counselled and wished."

"Ah! but I have heard scops and harpers sing pretty songs that Harold
loves Edith the Fair, a wondrous proper maiden, they say!"

"It is true; and for the sake of his love, he played ill for his
ambition."

"I like him the better for that," said the honest Kent man: "why does
he not marry the girl at once? she hath broad lands, I know, for they
run from the Sussex shore into Kent."

"But they are cousins five times removed, and the Church forbids the
marriage; nevertheless Harold lives only for Edith; they have
exchanged the true-lofa [145], and it is whispered that Harold hopes
the Atheling, when he comes to be King, will get him the Pope's
dispensation. But to return to Algar; in a day most unlucky he gave
his daughter to Gryffyth, the most turbulent sub-king the land ever
knew, who, it is said, will not be content till he has won all Wales
for himself without homage or service, and the Marches to boot. Some
letters between him and Earl Algar, to whom Harold had secured the
earldom of the East Angles, were discovered, and in a Witan at
Winchester thou wilt doubtless have heard, (for thou didst not, I
know, leave thy lands to attend it,) that Algar [146] was outlawed."

"Oh, yes, these are stale tidings; I heard thus much from a palmer--
and then Algar got ships from the Irish, sailed to North Wales, and
beat Rolf, the Norman Earl, at Hereford. Oh, yes, I heard that, and,"
added the Kent man, laughing, "I was not sorry to hear that my old
Earl Algar, since he is a good and true Saxon, beat the cowardly