He would chant his own doughty deeds, and "gab," as
the Norman word was, in painful earnest, while they gabbed only in sport,
and outvied each other in impossible fanfaronades, simply to laugh down a
fashion which was held inconsistent with the modesty of a true knight.
Bitter it was to her to hear him announcing to the company, not for the
first or second time, how he had slain the Cornish giant, whose height
increased by a foot at least every time he was mentioned; and then to hear
him answered by some smart, smooth-shaven youth, who, with as much mimicry
of his manner as he dared to assume, boasted of having slain in Araby a
giant with two heads, and taken out of his two mouths the two halves of
the princess whom he was devouring, which being joined together afterwards
by the prayers of a holy hermit, were delivered back safe and sound to her
father the King of Antioch. And more bitter still, to hear Hereward
angrily dispute the story, unaware (at least at first) that he was being
laughed at.
Then she grew sometimes cold, sometimes contemptuous, sometimes altogether
fierce; and shed bitter tears in secret, when she was complimented on the
modesty of her young savage.
But she was a brave maiden; and what was more, she loved him with all her
heart. Else why endure bitter words for his sake? And she set herself to
teach and train the wild outlaw into her ideal of a very perfect knight.
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