The door was thrown open, and a weary, white-faced man appeared, all
splashed and caked with mud.

'What ill news have you come to bring me?' asked Harold, while the
others all left the board and crowded round to hear.

'My lord the king,' said the messenger, 'I am from Pevensey--the
Normans have landed--Duke William--sixty thousand men--laying waste the
country--ships, horses, men-at-arms----'

'Ha!' said Harold; 'he has chosen a time when the men who guard the
coast are at their harvest; scattered over the country; and there is no
one save myself to gather them together. How long is it since you
left?'

'I hardly know,' replied the messenger; 'I took no count of time. I
have galloped all the way--ridden day and night, changing horses where
I could.'

'Thanks, brave messenger,' said the king; 'by your speed you may have
saved your country. We must set off without delay,' he said, turning
to his guests; 'there is no more time for rest--who is ready to start
for Sussex?'

'I--and I--and I,' said the nobles, hurrying to fetch their followers;
and soon the hall was deserted.

In an hour's time the army was once more upon the march. The two
earls, Edwin and Morcar, whose sister Harold had married, remained in
the north, promising to collect their forces and to follow the king
with all speed.

As Harold approached the south of England, he was joined by hundreds of
men who had fled from the invaders, and were eager to avenge the
destruction of their homesteads.

'The English,' reported Duke William's outposts to their master, 'rush
onward through their pillaged country with the fury of madmen.'

'Let them come, and come soon!' was the duke's reply.

At Senlac, near the town of Hastings in Sussex, the English came in
sight of their foes. The Normans lay encamped upon the plain, while
Harold posted his army on a hill, with a little wood behind, and an old
mossy apple-tree a little to one side.

Night came on, clear and cold; and the two armies lay in sight of one
another's camp-fires, where they could hear the clinking of the
armourer's hammers, and the rough voices of the men on the other side.

When all was ready, the Normans lay down quietly to sleep, and awoke in
the morning refreshed and eager for the fray.

The English sat around their watch-fires, passing the horns of ale and
mead from hand to hand, and singing glees and war-songs. Over all
brooded the thought of the broken oath, and of the cur