French--French with a Danish accent, and he liked it little enough.
Good old English was becoming rare; the strangers compared it to
the grunting of swine or the lowing of cattle, in their utter scorn
of the aborigines.

Were the descendants of Hengist, Horsa, Ella, Cerdic, Ercenwin,
Ida, Uffa, and Cridda to bear this? and more especially was he,
Wilfred, the grandson of the heroic Alfgar, whose praises as the
companion in arms of the Ironside had been sung by a hundred
minstrels, and told again and again at the winter's fire in the
castle hall--was he to bear this contumely? He could not much
longer.

And then that scowling, dark, frowning, old Baron--there was a
world of deadly mischief in his dark eye, which looked like light
twinkling at the bottom of a black well. Once when Etienne was
uttering some polished sarcasm at Wilfred's expense, the English
lad caught the father's look, and there was something in it which
puzzled him for a day or two.

Wilfred knew the baron did not like him, and felt that the hatred
was all the more deadly for never being expressed. He sometimes
thought that his stepfather wished him to quarrel with Etienne, in
the full belief that Norman skill must prevail, in case of a
combat.

Single combat. Well, the pages were always talking about it.
Etienne knew a brave knight who took his stand on a bridge, horse
and all complete, and when any one came by of equal rank, this
strange bridge warden had two questions to ask; first: