“How well have you kept your own, twice a rebel, that you should appeal to mine? Take him away.” “And hang him?” asked Ivo Taillebois. “Pish! No,--thou old butcher. Put him in irons, and send him into Normandy.” “Send him to Roger de Beaumont, Sire. Roger’s son is safe in Morcar’s castle at Warwick, so it is but fair that Morcar should be safe in Roger’s.”. And to Roger de Beaumont he was sent, while young Roger was Lord of Warwick, and all around that once was Leofric and Godiva’s. Morcar lay in a Norman keep till the day of William’s death. On his death-bed the tyrant’s heart smote him, and he sent orders to release him. For a few short days, or hours, he breathed free air again. Then Rufus shut him up once more, and forever. And that was the end of Earl Morcar. A few weeks after, three men came to the camp at Brandon, and they brought a head to the king. And when William looked upon it, it was the head of Edwin. The human heart must have burst up again in the tyrant, as he looked on the fair face of him he had so loved, and so wronged; for they say he wept. The knights and earls stood round, amazed and awed, as they saw iron tears ran down Pluto’s cheek. “How came this here, knaves?” thundered he at last. They told a rambling story, how Edwin always would needs go to Winchester, to see the queen, for she would stand his friend, and do him right. And how they could not get to Winchester, for fear of the French, and wandered in woods and wolds; and how they were set upon, and hunted; and how Edwin still was mad to go to Winchester: but when he could not, he would go to Blethwallon and his Welsh; and how Earl Randal of Chester set upon them; and how they got between a stream and the tide-way of the Dee, and were cut off. And how Edwin would not yield. And how then they slew him in self-defence, and Randal let them bring the head to the king. This, or something like it, was their story. But who could believe traitors? Where Edwin wandered, what he did during those months, no man knows. All that is known is, three men brought his head to William, and told some such tale. And so the old nobility of England died up and down the ruts and shaughs, like wounded birds; and, as of wounded birds, none knew or cared how far they had run, or how their broken bones had ached before they died. “Out of their own mouths they are condemned, says Holy Writ,” thundered William. “Hang them on high.” And hanged on high they were, on Brandon heath. Then the king turned on his courtiers, glad to ease his own conscience by cursing them. “This is your doing, sirs! If I had not listened to your base counsels, Edwin might have been now my faithful liegeman and my son-in-law; and I had had one more Englishman left in peace, and one less sin upon my soul.” “And one less thorn in thy side,” quoth Ivo Taillebois. “Who spoke to thee? Ralph Guader, thou gavest me the counsel: thou wilt answer it to God and his saints.”