started up,--a man, it was said, of worldly learning--and
exclaimed:

"To admit the messenger is to approve the treason. I do beseech the King
to consult only his own royal heart and royal honour. Reflect--each
moment of delay swells the rebel hosts, strengthens their cause; of each
moment they avail themselves to allure to their side the misguided
citizens. Delay but proves our own weakness; a king's name is a tower of
strength, but only when fortified by a king's authority. Give the signal
for--war I call it not--no--for chastisement and justice."

"As speaks my brother of Canterbury, speak I," said William, Bishop of
London, another Norman.

But then there rose up a form at whose rising all murmurs were hushed.

Grey and vast, as some image of a gone and mightier age towered over all,
Siward, the son of Beorn, the great Earl of Northumbria.

"We have naught to do with the Normans. Were they on the river, and our
countrymen, Dane or Saxon, alone in this hall, small doubt of the King's
choice, and niddering were the man who spoke of peace; but when Norman
advises the dwellers of England to go forth and slay each other, no sword
of mine shall be drawn at his hest. Who shall say that Siward of the
Strong Arm, the grandson of the Berserker, ever turned from a foe? The
foe, son of Ethelred, sits in these halls; I fight thy battles when I say
Nay to the Norman! Brothers-in-arms of the kindred race and common
tongue, Dane and Saxon long intermingled, proud alike of Canute the
glorious and Alfred the wise, ye will hear the man whom Godwin, our
countryman, sends to us; he at least will speak our tongue, and he knows
our laws. If the demand he delivers be just, such as a king should
grant, and our Witan should hear, woe to him who refuses; if unjust be
the demand, shame to him who accedes. Warrior sends to warrior,
countryman to countryman; hear we as countrymen, and judge as warriors.
I have said."

The utmost excitement and agitation followed the speech of
Siward,--unanimous applause from the Saxons, even those who in times of
peace were most under the Norman contagion; but no words can paint the
wrath and scorn of the Normans. They spoke loud and many at a time; the
greatest disorder prevailed. But the majority being English, there could
be no doubt as to the decision; and Edward, to whom the emergence gave
both a dignity and presence of mind rare to him, resolved to terminate
the dispute at once. He stretche