As the Saxon sullenly withdrew, and as the door closed
on him, William rose and strode to and fro the room
exultingly.
“I have him! I have him!” he cried
aloud; “not as free guest, but as ransomed captive.
I have him—the Earl!—I have
him! Go, Mallet, my friend, now seek this sour-looking
Englishman; and, hark thee! fill his ear with all
the tales thou canst think of as to Guy’s cruelty
and ire. Enforce all the difficulties that lie
in my way towards the Earl’s delivery.
Great make the danger of the Earl’s capture,
and vast all the favour of release. Comprehendest
thou?”
“I am Norman, Monseigneur,” replied De
Graville, with a slight smile; “and we Normans
can make a short mantle cover a large space.
You will not be displeased with my address.”
“Go then—go,” said William,
“and send me forthwith—Lanfranc—no,
hold—not Lanfranc, he is too scrupulous;
Fitzosborne—no, too haughty. Go,
first, to my brother, Odo of Bayeux, and pray him to
seek me on the instant.”
The knight bowed and vanished, and William continued
to pace the room, with sparkling eyes and murmuring
lips.
Not till after repeated messages, at first without
talk of ransom and in high tone, affected, no doubt,
by William to spin out the negotiations, and augment
the value of his services, did Guy of Ponthieu consent
to release his illustrious captive,—the
guerdon, a large sum and un bel maneir [189] on the
river Eaulne. But whether that guerdon were
the fair ransom fee, or the price for concerted snare,
no man now can say, and sharper than ours the wit that
forms the more likely guess. These stipulations
effected, Guy himself opened the doors of the dungeon;
and affecting to treat the whole matter as one of
law and right, now happily and fairly settled, was
as courteous and debonnair as he had before been dark
and menacing.
He even himself, with a brilliant train, accompanied
Harold to the Chateau d’Eu [190], whither William
journeyed to give him the meeting; and laughed with
a gay grace at the Earl’s short and scornful
replies to his compliments and excuses. At the
gates of this chateau, not famous, in after times,
for the good faith of its lords, William himself,
laying aside all the pride of etiquette which he had
established at his court, came to receive his visitor;
and aiding him to dismount embraced him cordially,
amidst a loud fanfaron of fifes and trumpets.
The flower of that glorious nobility, which a few
generations had sufficed to rear out of the lawless
pirates of the Baltic, had been selected to do honour
alike to guest and host.
