of his brother. A treasury exhausted by the lavish and profitless
waste of Edward; a land without castle or bulwark, even at the mouths
of the rivers; a people grown inert by long peace, and so accustomed
to own lord and king in the northern invaders, that a single
successful battle might induce half the population to insist on the
Saxon coming to terms with the foe, and yielding, as Ironsides did to
Canute, one half of the realm. He enlarged on the terror of the
Norsemen that still existed throughout England, and the affinity
between the Northumbrians and East Anglians with the race of Hardrada.
That affinity would not prevent them from resisting at the first; but
grant success, and it would reconcile them to the after sway. And,
finally, he aroused Hardrada's emulation by the spur of the news, that
the Count of the Normans would seize the prize if he himself delayed
to forestall him.

These various representations, and the remembrance of Canute's
victory, decided Hardrada; and, when Tostig ceased, he stretched his
hand towards his slumbering warships, and exclaimed:

"Eno'; you have whetted the beaks of the ravens, and harnessed the
steeds of the sea!"




CHAPTER VII.


Meanwhile, King Harold of England had made himself dear to his people,
and been true to the fame he had won as Harold the Earl. From the