THAT WHICH HE WOULD HAVE

"COME TO THE WINDOW, Ermenoldus. See how the country stretches out,-fields and vineyards and corn land! There's no richer ground in the whole duchy of Normandy."

"You and Duke Richard rule it together, do you not, my lord?"

"No. We hold it together after a fashion, but he rules. I am his vassal. Hiesmes is mine, and this goodly castle of Falaise ought to go with it."

"Was the duke your father's favorite, my lord?"

"Doesn't it look like it, when he left me only Hiesmes and then cut off the best part of it for Richard?"

"Could it have been suggested to him, my lord?"

"You mean, did Richard tell him to do it," said Count Robert bluntly. "Who knows what one man has said to another? Richard was with him from morning till night. My father called him a 'good youth.' I suppose I was a bad one," and the young man laughed recklessly. "Anyway, Richard is Duke of Normandy, and I am only the Count of the Hiesmois; and here I am in the village of Falaise that ought to be mine, collecting taxes that ought to be mine, and putting them safely away for my brother in the treasure-room of the castle that ought to be mine."

"This castle seems to be of good strength, my lord. The walls are thick and heavy. It would not be easy to batter them down. It stands at the very edge of the cliff, and the cliff falls down sheer to the valley. No one could approach on that side."

"No; it's a strong castle, but I have none that could not be captured in a day. Come to the window again, Ermenoldus. See what a mass of rook the castle is built on, and how it juts out over the valley! Across the Ante is that other great, jagged precipice. You're a wizard, Ermenoldus; I verily believe you are. Couldn't you build me a castle on Mount Mirat yonder that would be as strong as this?"

I'm not enough of a wizard to give you a castle, my lord," said Ermenoldus; "and yet, there's more than one way," he half whispered. Count Robert did not hear the whisper, for he had turned again to the narrow window.

"If those girls are as pretty as they are graceful and merry," he said, "they would be well worth seeing. Ermenoldus, will you call some one to get my horse? or, if you stamp three times on the stone under your feet, won't the horse come of its own accord, all saddled and bridled?"

"You think too highly of the little that I have learned," said Ermenoldus.

"I'm not sure, though," said the count laughing, "but you are in league with the fiend himself and know all that there is to be known. Whence do you come and whither do you go? You appear and then you disappear, and all I know is that you are gone."

"Never did I go faster than you will go to gaze upon the pretty maidens washing linen on the banks of the stream," said Ermenoldus; "only I beg you, my lord, don't ride down over the cliff in your haste. All my magic could not save you then;" but Count Robert was already at the gate, and the next minute he was galloping down the rough, rocky way that led to the foot of the cliff.

The linen had been spread out on the grass to dry and to whiten in the hot sun, and the young girls were frolicking in the ripples of the little stream, laughing and splashing water at one another. One had bent down a green bough and held it in front of her face to protect it.

"By my faith!" said Count Robert to himself, "if that maiden's face is as fair as her little feet are white, she's prettier than all the high-born dames at my brother's castle." Just then the maiden let go the green branch and it sprang up above her head.

"Let's dance," she said, "not splash water at one another like children."

"That's a fairer face than I ever saw before," thought the count, as he stopped his horse, and hidden by the trees, gazed at the young girls in their playful imitation of the village dance, their white feet now twinkling in the green grass on the river's brink, and now splashing rainbow drops around them.

"See how high the sun is," said one of the girls. "The linen is dry, and we must go home."

"I'm tired. I'm going to rest awhile here under the trees before I go," said the maiden of the green branch.

"But the sun is almost overhead," said one girl. "Won't your mother beat you if you do not come?"

"Beat? What is that? No one ever beats me," she replied indifferently. "You carry the linen home for me, and I will come when I have had my little nap. Good-by, my friends," and she waved them a farewell as she sat on the bank with her head on her hand, half reclining on the soft green grass in the shadow of the trees.

"Well, if that isn't Arletta!" said one young girl. "She commands us to carry home her linen for her, and we obey. We always do just what she tells us to. Listen! Now she is singing. If I stayed after the washing was done to sleep on the bank and to sing songs, I should have a sound beating, but Arletta always does what she likes." The maidens went slowly down the valley. Arletta half closed her eyes, and sang softly to herself.

"And may I listen to the pretty song?" said a voice coming so suddenly that it seemed to be just at her ear. Arletta sprang to her feet and made a humble courtesy, and then stood still, too abashed to look up. The rider had dismounted and stood holding his hat with its long plume in one hand and the horse's bridle in the other.

"Are you one of the maidens of Falaise?" he asked, and then smiled at the idle question, for where else could she belong?

"I'm Arletta," she answered, looking up shyly, "and my father is Fulbert the tanner."

"Strange that such a flower should blossom in the foul garden of a tanner," said Robert to himself.

"Are you the great Duke Richard?" asked the maiden.

"No, I'm not," said Robert half gloomily. "I'm nobody but Count Robert, his younger brother; and I haven't even a strong castle to bless myself with. But you must be tired. Isn't this washing too hard work for a girl like you?"

"Oh, no, I am strong," she said. "All the girls come out here to wash the linen for their homes."

"Shouldn't you rather stay at home and have some one to wash the linen for you? When you braid your hair, you could braid in a cord of shining gold, and you could wear a silken mantle and fasten it with a golden clasp."

"But it is only the great ladies in castles who wear silken mantles and braid gold in their hair," said Arletta, smiling, nevertheless, at the thought of so much luxury.

"And should you like to have a young man ride up on a great black horse to see you? He would have a feather in his hat, and perhaps he would wear a gold chain, if he is only a count, and he might bring you one day a jewelled band for your hair, and another day a veil of silken tissue, or perhaps a mantle of silk or of velvet. Should you like it?" Arletta said nothing, but her cheeks were bright red. Her eyes were bent on the ground, but when she ventured to look up for a moment, they were glittering with excitement.

"Farewell, my pretty Arletta," said he, "but it will not be many days before you will hear from me." He sprang upon his horse, kissed his hand to her gayly, and rode away, the horse's hoofs clattering on the fragments of stone in the road.

Whatever were Robert's faults, no one could accuse him of putting off what he meant to do, and it was only the next day when Fulbert came meekly from his tan-yard at the demand of the young noble.

"I have seen many a high-born maiden," said Robert without a word of explanation or preface, "and your daughter pleases me better than all of them. I would have her as the lady of the castle. Will you send her to me to-morrow?"

"The child of a tanner cannot well consort with the lord of a castle," said the father bravely, but with a trembling voice.

"And I have no castle worthy of the name," said Count Robert bitterly, "but I suppose that I may have a bride."

"The great folk have the power to take whom they will," said the tanner, his voice choking in his throat, "but I would have had my daughter wed one of her own station, and not in the castle but in the little church; and I wanted my kinsfolk and her mother's to look at her and smile upon her, and then to come to our house and rejoice that Arletta was going to her own home with the one that she had chosen."

"As you will," said the count, with pretended indifference; "but before you refuse, ask the girl herself. If she says no, I will leave her; but should she choose to say yes, you shall lose nothing by having your daughter the bride of a noble."

In the tiny inner room of...