y comrade, thus saith from the
lips of his knight, (once thy guest, thy admirer, and friend,) thus saith
William the Norman:--'Though sixty thousand warriors under the banner of
the Apostle wait at his beck, (and from what I see of thy force, thou
canst marshal to thy guilty side scarce a third of the number,) yet will
Count William lay aside all advantage, save what dwells in strong arm and
good cause; and here, in presence of thy thegns, I challenge thee in his
name to decide the sway of this realm by single battle. On horse and in
mail, with sword and with spear, knight to knight, man to man, wilt thou
meet William the Norman?'"

Before Harold could reply, and listen to the first impulse of a valour,
which his worst Norman maligner, in the after day of triumphant calumny,
never so lied as to impugn, the thegns themselves almost with one voice,
took up the reply.

"No strife between a man and a man shall decide the liberties of
thousands!"

"Never!" exclaimed Gurth. "It were an insult to the whole people to
regard this as a strife between two chiefs, which should wear a crown.
When the invader is in our land, the war is with a nation, not a king.
And, by the very offer, this Norman Count (who cannot even speak our
tongue) shows how little he knows of the laws, by which, under our native
kings, we have all as great an interest as a king himself in our
Fatherland."

"Thou hast heard the answer of England from those lips, Sire de
Graville," said Harold: "mine but repeat and sanction it. I will not
give the crown to William in lieu for disgrace and an earldom. I will
not abide by the arbitrement of a Pope who has dared to affix a curse
upon freedom. I will not so violate the principle which in these realms
knits king and people, as to arrogate to my single arm the right to
dispose of the birthright of the living, and their races unborn; nor will
I deprive the meanest soldier under my banner, of the joy and the glory
to fight for his native land. If William seek me, he shall find me,
where war is the fiercest, where the corpses of his men lie the thickest
on the plains, defending this standard, or rushing on his own. And so,
not Monk and Pope, but God in his wisdom, adjudge between us!"

"So be it," said Mallet de Graville, solemnly, and his helmet re-closed
over his face. "Look to it, recreant knight, perjured Christian, and
usurping King! The bones of the Dead fight against thee."

"And the fleshless hand