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. "Long life to them both! may Edward the Atheling reign,
but Harold the Earl rule! Ah, then, indeed, we may sleep without fear
of fierce Algar and still fiercer Gryffyth the Walloon--who now, it is
true, are stilled for the moment, thanks to Harold--but not more still
than the smooth waters in Gwyned, that lie just above the rush of a
torrent."

"So little news hear I," said Vebba, "and in Kent so little are we
plagued with the troubles elsewhere, (for there Harold governs us, and
the hawks come not where the eagles hold eyrie!)--that I will thank
thee to tell me something about our old Earl for a year [144], Algar
the restless, and this Gryffyth the Welch King, so that I may seem a
wise man when I go back to my homestead."

"Why, thou knowest at least that Algar and Harold were ever opposed in
the Witan, and hot words thou hast heard pass between them!"

"Marry, yes! But Algar was as little match for Earl Harold in speech
as in sword play."

Now again one of the listeners started, (but it was not the same as
the one before,) and muttered an angry exclamation.

"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,