The Normans saw them only in the former light, and turned aside to conceal their laughter; the Saxon felt them in the latter and truer sense, and stood rebuked.

That great king, whom he now recognised, with all those drawn swords at his back, could not do him hurt; that king had not the heart to hurt him.

The ceorl sprang from the gate, and opened it, bending low.
"Ride first, Count William, my cousin," said the King, calmly.
The Saxon ceorl's eyes glared as he heard the Norman's name uttered in the Norman tongue, but he kept open the gate, and the train passed through, Edward lingering last.

Then said the King, in a low voice,-- "Bold man, thou spokest of Harold the Earl and his harvests; knowest thou not that his lands have passed from him, and that he is outlawed, and that his harvests are not for the scythes of his ceorls to reap ?" "May it please you, dread Lord and King," replied the Saxon simply, "these lands that were Harold the Earl's, are now Clapa's, the sixhaendman's." "How is that ?" quoth Edward, hastily; "we gave them neither to sixhaendman nor to Saxon.

All the lands of Harold hereabout were divided amongst sacred abbots and noble chevaliers--Normans all." "Fulke the Norman had these fair fields, yon orchards and tynen; Fulke sold them to Clapa, the Earl's sixhaendman, and what in mancusses and pence Clapa lacked of the price, we, the ceorls of the Earl, made up from our own earnings in the Earl's noble service.