The
Christian
manhood of the man who reigns!
Tennyson
GUY. Harold, Earl of Wessex!
HAROLD. Thy villains with their lying lights have wreck'd us!
GUY. Art thou not Earl of Wessex?
HAROLD. In mine earldom
A man may hang gold bracelets on a bush,
And leave them for a year, and coming back
Find them again.
GUY. Thou art a mighty man
In thine own earldom!
HAROLD. Were such murderous liars
In Wessex--if I caught them, they should hang
Cliff-gibbeted for sea-marks; our sea-mew
Winging their only wail!
GUY. Ay, but my men
Hold that the shipwreckt are accursed of God;--
What hinders me to hold with mine own men?
HAROLD.
The Christian manhood of the man who reigns!
GUY. Ay, rave thy worst, but in our oubliettes
Thou shalt or rot or ransom. Hale him hence!
[_To one of his_ ATTENDANTS.
Fly thou to William; tell him we have Harold.
SCENE II. --BAYEUX. PALACE.
COUNT WILLIAM _and_ WILLIAM MALET.
WILLIAM. We hold our Saxon woodcock in the springe,
But he begins to flutter. As I think
He was thine host in England when I went
To visit Edward.
MALET. Yea, and there, my lord,
To make allowance for their rougher fashions,
I found him all a noble host should be.
WILLIAM.
