The boyish reader will easily imagine what Wilfred had to bear all
this time from his Norman companions, from whose society there was
no escape--with whom he had to share not only the very few hours
allotted to study, but those of recreation also. Study, indeed,
meant chiefly the use and practice of warlike weapons, the learning
of the technical terms of chivalry, and the acquirement, it may be,
of sufficient letters to spell through a challenge.

So thoroughly was war the Norman instinct, that every occupation of
life was more or less connected with it; and the only recreation
which varied the hours of fencing, jousting, tilting, etc., was the
kindred excitement of the chase, pursued with the greatest avidity
amongst the wooded hills around Aescendune.

Wilfred was not backward either in mimic war or in love of the
chase; but he was growing taciturn and sullen, scarcely ever
speaking, save when spoken to, and even in the latter case he
generally replied with brief and curt words.

Hence it may be easily guessed that he was not popular.

For this he cared little; all his leisure was spent by the bedside
of his dying mother, whom he felt he was so soon about to lose, and
when with her and his sister Edith he felt that home--the home of
his happy childhood--was not yet a mere remembrance of the vanished
past.

But the sad day, so long foreseen, at length arrived.