traced; the straight features, not less manly than the Norman, but
less strongly marked: the cheek, hardy with exercise and exposure, yet
still retaining somewhat of youthful bloom under the pale bronze of
its sunburnt surface: the form tall, not gigantic, and vigorous rather
from perfect proportion and athletic habits than from breadth and
bulk--were all singularly characteristic of the Saxon beauty in its
highest and purest type. But what chiefly distinguished this
personage, was that peculiar dignity, so simple, so sedate, which no
pomp seems to dazzle, no danger to disturb; and which perhaps arises
from a strong sense of self-dependence, and is connected with self-
respect--a dignity common to the Indian and the Arab, and rare except
in that state of society in which each man is a power in himself. The
Latin tragic poet touches close upon that sentiment in the fine lines--

"Rex est qui metuit nihil;
Hoc regnum sibi quisque dat." [93]

So stood the brothers, Sweyn the outlaw and Harold the Earl, before
the reputed prophetess. She looked on both with a steady eye, which
gradually softened almost into tenderness, as it finally rested upon
the pilgrim.

"And is it thus," she said at last, "that I see the first-born of
Godwin the fortunate, for whom so often I have tasked the thunder, and
watched the setting sun? for whom my runes have been graven on the
bark of the elm, and the Scin-laeca [94] been called in pale splendour
from the graves of the dead?"

"Hilda," said Sweyn, "not now will I accuse thee of the seeds thou
hast sown: the harvest is gathered and the sickle is broken. Abjure