THE HOST OF THE NORMANS.

"London! London! London!" exclaimed Ned, the son of Webb, slowly and thoughtfully. "After all I had heard and read about this place, I hadn't the ghost of an idea of what it would really be. I went through all the London guide-books, too, that Uncle Jack brought home with him. I guess it changed a good deal before they were printed."

He had other remarks to make, and some of them were uncomplimentary. It appeared that he had been going through all quarters of the English capital city, ever since he rode into it with the house-carles of the king. He knew something of its history, old British, Roman, Saxon, and he could add to that wonderful ideas of what it would be in the years to come. He had taken careful notes of its larger buildings, its walls, and fortifications.

"I think that Duke William was wise," he remarked, "in not coming here until he was entirely ready. It's a strong place. He could not have taken it right away. King Harold knew it could stand a siege or he would not have gone to fight the Vikings."

Nevertheless, until the return of their king and his army, the people of London had been in a panic of fear lest their town should be taken and sacked by the invaders.

"Now," said Ned, at last, "I have seen enough of these dirty streets. They are as bad as those of York, or worse. I'll go and get my horse and see if Father Brian has come."

His learned Irish friend had been full of affairs of his own ever since their arrival. He too, moreover, had been exploring London, and he had formed a very low opinion of its civilisation. Ned found him waiting, shortly, in the queer old hostelry which had been assigned them by the army authorities as their quarters.

"My boy!" exclaimed Father Brian. "I am glad to see thee. Oh, the heathen town that this is! It is full of thieves. It is exceedingly disorderly and dirty. I may say that the army being here doth not make it any better. Ah, me! I shall be glad when the battle is over and we know which of the twain is to be king of this place. Whichever it may be, he hath a long, hard bit of work before him to make this country what it ought to be."

There could be no doubt of that, but Ned, the son of Webb, was not just now much interested in questions of reform and education. His head was full of army affairs, and Father Brian was his best newspaper.

"What?" exclaimed the missionary, in reply to Ned's questioning. "Will the Saxons fight? Indeed they will, and King Harold himself is to lead his army. I am told that his brother Gyrth—the brave man that he is!—asked permission to lead this battle himself, and urged the king to stay out of it. He said that then Harold would have time to gather more troops. Gyrth might be defeated and killed, but the kingdom would not be lost all at once. What is more, Harold might lay waste all the lands nearest the Normans and starve them out, fighting them inch by inch. He is an unselfish patriot, to offer his life in that way."

"What did the king say?" asked Ned.

"As thou mightest expect, I think," replied Father Brian. "He declared that he would waste no English land nor burn an English house. He would allow no other man to fight and die in his place. He would lead his own army, he said, and he is right about that."

"No, he isn't," said Ned. "He had better take Gyrth's advice. He is risking too much upon one battle. He hath not men enough here to beat the Normans."

"King Harold knoweth best," said Father Brian. "His men would not fight as well under anybody else. His absence might dishearten them. Now, I tell thee: they say that the Norman duke hath sixty thousand men, but that the most of them are of all sorts, taken as they came. Harold of England hath only a quarter as many, indeed, but the main body of them consists of picked and chosen warriors, well-disciplined veterans. There is a great strength in that."

"Thou meanest," said Ned, "that no common men are fit to face the house-carles? The duke should have seen them at Stamford."

"He knoweth them, I suppose," said Father Brian. "It maketh him slow and cautious. The thingmen will all die where they stand, and I think that many other men will die when they do. It is a pity that they were at the north and not here when the fleet of William came to Pevensey. Had they been at hand, the Normans would not have gotten ashore at all. Harold would have slaughtered them at the water's edge."

"All of that is Tostig's work," said Ned, angrily. "He stirred up Hardrada to come with his Vikings, just at the worst time."

"He hath paid for it with his life," replied Father Brian, "and it is a heavy load for any man to put upon his soul. One bad, ambitious, selfish plotter may sometimes do a vast amount of bloody mischief."

