l blessed those
present! There was no hope for England out of the scanty lines of the
immortal army encamped on the field of Hastings. There, long on earth,
and vain vaunts of poor pride, shall be kept the roll of the
robber-invaders. In what roll are your names, holy Heroes of the Soil?
Yes, may the prayer of the Virgin Queen be registered on high; and
assoiled of all sin, O ghosts of the glorious Dead, may ye rise from your
graves at the trump of the angel; and your names, lost on earth, shine
radiant and stainless amidst the Hierarchy of Heaven!

Dull came the shades of evening, and pale through the rolling clouds
glimmered the rising stars; when,--all prepared, all arrayed,--Harold sat
with Haco and Gurth, in his tent; and before them stood a man, half
French by origin, who had just returned from the Norman camp.

"So thou didst mingle with the men undiscovered?" said the King.

"No, not undiscovered, my lord. I fell in with a knight, whose name I
have since heard as that of Mallet de Graville, who wilily seemed to
believe in what I stated, and who gave me meat and drink, with debonnair
courtesy. Then said he abruptly,--'Spy from Harold, thou hast come to
see the strength of the Norman. Thou shalt have thy will--follow me.'
Therewith he led me, all startled I own, through the lines; and, O King,
I should deem them indeed countless as the sands, and resistless as the
waves, but that, strange as it may seem to thee, I saw more monks than
warriors."

"How! thou jestest!" said Gurth, surprised.

"No; for thousands by thousands, they were praying and kneeling; and
their heads were all shaven with the tonsure of priests."

"Priests are they not," cried Harold, with his calm smile, "but doughty
warriors and dauntless knights." Then he continued his questions to the
spy; and his smile vanished at the accounts, not only of the numbers of
the force, but their vast provision of missiles, and the almost
incredible proportion of their cavalry.

As soon as the spy had been dismissed, the King turned to his kinsmen.

"What think you?" he said; "shall we judge ourselves of the foe? The
night will be dark anon--our steeds are fleet--and not shod with iron
like the Normans;--the sward noiseless--What think you?"

"A merry conceit," cried the blithe Leofwine. "I should like much to see
the boar in his den, ere he taste of my spear-point."

"And I," said Gurth, "do feel so restless a fever in my veins that I
would fa