Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/353

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of kindred, still more the ties of common humanity, sat very lightly on him. The gentler soul of Robert was by no means dead to them. He did not shrink from waging an unjust war against his brother and deliverer; he did not shrink from despoiling that brother and deliverer of dominions which he had sold to him by his own act for a fair price; but he did shrink from the thought of letting the brother against whom he warred suffer actual bodily hardships when he could hinder them. The defenders of the Mount had, according to one account, plenty of meat; but all our narratives agree as to the difficulty of providing fresh water for the fortress which twice in the day was surrounded by the waves. Henry sent a message to the Duke, praying that he might be allowed access to fresh water; his brothers might, if they thought good, make war on him by the valour of their soldiers; they should not press the powers of nature into their service, or deprive him of those gifts of Providence which were open to all human beings. Robert was moved; he gave orders to the sentinels at Genetz not to hinder the besieged from coming to the mainland for water. One version even adds that he added the further gift of a tun of the best wine. This kind of generosity, where no appeal was made to his own personal pride, was by no means to