All that was of the past, and there was no help for it. Everybody was well aware, moreover, that there had been an exchange of embassies, day after day, between the king and Duke William. Terms of settlement had been offered and rejected, for neither of them would give up the main point of dispute, the right to the crown of England. Therefore there could be no compromise, and the sword must decide.

While the two friends had been talking, their horses had been brought out. They mounted now, and rode out together through one of the southerly gates.

"These walls and the forts are quite strong," remarked Father Brian. "The best work on them was done long ago by the Romans. I have thought that if I were Harold I would wait for the Normans at this place."

"One of the house-carles told me," said Ned, "that the king had chosen a better. He had seen it himself. He hadn't the least idea that the king will be beaten."

"He would not be," replied the missionary, "if all of his men were like them. Man for man, the Normans have nothing like them. They will cleave through shield or mail or helmet with a blow of their long-handled axes. They fear nothing."

The guards posted at the city gates were not questioning any who came or went, and people from all directions were seeking safety within the walls. None of these had yet been harmed, but before Ned and his companion had ridden many miles they found the roads crowded with men, women, and children, fleeing inland from the cruelty of the invaders. Terrible tales were told by these poor fugitives of the atrocities already inflicted upon the shore-folk by the savage rabble of which a large part of William's army consisted. This was to have been expected, whether the duke willed it or not, and Saxon England was receiving a sad warning of the methods by which, from that time onward, its conquest was to be completed.

Both Ned, the son of Webb, and the missionary were now getting excited, and they rode faster. The whole affair was becoming more real to them. It was a tremendous thing to think of. The entire future history of England was about to be decided by one great fight, and everything relating to that was to be studied with almost feverish interest.

It was late in the day when Father Brian drew his rein, exclaiming:

"There, my boy, look yonder! That is the ridge and hill of Senlac. That is where Harold hath chosen to wait for William. He is wise. It is a very strong military position."

"Then why on earth," asked Ned, "did not the duke send a force ahead and seize it? It was right in his way, if he intended to march for London."

"Perhaps he knew it not," said Father Brian. "He is in a strange country. I believe that he would prefer to have the Saxon army come on and meet him, at almost any place. What he needeth most of all is this very battle to be fought without delay, for his host is eating up its provisions. This ridge of Senlac, if thou wilt mark it, will prove a death-trap for him or for Harold, as the fight may turn either way."

"Can the king be caught in it?" asked Ned.

"I know not, yet," grimly responded the missionary. "I heard once, though, of a man who trapped a bear. The trap was a good one, and the bear was in it."

"How did it work, then?" asked Ned.

"I heard that soon there was very little left of either the trap or the hunter," growled Father Brian. "It was a large bear. Come on, now, and we will see what all these men are doing. They are as busy as bees."

The long, low hill toward which they were riding was somewhat steep upon its southerly side. From end to end, it now swarmed with toilers. It had been generally understood that the Saxon army had not yet left London, and who, then, were these?

Father Brian gazed at them in silence for a minute or so before he turned in his saddle to say, with energy:

"The trap is well set for catching the duke. King Harold knew what might be done with this reach of land. He hath sent on his two brothers and a sufficient force to fortify the ridge. Seest thou? They are making a strong breastwork of timber and in some places more than that. I think it might stop any charge of Duke William's best horsemen. They will fare but badly, with Harold's axmen behind the barrier. Let us ride on."

There was an elevation high enough to be described by Ned as a hill, at a little distance behind the ridge, toward the right, and here, too, the men were fortifying. The timber-work defences at the front were sufficiently extensive to bar the entire way by which the Normans must come in their march northward from their camps. These were not now at their Pevensey landing-place, but near the coast village of Hastings, several miles nearer to Senlac.

"That means Bloody Pond, or the Lake of Blood," remarked Ned. "There is a pond in New York State that is named so from an old fight with the Indians. I don't see any kind of pond around here."

"There may have been one, once," replied Father Brian. "Maybe they let the water out of it, or it dried up somehow and left the name of it sticking to the hill. There will be blood enough spilled here to fill a pond, I am afraid."

They rode nearer the hill, now, and on the crest of it they saw two mailed men on horseback.

"Hear them!" whispered Father Brian. "Hark to the two great earls!"

