"And if you now put to him that choice, think you it will favour your views? Will he not reject your proffers, and with hot scorn?"
"Scorn! darest thou that word to me?" cried the Duke. "Scorn! have I no headsman whose axe is as sharp as Harold's? and the neck of a captive is not sheathed in my Norman mail."
"Pardon, pardon, my liege," said Mallet, with spirit; but to save my chief from a hasty action that might bring long remorse, I spoke thus boldly. Give the Earl at least fair warning:—a prison, or fealty to thee, that is the choice before him!—let him know it; let him see that thy dungeons are dark, and thy walls impassable. Threaten not his life—brave men care not for that!—threaten thyself nought, but let others work upon him with fear of his freedom. I know well these Saxish men; I know well Harold; freedom is their passion, they are cowards when threatened with the doom of four walls." [197]
"I conceive thee, wise son," exclaimed Odo.
"Ha!" said the Duke, slowly; "and yet it was to prevent such suspicion that I took care, after the first meeting, to separate him from Haco and Wolnoth, for they must have learned much in Norman gossip, ill to repeat to the Saxon."
"Wolnoth is almost wholly Norman," said the bishop, smiling; "Wolnoth is bound par-amours, to a certain fair Norman dame; and, I trow well, prefers her charms here to the thought of his return. But Haco, as thou knowest, is sullen and watchful."
"So much the better companion for Harold now," said De Graville.
"I am fated ever to plot and to scheme!" said the Duke, groaning, as if he had been the simplest of men; "but, nathless, I love the stout Earl, and I mean all for his own good,—that is, compatibly with my rights and claims to the heritage of Edward my cousin."
"Of course," said the bishop.