CHAPTER VIII.


Back went Hugues Maigrot, the monk, to William, and told the reply of
Harold to the Duke, in the presence of Lanfranc. William himself
heard it in gloomy silence, for Fitzosborne as yet had been wholly
unsuccessful in stirring up the Norman barons to an expedition so
hazardous, in a cause so doubtful; and though prepared for the
defiance of Harold, the Duke was not prepared with the means to
enforce his threats and make good his claim.

So great was his abstraction, that he suffered the Lombard to dismiss
the monk without a word spoken by him; and he was first startled from
his reverie by Lanfranc's pale hand on his vast shoulder, and
Lanfranc's low voice in his dreamy ear:

"Up! Hero of Europe: for thy cause is won! Up! and write with thy
bold characters, bold as if graved with the point of the sword, my
credentials to Rome. Let me depart ere the sun sets: and as I go,
look on the sinking orb, and behold the sun of the Saxon that sets
evermore on England!"

Then briefly, that ablest statesman of the age, (and forgive him,
despite our modern lights, we must; for, sincere son of the Church, he
regarded the violated oath of Harold as entailing the legitimate
forfeiture of his realm, and, ignorant of true political freedom,
looked upon Church and Learning as the only civilisers of men,) then,
briefly, Lanfranc detailed to the listening Norman the outline of the
arguments by which he intended to move the Pontifical court to the
Norman side; and enlarged upon the vast accession throughout all