high with a contemptuous gesture, he
spurred away towards the gates.

Then Harold, dismounting, stood on the ground, under the standard of his
King, and round him came several of the Saxon chiefs, who had kept aloof
during the conference with Tostig.

The Northumbrians approached, and saluted the Earl with grave courtesy.

Then Gamel Beorn began. But much as Harold had feared and foreboded as
to the causes of complaint which Tostig had given to the Northumbrians,
all fear, all foreboding, fell short of the horrors now deliberately
unfolded; not only extortion of tribute the most rapacious and illegal,
but murder the fiercest and most foul. Thegns of high birth, without
offence or suspicion, but who had either excited Tostig's jealousy, or
resisted his exactions, had been snared under peaceful pretexts into his
castle [213], and butchered in cold blood by his house-carles. The
cruelties of the old heathen Danes seemed revived in the bloody and
barbarous tale.

"And now," said the thegn, in conclusion, "canst thou condemn us that we
rose?--no partial rising;--rose all Northumbria! At first but two
hundred thegns; strong in our course, we swelled into the might of a
people. Our wrongs found sympathy beyond our province, for liberty
spreads over human hearts as fire over a heath. Wherever we march,
friends gather round us. Thou warrest not on a handful of rebels,--half
England is with us!"

"And ye,--thegns," answered Harold, "ye have ceased to war against
Tostig, your Earl. Ye war now against the King and the Law. Come with
your complaints to your Prince and your Witan, and, if they are just, ye
are stronger than in yonder palisades and streets of steel."

"And so," said Gamel Beorn, with marked emphasis, "now thou art in
England, O noble Earl,--so are we willing to come. But when thou wert
absent from the land, justice seemed to abandon it to force and the
battle-axe."

"I would thank you for your trust," answered Harold, deeply moved. "But
justice in England rests not on the presence and life of a single man.
And your speech I must not accept as a grace, for it wrongs both my King
and his Council. These charges ye have made, but ye have not proved
them. Armed men are not proofs; and granting that hot blood and mortal
infirmity of judgment have caused Tostig to err against you and the
right, think still of his qualities to reign over men whose lands, and
whose rivers, lie ever exposed to the dread Nor