Now it may as well be mentioned at once that De Moreville had not been attracted to Lincoln by any enthusiasm for Prince Louis, of whom he was weary, nor by any love of the French warriors, of whose arrogance he was heartily sick, and of whose affectations of superiority he was very much more impatient than others of his class. But since the night when Collingham so suddenly found his way into Chas-Chateil, De Moreville had been much more nervous on all points than of yore, and reflecting seriously on the past and speculating keenly on the future, he saw that his interests were bound up with the cause of Prince Louis, and that a decisive triumph of young Henry’s adherents would lead to his utter ruin. All would go that made him the great personage he was--castles, and manors, and feudal power; and he would have to hide his head in a cloister or fare forth to foreign lands and fight as a soldier of fortune.
No man was therefore more interested in the issue of the struggle going on; and having left his daughter at his house in Ludgate, under the charge of Dame Waledger, he hastened to Lincoln, which he knew was likely to be the place where the crisis of the war would come. But he did not dream of giving any hint of the motives by which he was animated; and even De Perche was so convinced of the Norman’s hearty good-will towards Louis and himself, that he ascribed the arrival to pure enthusiasm, and the count gave him so flattering a reception that De Moreville was fain to be more hypocritical than was his wont.
“Ha! my good Lord De Moreville,” exclaimed De Perche, joyfully, “welcome in the hour of danger. Our enemies are even now at the gates, and are coming in greater force than I anticipated.”
“Let them come,” said De Moreville, smiling grimly; “we have no reason to grow alarmed at their approach. William Marshal and William Albini are Norman nobles, like myself, and falcons fear not falcons.”
De Perche started and looked suspicious in De Moreville’s face; but the Norman smiled so frankly that the count blushed at the suspicion that had crossed his mind, and said, carelessly--
“O, mort Dieu! they are doubtless puissant foes.”
“However,” replied De Moreville, “I have in my day fought with braver men than they are, albeit no braggart, and I say by St. Moden I am ready to do so again, and ever shall be, while I breathe the breath of life and have strength enough to mount a steed and shake a spear.”