Ned, the son of Webb: What he did.

Other days went by, and Ned spent most of the in on horseback, so that he saw a great deal of that part of Northumberland. He returned to the tavern pretty well tired out, one evening, and, just as he was carrying a sputtering rush-light up-stairs, he heard heavy footsteps behind him and a cheery voice that shouted:

"My boy! Our luck hath come! A messenger came from London to the king, to-day, to tell him that the fleet of Duke William of Normandy hath been seen off the southern coast. Before Harold and his army can get there, the Normans will all be landed. They will have before them, soon, a greater battle than the one that was fought with the Norwegians, putting Fulford and Stamford bridge together."

"That's bad news for England," said Ned. "A host of men will be killed. I'm ready, anyhow. I want to see King Harold win another victory."

"Thou knowest very little about that," replied the missionary, going on up the stairs with him. "No man may say how a battle will turn out until after the fighting is over. I will ask thee one thing, however. Canst thou speak at all in French?"

"Of course I can," said Ned. "I learned it at home, when I was a little chap."

"It may yet be a good thing for thee," said Father Brian. "I have it upon my mind, however, that the greater part of Duke William's motley army speak tongues of their own, and not a word of French. It is a speech I have not yet heard. It may be that thou and I will listen to it before long."

"I guess so," said Ned. "I'll have a talk with King Harold's French prisoners, after he whips the duke."

Ned's admiration for the Saxon king had been strengthening rapidly from day to day, as he heard men talk about him. He did not now entertain any idea that his hero could really be beaten by Duke William. At the same time, he had begun to pick up rapidly a number of words of several kinds of Saxon. This had helped him very much in a number of conversations with the king's house-carles. It had also proved convenient at the tavern, among the citizens of York, and among the country people.

The Saxon army had been resting well during all these days, and it had been preparing for the long, severe march which its royal commander had known it must soon perform. He, statesman as well as general, had been setting in order the tangled affairs of the great northern earldoms. The two Earls of Mercia and Northumberland, Edwin and Morcar, had professed utter loyalty to him. They had promised to bring all the forces they could muster to join the army which was to oppose Duke William of Normandy.

This, nevertheless, would require time, and the king could not now wait for any new levies. He was needed to defend the southern counties of England, and, especially, to prevent the speedy capture of London by the Normans.

The mounted house-carles, the thingmen, were ready to march on the day following the arrival of the messenger who brought the tidings concerning Duke William's fleet. It may be that even then King Harold was aware of the terrible truth, that the landing of the Normans had already begun at Pevensey, on the southern coast, only three days after the battle of Stamford bridge. He was also aware, nevertheless, that the transfer from ship to shore of such a host as that of William, with its supplies, and with a vast number of horses for its cavalry, was a task which would surely require a number of days. More time would necessarily be consumed, after that, in getting the invading army into shape for any considerable forward movement. It was still possible, therefore, for Harold and his army to get to London in season. If he could save his capital city, then would follow the awful struggle that was sure to come for England's throne and freedom.

Out of the Ouse gate of the old city of York rode the mailed horsemen, in close array. Behind them, in endless columns, strode the footmen, thousand after thousand. Perhaps not a man who saw them march away could have believed what a fate was waiting for them on the southern shore of the land they were going to defend.

"My boy," said Father Brian, "thou and I will keep close along toward the front. The king himself rideth far ahead of all. He intendeth to stir up, as he goeth along, all the fighting strength of the middle counties."

"I'm afraid I won't have a chance to get at him," replied Ned. "I want to let him know the truth about that affair of Sikend the Berserker."

"Thou mayest let that rest," said the good missionary. "He hath quite enough to busy him just now. I think he may be caring very little who it was that speared one Viking. Only I bid thee keep good care of thy tongue and speak only the truth. It is always bad for a man to win upon false pretences. See that thou maintain thy honesty, my boy."

"I guess I will," said Ned. "There isn't anything crooked about me. If a man will tell a falsehood, the next thing he will be caught passing counterfeit money."

"Thou hast a great many of thy York Saxon sayings," remarked Father Brian, "that thou art not able to turn into good Latin. I have found it so with all the heathen I have ever been among. It sometimes maketh me wish that I were back at Clontarf, to hear men talking good sense once more. I give that up, however, for my duty biddeth me to remain, that I may do somewhat for the civilisation and instruction of these ignorant English people."

This was an undertaking concerning which the good man was becoming more and more enthusiastic. It was plain that he cared for it much more than he did for any victories or defeats of either Norman William or Saxon Harold.

Ned had heard him saying to himself:

"Little odds is it which of the two shall wear the crown, provided that these millions of human beings shall be made over into something better than so many two-legged cattle. They are little more than that now."

At first, even after exploring York, Ned had hardly agreed with him, but he learned a great deal as they rode along and as he saw the actual state of things in England.

Day followed day, and the mounted house-carles rode steadily onward. Town after town, camp after camp, was reached and left behind. Everywhere the king was welcomed with noisy acclamations. He appeared, indeed, to be exceedingly well beloved by his subjects of every rank and kind.

"They are all sorts, though," was a remark that Ned was forced to make concerning them, and he added: "What they want is about forty thousand Father Brians."

Large numbers, he discovered, were no better than slaves, the property of the landholders. They had no hope whatever of improving their condition. Even the freemen were only a shade better off. Not many, even of the rich and titled, were able to read and write. There were a great many other faults to find.

