these puny Frenchmen; we will turn out fast enough if they be
beaten."

Alas! it was too late to "turn out" when the only Englishman whose
genius equalled that of William lay dead on the fatal field, and
there was no king in Israel.

Amidst the general confidence begotten of the victory at Stamford
Bridge there were some upon whom the dread shadow of the future had
fallen, and who realised the crisis; foremost amongst these was the
patriot king himself. He knew the foe, and was perhaps the only man
in the country who did; he knew that civilisation had only
sharpened the genius of the descendants of Rollo, without abating
one jot of their prowess; that they were more terrible now than
when they ravaged Normandy, two centuries earlier.

Yet he flinched not from the struggle.

And amidst all the confidence of her dependants, some such shadow
seemed to have fallen on the Lady Winifred. An unaccountable
presentiment of evil weighed upon her spirits. She could not leave
her husband one moment while he was yet spared to her; ever and
anon she was surprised into tender words of endearment, foreign to
the general tenor of her daily life, which partook of the reserve
of an unemotional age.

She begged hard that Wilfred might remain at home, but only
prevailed so far as to obtain a promise that he should not actually
enter the battle, and with this she was forced to rest content, to
the great delight of the boy.