Aiding, animating, cheering, directing all, while the dykes were fast hollowed, and the breastworks fast rose, the King of England rode his palfrey from line to line, and work to work, when, looking up, he saw Haco leading towards him up the slopes, a monk, and a warrior whom, by the banderol on his spear and the cross on his shield, he knew to be one of the Norman knighthood.
At that moment Gurth and Leofwine, and those thegns who commanded counties, were thronging round their chief for instructions. The King dismounted, and beckoning them to follow, strode towards the spot on which had just been planted his royal standard. There halting, he said with a grave smile:
"I perceive that the Norman Count hath sent us his bodes; it is meet that with me, you, the defenders of England, should hear what the Norman saith."
"If he saith aught but prayer for his men to return to Rouen,— needless his message, and short our answer," said Vebba, the bluff thegn of Kent.
Meanwhile the monk and the Norman knight drew near and paused at some short distance, while Haco, advancing, said briefly:
"These men I found at our outposts; they demand to speak with the
King."
"Under his standard the King will hear the Norman invader," replied
Harold; "bid them speak."
The same sallow, mournful, ominous countenance, which Harold had before seen in the halls of Westminster, rising deathlike above the serge garb of the Benedict of Caen, now presented itself, and the monk thus spoke:
"In the name of William, Duke of the Normans in the field, Count of Rouen in the hall, Claimant of all the realms of Anglia, Scotland, and the Walloons, held under Edward his cousin, I come to thee, Harold his liege and Earl."
"Change thy titles, or depart," said Harold, fiercely, his brow no longer mild in its majesty, but dark as midnight. "What says William the Count of the Foreigners, to Harold, King of the Angles, and Basileus of Britain?"