Harold,--for Tostig, foreseeing his father's death, was busy
soliciting thegn and earl to support his own claims to the earldom
about to be vacant; and Leofwine had gone to London on the previous
day to summon Githa who was hourly expected--Gurth, I say, entered the
room on tiptoe, and seeing his brother's attitude, guessed that all
was over. He passed on to the table, took up the lamp, and looked
long on his father's face. That strange smile of the dead, common
alike to innocent and guilty, had already settled on the serene lips;
and that no less strange transformation from age to youth, when the
wrinkles vanish, and the features come out clear and sharp from the
hollows of care and years, had already begun. And the old man seemed
sleeping in his prime.

So Gurth kissed the dead, as Harold had done before him, and came up
and sate himself by his brother's feet, and rested his head on
Harold's knee; nor would he speak till, appalled by the long silence
of the Earl, he drew away the mantle from his brother's face with a
gentle hand, and the large tears were rolling down Harold's cheeks.

"Be soothed, my brother," said Gurth; "our father has lived for glory,
his age was prosperous, and his years more than those which the
Psalmist allots to man. Come and look on his face, Harold, its calm
will comfort thee."

Harold obeyed the hand that led him like a child; in passing towards
the bed, his eye fell upon the cyst which Hilda had given to the old
Earl, and a chill shot through his veins.

"Gurth," said he, "is not this the morning of the sixth day in which
we have been at the King's Court?"