No More Learning

THIRD THANE. The washerwoman's brat!

FOURTH THANE. The tanner's bastard!

FIFTH THANE.
The Falaise byblow!

[_Enter a_ THANE, _from Pevensey, spattered with mud_.

HAROLD. Ay, but what late guest,
As haggard as a fast of forty days,
And caked and plaster'd with a hundred mires,
Hath stumbled on our cups?

THANE _from Pevensey_. My lord the King!
William the Norman, for the wind had changed--

HAROLD. I felt it in the middle of that fierce fight
At Stamford-bridge. William hath landed, ha?

THANE _from Pevensey_.
Landed at Pevensey--I am from Pevensey--
Hath wasted all the land at Pevensey--
Hath harried mine own cattle--God confound him!
I have ridden night and day from Pevensey--
A thousand ships--a hundred thousand men--
Thousands of horses, like as many lions
Neighing and roaring as they leapt to land--

HAROLD. How oft in coming hast thou broken bread?

THANE _from Pevensey_.
Some thrice, or so.

HAROLD. Bring not thy hollowness
On our full feast. Famine is fear, were it but
Of being starved. Sit down, sit down, and eat,
And, when again red-blooded, speak again;
(_Aside_. ) The men that guarded England to the South
Were scatter'd to the harvest. . . . No power mine
To hold their force together. . .