"Oh, Gyrth, my brother," said one of them, loudly and cheerfully, "here will we set up the standards. I think the axmen of England can hold yonder lines against all the motley pirates under Duke William."

"Or else," calmly responded Gyrth, "here will the sons of Godwin die. Our brother Sveyn is gone, long since. Tostig is slain. Harold and thou and I remain. Oh, Leofwine, thou art ever light-hearted, but yonder is a mighty host, between us and the sea."

"So be it," responded Leofwine, as recklessly as ever. "Let them come on. I care not at all to live under the yoke of William the Norman. It were far better to die in battle."

"I would that all England were of one mind with thee in that matter," replied Gyrth. "Then were we not so few, this day. The levies of the midland counties are all so laggard in coming. Moreover, Edwin and Morcar have been but half-hearted, from the beginning. I think they wait to hear the ending of this very battle."

"They made a good fight at Fulford," said Leofwine. "Many of the Northumberland spearmen were at Stamford bridge. If we may but baffle the first assault of the Normans and hold them in check a few days, we shall soon thereafter be strong enough to send the Duke of Normandy back to his ships."

"Such is the war policy of Harold," responded Gyrth. "There is a deep wisdom in it if we may hold our lines through but one day only. I will say no more, now, my brother. I have a strange foreboding upon me, and I like not the name of this place."

"The Lake of Blood?" said Leofwine. "Ay! All England will be made red enough if we hold not the hill against Duke William. Who knoweth the spot that waiteth for thine and mine?"

"God only!" responded Gyrth. "I had thought, too, that he would fight on our side for the freedom of England."

They turned their horses' heads and rode away from the hill to pass along the lines, inspecting the defences. Both of the listeners were silent a moment, for they had heard enough to make them thoughtful.

"Those two are brave men," said Father Brian, then. "I fear they have spoken a hard truth. The people have not come to the king's help loyally. They may pay for their lack, sorely, after their king is gone from them. Didst thou hear them speak of their older brother, Sveyn? He was like them for fighting well, but he had a wild spirit in him. It is rare that there are five in one family that are like the sons of old Earl Godwin."

Both of them wished for a closer look at the defences, and they rode onward. It was surprising how much had been done already, and the force which the king had sent forward to protect the workmen was more than half of his army. Nothing less than a rush made with all the power of the invaders could have carried the ridge that evening.

"What I'd like to do, now," said Ned, "is to ride out and try for a look at some of the Norman camps. What sayest thou?"

"I am with thee," replied Father Brian. "We may well ride sword in hand, my boy, lest we chance to run against some stray party of Normans. I will unsling my pole-ax. Where didst thou get that long spear?"

"It was given me by one of the house-carles," said Ned. "It is not too heavy for me, in spite of the long shaft. It is a kind of lance."

"I will get me one like it, then, as soon as I can," said the missionary, combatively. "I may yet have to push some Norman from his saddle. I can throw a spear fairly well, too. That is one thing that I learned at Clontarf."

It was not a bad idea, certainly, that the missionaries who were sent out in such times as these were should be sufficiently well trained in the use of weapons to defend themselves if they should ever be attacked, for instance, by bears or wolves.

At several places the Senlac ridge was cut by ravines, which added to its defensive character. At others, the Saxon workmen had dug deep ditches. At the weaker points, where the slope below was less steep, strong palisades had been set instead of mere breastworks. In these lines of palisades were gateways, and through one of these, which was as yet left open, Ned rode out with Father Brian.

"It's a strong fort!" exclaimed Ned, as he looked behind him at the defences.

"Ay," said Father Brian, "for such men as will hold it. I think better of King Harold's prospects. Unless I am in error, all the men from the London camps were to march this day. They will be here before sunrise to-morrow."

They were indeed arriving at that very hour, but both the king and the duke were willing that there should be no battle until all things were ready on both sides. There were to be further negotiations, and the fort builders were to have more time for the completion of their work.

There were several miles of broken country between Hastings and Senlac. Some of the advanced encampments of the Normans were very nearly midway between the Saxon lines and the seashore.

