Githa rested her face on her son’s shoulder, and her tears blinded her. The door opened gently, and Harold entered; and with the Earl, a pale dark-haired boy, Haco; the son of Sweyn.
But Githa, absorbed in her darling Wolnoth, scarce saw the grandchild reared afar from her knees, and hurried at once to Harold. In his presence she felt comfort and safety; for Wolnoth leant on her heart, and her heart leant on Harold.
“O son, son!” she cried, “firmest of hand, surest of faith, and wisest of brain, in the house of Godwin, tell me that he yonder, he thy young brother, risks no danger in the halls of the Normans!”
“Not more than in these, mother,” answered Harold, soothing her, with caressing lip and gentle tone. “Fierce and ruthless, men say, is William the Duke against foes with their swords in their hands, but debonnair and mild to the gentle 105, frank host and kind lord. And these Normans have a code of their own, more grave than all morals, more binding than even their fanatic religion. Thou knowest it well, mother, for it comes from thy race of the North, and this code of honour, they call it, makes Wolnoth’s head as sacred as the relics of a saint set in zimmes. Ask only, my brother, when thou comest in sight of the Norman Duke, ask only ‘the kiss of peace,’ and, that kiss on thy brow, thou wilt sleep more safe than if all the banners of England waved over thy couch.” 106
“But how long shall the exile be?” asked Githa, comforted. Harold’s brow fell.
“Mother, not even to cheer thee will I deceive. The time of the hostageship rests with the King and the Duke. As long as the one affects fear from the race of Godwin, as long as the other feigns care for such priests or such knights as were not banished from the realm, being not courtiers, but scattered wide and far in convent and homestead, so long will Wolnoth and Haco be guests in the Norman halls.”
Githa wrung her hands.
“But comfort, my mother; Wolnoth is young, his eye is keen, and his spirit prompt and quick. He will mark these Norman captains, he will learn their strength and their weakness, their manner of war, and he will come back, not as Edward the King came, a lover of things un-Saxon, but able to warn and to guide us against the plots of the camp-court, which threatens more, year by year, the peace of the world. And he will see there arts we may worthily borrow: not the cut of a tunic, and the fold of a gonna, but the arts of men who found states and build nations. William the Duke is splendid and wise; merchants tell us how crafts thrive under his iron hand, and war-men say that his forts are constructed with skill and his battle-schemes planned as the mason plans key-stone and arch, with weight portioned out to the prop, and the force of the hand made tenfold by the science of the brain. So that the boy will return to us a man round and complete, a teacher of greybeards, and the sage of his kin; fit for earldom and rule, fit for glory and England. Grieve not, daughter of the Dane kings, that thy son, the best loved, hath nobler school and wider field than his brothers.”
This appeal touched the proud heart of the niece of Canute the Great, and she almost forgot the grief of her love in the hope of her ambition.
She dried her tears and smiled upon Wolnoth, and already, in the dreams of a mother’s vanity, saw him great as Godwin in council, and prosperous as Harold in the field. Nor, half Norman as he was, did the young man seem insensible of the manly and elevated patriotism of his brother’s hinted lessons, though he felt they implied reproof. He came to the Earl, whose arm was round his mother, and said with a frank heartiness not usual to a nature somewhat frivolous and irresolute:
“Harold, thy tongue could kindle stones into men, and warm those men into Saxons. Thy Wolnoth shall not hang his head with shame when he comes back to our merrie land with shaven locks and spurs of gold. For if thou doubtest his race from his look, thou shalt put thy right hand on his heart, and feel England beat there in every pulse.”
“Brave words, and well spoken,” cried the Earl, and he placed his hand on the boy’s head as in benison.
Till then, Haco had stood apart, conversing with the infant Thyra, whom his dark, mournful face awed and yet touched, for she nestled close to him, and put her little hand in his; but now, inspired no less than his cousin by Harold’s noble speech, he came proudly forward by Wolnoth’s side, and said:
“I, too, am English, and I have the name of Englishman to redeem.”
Ere Harold could reply, Githa exclaimed:
“Leave there thy right hand on my child’s head, and say, simply: ‘By my troth and my plight, if the Duke detain Wolnoth, son of Githa, against just plea, and King’s assent to his return, I, Harold, will, failing letter and nuncius, cross the seas, to restore the child to the mother.’” 107 Harold hesitated.
A sharp cry of reproach that went to his heart broke from Githa’s lips.
“Ah! cold and self-heeding, wilt thou send him to bear a peril from which thou shrinkest thyself?”
“By my troth and my plight, then,” said the Earl, “if, fair time elapsed, peace in England, without plea of justice, and against my king’s fiat, Duke William of Normandy detain the hostages;—thy son and this dear boy, more sacred and more dear to me for his father’s woes,—I will cross the seas, to restore the child to the mother, the fatherless to his fatherland. So help me, all-seeing One, Amen and Amen!”
CHAPTER IV
We have seen, in an earlier part of this record, that Harold possessed, amongst his numerous and more stately possessions, a house, not far from the old Roman dwelling-place of Hilda. And in this residence he now (save when with the King) made his chief abode. He gave as the reasons for his selection, the charm it took, in his eyes, from that signal mark of affection which his ceorls had rendered him, in purchasing the house and tilling the ground in his absence; and more especially the convenience of its vicinity to the new palace at Westminster; for, by Edward’s special desire, while the other brothers repaired to their different domains, Harold remained near his royal person. To use the words of the great Norwegian chronicler, “Harold was always with the Court itself, and nearest to the King in all service.”
“The King loved him very much, and kept him as his own son, for he had no children.”’ This attendance on Edward was naturally most close at the restoration to power of the Earl’s family. For Harold, mild and conciliating, was, like Alred, a great peacemaker, and Edward had never cause to complain of him, as he believed he had of the rest of that haughty house. But the true spell which made dear to Harold the rude building of timber, with its doors open all day to his lithsmen, when with a light heart he escaped from the halls of Westminster, was the fair face of Edith his neighbour. The impression which this young girl had made upon Harold seemed to partake of the strength of a fatality. For Harold had loved her before the marvellous beauty of her womanhood began; and, occupied from his earliest youth in grave and earnest affairs, his heart had never been frittered away on the mean and frivolous affections of the idle. Now, in that comparative leisure of his stormy life, he was naturally most open to the influence of a charm more potent than all the glamoury of Hilda.
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