Harold. After plundering the Isle of Wight, and the Hampshire coasts,
he sailed up the Humber, where his vain heart had counted on friends
yet left him in his ancient earldom; but Harold's soul of vigour was
everywhere. Morcar, prepared by the King's bodes, encountered and
chased the traitor, and, deserted by most of his ships, with but
twelve small craft Tostig gained the shores of Scotland. There, again
forestalled by the Saxon King, he failed in succour from Malcolm, and
retreating to the Orkneys, waited the fleets of Hardrada.

And now Harold, thus at freedom for defence against a foe more
formidable and less unnatural, hastened to make secure both the sea
and the coast against William the Norman. "So great a ship force, so
great a land force, no king in the land had before." All the summer,
his fleets swept the channel; his forces "lay everywhere by the sea."

But alas! now came the time when the improvident waste of Edward began
to be felt. Provisions and pay for the armaments failed [236]. On the
defective resources at Harold's disposal, no modern historian hath
sufficiently dwelt. The last Saxon king, the chosen of the people,
had not those levies, and could impose not those burdens which made
his successors mighty in war; and men began now to think that, after
all, there was no fear of this Norman invasion. The summer was gone;
the autumn was come; was it likely that William would dare to trust
himself in an enemy's country as the winter drew near? The Saxons--
unlike their fiercer kindred of Scandinavia, had no pleasure in war;--
they fought well in front of a foe, but they loathed the tedious
preparations and costly sacrifices which prudence demanded for self-
defence. They now revolted from a strain upon their energies, of the
necessity of which they were not convinced! Joyous at the temporary
defeat of Tostig, men said, "Marry, a joke indeed, that the Norman