As Hilda entered the hall, the various idlers accustomed to feed at
her cost were about retiring, some to their homes in the vicinity,
some, appertaining to the household, to the dormitories in the old
Roman villa.
It was not the habit of the Saxon noble, as it was of the Norman, to
put hospitality to profit, by regarding his guests in the light of
armed retainers. Liberal as the Briton, the cheer of the board and
the shelter of the roof were afforded with a hand equally unselfish
and indiscriminate; and the doors of the more wealthy and munificent
might be almost literally said to stand open from morn to eve.
As Harold followed the Vala across the vast atrium, his face was
recognised, and a shout of enthusiastic welcome greeted the popular
Earl. The only voices that did not swell that cry, were those of
three monks from a neighbouring convent, who choose to wink at the
supposed practices of the Morthwyrtha [97], from the affection they
bore to her ale and mead, and the gratitude they felt for her ample
gifts to their convent.
"One of the wicked House, brother," whispered the monk.
"Yea; mockers and scorners are Godwin and his lewd sons," answered the
monk.
And all three sighed and scowled, as the door closed on the hostess
and her stately guest.
Two tall and not ungraceful lamps lighted the same chamber in which
Hilda was first presented to the reader. The handmaids were still at
their spindles, and the white web nimbly shot as the mistress entered.
She paused, and her brow knit, as she eyed the work.
"But three parts done?" she said, "weave fast, and weave strong."
Harold, not heeding the maids or their task, gazed inquiringly round,
and from a nook near the window, Edith sprang forward with a joyous
cry, and a face all glowing with delight--sprang forward, as if to the
arms of a brother; but, within a step or so of that noble guest, she
stopped short, and her eyes fell to the ground.
Harold held his breath in admiring silence. The child he had loved
from her cradle stood before him as a woman. Even since we last saw
her, in the interval between the spring and the autumn, the year had
ripened the youth of the maiden, as it had mellowed the fruits of the
earth; and her cheek was rosy with the celestial blush, and her form
rounded to the nameless grace, which say that infancy is no more.
He advanced and took her hand, but for the first time in his life in
their greetings, he neither gave nor received the kiss.
"You are no child now, Edith," said he, involuntarily; "but still set
apart, I pray you, some remains of the old childish love for Harold."
Edith's charming lips smiled softly; she raised her eyes to his, and
their innocent fondness spoke through happy tears.
But few words passed in the short interval between Harold's entrance
and his retirement to the chamber prepared for him in haste. Hilda
herself led him to a rude ladder which admitted to a room above,
evidently added, by some Saxon lord, to the old Roman pile. The
ladder showed the precaution of one accustomed to sleep in the midst
of peril, for, by a kind of windlass in the room, it could be drawn up
at the inmate's will, and, so drawn, left below a dark and deep chasm,
delving down to the foundations of the house; nevertheless the room
itself had all the luxury of the time; the bedstead was quaintly
carved, and of some rare wood; a trophy of arms--though very ancient,
sedulously polished--hung on the wall. There were the small round
shield and spear of the earlier Saxon, with his vizorless helm, and
the short curved knife or saex [98], from which some antiquarians deem
that the Saxish men take their renowned name.
Edith, following Hilda, proffered to the guest, on a salver of gold,
spiced wines and confections; while Hilda, silently and unperceived,
waved her seid-staff over the bed, and rested her pale hand on the
pillow.
"Nay, sweet cousin," said Harold, smiling, "this is not one of the
fashions of old, but rather, methinks, borrowed from the Frankish
manners in the court of King Edward."
"Not so, Harold," answered Hilda, quickly turning; such was ever the
ceremony due to Saxon king, when he slept in a subject's house, ere
our kinsmen the Danes introduced that unroyal wassail, which left
subject and king unable to hold or to quaff cup, when the board was
left for the bed."
"Thou rebukest, O Hilda, too tauntingly, the pride of Godwin's house,
when thou givest to his homely son the ceremonial of a king. But, so
served, I envy not kings, fair Edith."
He took the cup, raised it to his lips, and when he placed it on the
small table by his side the women had left the chamber, and he was
alone. He stood for some minutes absorbed in reverie, and his
soliloquy ran somewhat thus:
"Why said the Vala that Edith's fate was inwoven with mine? And why
did I believe and bless the Vala, when she so said? Can Edith ever be
my wife? The monk-king designs her for the cloister--Woe, and well-a-
day! Sweyn, Sweyn, let thy doom forewarn me! And if I stand up in my
place and say, 'Give age and grief to the cloister--youth and delight
to man's hearth,' what will answer the monks? 'Edith cannot be thy
wife, son of Godwin, for faint and scarce traced though your affinity
of blood, ye are within the banned degrees of the Church. Edith may
be wife to another, if thou wilt,--barren spouse of the Church or
mother of children who lisp not Harold's name as their father.' Out
on these priests with their mummeries, and out on their war upon human
hearts!"
His fair brow grew stern and fierce as the Norman Duke's in his ire;
and had you seen him at the moment you would have seen the true
brother of Sweyn. He broke from his thoughts with the strong effort
of a man habituated to self-control, and advanced to the narrow
window, opened the lattice, and looked out.
The moon was in all her splendour. The long deep shadows of the
breathless forest chequered the silvery whiteness of open sward and
intervening glade. Ghostly arose on the knoll before him the grey
columns of the mystic Druid,--dark and indistinct the bloody altar of
the Warrior god. But there his eye was arrested; for whatever is
least distinct and defined in a landscape has the charm that is the
strongest; and, while he gazed, he thought that a pale phosphoric
light broke from the mound with the bautastein, that rose by the
Teuton altar. He thought, for he was not sure that it was not some
cheat of the fancy. Gazing still, in the centre of that light there
appeared to gleam forth, for one moment, a form of superhuman height.
It was the form of a man, that seemed clad in arms like those on the
wall, leaning on a spear, whose point was lost behind the shafts of
the crommell. And the face grew in that moment distinct from the
light which shimmered around it, a face large as some early god's, but
stamped with unutterable and solemn woe. He drew back a step, passed
his hand over his eyes, and looked again. Light and figure alike had
vanished; nought was seen save the grey columns and dim fane. The
Earl's lip curved in derision of his weakness. He closed the lattice,
undressed, knelt for a moment or so by the bedside, and his prayer was
brief and simple, nor accompanied with the crossings and signs
customary in his age. He rose, extinguished the lamp, and threw
himself on the bed.
The moon, thus relieved of the lamp-light, came clear and bright
through the room, shone on the trophied arms, and fell upon Harold's
face, casting its brightness on the pillow on which the Vala had
breathed her charm. And Harold slept--slept long--his face calm, his
breathing regular: but ere the moon sunk and the dawn rose the
features were dark and troubled, the breath came by gasps, the brow
was knit, and the teeth clenched.