ee, and scarce
out of bowshot from the entrenchments, a woman seated. The King looked
hard at the bended, hooded form.

"Poor wretch!" he murmured, "her heart is in the battle!" And he shouted
aloud, "Farther off! farther off?--the war rushes hitherward!"

At the sound of that voice the woman rose, stretched her arms, and sprang
forward. But the Saxon chiefs had already turned their faces towards the
neighbouring ingress into the ramparts, and beheld not her movement,
while the tramp of rushing chargers, the shout and the roar of clashing
war, drowned the wail of her feeble cry:

"I have heard him again, again!" murmured the woman, "God be praised!"
and she re-seated herself quietly under the lonely thorn.

As Harold and Haco sprang to their feet within the entrenchments, the
shout of "the King--the King!--Holy Crosse!" came in time to rally the
force at the farther end, now undergoing the full storm of the Norman
chivalry.

The willow ramparts were already rent and hewed beneath the hoofs of
horses and the clash of swords; and the sharp points on the frontals of
the Norman destriers were already gleaming within the entrenchments, when
Harold arrived at the brunt of action. The tide was then turned; not one
of those rash riders left the entrenchments they had gained; steel and
horse alike went down beneath the ponderous battle-axes; and William,
again foiled and baffled, drew off his cavalry with the reluctant
conviction that those breastworks, so manned, were not to be won by
horse. Slowly the knights retreated down the slope of the hillock, and
the English, animated by that sight, would have left their stronghold to
pursue, but for the warning cry of Harold. The interval in the strife
thus gained was promptly and vigorously employed in repairing the
palisades. And this done, Harold, turning to Haco, and the thegns round
him, said joyously:

"By Heaven's help we shall yet win this day. And know you not that it is
my fortunate day--the day on which, hitherto, all hath prospered with me,
in peace and in war--the day of my birth?"

"Of your birth!" echoed Haco in surprise. "Ay--did you not know it?"

"Nay!--strange!--it is also the birthday of Duke William! What would
astrologers say to the meeting of such stars?" [273]

Harold's cheek paled, but his helmet concealed the paleness:--his arm
drooped. The strange dream of his youth again came distinct before him,
as it had come in the hall of the Norman