"Sometimes," said Ned, "I almost think England ought to be conquered. Harold or somebody else ought to stir up things with a long pole."

He was hardly able to say what he would try to do first, if he were king, and he determined to have a talk about it with Harold some day after he should have beaten the Normans.

The country they rode through was very beautiful, after all. Some of the towns were fairly well built. Some of the castles and palaces were picturesque and attractive. There were numberless green fields and fruitful orchards. The flocks of sheep and the herds of cattle looked like prosperity.

Then, too, there were grand old forests of oaks and other trees, and Ned saw herd after herd of beautiful red deer.

"No poor man dares to hunt them, they tell me," he said of the deer. "They'd hang him as if he'd killed a man. Not even if he were starving. It is a good deal as Father Brian says, the lower kinds of people in England are treated as if they were beasts."

Above these, nevertheless, were the hundreds of thousands of strong-armed yeomanry, – the farmers, the squires, the thanes, great and small, and from among these King Harold was now trying to strengthen his army. No doubt his success in doing so would have been better if more time had been given him, but as he pushed onward messenger after messenger came riding swiftly to tell him of the vast numbers and warlike appearance of the host of William of Normandy. This was now all landed, they reported, and it was almost ready for a march upon London, where there was nothing to oppose it but a moderate force under Gyrth, Earl of the East Angles and younger brother of the king.

"I want to see Gyrth," said Ned to the missionary. "They say he is another hero like Harold."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE HOST OF THE NORMANS

"London! London! London!" exclaimed Ned, the son of Webb, slowly and thoughtfully. "After all I had heard and read about this place, I hadn't the ghost of an idea of what it would really be. I went through all the London guide-books, too, that Uncle Jack brought home with him. I guess it changed a good deal before they were printed."

He had other remarks to make, and some of them were uncomplimentary. It appeared that he had been going through all quarters of the English capital city, ever since he rode into it with the house-carles of the king. He knew something of its history, old British, Roman, Saxon, and he could add to that wonderful ideas of what it would be in the years to come. He had taken careful notes of its larger buildings, its walls, and fortifications.

"I think that Duke William was wise," he remarked, "in not coming here until he was entirely ready. It's a strong place. He could not have taken it right away. King Harold knew it could stand a siege or he would not have gone to fight the Vikings."

Nevertheless, until the return of their king and his army, the people of London had been in a panic of fear lest their town should be taken and sacked by the invaders.

"Now," said Ned, at last, "I have seen enough of these dirty streets. They are as bad as those of York, or worse. I'll go and get my horse and see if Father Brian has come."

His learned Irish friend had been full of affairs of his own ever since their arrival. He too, moreover, had been exploring London, and he had formed a very low opinion of its civilisation. Ned found him waiting, shortly, in the queer old hostelry which had been assigned them by the army authorities as their quarters.

"My boy!" exclaimed Father Brian. "I am glad to see thee. Oh, the heathen town that this is! It is full of thieves. It is exceedingly disorderly and dirty. I may say that the army being here doth not make it any better. Ah, me! I shall be glad when the battle is over and we know which of the twain is to be king of this place. Whichever it may be, he hath a long, hard bit of work before him to make this country what it ought to be."

There could be no doubt of that, but Ned, the son of Webb, was not just now much interested in questions of reform and education. His head was full of army affairs, and Father Brian was his best newspaper.

"What?" exclaimed the missionary, in reply to Ned's questioning. "Will the Saxons fight? Indeed they will, and King Harold himself is to lead his army. I am told that his brother Gyrth – the brave man that he is! – asked permission to lead this battle himself, and urged the king to stay out of it. He said that then Harold would have time to gather more troops. Gyrth might be defeated and killed, but the kingdom would not be lost all at once. What is more, Harold might lay waste all the lands nearest the Normans and starve them out, fighting them inch by inch. He is an unselfish patriot, to offer his life in that way."

"What did the king say?" asked Ned.

"As thou mightest expect, I think," replied Father Brian. "He declared that he would waste no English land nor burn an English house. He would allow no other man to fight and die in his place. He would lead his own army, he said, and he is right about that."

"No, he isn't," said Ned. "He had better take Gyrth's advice. He is risking too much upon one battle. He hath not men enough here to beat the Normans."

"King Harold knoweth best," said Father Brian. "His men would not fight as well under anybody else. His absence might dishearten them. Now, I tell thee: they say that the Norman duke hath sixty thousand men, but that the most of them are of all sorts, taken as they came. Harold of England hath only a quarter as many, indeed, but the main body of them consists of picked and chosen warriors, well-disciplined veterans. There is a great strength in that."

"Thou meanest," said Ned, "that no common men are fit to face the house-carles? The duke should have seen them at Stamford."

"He knoweth them, I suppose," said Father Brian. "It maketh him slow and cautious. The thingmen will all die where they stand, and I think that many other men will die when they do. It is a pity that they were at the north and not here when the fleet of William came to Pevensey. Had they been at hand, the Normans would not have gotten ashore at all. Harold would have slaughtered them at the water's edge."

"All of that is Tostig's work," said Ned, angrily. "He stirred up Hardrada to come with his Vikings, just at the worst time."

"He hath paid for it with his life," replied Father Brian, "and it is a heavy load for any man to put upon his soul. One bad, ambitious, selfish plotter may sometimes do a vast amount of bloody mischief."