"And we and our children would be burdened for ever to feed one man's
ambition, whenever he saw a king to dethrone, or a realm to seize."

And then cried a general chorus:

"'t shall not be--it shall not!"

The assembly broke at once into knots of tens, twenties, thirties,
gesticulating and speaking aloud, like freemen in anger. And ere
William, with all his prompt dissimulation, could do more than smother
his rage, and sit griping his sword hilt, and setting his teeth, the
assembly dispersed.

Such were the free souls of the Normans under the greatest of their
chiefs; and had those souls been less free, England had not been
enslaved in one age, to become free again, God grant, to the end of
time!




CHAPTER IX.


Through the blue skies over England there rushed the bright stranger--
a meteor, a comet, a fiery star! "such as no man before ever saw;" it
appeared on the 8th, before the kalends of May; seven nights did it
shine [235], and the faces of sleepless men were pale under the angry
glare.