the result of the conference;
and with an aspect, and in a tone, free alike from triumph and
indecision, Harold replied:

"As ye will, so will I. Place me only where I can most serve the common
cause. Remain you now, knowing my secret, a chosen and standing council:
too great is my personal stake in this matter to allow my mind to be
unbiassed; judge ye, then, and decide for me in all things: your minds
should be calmer and wiser than mine; in all things I will abide by your
counsel; and thus I accept the trust of a nation's freedom."

Each thegn then put his hand into Harold's, and called himself Harold's
man.

"Now, more than ever," said the wise old thegn who had before spoken,
"will it be needful to heal all dissension in the kingdom--to reconcile
with us Mercia and Northumbria, and make the kingdom one against the foe.
You, as Tostig's brother, have done well to abstain from active
interference; you do well to leave it to us to negotiate the necessary
alliance between all brave and good men."

"And to that end, as imperative for the public weal, you consent," said
Alred, thoughtfully, "to abide by our advice, whatever it be?"

"Whatever it be, so that it serve England," answered the Earl.

A smile, somewhat sad, flitted over the prelate's pale lips, and Harold
was once more alone with Gurth.

CHAPTER VII.

The soul of all council and cabal on behalf of Harold, which has led to
the determination of the principal chiefs, and which now succeeded
it--was Haco.

His rank as son of Sweyn, the first-born of Godwin's house--a rank which
might have authorised some pretensions on his own part, gave him all
field for the exercise of an intellect singularly keen and profound.
Accustomed to an atmosphere of practical state-craft in the Norman court,
with faculties sharpened from boyhood by vigilance and meditation, he
exercised an extraordinary influence over the simple understandings of
the homely clergy and the uncultured thegns. Impressed with the
conviction of his early doom, he felt no interest in the objects of
others; but equally believing that whatever of bright, and brave, and
glorious, in his brief, condemned career, was to be reflected on him from
the light of Harold's destiny, the sole desire of a nature, which, under
other auspices, would have been intensely daring and ambitious, was to
administer to Harold's greatness. No prejudice, no principle, stood in
the way of this dreary enthusiasm. As