great deeds of old days, such as were the deeds of Tancred and Duke
Rollo, and him I loved and fought for--loved, though stern he was and
rude--William, who by his mighty conquest gave us our place in this fair
realm. And second, since the winter days are long, and I go no more out
to hunt or to fight as of old, to recall all this and more will have
much sweetness, and delight my old heart with gentle memories, like the
smell of lavender laid between robes or napery in the oak press yonder,
as one takes this or that from the store.

And first, how came I to write it in such clerkly wise? Ay, that was
through the foresight of my uncle, the Vicomte de Bessin, since I knew
not then my father, and the good care of the monks of the Vale, and
chiefly of Brother Bernard, a ripe scholar and a good, with whom I
progressed so well in learning, that at fifteen I was more like to have
put this grissled head under a cowl than under a soldier's helm. A fair
place was L'Ancresse in the days of Abbot Michael, false Maugher, and
the Grand Sarrasin. And a good school of manners and of learning of
books and piety, that may aid men in their earthly life, was the Vale
Cloister. I see it now--the quiet, sober place, with its great round
arches, and its seats of stone, pleasant and cool in summer, bitter cold
in winter, when the wind came in sharp from the Eastern sea, so that we
wrapt our Norway furs about us, and shivered as we sat, till Brother
Bernard said, "Up, lads; catch who catch can up to the Viking's tomb!"
or "Haste ye now, and run to meet the pirates in Bordeaux Bay, and bring
them to me to shrive, ere ye do them to death, as Normans should!" The
blood ran free and warm then, and the limbs grew straight and strong,
and the muscles of arms and legs like whipcord, and brown we were as the
brown rocks of L'Ancresse Bay, as we played at war on those
salt-breathed plains--Guy, Rainauld, Gwalkelyn. Alas! they are all
passed to their account! There were no aches or pains of back or