CHAPTER I. - THE NIGHT OF THE 20TH OF MARCH, 1067. "Wave high your torches on each crag and cliff Let many lights blaze on our battlements, Shout to them in the pauses of the storm And tell them there is no hope." MATURIN'S Bertram. ALL night long the Lady Matilda, with her becoming children, knelt before the holy shrine in the old Abbey of Feschamp. Anxiously had they watched through the lingering twi-light, for the whitening sails of the Conqueror's fleet. No sails appeared, and the night fell dark and stormy upon the English channel. Meet was it that prayer should ascend to Him who rules the destiny of nations, for the hopes of all future times were rocked upon that midnight sea. The field of Hastings was won, Harold was slain, England was subdued, and the ships of William the Conqueror, filled with the flower of Norman chivalry, and followed by the sad remnant of Saxon nobles, were speeding to the Nor-man coast. "Was it Woden the storm-throned, that thus with relent-less fury pursued the Viking's progeny,—despoilers of the Saxon race ? Was it Thor the thunder-voiced, warning the proud Conqueror that the great heart of England still throbbed with the pulse of Freedom, though the vale of Sanguelac was red with the blood of her bravest sons? Was it the spirit of a milder Faith that prevailed over that night of darkness, spread a calm morning on those troubled waters, and through that all-pervading sunlight scattered blessings countless as the liquid jewels that paved the track of the rescued ships ?