The second day dawned on the place of horror, and not a Saxon had presumed, since the intolerant message of the duke, to come to look upon his dead. But now the ground was needed whereon to lay the first stone of the abbey William had vowed to God. The ground was needed; and, moreover, the foul steam from the human shambles was pestilential on the winds of heaven. And now, by trumpet-sound, and proclamation through the land, the Saxons were called forth, on pain of death, to come and seek their dead, lest the health of the conquerors should suffer from the pollution they themselves had wrought. Scarce had the blast sounded, and the glad tidings been announced once only, ere from their miserable shelters, where they had herded with the wild beasts of the forest--from wood, morass, and cavern, happy if there they might escape the Norman spear--forth crept the relics of that persecuted race. Old men and matrons, with hoary heads, and steps that tottered no less from the effect of terror than of age--maidens, and youths, and infants--too happy to obtain permission to search amid those festering heaps, dabbling their hands in the corrupt and pestilential gore which filled each nook and hollow of the dinted soil, so they might bear away, and water with their tears, and yield to consecrated ground, the relics of those brave ones, once loved so fondly, and now so bitterly lamented. It was toward the afternoon of that same day, when a long train was seen approaching, with crucifix, and cross, and censer--the monks of Waltham abbey, coming to offer homage for themselves, and for their tenantry and vassals, to him whom they acknowledged as their king; expressing their submission to the high will of the Norman pontiff--justified, as they said, and proved by the assertion of God’s judgment upon the hill of Hastings. Highly delighted by this absolute submission, the first he had received from any English tongue, the conqueror received the monks with courtesy and favor, granting them high immunities, and promising them free protection, and the unquestioned tenor of their broad demesnes for ever. Nay, after he had answered their address, he detained two of their number--men of intelligence, as with his wonted quickness of perception he instantly discovered--from whom to derive information as to the nature of his newly-acquired country and newly-conquered subjects. Osgad and Ailric, the deputed messengers from the respected principal of their community, had yet a further and higher object than to tender their submission to the conqueror. Their orders were, at all and every risk, to gain permission to consign the corpse of their late king and founder to the earth previously denied to him. And soon, emboldened by the courtesy and kindness of the much-dreaded Norman, they took courage to approach the subject, knowing it interdicted, even on pain of death; and, to their wonder and delight, it was unhesitatingly granted.