"But I must begin some day, and what day better than this? I can fight by thy side."
"There is really little danger, my wife," he said, in reply to the pleading looks of the mother; "I would not take him to meet the Danes, but there is less danger in these dainty Frenchmen. The grandson of Alfgar should be encouraged, not restrained, when he seeks to play the man, even as we repress not, but stimulate the first feeble attempts of the young falcon to strike its prey."
The Lady Winifred said no more at the time, for the duties of a host demanded her lord's care. The moon was high in the heavens ere the last song was sung, the last tale told, and the guests dismissed with these parting words:
"And now, my merry men all, your own homes claim your presence. One day ye may safely give to rest; the day after tomorrow we march again; for Harold will complete his levies on the 10th, and we must not be behind. Goodnight! Saints and angels guard your well-deserved rest."
The brief period of rest passed rapidly away, and the last night came--the last before departure for the fatal field of Senlac. Oh, how little did the Englishmen who left their homes with such confidence dream of the fatal collapse of their fame and glory which awaited them! They fell into the fatal error of underestimating their foe. Had it been otherwise, a host had assembled which had crushed the foreign invader; whereas there were few thanes in the midlands, and scarce any in the northern shires, who thought it worth while to follow Harold to Sussex.
So there were many who cried, "We have defended the northern shores and beaten the Danes; let the men of Sussex take their turn with these puny Frenchmen; we will turn out fast enough if they be beaten."
Alas! it was too late to "turn out" when the only Englishman whose genius equalled that of William lay dead on the fatal field, and there was no king in Israel.
Amidst the general confidence begotten of the victory at Stamford Bridge there were some upon whom the dread shadow of the future had fallen, and who realised the crisis; foremost amongst these was the patriot king himself. He knew the foe, and was perhaps the only man in the country who did; he knew that civilisation had only sharpened the genius of the descendants of Rollo, without abating one jot of their prowess; that they were more terrible now than when they ravaged Normandy, two centuries earlier.
Yet he flinched not from the struggle.
And amidst all the confidence of her dependants, some such shadow seemed to have fallen on the Lady Winifred. An unaccountable presentiment of evil weighed upon her spirits. She could not leave her husband one moment while he was yet spared to her; ever and anon she was surprised into tender words of endearment, foreign to the general tenor of her daily life, which partook of the reserve of an unemotional age.