where men say William gave a soldier all the land he could cover with a bull's hide. Out beyond the marshes of Saxon Peofvensea and Roman Anderida, lay ship on ship and galley on galley, beached high on the fore-shore, glistening white in the rising sun of the crisp October morning. All seemed well with the land, from the great grey moor and marsh below to the sun-flushed coppice atop the down.

As Nye stretched himself, he looked over across to Senlac, and saw the long line of wattle and earth entrenchment, and high on the mound by the hoar apple tree, that some said the British of old had planted, the flag of England. Bitterly he cursed his lame leg, that he too could not be there by the standard, and then, turning south to Silver Hill, cursed himself that could not even keep his watch aright. While he had slumbered through the frosty hours of dawn, the Norman had filed from his camp, and was even now deploying over Telham Down, so that the watcher by the patch of gorse and broom had no course but to stay where his own carelessness had caught him, like many another foolish sentry before and since. And, as he watched, the great French host broke and formed by companies and troops and squadrons, while Duke William himself rode to the front and donned his hauberk before all his force. Backsey-fore he donned it too, for an omen, and swore that it was right, ay, and that black was white too, if he, Duke William 'Par le splendeur Dex' so willed it, and none should say him nay. By him rode Bishop Odo his brother, armed and swinging his mace, Taillefer who sang so well, and close behind him Count Rollo, with Toustain the White, and the consecrated banner. He on the Flemish horse must be Ralph of Couchies, and with him famous Walter Gifford of Langueville, and many another too of whom Nye had heard the white pilgrim speak in the village of Saxe a fortnight before. A goodlie company in all truth, to commit high trespass in Merrie England and burn honest Saxon homesteads !

And all the while Harold the King and his housecarles and the cheery English militia looked down from their palisade on Senlac heights, every man from King to kern afoot like sturdy Englishmen who hated foreign fashion.

Then Nye saw the Norman form his host in three solid divisions, árchers and crossbows in front, then the pikemen, and lastly the mailed squadrons. Away on the left by the lower ground pressed the Bretons; in the centre, towards the high ground where waved the English standard and the dragon of Wessex, headed the Norman

column itself; and on the right along the road the French company.

As he watched, he saw young Aluric, a fellow watcher, dart from a forward tuft of broom and hurry back to tell his King the latest news, and as he looked again and swore in impotence the whole line moved down from Telham to the swamp below and up the Senlac rise. Then as the challengers breasted the rise and arrows flew, the din of battle came across to him. 'Aie Dex! Aie Dex!'

from the Norman, 'Ut! Ut!' from the English, who jeered again at the fierce flushed faces that pressed up to the palisade. Axe on hauberk, mace and morning star, javelin echoing on metalled shield, sword ringing on helm, hammer and cut and thrust, die and be damned, and the devil take the hindmost! . . . and the Norman-French recoiled from the high palisade and the wall of English shields, till Nye near shouted for joy, and a frightened hare squealed past him.

Again and again he saw the knights press on, in riot of chargers and revel of blows, and ill went the day for the strangers, while William sat and watched and waited his chance to come, as come it does to every man. Ay, and come it had too, for as the Breton broke before the English, the militia louts must needs break theirs too, and rush forward in unrestrained pursuit. A smile played on the face of the Norman duke. Bid the Breton reserve charge again,' quoth he, and half-way up the slope let them break and flee untouched.' Then the Breton horse swung out and the up as English militia straggled back and re-formed. The sun rose high on the autumn sky and beat on the polished armour, while again the exultant English Ut! Ut!' came down on the northern breeze. Then as Duke William had planned, so it came about, for the Bretons turned and fled and the militia again rushed out to chase them. Right across the ground at them charged the Norman mounted reserve, and, taking the broken militia in flank, pressed up and through and over the English line and its half-defended palisade. After them poured the debris of the earlier battle. Once through the palisade, the Normans turned right-handed against the English centre, and what was once a battle now became a series of combats. Charge and counter-charge, blow and quick return, and the dead and dying thick below the shields in the unshorn grass, and still the Gonfanon over all. Till now the stern grey eyes of the King had watched the stress of battle unmoved, as a reliant leader should; but now with a shout of 'Holy Cross, Holy Cross of Waltham!' he

and his housecarles tried to turn the scales, till Gurth and Leofwine, the royal brothers, fell. But dogged and despairing on fought Harold till he too fell from a flight of arrows, and round him the last of the English thegns and eorles.

