attire. They were armed with crooked sabres, having the
hilt and baldric inlaid with gold, and matched with Turkish daggers of yet more
costly workmanship. Each of them bore at his saddlebow a bundle of darts or
javelins, about four feet in length, having sharp steel heads, a weapon much in
use among the Saracens, and of which the memory is yet preserved in the martial
exercise called El Jerrid, still practised in the Eastern countries.
    The steeds of these attendants were in appearance as foreign as their
riders. They were of Saracen origin, and consequently of Arabian descent; and
their fine slender limbs, small fetlocks, thin manes, and easy springy motion,
formed a marked contrast with the large-jointed heavy horses, of which the race
was cultivated in Flanders and in Normandy, for mounting the men-at-arms of the
period in all the panoply of plate and mail; and which, placed by the side of
those Eastern coursers, might have passed for a personification of substance and
of shadow.
    The singular appearance of this cavalcade not only attracted the curiosity
of Wamba, but excited even that of his less volatile companion. The monk he
instantly knew to be the prior of Jorvaulx Abbey, well known for many miles
around as a lover of the chase, of the banquet, and, if fame did him not wrong,
of other worldly pleasures still more inconsistent with his monastic vows.
    Yet so loose were the ideas of the times respecting the conduct of the
clergy, whether secular or regular, that the Prior Aymer maintained a fair
character in the neighbourhood of his abbey. His free and jovial temper, and the
readiness with which he granted absolution from all ordinary delinquencies,
rendered him a favourite among the nobility and principal gentry, to several of
whom he was allied by birth, being of a distinguished Norman family. The ladies,
in particular, were not disposed to scan too nicely the morals of a man who was
a professed admirer of their sex, and who possessed many means of dispelling the
ennui which was too apt to intrude upon the halls and bowers of an ancient
feudal castle. The Prior mingled in the sports of the field with more than due
eagerness, and was allowed to possess the best trained hawks and the fleetest
greyhounds in the North Riding, - circumstances which strongly recommended him
to the youthful gentry. With the old, he had another part to play, which, when
needful, he could sustain with great decorum. His knowledge of books, however
superficial, was sufficient to impress upon their ignorance respect for his
supposed learning; and the gravity of