We have seen, in an earlier part of this record, that Harold
possessed, amongst his numerous and more stately possessions, a house,
not far from the old Roman dwelling-place of Hilda. And in this
residence he now (save when with the King) made his chief abode. He
gave as the reasons for his selection, the charm it took, in his eyes,
from that signal mark of affection which his ceorls had rendered him,
in purchasing the house and tilling the ground in his absence; and
more especially the convenience of its vicinity to the new palace at
Westminster; for, by Edward's special desire, while the other brothers
repaired to their different domains, Harold remained near his royal
person. To use the words of the great Norwegian chronicler, "Harold
was always with the Court itself, and nearest to the King in all
service."
"The King loved him very much, and kept him as his own son, for he had
no children."' This attendance on Edward was naturally most close at
the restoration to power of the Earl's family. For Harold, mild and
conciliating, was, like Alred, a great peacemaker, and Edward had
never cause to complain of him, as he believed he had of the rest of
that haughty house. But the true spell which made dear to Harold the
rude building of timber, with its doors open all day to his lithsmen,
when with a light heart he escaped from the halls of Westminster, was
the fair face of Edith his neighbour. The impression which this young
girl had made upon Harold seemed to partake of the strength of a
fatality. For Harold had loved her before the marvellous beauty of
her womanhood began; and, occupied from his earliest youth in grave
and earnest affairs, his heart had never been frittered away on the
mean and frivolous affections of the idle. Now, in that comparative
leisure of his stormy life, he was naturally most open to the
influence of a charm more potent than all the glamoury of Hilda.
The autumn sun shone through the golden glades of the forest-land,
when Edith sate alone on the knoll that faced forestland and road, and
watched afar.
And the birds sung cheerily; but that was not the sound for which
Edith listened: and the squirrel darted from tree to tree on the sward
beyond; but not to see the games of the squirrel sat Edith by the
grave of the Teuton. By-and-by, came the cry of the dogs, and the
tall gre-hound [108] of Wales emerged from the bosky dells. Then
Edith's heart heaved, and her eyes brightened. And now, with his hawk
on his wrist, and his spear [109] in his hand, came, through the
yellowing boughs, Harold the Earl.
And well may ye ween, that his heart beat as loud and his eye shone as
bright as Edith's, when he saw who had watched for his footsteps on
the sepulchral knoll; Love, forgetful of the presence of Death;--so
has it ever been, so ever shall it be! He hastened his stride, and
bounded up the gentle hillock, and his dogs, with a joyous bark, came
round the knees of Edith. Then Harold shook the bird from his wrist,
and it fell, with its light wing, on the altar-stone of Thor.
"Thou art late, but thou art welcome, Harold my kinsman," said Edith,
simply, as she bent her face over the hounds, whose gaunt heads she
caressed.
"Call me not kinsman," said Harold, shrinking, and with a dark cloud
on his broad brow.
"And why, Harold?"
"Oh, Edith, why?" murmured Harold; and his thought added, "she knows
not, poor child, that in that mockery of kinship the Church sets its
ban on our bridals."
He turned, and chid his dogs fiercely as they gambolled in rough glee
round their fair friend.
The hounds crouched at the feet of Edith; and Edith looked in mild
wonder at the troubled face of the Earl.
"Thine eyes rebuke me, Edith, more than my words the hounds!" said
Harold, gently. "But there is quick blood in my veins; and the mind
must be calm when it would control the humour. Calm was my mind,
sweet Edith, in the old time, when thou wert an infant on my knee, and
wreathing, with these rude hands, flower-chains for thy neck like the
swan's down, I said, 'The flowers fade, but the chain lasts when love
weaves it.'"
Edith again bent her face over the crouching hounds. Harold gazed on
her with mournful fondness; and the bird still sung and the squirrel
swung himself again from bough to bough. Edith spoke first:
"My godmother, thy sister, hath sent for me, Harold, and I am to go to
the Court to-morrow. Shalt thou be there?"
"Surely," said Harold, in an anxious voice, "surely, I will be there!
So my sister hath sent for thee: wittest thou wherefore?"
Edith grew very pale, and her tone trembled as she answered:
"Well-a-day, yes."
