Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings — Complete. Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

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      At that touching rebuke, Harold paused, and the outlaw passed his way alone. As the last glimpse of his figure vanished at the turn of the road, whence, on the second of May, the Norman Duke and the Saxon King had emerged side by side, the short twilight closed abruptly, and up from the far forestland rose the moon.

      Harold stood rooted to the spot, and still gazing on the space, when the Vala laid her hand on his arm.

      “Behold, as the moon rises on the troubled gloaming, so rises the fate of Harold, as yon brief, human shadow, halting between light and darkness, passes away to night. Thou art now the first-born of a House that unites the hopes of the Saxon with the fortunes of the Dane.”

      “Thinkest thou,” said Harold, with a stern composure, “that I can have joy and triumph in a brother’s exile and woe?”

      “Not now, and not yet, will the voice of thy true nature be heard; but the warmth of the sun brings the thunder, and the glory of fortune wakes the storm of the soul.”

      “Kinswoman,” said Harold, with a slight curl of his lip, “by me at least have thy prophecies ever passed as the sough of the air; neither in horror nor with faith do I think of thy incantations and charms; and I smile alike at the exorcism of the shaveling and the spells of the Saga. I have asked thee not to bless mine axe, nor weave my sail. No runic rhyme is on the sword-blade of Harold. I leave my fortunes to the chance of mine own cool brain and strong arm. Vala, between thee and me there is no bond.”

      The Prophetess smiled loftily.

      “And what thinkest thou, O self-dependent! what thinkest thou is the fate which thy brain and thine arm shall will?”

      “The fate they have won already. I see no Beyond. The fate of a man sworn to guard his country, love justice, and do right.”

      The moon shone full on the heroic face of the young Earl as he spoke; and on its surface there seemed nought to belie the noble words. Yet, the Prophetess, gazing earnestly on that fair countenance, said, in a whisper, that, despite a reason singularly sceptical for the age in which it had been cultured, thrilled to the Saxon’s heart, “Under that calm eye sleeps the soul of thy sire, and beneath that brow, so haught and so pure, works the genius that crowned the kings of the north in the lineage of thy mother the Dane.”

      “Peace!” said Harold, almost fiercely; then, as if ashamed of the weakness of his momentary irritation, he added, with a faint smile, “Let us not talk of these matters while my heart is still sad and away from the thoughts of the world, with my brother the lonely outlaw. Night is on us, and the ways are yet unsafe; for the king’s troops, disbanded in haste, were made up of many who turn to robbers in peace. Alone, and unarmed, save my ateghar, I would crave a night’s rest under thy roof; and”—he hesitated, and as light blush came over his cheek—“and I would fain see if your grandchild is as fair as when I last looked on her blue eyes, that then wept for Harold ere he went into exile.”

      “Her tears are not at her command, nor her smiles,” said the Vala, solemnly; “her tears flow from the fount of thy sorrows, and her smiles are the beams from thy joys. For know, O Harold! that Edith is thine earthly Fylgia; thy fate and her fate are as one. And vainly as man would escape from his shadow, would soul wrench itself from the soul that Skulda hath linked to his doom.”

      Harold made no reply; but his step, habitually slow, grew more quick and light, and this time his reason found no fault with the oracles of the Vala.

CHAPTER V.

       Table of Contents

      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 СКАЧАТЬ