"They have the ingenuity of fiends!" Father Ingulph was wont to groan
after each of these spectacles.
At last the time arrived when it looked as though these visions were to be the
only glimpses of food vouchsafed to them.
"Bread for one more meal; and the last ale-cask has been broached," the
steward answered in a very faint voice when Morcard put the nightly question.
Because it was not possible for the old man's face to record more misery, the
light of the guard-room fire over which he crouched showed no change whatever
in his expression.
It was the young lord, who sat beside him, that answered. After a pause he
said gently, "Go and try to get some sleep. At least you can dream of food."
"I have done no otherwise for a sennight," the man sighed as he hurried away
to snatch the tongs from a serf who was spending an unnecessary fagot upon the
fire. At any other time he would have shouted at him, but it was little loud
talking that was done within the walls these days.
When they were left alone, the old cniht threw himself back upon the bench and
covered his face with his mantle. "I have outlived my usefulness," he moaned.
"I have lived to bring ruin on the house that has sheltered me. What guilt I
lie under!" For a time he lay as stark and rigid under his cloak as though
death had already closed about him. The guard-room seemed to become a funeral
chamber, with a mass of hovering shadows for a pall.
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