"It is as I feared, then!" exclaimed Harold, in great agitation; "and
my sister, whom these monks have demented, leagues herself with the
King against the law of the wide welkin and the grand religion of the
human heart. Oh!" continued the Earl, kindling into an enthusiasm,
rare to his even moods, but wrung as much from his broad sense as from
his strong affection, "when I compare the Saxon of our land and day,
all enervated and decrepit by priestly superstition, with his
forefathers in the first Christian era, yielding to the religion they
adopted in its simple truths, but not to that rot of social happiness
and free manhood which this cold and lifeless monarchism--making
virtue the absence of human ties--spreads around--which the great Bede
[110], though himself a monk, vainly but bitterly denounced;--yea,
verily, when I see the Saxon already the theowe of the priest, I
shudder to ask how long he will be folk-free of the tyrant."
He paused, breathed hard, and seizing, almost sternly, the girl's
trembling arm, he resumed between his set teeth: "So they would have
thee be a nun?--Thou wilt not,--thou durst not,--thy heart would
perjure thy vows!"
"Ah, Harold!" answered Edith, moved out of all bashfulness by his
emotion and her own terror of the convent, and answering, if with the
love of a woman, still with all the unconsciousness of a child:
"Better, oh better the grate of the body than that of the heart!--In
the grave I could still live for those I love; behind the Grate, love
itself must be dead. Yes, thou pitiest me, Harold; thy sister, the
Queen, is gentle and kind; I will fling myself at her feet, and say:
'Youth is fond, and the world is fair: let me live my youth, and bless
God in the world that he saw was good!'"
"My own, own dear Edith!" exclaimed Harold, overjoyed. "Say this. Be
firm: they cannot and they dare not force thee! The law cannot wrench
thee against thy will from the ward of thy guardian Hilda; and, where
the law is, there Harold at least is strong,--and there at least our
kinship, if my bane, is thy blessing."
"Why, Harold, sayest thou that our kinship is thy bane? It is so
sweet to me to whisper to myself, 'Harold is of thy kith, though
distant; and it is natural to thee to have pride in his fame, and joy
in his presence!' Why is that sweetness to me, to thee so bitter?"
"Because," answered Harold, dropping the hand he had clasped, and
folding his arms in deep dejection, "because but for that I should
say: 'Edith, I love thee more than a brother: Edith, be Harold's
wife!' And were I to say it, and were we to wed, all the priests of
the Saxons would lift up their hands in horror, and curse our
nuptials, and I should be the bann'd of that spectre the Church; and
my house would shake to its foundations; and my father, and my
brothers, and the thegns and the proceres, and the abbots and
prelates, whose aid makes our force, would gather round me with
threats and with prayers, that I might put thee aside. And mighty as
I am now, so mighty once was Sweyn my brother; and outlaw as Sweyn is
now, might Harold be; and outlaw if Harold were, what breast so broad
as his could fill up the gap left in the defence of England? And the
passions that I curb, as a rider his steed, might break their rein;
and, strong in justice, and child of Nature, I might come, with banner
and mail, against Church, and House, and Fatherland; and the blood of
my countrymen might be poured like water: and, therefore, slave to the
lying thraldom he despises, Harold dares not say to the maid of his
love, 'Give me thy right hand, and be my bride!'"
Edith had listened in bewilderment and despair, her eyes fixed on his,
and her face locked and rigid, as if turned to stone. But when he had
ceased, and, moving some steps away, turned aside his manly
countenance, that Edith might not perceive its anguish, the noble and
sublime spirit of that sex which ever, when lowliest, most comprehends
the lofty, rose superior both to love and to grief; and rising, she
advanced, and placing her slight hand on his stalwart shoulder, she
said, half in pity, half in reverence: "Never before, O Harold, did I
feel so proud of thee: for Edith could not love thee as she doth, and
will till the grave clasp her, if thou didst not love England more
than Edith. Harold, till this hour I was a child, and I knew not my
own heart: I look now into that heart, and I see that I am woman.
Harold, of the cloister I have now no fear: and all life does not
shrink--no, it enlarges, and it soars into one desire--to be worthy to
pray for thee!"
"Maid, maid!" exclaimed Harold, abruptly, and pale as the dead, "do
not say thou hast no fear of the cloister. I adjure, I command thee,
build not up between us that dismal everlasting wall. While thou art
free Hope yet survives--a phantom, haply but Hope still."
"As thou wilt I will," said Edith, humbly: "order my fate so as
pleases thee the best."
Then, not daring to trust herself longer, for she felt the tears
rushing to her eyes, she turned away hastily, and left him alone
beside the altar-stone and the tomb.