"Well, Vebba, and how likest thou the Atheling? he is of the old
line," said Godrith.

Again the Kent man looked perplexed, and had recourse to the ale,
which he preferred to all more delicate liquor, before he replied:

"Why, he speaks English worse than King Edward! and as for his boy
Edgar, the child can scarce speak English at all. And then their
German carles and cnehts!--An I had known what manner of folk they
were, I had not spent my mancuses in running from my homestead to give
them the welcome. But they told me that Harold the good Earl had made
the King send for them: and whatever the Earl counselled must, I
thought, be wise, and to the weal of sweet England."

"That is true," said Godrith with earnest emphasis, for, with all his
affectation of Norman manners, he was thoroughly English at heart, and
now among the staunchest supporters of Harold, who had become no less
the pattern and pride of the young nobles than the darling of the
humbler population,--"that is true--and Harold showed us his noble
English heart when he so urged the King to his own loss."

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.

"How to the Earl's loss?" asked Vebba.