connection had been drawn still closer by the Baron's second
marriage with the Lady Muriel de la Poer, a near relative of Sir
Reginald's mother. Many a time had Dame Eleanor Lynwood ridden
to Clarenham castle, under the escort of her young brother-in-law,
to whom such a change from the lonely old Keep afforded no small
delight.

Eustace, the only one of Sir Henry's younger children who survived
the rough nursing or the over-nursing, whichever it might be, that
thinned in former days the families of nobles and gentleman, might
as well, in the opinion of almost all, have rested beneath a quaint
little image of his infant figure, in brass, in the vaults of the
little Norman chapel; for he was a puny, ailing child, apt to
scandalize his father and brother, and their warlike retainers, by
being scared at the dazzling helm and nodding crest, and preferring
the seat at this mother's feet, the fairy tale of the old nurse,
the song of the minstrel, or the book of the Priest, to horse and
hound, or even to the sight of the martial sports of the tilt-yard.

The last five years had, however, wrought a great change in him; he
began to outgrow the delicacy of his constitution, and with it, to
shake off his timidity of disposition. A diligent perusal of the
romances of chivalry filled him with emulation, and he had applied
himself ardently to all knightly exercises, looking with great
eagerness to the time when he might appear in the Prince's court.
He had invested it with all the glory of the Round Table and of the
Paladins; and though he knew he must not look for Merlin or the
Siege Perilous, the men themselves were in his fancy Rolands and
Tristrems, and he scarcely dared to hope he could ever be fit to
make one of them, with all his diligent attention to old Ralph's