CHAPTER VIII.
It was the second day after that which assured him the allegiance of the thegns, that a message was brought to Harold from the Lady Aldyth. She was in Oxford, at a convent, with her young daughter by the Welch King; she prayed him to visit her. The Earl, whose active mind, abstaining from the intrigues around him, was delivered up to the thoughts, restless and feverish, which haunt the repose of all active minds, was not unwilling to escape awhile from himself. He went to Aldyth. The royal widow had laid by the signs of mourning; she was dressed with the usual stately and loose-robed splendour of Saxon matrons, and all the proud beauty of her youth was restored to her cheek. At her feet was that daughter who afterwards married the Fleance so familiar to us in Shakespeare, and became the ancestral mother of those Scottish kings who had passed, in pale shadows, across the eyes of Macbeth [216]; by the side of that child, Harold to his surprise saw the ever ominous face of Haco.
But proud as was Aldyth, all pride seemed humbled into woman’s sweeter emotions at the sight of the Earl, and she was at first unable to command words to answer his greeting.
Gradually, however, she warmed into cordial confidence. She touched lightly on her past sorrows; she permitted it to be seen that her lot with the fierce Gryffyth had been one not more of public calamity than of domestic grief, and that in the natural awe and horror which the murder of her lord had caused, she felt rather for the ill-starred king than the beloved spouse. She then passed to the differences still existing between her house and Harold’s, and spoke well and wisely of the desire of the young Earls to conciliate his grace and favour.
While thus speaking, Morcar and Edwin, as if accidentally, entered, and their salutations of Harold were such as became their relative positions; reserved, not distant—respectful, not servile. With the delicacy of high natures, they avoided touching on the cause before the Witan (fixed for the morrow), on which depended their earldoms or their exile.
Harold was pleased by their bearing, and attracted towards them by the memory of the affectionate words that had passed between him and Leofric, their illustrious grandsire, over his father’s corpse. He thought then of his own prayer: “Let there be peace between thine and mine!” and looking at their fair and stately youth, and noble carriage, he could not but feel that the men of Northumbria and of Mercia had chosen well. The discourse, however, was naturally brief, since thus made general; the visit soon ceased, and the brothers attended Harold to the door with the courtesy of the times. Then Haco said, with that faint movement of the lips which was his only approach to a smile:
“Will ye not, noble thegns, give your hands to my kinsman?”
“Surely,” said Edwin, the handsomer and more gentle of the two, and who, having a poet’s nature, felt a poet’s enthusiasm for the gallant deeds even of a rival,—“surely, if the Earl will accept the hands of those who trust never to be compelled to draw sword against England’s hero.”
Harold stretched forth his hand in reply, and that cordial and immemorial pledge of our national friendships was interchanged.