h apparent perturbation,
"but Hilda is not with thee; I see her not."

As he spoke, Hilda rose, and so suddenly did her tall form appear on the
brow of the hill, that it seemed as if she had emerged from the earth.
With a light and rapid stride she gained the side of her grandchild; and
after a slight and haughty reverence, said, "Hilda is here; what wants
Edward the King with his servant Hilda?"

"Nought, nought," said the King, hastily; and something like fear passed
over his placid countenance; "save, indeed," he added, with a reluctant
tone, as that of a man who obeys his conscience against his inclination,
"that I would pray thee to keep this child pure to threshold and altar,
as is meet for one whom our Lady, the Virgin, in due time, will elect to
her service."

"Not so, son of Etheldred, son of Woden, the last descendant of Penda
should live, not to glide a ghost amidst cloisters, but to rock children
for war in their father's shield. Few men are there yet like the men of
old; and while the foot of the foreigner is on the Saxon soil no branch
of the stem of Woden should be nipped in the leaf."

"Per la resplendar De [12], bold dame," cried the knight by the side of
Edward, while a lurid flush passed over his cheek of bronze; "but thou
art too glib of tongue for a subject, and pratest overmuch of Woden, the
Paynim, for the lips of a Christian matron."

Hilda met the flashing eye of the knight with a brow of lofty scorn, on
which still a certain terror was visible. "Child," she said, putting her
hand upon Edith's fair locks; "this is the man thou shalt see but twice
in thy life;--look up, and mark well!"

Edith instinctively raised her eyes, and, once fixed upon the knight,
they seemed chained as by a spell. His vest, of a cramoisay so dark,
that it seemed black beside the snowy garb of the Confessor, was edged by
a deep band of embroidered gold; leaving perfectly bare his firm, full
throat--firm and full as a column of granite,--a short jacket or
manteline of fur, pendant from the shoulders, left developed in all its
breadth a breast, that seemed meet to stay the march of an army; and on
the left arm, curved to support the falcon, the vast muscles rose, round
and gnarled, through the close sleeve.

In height, he was really but little above the stature of many of those
present; nevertheless, so did his port [13], his air, the nobility of his
large proportions, fill the eye, that he seemed to tower immeasu