ng more impatient
in his soul than anybody, but ever confident in his will and his good
fortune. There was brought to him a spy whom Harold had sent to watch
the forces and plans of the enemy; and William dismissed him, saying,
"Harold hath no need to take any care or be at any charges to know how we
be, and what we be doing; he shall see for himself, and shall feel before
the end of the year." At last, on the 27th of September, 1066, the sun
rose on a calm sea and with a favorable wind; and towards evening the
fleet set out. The Mora, the vessel on which William was, and which had
been given to him by his wife, Matilda, led the way; and a figure in
gilded bronze, some say in gold, representing their youngest son,
William, had been placed on the prow, with the face towards England.
Being a better sailer than the others, this ship was soon a long way
ahead; and William had a mariner sent to the top of the mainmast to see
if the fleet were following. "I see nought but sea and sky," said the
mariner. William had the ship brought to; and, the second time, the
mariner said, "I see four ships." Before long he cried, "I see a forest
of masts and sails." On the 29th of September, St. Michael's day, the
expedition arrived off the coast of England, at Pevensey, near Hastings,
and "when the tide had ebbed, and the ships remained aground on the
strand," says the chronicles the landing was effected without obstacle;
not a Saxon soldier appeared on the coast. William was the last to leave
his ship; and on setting foot on the sand he made a false step and fell.
"Bad sign!" was muttered around him; "God have us in His keeping!" "What
say you, lords?" cried William: "by the glory of God, I have grasped
this land with my hands; all that there is of it is ours."

[Illustration: Normans landing on English Coast----353]

With what forces William undertook the conquest of England, how many
ships composed his fleet, and how many men were aboard the ships, are
questions impossible to be decided with any precision, as we have
frequently before had occasion to remark, amidst the exaggerations and
disagreements of chroniclers. Robert Wace reports, in his Romance of
Rou, that he had heard from his father, one of William's servants on this
expedition, that the fleet numbered six hundred and ninety-six vessels,
but he had found in divers writings that there were more than three
thousand. M. Augustin Thierry, after his learned researches,