Book: Harold, Book 3.
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Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Harold, Book 3.
"Not so, Harold," answered Hilda, quickly turning; such was ever the
ceremony due to Saxon king, when he slept in a subject's house, ere
our kinsmen the Danes introduced that unroyal wassail, which left
subject and king unable to hold or to quaff cup, when the board was
left for the bed."
"Thou rebukest, O Hilda, too tauntingly, the pride of Godwin's house,
when thou givest to his homely son the ceremonial of a king. But, so
served, I envy not kings, fair Edith."
He took the cup, raised it to his lips, and when he placed it on the
small table by his side the women had left the chamber, and he was
alone. He stood for some minutes absorbed in reverie, and his
soliloquy ran somewhat thus:
"Why said the Vala that Edith's fate was inwoven with mine? And why
did I believe and bless the Vala, when she so said? Can Edith ever be
my wife? The monk-king designs her for the cloister--Woe, and well-a-
day! Sweyn, Sweyn, let thy doom forewarn me! And if I stand up in my
place and say, 'Give age and grief to the cloister--youth and delight
to man's hearth,' what will answer the monks? 'Edith cannot be thy
wife, son of Godwin, for faint and scarce traced though your affinity
of blood, ye are within the banned degrees of the Church. Edith may
be wife to another, if thou wilt,--barren spouse of the Church or
mother of children who lisp not Harold's name as their father.' Out
on these priests with their mummeries, and out on their war upon human
hearts!"
His fair brow grew stern and fierce as the Norman Duke's in his ire;
and had you seen him at the moment you would have seen the true
brother of Sweyn. He broke from his thoughts with the strong effort
of a man habituated to self-control, and advanced to the narrow
window, opened the lattice, and looked out.
The moon was in all her splendour. The long deep shadows of the
breathless forest chequered the silvery whiteness of open sward and
intervening glade. Ghostly arose on the knoll before him the grey
columns of the mystic Druid,--dark and indistinct the bloody altar of
the Warrior god. But there his eye was arrested; for whatever is
least distinct and defined in a landscape has the charm that is the
strongest; and, while he gazed, he thought that a pale phosphoric
light broke from the mound with the bautastein, that rose by the
Teuton altar. He thought, for he was not sure that it was not some
cheat of the fancy. Gazing still, in the centre of that light there
appeared to gleam forth, for one moment, a form of superhuman height.
It was the form of a man, that seemed clad in arms like those on the
wall, leaning on a spear, whose point was lost behind the shafts of
the crommell. And the face grew in that moment distinct from the
light which shimmered around it, a face large as some early god's, but
stamped with unutterable and solemn woe. He drew back a step, passed
his hand over his eyes, and looked again. Light and figure alike had
vanished; nought was seen save the grey columns and dim fane. The
Earl's lip curved in derision of his weakness. He closed the lattice,
undressed, knelt for a moment or so by the bedside, and his prayer was
brief and simple, nor accompanied with the crossings and signs
customary in his age. He rose, extinguished the lamp, and threw
himself on the bed.
The moon, thus relieved of the lamp-light, came clear and bright
through the room, shone on the trophied arms, and fell upon Harold's
face, casting its brightness on the pillow on which the Vala had
breathed her charm. And Harold slept--slept long--his face calm, his
breathing regular: but ere the moon sunk and the dawn rose the
features were dark and troubled, the breath came by gasps, the brow
was knit, and the teeth clenched.