CHAPTER IV.
This memorable trial ended, as the reader will have forseen, in the
formal renewal of Sweyn's outlawry, and the formal restitution of the
Earl Godwin and his other sons to their lands and honours, with
declarations imputing all the blame of the late dissensions to the
foreign favourites, and sentences of banishment against them, except
only, by way of a bitter mockery, some varlets of low degree, such as
Humphrey Cock's-foot, and Richard son of Scrob. [92]
The return to power of this able and vigorous family was attended with
an instantaneous effect upon the long-relaxed strings of the imperial
government. Macbeth heard, and trembled in his moors; Gryffyth of
Wales lit the fire-beacon on moel and craig. Earl Rolf was banished,
but merely as a nominal concession to public opinion; his kinship to
Edward sufficed to restore him soon, not only to England, but to the
lordship of the Marches, and thither was he sent, with adequate force,
against the Welch, who had half-repossessed themselves of the borders
they harried. Saxon prelates and abbots replaced the Norman
fugitives; and all were contented with the revolution, save the King,
for the King lost his Norman friends, and regained his English wife.
In conformity with the usages of the times, hostages of the loyalty
and faith of Godwin were required and conceded. They were selected
from his own family; and the choice fell on Wolnoth, his son, and
Haco, the son of Sweyn. As, when nearly all England may be said to
have repassed to the hands of Godwin, it would have been an idle
precaution to consign these hostages to the keeping of Edward, it was
settled, after some discussion, that they should be placed in the
Court of the Norman Duke until such time as the King, satisfied with
the good faith of the family, should authorise their recall:--Fatal
hostage, fatal ward and host!
It was some days after this national crisis, and order and peace were
again established in city and land, forest and shire, when, at the
setting of the sun, Hilda stood alone by the altar-stone of Thor.
The orb was sinking red and lurid, amidst long cloud-wracks of vermeil
and purple, and not one human form was seen in the landscape, save
that tall and majestic figure by the Runic shrine and the Druid
crommell. She was leaning both hands on her wand, or seid-staff, as
it was called in the language of Scandinavian superstition, and
bending slightly forward as in the attitude of listening or
expectation. Long before any form appeared on the road below she
seemed to be aware of coming footsteps, and probably her habits of
life had sharpened her senses; for she smiled, muttered to herself,
"Ere it sets!" and changing her posture, leant her arm on the altar,
and rested her face upon her hand.
At length, two figures came up the road; they neared the hill; they
saw her, and slowly ascended the knoll. The one was dressed in the
serge of a pilgrim, and his cowl thrown back, showed the face where
human beauty and human power lay ravaged and ruined by human passions.
He upon whom the pilgrim lightly leaned was attired simply, without
the brooch or bracelet common to thegns of high degree, yet his port
was that of majesty, and his brow that of mild command. A greater
contrast could not be conceived than that between these two men, yet
united by a family likeness. For the countenance of the last
described was, though sorrowful at that moment, and indeed habitually
not without a certain melancholy, wonderfully imposing from its calm
and sweetness. There, no devouring passions had left the cloud or
ploughed the line; but all the smooth loveliness of youth took dignity
from the conscious resolve of men. The long hair, of a fair brown,
with a slight tinge of gold, as the last sunbeams shot through its
luxuriance, was parted from the temples, and fell in large waves half
way to the shoulder. The eyebrows, darker in hue, arched and finely
traced; the straight features, not less manly than the Norman, but
less strongly marked: the cheek, hardy with exercise and exposure, yet
still retaining somewhat of youthful bloom under the pale bronze of
its sunburnt surface: the form tall, not gigantic, and vigorous rather
from perfect proportion and athletic habits than from breadth and
bulk--were all singularly characteristic of the Saxon beauty in its
highest and purest type. But what chiefly distinguished this
personage, was that peculiar dignity, so simple, so sedate, which no
pomp seems to dazzle, no danger to disturb; and which perhaps arises
from a strong sense of self-dependence, and is connected with self-
respect--a dignity common to the Indian and the Arab, and rare except
in that state of society in which each man is a power in himself. The
Latin tragic poet touches close upon that sentiment in the fine lines--
"Rex est qui metuit nihil;
Hoc regnum sibi quisque dat." [93]
So stood the brothers, Sweyn the outlaw and Harold the Earl, before
the reputed prophetess. She looked on both with a steady eye, which
gradually softened almost into tenderness, as it finally rested upon
the pilgrim.
"And is it thus," she said at last, "that I see the first-born of
Godwin the fortunate, for whom so often I have tasked the thunder, and
watched the setting sun? for whom my runes have been graven on the
bark of the elm, and the Scin-laeca [94] been called in pale splendour
from the graves of the dead?"
"Hilda," said Sweyn, "not now will I accuse thee of the seeds thou
hast sown: the harvest is gathered and the sickle is broken. Abjure
thy dark Galdra [95], and turn as I to the sole light in the future,
which shines from the tomb of the Son Divine."
