against foes, and Gurth is too loving to awake hate in the sternest,
and from the mirth of sunny Leofwine sorrow glints aside, as the shaft
from the sheen of a shield. But thou, thou, O beloved!--cursed be the
king that chose thee, and cruel was the father that forgot the light
of the mother's eyes!"

"Tut, mother the dearest," said Wolnoth, pausing from the
contemplation of a silk robe, all covered with broidered peacocks,
which had been sent him as a gift from his sister the Queen, and
wrought with her own fair hands; for a notable needle-woman, despite
her sage lere, was the wife of the Saint King, as sorrowful women
mostly are,--"Tut! the bird must leave the nest when the wings are
fledged. Harold the eagle, Tostig the kite, Gurth the ring-dove, and
Leofwine the stare. See, my wings are the richest of all, mother, and
bright is the sun in which thy peacock shall spread his pranked
plumes."

Then, observing that his liveliness provoked no smile from his mother,
he approached and said more seriously:

"Bethink thee, mother mine. No other choice was left to king or to
father. Harold, and Tostig, and Leofwine, have their lordships and
offices. Their posts are fixed, and they stand as the columns of our
house. And Gurth is so young, and so Saxish and so the shadow of
Harold, that his hate to the Norman is a by-word already among our
youths; for hate is the more marked in a temper of love, as the blue
of this border seems black against the white of the woof. But I;--the
good King knows that I shall be welcome, for the Norman knights love
Wolnoth, and I have spent hours by the knees of Montgommeri and
Grantmesnil, listening to the feats of Rolf-ganger, and playing with