After a few more questions and answers on the news of the day, Vebba
rose and said:

"Thanks for thy good fellowship; it is time for me now to be jogging
homeward. I left my ceorls and horses on the other side the river,
and must go after them. And now forgive me my bluntness, fellow-
thegn, but ye young courtiers have plenty of need for your mancuses,
and when a plain countryman like me comes sight-seeing, he ought to
stand payment; wherefore," here he took from his belt a great leathern
purse, "wherefore, as these outlandish birds and heathenish puddings
must be dear fare--"

"How!" said Godrith, reddening, "thinkest thou so meanly of us thegns
of Middlesex as to deem we cannot entertain thus humbly a friend from
a distance? Ye Kent men I know are rich. But keep your pennies to
buy stuffs for your wife, my friend."

The Kent man, seeing he had displeased his companion, did not press
his liberal offer,--put up his purse, and suffered Godrith to pay the
reckoning. Then, as the two thegns shook hands, he said:

"But I should like to have said a kind word or so to Earl Harold--for
he was too busy and too great for me to come across him in the old
palace yonder. I have a mind to go back and look for him at his own
house."

"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