'I will forget no detail, good my lord Archbishop,' replied the messenger; and Lanfranc folded his letter, and fastened it with a silken cord, and sealed it with his official seal.
'Naught could be more satisfactory,' he murmured to himself, as he was performing these small offices, 'than the manner in which the Saxons have ranged themselves, in this matter, upon our liege's side. It was a bold stroke on the part of the Lady Judith to warn us of her husband's schemes, and to risk his rage and his danger. Sooth, it had been a dire struggle if the doughty son of Siward had taken his part, as the plotters did well intend. A turmoil raised for the sake of one woman, and foiled by another! Thanks to thee, Judith, the day is ours!'
But not to be ended quite so speedily as the sanguine Primate supposed. A woman was to hold his best troops at bay for a space of three long months, and then to make terms quite other than a choice between imprisonment or the bottom of the sea.
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong!
[6] Lanfranc, Opp. i. 56, translated by Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. ii. p. 136.
CHAPTER XVIII.
BESIEGED.
'Methinks, Emma, my foes will say that Ralph de Guader was a recreant knight, who fled from his devoir and left his lady to fight for him! Beshrew me, but it mislikes me to leave thee!'