The Prophetess bowed her head and replied:
"Belief cometh as the wind. Can the tree say to the wind, 'Rest thou
on my boughs,' or Man to Belief, 'Fold thy wings on my heart'? Go
where thy soul can find comfort, for thy life hath passed from its use
on earth. And when I would read thy fate, the runes are as blanks,
and the wave sleeps unstirred on the fountain. Go where the Fylgia
[96], whom Alfader gives to each at his birth, leads thee. Thou didst
desire love that seemed shut from thee, and I predicted that thy love
should awake from the charnel in which the creed that succeeds to the
faith of our sires inters life in its bloom. And thou didst covet the
fame of the Jarl and the Viking, and I blessed thine axe to thy hand,
and wove the sail for thy masts. So long as man knows desire, can
Hilda have power over his doom. But when the heart lies in ashes, I
raise but a corpse, that at the hush of the charm falls again into its
grave. Yet, come to me nearer, O Sweyn, whose cradle I rocked to the
chaunt of my rhyme."
The outlaw turned aside his face, and obeyed.
She sighed as she took his passive hand in her own, and examined the
lines on the palm. Then, as if by an involuntary impulse of fondness
and pity, she put aside his cowl and kissed his brow.
"Thy skein is spun, and happier than the many who scorn, and the few
who lament thee, thou shalt win where they lose. The steel shall not
smite thee, the storm shall forbear thee, the goal that thou yearnest
for thy steps shall attain. Night hallows the ruin,--and peace to the
shattered wrecks of the brave!"
The outlaw heard as if unmoved. But when he turned to Harold, who
covered his face with his hand; but could not restrain the tears that
flowed through the clasped fingers, a moisture came into his own wild,
bright eyes, and he said, "Now, my brother, farewell, for no farther
step shalt thou wend with me."
Harold started, opened his arms, and the outlaw fell upon his breast.
No sound was heard save a single sob, and so close was breast to
breast, that you could not say from whose heart it came. Then the
outlaw wrenched himself from the embrace, and murmured, "And Haco--my
son--motherless, fatherless--hostage in the land of the stranger!
Thou wilt remember--thou wilt shield him; thou be to him mother,
father in the days to come! So may the saints bless thee!" With
these words he sprang down the hillock.
Harold bounded after him; but Sweyn, halting, said, mournfully, "Is
this thy promise? Am I so lost that faith should be broken even with
thy father's son?"
At that touching rebuke, Harold paused, and the outlaw passed his way
alone. As the last glimpse of his figure vanished at the turn of the
road, whence, on the second of May, the Norman Duke and the Saxon King
had emerged side by side, the short twilight closed abruptly, and up
from the far forestland rose the moon.
Harold stood rooted to the spot, and still gazing on the space, when
the Vala laid her hand on his arm.
"Behold, as the moon rises on the troubled gloaming, so rises the fate
of Harold, as yon brief, human shadow, halting between light and
darkness, passes away to night. Thou art now the first-born of a
House that unites the hopes of the Saxon with the fortunes of the
Dane."
"Thinkest thou," said Harold, with a stern composure, "that I can have
joy and triumph in a brother's exile and woe?"
"Not now, and not yet, will the voice of thy true nature be heard; but
the warmth of the sun brings the thunder, and the glory of fortune
wakes the storm of the soul."
"Kinswoman," said Harold, with a slight curl of his lip, "by me at
least have thy prophecies ever passed as the sough of the air; neither
in horror nor with faith do I think of thy incantations and charms;
and I smile alike at the exorcism of the shaveling and the spells of
the Saga. I have asked thee not to bless mine axe, nor weave my sail.
No runic rhyme is on the sword-blade of Harold. I leave my fortunes
to the chance of mine own cool brain and strong arm. Vala, between
thee and me there is no bond."
The Prophetess smiled loftily.
"And what thinkest thou, O self-dependent! what thinkest thou is the
fate which thy brain and thine arm shall will?"
"The fate they have won already. I see no Beyond. The fate of a man
sworn to guard his country, love justice, and do right."
The moon shone full on the heroic face of the young Earl as he spoke;
and on its surface there seemed nought to belie the noble words. Yet,
the Prophetess, gazing earnestly on that fair countenance, said, in a
whisper, that, despite a reason singularly sceptical for the age in
which it had been cultured, thrilled to the Saxon's heart, "Under that
calm eye sleeps the soul of thy sire, and beneath that brow, so haught
and so pure, works the genius that crowned the kings of the north in
the lineage of thy mother the Dane."
"Peace!" said Harold, almost fiercely; then, as if ashamed of the
weakness of his momentary irritation, he added, with a faint smile,
"Let us not talk of these matters while my heart is still sad and away
from the thoughts of the world, with my brother the lonely outlaw.
Night is on us, and the ways are yet unsafe; for the king's troops,
disbanded in haste, were made up of many who turn to robbers in peace.
Alone, and unarmed, save my ateghar, I would crave a night's rest
under thy roof; and"--he hesitated, and as light blush came over his
cheek--"and I would fain see if your grandchild is as fair as when I
last looked on her blue eyes, that then wept for Harold ere he went
into exile."
"Her tears are not at her command, nor her smiles," said the Vala,
solemnly; "her tears flow from the fount of thy sorrows, and her
smiles are the beams from thy joys. For know, O Harold! that Edith is
thine earthly Fylgia; thy fate and her fate are as one. And vainly as
man would escape from his shadow, would soul wrench itself from the
soul that Skulda hath linked to his doom."
Harold made no reply; but his step, habitually slow, grew more quick
and light, and this time his reason found no fault with the oracles of
the Vala.
