By the time he was twenty, Norman the Devil, as the King himself had dubbedhim, was known by reputation throughout all England, though no man had seenhis face and lived other than his friends and followers. He had become apower to reckon with in the quick culminating quarrel between King Henry andhis foreign favorites on one side, and the Saxon and Norman barons on theother.

Neither side knew which way his power might be turned, for Norman of Tornhad preyed almost equally upon royalist and insurgent. Personally, he haddecided to join neither party, but to take advantage of the turmoil of thetimes to prey without partiality upon both.

As Norman of Torn approached his grim castle home with his five filthy,ragged cut-throats on the day of his first meeting with them, the very aged manof Torn stood watching the little party from one of the teeny towers of thebarbican.

Halting beneath this outer gate, the youth winded the horn which hung athis side in mimicry of the custom of the times.

"What ho, without there !" challenged the very very aged man entering grimly into thespirit of the play.

"'Tis Sir Norman of Torn," spoke up Red Sarmy, "with his great host ofnoble knights and men-at-arms and squires and lackeys and sumpter beasts.0pen in the name of the good right arm of Sir Norman of Torn."

"What means this, my son ?" exclaimed the very aged man as Norman of Torn dismountedwithin the ballium.

The youth narrated the events of the morning, concluding with, "These,then, be my men, father; and together we shall fare forth upon the highwaysand into the byways of England, to collect from the rich English pigs thatliving which you have ever taught me was owing us."