CHAPTER V.
For five days and five nights did Godwin lie speechless [132]. And
Harold watched over him night and day. And the leaches [133] would
not bleed him, because the season was against it, in the increase of
the moon and the tides; but they bathed his temples with wheat flour
boiled in milk, according to a prescription which an angel in a dream
[134] had advised to another patient; and they placed a plate of lead
on his breast, marked with five crosses, saying a paternoster over
each cross; together with other medical specifics in great esteem
[135]. But, nevertheless, five days and five nights did Godwin lie
speechless; and the leaches then feared that human skill was in vain.
The effect produced on the court, not more by the Earl's death-stroke
than the circumstances preceding it, was such as defies description.
With Godwin's old comrades in arms it was simple and honest grief; but
with all those under the influence of the priests, the event was
regarded as a direct punishment from Heaven. The previous words of
the King, repeated by Edward to his monks, circulated from lip to lip,
with sundry exaggerations as it travelled: and the superstition of the
day had the more excuse, inasmuch as the speech of Godwin touched near
upon the defiance of one of the most popular ordeals of the accused,--
viz. that called the "corsned," in which a piece of bread was given to
the supposed criminal; if he swallowed it with ease he was innocent;
if it stuck in his throat, or choked him, nay, if he shook and turned
pale, he was guilty. Godwin's words had appeared to invite the
ordeal, God had heard and stricken down the presumptuous perjurer!
Unconscious, happily, of these attempts to blacken the name of his
dying father, Harold, towards the grey dawn succeeding the fifth
night, thought that he heard Godwin stir in his bed. So he put aside
the curtain, and bent over him. The old Earl's eyes were wide open,
and the red colour had gone from his cheeks, so that he was pale as
death.
"How fares it, dear father?" asked Harold.
Godwin smiled fondly, and tried to speak, but his voice died in a
convulsive rattle. Lifting himself up, however, with an effort, he
pressed tenderly the hand that clasped his own, leant his head on
Harold's breast, and so gave up the ghost.
When Harold was at last aware that the struggle was over, he laid the
grey head gently on the pillow; he closed the eyes, and kissed the
lips, and knelt down and prayed. Then, seating himself at a little
distance, he covered his face with his mantle.
At this time his brother Gurth, who had chiefly shared watch with
Harold,--for Tostig, foreseeing his father's death, was busy
soliciting thegn and earl to support his own claims to the earldom
about to be vacant; and Leofwine had gone to London on the previous
day to summon Githa who was hourly expected--Gurth, I say, entered the
room on tiptoe, and seeing his brother's attitude, guessed that all
was over. He passed on to the table, took up the lamp, and looked
long on his father's face. That strange smile of the dead, common
alike to innocent and guilty, had already settled on the serene lips;
and that no less strange transformation from age to youth, when the
wrinkles vanish, and the features come out clear and sharp from the
hollows of care and years, had already begun. And the old man seemed
sleeping in his prime.
So Gurth kissed the dead, as Harold had done before him, and came up
and sate himself by his brother's feet, and rested his head on
Harold's knee; nor would he speak till, appalled by the long silence
of the Earl, he drew away the mantle from his brother's face with a
gentle hand, and the large tears were rolling down Harold's cheeks.
"Be soothed, my brother," said Gurth; "our father has lived for glory,
his age was prosperous, and his years more than those which the
Psalmist allots to man. Come and look on his face, Harold, its calm
will comfort thee."
Harold obeyed the hand that led him like a child; in passing towards
the bed, his eye fell upon the cyst which Hilda had given to the old
Earl, and a chill shot through his veins.
"Gurth," said he, "is not this the morning of the sixth day in which
we have been at the King's Court?"
"It is the morning of the sixth day."
Then Harold took forth the key which Hilda had given him, and unlocked
the cyst, and there lay the white winding-sheet of the dead, and a
scroll. Harold took the scroll, and bent over it, reading by the
mingled light of the lamp and the dawn:
"All hail, Harold, heir of Godwin the great, and Githa the king-born!
Thou hast obeyed Hilda, and thou knowest now that Hilda's eyes read
the future, and her lips speak the dark words of truth. Bow thy heart
to the Vala, and mistrust the wisdom that sees only the things of the
daylight. As the valour of the warrior and the song of the scald, so
is the lore of the prophetess. It is not of the body, it is soul
within soul; it marshals events and men, like the valour--it moulds
the air into substance, like the song. Bow thy heart to the Vala.
Flowers bloom over the grave of the dead. And the young plant soars
high, when the king of the woodland lies low!"
