calmly, "as you, Fitzurse, have been minding yours."

"I minding mine own business!" echoed Waldemar; "I have been
engaged in that of Prince John, our joint patron."

"As if thou hadst any other reason for that, Waldemar," said De
Bracy, "than the promotion of thine own individual interest?
Come, Fitzurse, we know each other---ambition is thy pursuit,
pleasure is mine, and they become our different ages. Of Prince
John thou thinkest as I do; that he is too weak to be a
determined monarch, too tyrannical to be an easy monarch, too
insolent and presumptuous to be a popular monarch, and too fickle
and timid to be long a monarch of any kind. But he is a monarch
by whom Fitzurse and De Bracy hope to rise and thrive; and
therefore you aid him with your policy, and I with the lances of
my Free Companions."

"A hopeful auxiliary," said Fitzurse impatiently; "playing the
fool in the very moment of utter necessity.---What on earth dost
thou purpose by this absurd disguise at a moment so urgent?"

"To get me a wife," answered De Bracy coolly, "after the manner
of the tribe of Benjamin."

"The tribe of Benjamin?" said Fitzurse; "I comprehend thee not."

"Wert thou not in presence yester-even," said De Bracy, "when we
heard the Prior Aymer tell us a tale in reply to the romance
which was sung by the Minstrel?---He told how, long since in
Palestine, a deadly feud arose between the tribe of Benjamin and