"He is alive now to us--speak--" whispered more than one thegn, one
abbot, to Alred and to Stigand. And Stigand, as the harder and more
worldly man of the two, moved up, and bending over the pillow, between
Alred and the King, said:

"O royal son, about to win the crown to which that of earth is but an
idiot's wreath of withered leaves, not yet may thy soul forsake us.
Whom commendest thou to us as shepherd to thy bereaven flock? whom
shall we admonish to tread in those traces thy footsteps leave below?"

The King made a slight gesture of impatience; and the Queen, forgetful
of all but her womanly sorrow, raised her eye and finger in reproof
that the dying was thus disturbed. But the stake was too weighty, the
suspense too keen, for that reverent delicacy in those around; and the
thegns pressed on each other, and a murmur rose, which murmured the
name of Harold.

"Bethink thee, my son," said Alred, in a tender voice tremulous with
emotion; "the young Atheling is too much an infant yet for these
anxious times."

Edward signed his head in assent.

"Then," said the Norman bishop of London, who till that moment had
stood in the rear, almost forgotten amongst the crowd of Saxon
prelates, but who himself had been all eyes and ears. "Then," said
Bishop William, advancing, "if thine own royal line so fail, who so
near to thy love, who so worthy to succeed, as William thy cousin, the
Count of the Normans?"