On the fatal hill, where the harvest of death had been thickest, the Conqueror had caused his ducal pavilion to be reared, just where Harold’s standard had stood, and where the ruined altar of Battle Abbey stands now.  They had cleared away the bodies to make room for the tent, but the ground was sodden with the blood of both Englishman and Norman.

The sounds of revelry issued from beneath those gorgeous hangings, and mocked the plaintive cries of the sufferers around.

“O Earth, Earth, such are thy rulers!” exclaimed a solemn voice.  “To gratify one man’s ambition, this scene disfigures thy surface, and mocks the image of God in man.”

So spake a good monk, Norman although he was, who had followed Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, into England as his chaplain, selected because he could speak the English tongue—­that warrior prelate, who in conjunction with Odo of Bayeux blessed the Conqueror’s banners, and ministered in things sacred to the “pious” invaders.

He wandered, this good brother, from one dying sinner to another, absolving the penitent, and ministering to the parched lips of many a sufferer.  His own long brown garment was stiff at the extremities with gore, but he heeded it not.

And at last, when he came to a heap of slain just where the Normans had first hewn their way through the English entrenchments, after the sham retreat had drawn away so many of their defenders, he was attracted by the sound of convulsive weeping.

There, kneeling beside the body of an English warrior, he saw a boy of some fourteen years, sobbing as if his young heart would break, while he addressed the slain one with many a plaintive cry.

“Father, wake; speak but once more to me; thou canst not be dead.  Oh my father, only once more speak to thy son.”

“Alas! my poor boy, he will speak no more until the earth gives up her dead, and refuses to cover her slain; but we will comfort his soul with masses and prayers.  How didst thou come hither, my poor child?”

“I followed him to the battle, and he bade me tarry by the stuff; but when all was lost Guthlac ran away, and I came hither to die with him if need should be.  Oh my father, would God I had died for thee.”

“Father, good father, what clamour is this?” said a deep voice, “some English lad mourning a sire?”

“Even so, my Lord of Blois.  The poor child mourns his father.”

“There be many mourners now.  William Malet, with a lady whom Harold loved, and two good monks of Waltham, have just found the body of the perjured usurper.  The face was so mangled, that no man might know him, but she recognised him by a mark on his body.  So they have carried it away by the duke’s command to bury it by the shore which he strove so vainly to guard.”

“Oh may I but bear his body home to my poor mother,” moaned the lad.

“We will ask the Conqueror to grant thy petition, poor mourner,” said the sympathising monk.