ving somewhat slowly reached
the ground, embraced and kissed him in the sight of the gorgeous
assemblage; then led him by the hand towards the fair chamber which was
set apart for the Duke, and so left him to his attendants.

William, lost in thought, suffered himself to be disrobed in silence; but
when Fitzosborne, his favourite confidant and haughtiest baron, who yet
deemed himself but honoured by personal attendance on his chief,
conducted him towards the bath, which adjoined the chamber, he drew back,
and wrapping round him more closely the gown of fur that had been thrown
over his shoulders, he muttered low,--"Nay, if there be on me yet one
speck of English dust, let it rest there!--seizin, Fitzosborne, seizin,
of the English land." Then, waving his hand, he dismissed all his
attendants except Fitzosborne, and Rolf, Earl of Hereford [49], nephew to
Edward, but French on the father's side, and thoroughly in the Duke's
councils. Twice the Duke paced the chamber without vouchsafing a word to
either, then paused by the round window that overlooked the Thames. The
scene was fair; the sun, towards its decline, glittered on numerous small
pleasure-boats, which shot to and fro between Westminster and London or
towards the opposite shores of Lambeth. His eye sought eagerly, along
the curves of the river, the grey remains of the fabled Tower of Julius,
and the walls, gates, and turrets, that rose by the stream, or above the
dense mass of silent roofs; then it strained hard to descry the tops of
the more distant masts of the infant navy, fostered under Alfred, the
far-seeing, for the future civilisation of wastes unknown, and the empire
of seas untracked.

The Duke breathed hard, and opened and closed the hand which he stretched
forth into space as if to grasp the city he beheld. "Rolf," said he,
abruptly, "thou knowest, no doubt, the wealth of the London traders, one
and all; for, foi de Gaillaume, my gentil chevalier, thou art a true
Norman, and scentest the smell of gold as a hound the boar!"

Rolf smiled, as if pleased with a compliment which simpler men might have
deemed, at the best, equivocal, and replied:

"It is true, my liege; and gramercy, the air of England sharpens the
scent; for in this villein and motley country, made up of all
races,--Saxon and Fin, Dane and Fleming, Pict and Walloon,--it is not as
with us, where the brave man and the pure descent are held chief in
honour: here, gold and land are, in t