And should they not meet, Gilbert meant to ride up to the castle gate,
and ask for the baron, and courteously propose to him that they should
ride together into the wood. And, indeed, Gilbert hoped that it might
turn out so; for, once under the gateway, he might hope to see Beatrix
for a moment; and two weeks had passed, and terrible things had
happened, since he had last set eyes upon her face.
He met no one in the road; but in the meadow before the castle half a
dozen Saxon grooms, in loose hose and short homespun tunics, were
exercising some of Curboil's great Normandy horses. The baron himself
was not in sight, and the grooms told Gilbert that he was within. The
drawbridge was down, and Gilbert halted just before entering the gate,
calling loudly for the porter. But instead of the latter, Sir Arnold
himself appeared at that moment within the courtyard, feeding a brace
of huge mastiffs with gobbets of red raw meat from a wooden bowl,
carried by a bare-legged stable-boy with a shock of almost colourless
flaxen hair, and a round, red face, pierced by two little round blue
eyes. Gilbert called again, and the knight instantly turned and came
towards him, beating down with his hands the huge dogs that sprang up
at him in play and seemed trying to drive him back. Sir Arnold was
smooth, spotless and carefully dressed as ever, and came forward with a
well-composed smile in which hospitality was skilfully blended with
sympathy and concern. Gilbert, who was as thorough a Norman in every
instinct and thought as any whose fathers had held lands from the
Conqueror, did his best to be suave and courteous on his side.
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