The King made no answer.
“May this crumb of bread choke me,” said the Earl, in great emotion, “if I am guilty of thy brother’s blood!” [131] But scarcely had the bread touched his lips, when his eyes fixed, the long warning symptoms were fulfilled. And he fell to the ground, under the table, sudden and heavy, smitten by the stroke of apoplexy.
Harold and Gurth sprang forward; they drew their father from the ground. His face, still deep-red with streaks of purple, rested on Harold’s breast; and the son, kneeling, called in anguish on his father: the ear was deaf.
Then said the King, rising:
“It is the hand of God: remove him!” and he swept from the room, exulting.
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.