the bold warrior had been,--he was greater in state and less in soul.
And already, despite all his grand qualities as a ruler, his imperious
nature had betrayed signs of what he (whose constitutional sternness
the Norman freemen, not without effort, curbed into the limits of
justice) might become, if wider scope were afforded to his fiery
passions and unsparing will.

Before the Duke, who was leaning his chin on his hand, stood Mallet de
Graville, speaking earnestly, and his discourse seemed both to
interest and please his lord.

"Eno'!" said William, "I comprehend the nature of the land and its
men,--a land that, untaught by experience, and persuaded that a peace
of twenty or thirty years must last till the crack of doom, neglects
all its defences, and has not one fort, save Dover, between the coast
and the capital,--a land which must be won or lost by a single battle,
and men (here the Duke hesitated,) and men," he resumed with a sigh,
"whom it will be so hard to conquer that, pardex, I don't wonder they
neglect their fortresses. Enough I say, of them. Let us return to
Harold,--thou thinkest, then, that he is worthy of his fame?"

"He is almost the only Englishman I have seen," answered De Graville,
"who hath received scholarly rearing and nurture; and all his
faculties are so evenly balanced, and all accompanied by so composed a
calm, that methinks, when I look at and hear him, I contemplate some
artful castle,--the strength of which can never be known at the first
glance, nor except by those who assail it."

"Thou art mistaken, Sire de Graville," said the Duke, with a shrewd
and cunning twinkle of his luminous dark eyes. "For thou tellest me