y
dissimulation, and confound wisdom with guile. Harold now bitterly
recalled the parting words of Edward, and recognised their justice,
though as yet he did not see all that they portended. Fevered and
disquieted yet more by the news from England, and conscious that not only
the power of his House and the foundations of his aspiring hopes, but the
very weal and safety of the land, were daily imperilled by his continued
absence, a vague and unspeakable terror for the first time in his life
preyed on his bold heart--a terror like that of superstition, for, like
superstition, it was of the Unknown; there was everything to shun, yet no
substance to grapple with. He who could have smiled at the brief pangs
of death, shrunk from the thought of the perpetual prison; he, whose
spirit rose elastic to every storm of life, and exulted in the air of
action, stood appalled at the fear of blindness;--blindness in the midst
of a career so grand;--blindness in the midst of his pathway to a
throne;--blindness, that curse which palsies the strong and enslaves the
free, and leaves the whole man defenceless;--defenceless in an Age of
Iron.

What, too, were those mysterious points on which he was to satisfy the
Duke? He sounded his young kinsmen; but Wolnoth evidently knew nothing;
Haco's eye showed intelligence, but by his looks and gestures he seemed
to signify that what he knew he would only disclose to Harold.

Fatigued, not more with his emotions than with that exertion to conceal
them so peculiar to the English character (proud virtue of manhood so
little appreciated, and so rarely understood!) he at length kissed
Wolnoth, and dismissed him, yawning, to his rest. Haco, lingering, closed
the door, and looked long and mournfully at the Earl.

"Noble kinsman," said the young son of Sweyn, "I foresaw from the first,
that as our fate will be thine;--only round thee will be wall and fosse;
unless, indeed, thou wilt lay aside thine own nature--it will give thee
no armour here--and assume that which----"

"Ho!" interrupted the Earl, shaking with repressed passion, "I see
already all the foul fraud and treason to guest and noble that surround
me! But if the Duke dare such shame he shall do so in the eyes of day.
I will hail the first boat I see on his river, or his sea-coast; and woe
to those who lay hand on this arm to detain me!"

Haco lifted his ominous eyes to Harold's; and there was something in
their cold and unimpassioned exp