under your hip-bone and another under your shoulder, and you need
not envy one who sleeps on a straw bed. As to cold and wet, I have
never tried sleeping out of doors, but I doubt not that I can stand
it as well as another. As to eating and drinking, they say that
Earl Harold always looks closely after his men, and holds that if
soldiers are to fight well they must be fed well. At any rate,
Master Wulf, I shall be better off than you will, for I have never
been accustomed, as you have, to such luxuries as a straw bed; and
I doubt whether you ever went hungry to bed as I have done many and
many a time, for in the days when my father hoped to make an armourer
of me I was sent off supperless whenever I bungled a job or neglected
his instructions. I wonder what the earl can want you for in such
haste?"

"I do not suppose he wants me in any haste at all. He may have
spoken to the king about me, and when Edward again spoke of my
returning he would simply send for me to come at once."

Such indeed proved to be the case. When he waited on Harold as soon
as he arrived the latter held out his hand; "I am glad to see you
back again, Wulf. A year of country air and exercise has done wonders
for you, and though you are not as tall as you might be, you have
truly widened out into fair proportions, and should be able to swing
a battle-axe of full weight. Thinking it was time for you to return
here, I spoke to the king, who was in high good-humour, for he had
been mightily pleased that morning at some of the figures the monks
have wrought in stone for the adornment of his Church of St. Peter;
therefore he not only consented to your return, but chided me gently
for not having called you up to town before. 'The matter had
altogether slipped my mind,' he said; 'I told you that he might