and fashion of beard were those of the last
generation, the men who had fought with Canute the Great or Edmund
Ironsides. So grand was the old man's aspect, and so did he contrast in
appearance the narrow garb and shaven chins of those around, that the
Duke was roused from his reverie at the sight, and marvelling why one,
evidently a chief of high rank, had neither graced the banquet in his
honour, nor been presented to his notice, he turned to the Earl of
Hereford, who approached him with gay salutation, and inquired the name
and title of the bearded man in the loose flowing robe.

"Know you not, in truth?" said the lively Earl, in some wonder. "In him
you see the great rival of Godwin. He is the hero of the Danes, as
Godwin is of the Saxons, a true son of Odin, Siward, Earl of the
Northumbrians." [67]

"Norse Dame be my aid,--his fame hath oft filled my ears, and I should
have lost the most welcome sight in merrie England had I not now beheld
him."

Therewith, the Duke approached courteously, and, doffing the cap he had
hitherto retained, he greeted the old hero with those compliments which
the Norman had already learned in the courts of the Frank.

The stout Earl received them coldly, and replying in Danish to William's
Romance-tongue, he said:

"Pardon, Count of the Normans, if these old lips cling to their old
words. Both of us, methinks, date our lineage from the lands of the
Norse. Suffer Siward to speak the language the sea-kings spoke. The old
oak is not to be transplanted, and the old man keeps the ground where his
youth took root."

The Duke, who with some difficulty comprehended the general meaning of
Siward's speech, bit his lip, but replied courteously:

"The youths of all nations may learn from renowned age. Much doth it
shame me that I cannot commune with thee in the ancestral tongue; but the
angels at least know the language of the Norman Christian, and I pray
them and the saints for a calm end to thy brave career."

"Pray not to angel or saint for Siward son of Beorn," said the old man
hastily; "let me not have a cow's death, but a warrior's; die in my mail
of proof, axe in hand, and helm on head. And such may be my death, if
Edward the King reads my rede and grants my prayer."

"I have influence with the King," said William; "name thy wish, that I
may back it."

"The fiend forfend," said the grim Earl, "that a foreign prince should
sway England's King, or that thegn and earl shoul