Throughout the whole of the third day succeeding that unparalleled defeat and slaughter, those old men might be seen toiling among the naked carcasses, disfigured, maimed, and festering in the sun, toiling to find the object of their devoted veneration. But vain were all their labors--vain was their search, even when they called in the aid of his most intimate attendants, ay, of the mother that had borne him! The corpses of his brethren, Leofwyn and Gurth, were soon discovered; but not one eye, even of those who had most dearly loved him, could now distinguish the maimed features of the king. At last, when hope itself was now almost extinct, some one named Edith--Edith the Swan-necked! She had been the mistress--years ere he had been, or dreamed of being, king--to the brave son of Godwin. She had beloved him in her youth with that one, single-minded, constant, never-ending love, which but few, even of her devoted sex, can feel, and they but once, and for one cherished object. Deserted and dishonored when he she loved was elevated to the throne, she had not ceased from her true adoration; but, quitting her now-joyless home, had shared her heart between her memories and her God, in the sequestered cloisters of the nunnery of Croyland. More days elapsed ere she could reach the fatal spot, and the increased corruption denied the smallest hope of his discovery: yet, from the moment when the mission was named to her, she expressed her full and confident conviction that she could recognise that loved one so long as but one hair remained on that head she had once so cherished! It was night when she arrived on the fatal field, and by the light of torches once more they set out on their awful duty. “Show me the spot,” she said, “where the last warrior fell;” and she was led to the place where had been found the corpses of his gallant brethren: and, with an instinct that nothing could deceive, she went straight to the corpse of Harold! It had been turned already to and fro many times by those who sought it; his mother had looked on it, and pronounced it not her son’s: but that devoted heart knew it at once--and broke! Whom rank, and wealth, and honors had divided, defeat and death made one!--and the same grave contained the cold remains of Edith the Swan-necked and the last scion of the Saxon kings of England. THE ERRING ARROW. “’Tis merry, ’tis merry, in good green-wood, When the navis and merle are singing, When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry, And the hunter’s horn is ringing.”--LADY OF THE LAKE.