“You were but young in those days,” William continued, “and scarce, I trow, can recollect the scenes which to my older memory are but as things of yesterday. Then, then, indeed, our races were at variance, and your good sire—peace to his soul!—worked me and mine sore scathe and trouble. Yet was it natural, most natural! For in those times your excellent and venerable king—long may he sway the sceptre he so honors!—lived with me upon terms of the most close and cordial friendship. Ay, in good sooth, we were as two brothers—living beneath the same roof, eating of the same board, and drinking from one cup! Not thou and I, my Harold, are more sure comrades. Ay! and he promised me—this in thy private ear—if ever he should gain the throne of England, to leave me by his will, in default of his own issue, heir to that noble kingdom. I doubt not of his troth nor loyalty, though it is years since we spoke of it. You have more lately been about him: hast ever heard him speak of it? What thinkest thou of his plighted faith? He is not one, I do believe, to register a vow in heaven, and fall from it!”
Taken thus by surprise, annoyed and much embarrassed by the turn their converse had thus taken, Harold turned pale, and actually stammered, as he made reply:—
“He never had presumed to question his liege lord and king on matters of such import. The king had never dropped the slightest hint to him concerning the succession. If he had sworn, doubtless he would perform his oath: he was famed, the world over, for his strict sanctity; how, then, should he be perjured? He doubted not, had he so promised, the duke would have no reason to complain of any breach of faith in good King Edward’s testament.”
“Ay! it is so,” said William, musingly, as it appeared to Harold, although in truth his every word had been premeditated long before. “I had so hoped it would be; and, by my faith, right glad am I that you confirm me in mine aspirations. By your aid, my good friend—with the best Saxon on my side—all else is certain; and by my faith, whatever you shall ask of me, were it my daughter’s hand in marriage, surely it shall be yours when I am king of England!”
Again the words of the Confessor flashed on the mind of the ill-fated Saxon, and he foresaw at once the terrible result of this unwilling confidence. At the same time he saw no means of present extrication, and, with an air of evident embarrassment, he answered in words half-evasive, yet sufficiently conclusive, as he hoped, to stop, for the time being, the unpleasing topic. But this was far from the intent of William, who, having read with an intuitive and almost supernatural sagacity the thought that flashed across the brain of Harold, determined that he should commit himself in terms decisive, and admitting of no dubious explanation. Taking it, then, for granted that he had replied fully in the affirmative—
“Since, then,” he said, “you do engage so loyally to serve me, you shall engage to fortify for me the castle on the heights of Dover; to dig in it good wells of living water; and, at my summons, to surrender it! You shall give me your sister, that she may be espoused unto the noblest of my barons; and you shall have to wife my daughter Alice: some passages, I trow, have gone between ye ere now. Moreover, as a warrant of your faith, your brother Ulfnoth shall yet tarry with me; and when I come to England to possess my crown, then will I yield him to you!”
In all its force, the madness of his conduct now glared upon the very soul of Harold. He saw the guilt he had incurred already; the peril he had brought upon the kinsmen he had come to save; the wo that might result to his loved country! But, seeing this, he saw no better means than to feign acquiescence with this unworthy project, holding himself at liberty to break thereafter an unwilling promise.
No more was said upon the subject. They rode onward as before, but the light-hearted pleasure of the Saxon was destroyed; and though the great duke feigned not to perceive the changed mood of his comrade, he had resolved already that he should yet more publicly commit himself ere he should leave the realm.
At Avranches, but three days after their discourse, William convoked a grand assembly of his lords and barons—the mightiest and the noblest of his vavasours and vassals—the pride of Normandy. There, in the centre of the hall, he caused an immense chest to be deposited, filled to the very brim with the most holy relics—bones of the martyred saints—fragments of the true cross—all that was deemed most sacred and most awful by the true-hearted catholic—and covered with a superb cloth of gold, as though it were an ordinary slab or table. There, seated in high state, upon his chair of dignity—a drawn sword in his hand, wearing his cap of maintenance, circled by fleurs-de-lis, upon his head, and clad in ermined robes of state—he held cour pleusêre of his nobles. The Saxon stood among them, honored among the first at all times, and now the more especially distinguished, that it was his farewell reception previous to his departure for England. After presenting him with the most splendid gifts, and making the most liberal professions of attachment, “Harold,” exclaimed the duke, “before we part, I call on you, before this noble company, here to confirm by oath your promise made to me three days since, ‘to aid me in obtaining, after the death of Edward, the throne and crown of England; to take my daughter Alice to wife; and to send me your sister hither, that I may find for her a princely spouse among my vavasours!’”
Taken a second time at fault, and daring not thus openly to falsify his word—but with a blank and troubled aspect, unsatisfied with his internal reservation, and conscious of his perjury—Harold laid both his hands on two small reliquaries which lay, as if by chance, upon the cloth of gold; and swore, provided he should live, to make good all those promises—“so might God aid him.” And with one deep, solemn acclamation, the whole assembly echoed those last words: “So may God aid him! may God aid! God aid!” At the same instant, on a signal from the duke, the cloth of gold was drawn aside, and Harold saw the sacrilege he must commit, so deeply sworn on things so holy, should he repent, or falsify his oath! He saw, and shuddered visibly, as though he had been stricken by an ague; yet presently, by a powerful effort, rallying all his courage to his aid, he made his last farewells, departed, loaded with gifts and honors, but with a melancholy heart; and sailed immediately for England, leaving the brother, for whose liberty he came a suitor, ten times more deeply forfeit than he had been before. On his first interview with Edward, he related all that had occurred—even his own involuntary oath. And the old sovereign trembled, and grew pale, but manifested nothing of surprise or anger!