwin's bed!"
"Oh, gladsome sight!" exclaimed Richard. "Ye did work havoc upon that same Ulwin that day at the fair? Indeed I think I owe my life to a lady's finger-nails!"
"Ye had avenged his roughness with me," she answered. "And I saw him rise to fall upon you."
By this time they had emerged upon the highroad; and now there passed them two nuns riding sleek mules, and two serving-men, mounted also.
"There goes Burghild of Caynham," said Alftrude. "It is now five years since she took her holy oaths. I would not be she for all the world--though, heaven wot! a nun's life is a peaceful life!"
"There is peace to be found where no nuns are, lady."
"Know ye her story, Richard Scrob's son? She is the thane of Caynham's daughter, and Godric the brother of Athelstane of Berrington loved her dearly, and she him. But his lands were small and barren, and he could offer her no fitting home, or so he thought. He would take service with some great lord, and store what wealth the saints might send him, that he might make yon maiden his wife. They met twice or thrice in the year, and I am sure each read the other's mind; but he never told her of his love and of his hopes. And she pined for him, and grew pale, and tart of mood. Godric went out with Earl Sweyn against the Welsh king, and was slain by the Welshmen. When Burghild heard these tidings, she fell sick of sorrow, even nigh unto death; but she is brave; she clung to life, and now she is the Church's bride. Oh, sad that lack of goods should sunder two true hearts!"