Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings — Volume 12 eBook

“I thank you, fellow-Englishmen, for that applause with which ye have greeted mine own thoughts on the lips of Haco.  Shall it be said that your King rushed to chase his own brother from the soil of outraged England, yet shrunk from the sword of the Norman stranger?  Well indeed might my brave subjects desert my banner if it floated idly over these palace walls while the armed invader pitched his camp in the heart of England.  By delay, William’s force, whatever it might be, cannot grow less; his cause grows more strong in our craven fears.  What his armament may be we rightly know not; the report varies with every messenger, swelling and lessening with the rumours of every hour.  Have we not around us now our most stalwart veterans—­the flower of our armies—­the most eager spirits—­the vanquishers of Hardrada?  Thou sayest, Gurth, that all should not be perilled on a single battle.  True.  Harold should be perilled, but wherefore England?  Grant that we win the day; the quicker our despatch, the greater our fame, the more lasting that peace at home and abroad which rests ever its best foundation on the sense of the power which wrong cannot provoke unchastised.  Grant that we lose; a loss can be made gain by a king’s brave death.  Why should not our example rouse and unite all who survive us?  Which the nobler example—­the one best fitted to protect our country—­the recreant backs of living chiefs, or the glorious dead with their fronts to the foe?  Come what may, life or death, at least we will thin the Norman numbers, and heap the barriers of our corpses on the Norman march.  At least, we can show to the rest of England how men should defend their native land!  And if, as I believe and pray, in every English breast beats a heart like Harold’s, what matters though a king should fall?—­Freedom is immortal.”

He spoke; and forth from his baldric he drew his sword.  Every blade, at that signal, leapt from the sheath:  and, in that council-hall at least, in every breast beat the heart of Harold.

CHAPTER III.

The chiefs dispersed to array their troops for the morrow’s march; but Harold and his kinsmen entered the chamber where the women waited the decision of the council, for that, in truth, was to them the parting interview.  The King had resolved, after completing all his martial preparations, to pass the night in the Abbey of Waltham; and his brothers lodged, with the troops they commanded, in the city or its suburbs.  Haco alone remained with that portion of the army quartered in and around the palace.

They entered the chamber, and in a moment each heart had sought its mate; in the mixed assembly each only conscious of the other.  There, Gurth bowed his noble head over the weeping face of the young bride that for the last time nestled to his bosom.  There, with a smiling lip, but tremulous voice, the gay Leofwine soothed and chided in a breath the maiden he had wooed as the partner for a life that his mirthful spirit made one holiday; snatching kisses from a cheek no longer coy.