“How like ye, O Normans, the Saxon gleeman?”
said Leofwine, as he turned slowly, regained the detachment,
and bade them heed carefully the orders they had received,
viz., to avoid the direct charge of the Norman
horse, but to take every occasion to harass and divert
the stragglers; and then blithely singing a Saxon
stave, as if inspired by Norman minstrelsy, he rode
into the entrenchments.
The two brethren of Waltham, Osgood and Ailred, had
arrived a little after daybreak at the spot in which,
about half a mile, to the rear of Harold’s palisades,
the beasts of burden that had borne the heavy arms,
missiles, luggage, and forage of the Saxon march, were
placed in and about the fenced yards of a farm.
And many human beings, of both sexes and various
ranks, were there assembled, some in breathless expectation,
some in careless talk, some in fervent prayer.
The master of the farm, his sons, and the able-bodied
ceorls in his employ, had joined the forces of the
King, under Gurth, as Earl of the county [272].
But many aged theowes, past military service, and
young children, grouped around: the first, stolid
and indifferent—the last, prattling, curious,
lively, gay. There, too, were the wives of some
of the soldiers, who, as common in Saxon expeditions,
had followed their husbands to the field; and there,
too, were the ladies of many a Hlaford in the neighbouring
district, who, no less true to their mates than the
wives of humbler men, were drawn by their English hearts
to the fatal spot. A small wooden chapel, half
decayed, stood a little behind, with its doors wide
open, a sanctuary in case of need; and the interior
was thronged with kneeling suppliants.
The two monks joined, with pious gladness, some of
their sacred calling, who were leaning over the low
wall, and straining their eyes towards the bristling
field. A little apart from them, and from all,
stood a female; the hood drawn over her face, silent
in her unknown thoughts.
By and by, as the march of the Norman multitude sounded
hollow, and the trumps, and the fifes, and the shouts,
rolled on through the air, in many a stormy peal,—the
two abbots in the Saxon camp, with their attendant
monks, came riding towards the farm from the entrenchments.
The groups gathered round these new comers in haste
and eagerness.
“The battle hath begun,” said the Abbot
of Hide, gravely. “Pray God for England,
for never was its people in peril so great from man.”
The female started and shuddered at those words.
“And the King, the King,” she cried, in
a sudden and thrilling voice; “where is he?—the
King?”
“Daughter,” said the abbot, “the
King’s post is by his standard; but I left him
in the van of his troops. Where he may be now
I know not. Wherever the foe presses sorest.”
Then dismounting, the abbots entered the yard, to
be accosted instantly by all the wives, who deemed,
poor souls, that the holy men must, throughout all
the field, have seen their lords; for each felt as
if God’s world hung but on the single life in
which each pale trembler lived.
