CHAPTER VII.
The soul of all council and cabal on behalf of Harold, which has led
to the determination of the principal chiefs, and which now succeeded
it--was Haco.
His rank as son of Sweyn, the first-born of Godwin's house--a rank
which might have authorised some pretensions on his own part, gave him
all field for the exercise of an intellect singularly keen and
profound. Accustomed to an atmosphere of practical state-craft in the
Norman court, with faculties sharpened from boyhood by vigilance and
meditation, he exercised an extraordinary influence over the simple
understandings of the homely clergy and the uncultured thegns.
Impressed with the conviction of his early doom, he felt no interest
in the objects of others; but equally believing that whatever of
bright, and brave, and glorious, in his brief, condemned career, was
to be reflected on him from the light of Harold's destiny, the sole
desire of a nature, which, under other auspices, would have been
intensely daring and ambitious, was to administer to Harold's
greatness. No prejudice, no principle, stood in the way of this
dreary enthusiasm. As a father, himself on the brink of the grave,
schemes for the worldly grandeur of the son, in which he confounds and
melts his own life, so this sombre and predestined man, dead to earth
and to joy and the emotions of the heart, looked beyond his own tomb,
to that existence in which he transferred and carried on his ambition.
If the leading agencies of Harold's memorable career might be, as it
were, symbolised and allegorised, by the living beings with which it
was connected--as Edith was the representative of stainless Truth--as
Gurth was the type of dauntless Duty--as Hilda embodied aspiring
Imagination--so Haco seemed the personation of Worldly Wisdom. And
cold in that worldly wisdom Haco laboured on, now conferring with
Alred and the partisans of Harold; now closeted with Edwin and Morcar;
now gliding from the chamber of the sick King.--That wisdom foresaw
all obstacles, smoothed all difficulties; ever calm, never resting;
marshalling and harmonising the things to be, like the ruthless hand
of a tranquil fate. But there was one with whom Haco was more often
than with all others--one whom the presence of Harold had allured to
that anxious scene of intrigue, and whose heart leapt high at the
hopes whispered from the smileless lips of Haco.
