Marches. You can tarry awhile and meet us; you know his old lodge in
the forest land?"

"Nay, I must be back and at home ere night, for all things go wrong
when the master is away. Yet, indeed, my good wife will scold me for
not having shaken hands with the handsome Earl."

"Thou shalt not come under that sad infliction," said the good-natured
Godrith, who was pleased with the thegn's devotion to Harold, and who,
knowing the great weight which Vebba (homely as he seemed) carried in
his important county, was politically anxious that the Earl should
humour so sturdy a friend,--"Thou shalt not sour thy wife's kiss, man.
For look you, as you ride back you will pass by a large old house,
with broken columns at the back."

"I have marked it well," said the thegn, "when I have gone that way,
with a heap of queer stones, on a little hillock, which they say the
witches or the Britons heaped together."

"The same. When Harold leaves London, I trow well towards that house
will his road wend; for there lives Edith the swan's-neck, with her
awful grandam the Wicca. If thou art there a little after noon,
depend on it thou wilt see Harold riding that way."

"Thank thee heartily, friend Godrith," said Vebba, taking his leave,
"and forgive my bluntness if I laughed at thy cropped head, for I see
thou art as good a Saxon as e'er a franklin of Kent--and so the saints
keep thee."

Vebba then strode briskly over the bridge; and Godrith, animated by