Then a great cry went up, that Nye too, crouched in his thicket, heard above the noise of battle. Harold Godwinsson is dead, dead! Woe! woe for England!' and each broken company fought for space to die, or fought dogged to leave the field and gain the fens, sore and broken and dismayed, but dogged ever. And the sun sank in the grey behind Beachy Head-and as it sank then so it sinks now, yesterday, to-day, and for ever-and the blue mist rising from the marshes hid the writhing French in the Mallefosse, on whom, too eager, an English remnant had fallen and wreaked its bitterness. Hid too the poor clay on Senlac Hill, and the broken squads of militia and the square where the old guard sold their lives. Aie Dex!' and 'Ut! Ut!' and' Woe is me

for England!'

...

Then, since Nye dared not move, he too, weary and sore at heart, must needs weep himself to sleep in the gorse, and dream he was Nye the Cinque Ports artilleryman, or how in a thousand years we all forget the things that puzzle us now. For as he slept, so sleeps the pride of other days, and John Nye the gunner, dreaming of Senlac field in his bivouac shelter, turned at the sound of reveille to see the dark barrels of those dogs of war, the 40-pounder train, parked on Telham Down, hard by the King's turnpike. Then as the sun rose to the trumpet call, and a turret of the Abbey glinted rose-red, there was no sign that the last day of the English had ever risen on Telham, or that it ever would, as Time fingers on his rosary.

PRISCILLA OF THE GOOD INTENT1

A ROMANCE OF THE GREY FELLS.

BY HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE.

CHAPTER VIII.

PRISCILLA had forgotten Peggy Mathewson soon after they had passed her by. She was thinking of Reuben, sauntering step by step beside her, and of the new, elusive joy there was in these April gloaming-tides which she remembered from her childhood.

As in all joy, there was a corner somewhere, unswept by the cool evening breeze, which harboured distrust of happiness. It was not Reuben she distrusted-for she was one of the brave, simple kind who, once loving, are hard to move from faith; it was not belief in God's ulterior harshness, which is the cold refuge of the weak; it was a doubt of the reality of what she felt, a looking out toward something steadier and more calm.

'Troubled still?' asked Gaunt, recovering quickly from the shock of meeting Peggy, now that all danger from it was over for the present.

'It seems too good, that is all,' she answered.

And then he talked to her, as they moved through the quiet after-light and neared the stile that brought them to the croft of Good Intent. He put his love, his hopes of a finer life, his resolutions for the future days, into words that would have moved a harder and more clear-sighted maid than Cilla. He talked once more of foreign lands, and again of this sweet Garth that lay about them, and he twined his love of Cilla through it all like a golden thread.

Priscilla forgot that dark corner where vague distrust span webs like a spider in a dusky room. Out of her heart she gave her love to Gaunt; and, because her heart was full, she needs must laugh.

6

'Reuben, we've not told father yet.'

1 Copyright, 1908, by Halliwell Sutcliffe, in the United States of America.

'No, but we will do soon. What's the thought in your bonnie head, Cilla?'

'Why, that I must wash my face, for I've been crying. Father is never so tired o' nights but he looks at me at home-coming, and he seems to know if an eyelash lies out o' place.'

This side the stile, where they had halted, there was a wellspring for the cattle-a trough of stone, all but hidden long since by the mosses and the ferns that fed greedily upon the water. Priscilla turned her back on him, and, stooping, dipped her kerchief in the well.

Good-night,' she said demurely, when she was satisfied that the stains of the night's tumult were removed.

'Ah, but not so quietly, if you please.'

So she reached up her face to him; and then he said he would wait till she was safely home, for even the home-croft held dangers when you loved a maid. And Priscilla tripped happily across the grey-dark grass, and, because she was happy, she turned at the bend of the mistal-yard and hooted like a barn-owl, to let Reuben know that she was safe. Cilla had learned from Billy the Fool the tricks and whimsies of the bird-songs, and Gaunt laughed as he turned homeward.

He did not follow the wandering line of the stream this time, but took a straight course across the fields-a course that led him, as it chanced, to the gate over which Peggy Mathewson was leaning, still fighting despair as best she might. Her back was turned to him, but even in the dim light Gaunt could not mistake the figure; he bit his lip impatiently, and wondered if he should pass on and climb the wall a little further up.

'Nay, she would know, though she won't seem to see me now,' he muttered. 'Best have it out, and have done with it.'

He moved quietly to the gate, and laid a hand on her arm. 'Peggy- he began.

She swept his hand away, and turned on him, and Reuben Gaunt, who had seen mainly the softer side of women until now, was awed by the storm that broke about him. She said little ; but in her voice, in every movement of her body, there was contempt and loathing.

'Get you home!' she cried, pointing across the grey haze of the fields. 'Get home to your kennel, Reuben Gaunt. D'ye think I want such as you to come touching me?'

'But, lass