brow, and the moonlight rested on the roofs and fanes of the land
entrusted to his charge, was the man once more the human hero; not
till she was alone in her desolate chamber, and the terrors of the
coming battle-field chased the angel from her thoughts was the maid
inspired, once more the weeping woman.

A little after sunrise the abbess, who was distantly akin to the house
of Godwin, sought Edith, so agitated by her own fear, that she did not
remark the trouble of her visitor. The supposed miracle of the sacred
Image bowing over the kneeling King, had spread dismay through the
cloisters of both nunnery and abbey; and so intense was the
disquietude of the two brothers, Osgood and Ailred, in the simple and
grateful affection they bore their royal benefactor, that they had
obeyed the impulse of their tender credulous hearts, and left the
monastery with the dawn, intending to follow the King's march [255],
and watch and pray near the awful battle-field. Edith listened, and
made no reply; the terrors of the abbess infected her; the example of
the two monks woke the sole thought which stirred through the
nightmare dream that suspended reason itself; and when, at noon the
abbess again sought the chamber, Edith was gone;--gone, and alone--
none knew wherefore--one guessed whither.

All the pomp of the English army burst upon Harold's view, as, in the
rising sun, he approached the bridge of the capital. Over that bridge
came the stately march,--battle-axe, and spear, and banner, glittering
in the ray. And as he drew aside, and the forces filed before him,
the cry of; "God save King Harold!" rose with loud acclaim and lusty
joy, borne over the waves of the river, startling the echoes in the
ruined keape of the Roman, heard in the halls restored by Canute, and
chiming, like a chorus, with the chaunts of the monks by the tomb of