arlike conclave, save only three, Harold, and
Gurth, and Haco.

The King himself was so moved by indignation at the insolence of the
monk, and by scorn at the fulmen, which, resting not alone on his own
head, presumed to blast the liberties of a nation, that he strode towards
the speaker, and it is even said of him by the Norman chroniclers, that
he raised his hand as if to strike the denouncer to the earth.

But Gurth interposed, and with his clear eye serenely shining with
virtuous passion, he stood betwixt monk and king.

"O thou," he exclaimed, "with the words of religion on thy lips, and the
devices of fraud in thy heart, hide thy front in thy cowl, and slink back
to thy master. Heard ye not, thegns and abbots, heard ye not this bad,
false man offer, as if for peace, and as with the desire of justice, that
the Pope should arbitrate between your King and the Norman? yet all the
while the monk knew that the Pope had already predetermined the cause;
and had ye fallen into the wile, ye would but have cowered under the
verdict of a judgment that has presumed, even before it invoked ye to the
trial, to dispose of a free people and an ancient kingdom!"

"It is true, it is true," cried the thegns, rallying from their first
superstitious terror, and, with their plain English sense of justice,
revolted at the perfidy which the priest's overtures had concealed. "We
will hear no more; away with the Swikebode." [257]

The pale cheek of the monk turned yet paler, he seemed abashed by the
storm of resentment he had provoked; and in some fear, perhaps, at the
dark faces bent on him, he slunk behind his comrade the knight, who as
yet had said nothing, but, his face concealed by his helmet, stood
motionless like a steel statue. And, in fact, these two ambassadors, the
one in his monk garb, the other in his iron array, were types and
representatives of the two forces now brought to bear upon Harold and
England--Chivalry and the Church.

At the momentary discomfiture of the Priest, now stood forth the Warrior;
and, throwing back his helmet, so that the whole steel cap rested on the
nape of the neck, leaving the haughty face and half-shaven head bare,
Mallet de Graville thus spoke:

"The ban of the Church is against ye, warriors and chiefs of England, but
for the crime of one man! Remove it from yourselves: on his single head
be the curse and the consequence. Harold, called King of
England--failing the two milder offers of m