contagion of the sublime emotion,--all clustered round Githa the
mother of the three guardians of the fated land, and all knelt before
her, by the side of Harold. Suddenly, the widowed Queen, the virgin
wife of the last heir of Cerdic, rose, and holding on high the sacred
rood over those bended heads, said, with devout passion:

"O Lord of Hosts--We Children of Doubt and Time, trembling in the
dark, dare not take to ourselves to question thine unerring will.
Sorrow and death, as joy and life, are at the breath of a mercy
divine, and a wisdom all-seeing: and out of the hours of evil thou
drawest, in mystic circle, the eternity of Good. 'Thy will be done on
earth, as it is in heaven.' If, O Disposer of events, our human
prayers are not adverse to thy pre-judged decrees, protect these
lives, the bulwarks of our homes and altars, sons whom the land offers
as a sacrifice. May thine angel turn aside the blade--as of old from
the heart of Isaac! But if, O Ruler of Nations, in whose sight the
ages are as moments, and generations but as sands in the sea, these
lives are doomed, may the death expiate their sins, and, shrived on
the battle-field, absolve and receive the souls!"




CHAPTER IV.


By the altar of the Abbey Church of Waltham, that night, knelt Edith
in prayer for Harold.

She had taken up her abode in a small convent of nuns that adjoined