ruth, name and lordship; even their
popular name for their national assembly of the Witan is, 'The Wealthy.'
[50] He who is but a ceorl to-day, let him be rich, and he may be earl
to-morrow, marry in king's blood, and rule armies under a gonfanon
statelier than a king's; while he whose fathers were ealdermen and
princes, if, by force or by fraud, by waste or by largess, he become
poor, falls at once into contempt, and out of his state,--sinks into a
class they call 'six-hundred men,' in their barbarous tongue, and his
children will probably sink still lower, into ceorls. Wherefore gold is
the thing here most coveted; and by St. Michael, the sin is infectious."

William listened to the speech with close attention. "Good," said he,
rubbing slowly the palm of his right hand over the back of the left; "a
land all compact with the power of one race, a race of conquering men, as
our fathers were, whom nought but cowardice or treason can degrade,--such
a land, O Rolf of Hereford, it were hard indeed to subjugate, or decoy,
or tame--"

"So has my lord the Duke found the Bretons; and so also do I find the
Welch upon my marches of Hereford."

"But," continued William, not heeding the interruption, "where wealth is
more than blood and race, chiefs may be bribed or menaced; and the
multitude--by'r Lady, the multitude are the same in all lands, mighty
under valiant and faithful leaders, powerless as sheep without them. But
to my question, my gentle Rolf; this London must be rich?" [51]

"Rich enow," answered Rolf, "to coin into armed men, that should stretch
from Rouen to Flanders on the one hand, and Paris on the other."

"In the veins of Matilda, whom thou wooest for wife," said Fitzosborne,
abruptly, "flows the blood of Charlemagne. God grant his empire to the
children she shall bear thee!"

The Duke bowed his head, and kissed a relic suspended from his throat.
Farther sign of approval of his counsellor's words he gave not, but after
a pause, he said:

"When I depart, Rolf, thou wendest back to thy marches. These Welch are
brave and fierce, and shape work enow for thy hands."

"Ay, by my halidame! poor sleep by the side of the beehive you have
stricken down."

"Marry, then," said William, "let the Welch prey on Saxon, Saxon on
Welch; let neither win too easily. Remember our omens to-day, Welch hawk
and Saxon bittern, and over their corpses, Duke William's Norway falcon!
Now dress we for the complin [52] and the ba