It was toward one of these outermost camps, containing, it might be, a large force of the invaders, that Ned and the missionary were now riding. So far as they could discern, nothing in the nature of fortification had been done here, for no attack was to be expected. They were aware, nevertheless, that Norman patrols would surely be out on duty, and that loose parties from such an army would probably be going hither and thither, for plunder or even for mere adventure.

"Hearest thou the sound of Duke William's army?" said Ned. "It is like the early morning roar of a great city."

"It is the sound of a cataract!" exclaimed Father Brian. "I hear it, but I was thinking of quite another thing, my boy. A swift dash of the thingmen might make wild work of yonder camp this night."

"King Harold could do a great deal better than that," replied Ned. "If he had a few batteries of heavy artillery on the ridge at Senlac they would be within easy range of all these camps. He could pitch percussion shells among them all night long. Duke William would find it very interesting, I can tell him."

"Speak it in Latin," said the good man, and then Ned found himself compelled to say something which did not include shells and long-range cannon.

"Hither cometh a Norman squad!" suddenly interrupted the missionary, getting ready his pole-ax. "Thy spear, my boy! Be on guard! They are taking us for enemies without question."

"I guess we will have to take them, then," said Ned. "There are only four of them. Here goes!"

He spurred his horse forward as he spoke, but it was not to meet genuine Norman men-at-arms. These fellows were only Breton marauders, armoured imperfectly and mounted on ponies. They came dashing forward irregularly instead of charging together.

"I hate to kill a man," muttered Ned, and he did not do so, for the foremost Breton fell from his pony with no worse harm than a spear-wound in the arm.

Ned's shield caught a sword-cut from the second assailant, and it was not repeated, for Father Brian's ax came down upon that man's helmet, and one more saddle was empty.

"Down with them!" roared the valiant missionary. "Thou hast laid one more upon the sand!"

"The spear didn't go through his corselet half an inch," said Ned, "but there he is."

The fourth Breton exchanged a few blows with some skill, but Father Brian was too much for him, and his pony, also, was quickly riderless.

"FOR FATHER BRIAN'S AX CAME DOWN UPON THAT MAN'S HELMET."

"Father Brian hit him on his shoulder, finely!" exclaimed Ned. "Come on, now! We had better cut stick for Harold's camp."

"Thou art right about that," replied his comrade; "there are more of them coming. It did me much good to upset those heathen. His reverence the Abbot of Clontarf knoweth well what to do with a pole-ax. He drove off twenty wild knaves, one day, when he was all alone. We buried full half of them, that evening, and the others knew better than to come again. I tell thee, my boy, the peace can be well kept in Ireland, especially anywhere near the schools and civilisation."

It was well for them to ride rapidly now, however, for they were pursued almost to a gate of the Saxon army palisades. The one they succeeded in reaching was closed and guarded.

Even when Father Brian shouted out his name and character and what he had been doing, the officer in command of it let them in only to conduct them at once into the presence of Gyrth, Earl of the East Angles.

Near a blazing camp-fire, the light of which glittered and sparkled upon his splendid armour, stood the hero brother of King Harold. Only the king, himself, could be more loftily majestic in form and manner. Not a word did he utter while Father Brian made his very full report, and then he said:

"Our other scouts have erred somewhat, it appeareth. The Normans have advanced their camps nearer than we were aware, but it is of no consequence. O priest, I know thee and thy pupil to be true men. He slew the Norway champion for us at Stamford bridge, and thou wert with him. Go ye to your camp!"

"Speak not a word!" whispered Father Brian to Ned. "Thou mayest explain that matter only to the king himself. Let well enough alone, this night. That is our safeguard now, for we had broken orders and knew it not. Ride on!"

Low, indeed, did Ned, the son of Webb, bow to the Saxon hero, and he went on in silence, but he was thinking, remorsefully:

"What would father and mother say? It isn't honest! I am cheating them about Sikend."

There seemed to be no help for it at present, however, and he was glad to reach his camp and dismount from his over-weary horse.

After supper, not even the roar which arose from the army and the very busy fort-builders could keep him awake, and he slept soundly until morning.