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"I take in thy words slowly," said the Kent man, shaking his head, "and after all, it matters little who is king, so he be a good one. Yes, I see now that the Earl was a just and generous man when he made the King send for the Atheling. Drink-hael! long life to them both!" "Was-hael," answered Godrith, draining his hippocras to Vebba's more potent ale.
Great were the rejoicings. The one in the dress and short hair imitated from the Norman, was our old friend Godrith, whom the reader may remember as the rebuker of Taillefer, and the friend of Mallet de Graville; the other, in a plain linen Saxon tunic, and the gonna worn on state occasions, to which he seemed unfamiliar, but with heavy gold bracelets on his arms, long haired and bearded, was Vebba, the Kentish thegn, who had served as nuncius from Godwin to Edward.
But when Godrith, his creature, spoke, I felt that he spoke the truth; and, the Atheling dead, on no head but Harold's can fall the crown of Edward." "Ha!" said the Cymrian chief, gloomily; "thinkest thou so indeed?" "I think it not; I know it. And for that reason, Meredydd, we must wait not till he wields against us all the royalty of England. As yet, while Edward lives, there is hope.
"Yet is he a troublesome foe," said Godrith, who did not hear the sound Vebba had provoked, "and a thorn in the side both of the Earl and of England; and sorrowful for both England and Earl was it, that Harold refused to marry Aldyth, as it is said his father, wise Godwin, counselled and wished."
As Godrith thus spoke, nay, from the first mention of Harold's name, two men richly clad, but with their bonnets drawn far over their brows, and their long gonnas so worn as to hide their forms, who were seated at a table behind Godrith and had thus escaped his attention, had paused from their wine-cups, and they now listened with much earnestness to the conversation that followed.
Yon churl disappointed and tricked me; he promised me danger, and not a soul have we met." "Harold's besom sweeps clean," answered Godrith, smiling. "But thou art like, perhaps, to be in at the death. We have driven this Welch lion to bay at last. He is ours, or grim Famine's. Look yonder;" and Godrith pointed to the heights of Penmaen-mawr.
"I take in thy words slowly," said the Kent man, shaking his head, "and after all, it matters little who is king, so he be a good one. Yes, I see now that the Earl was a just and generous man when he made the King send for the Atheling. Drink-hael! long life to them both!" "Was-hael," answered Godrith, draining his hippocras to Vebba's more potent ale.
As Godrith, pleased in the Earl's pleasure, though himself already much fascinated by the honours he had received and the splendor he had witnessed, withdrew, Haco said, "Thou has taken my counsel, noble kinsman?" "Question me not, Haco! Out of my memory, all that hath passed here!"
Oh, yes, I heard that, and," added the Kent man, laughing, "I was not sorry to hear that my old Earl Algar, since he is a good and true Saxon, beat the cowardly Norman, more shame to the King for giving a Norman the ward of the Marches!" "It was a sore defeat to the King and to England," said Godrith, gravely.
"You will not find him there," said Godrith, "for I know that as soon as he hath finished his conference with the Atheling, he will leave the city; and I shall be at his own favourite manse over the water at sunset, to take orders for repairing the forts and dykes on the Marches. You can tarry awhile and meet us; you know his old lodge in the forest land?"
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