"Is this so?" the prelate said sternly to Wulf; "did you
thus insult not only my page, but all of us, his countrymen?"

"I ran against him by accident," Wulf said, looking up fearlessly
in the prelate's face. "I apologized, though I know not that I was
more in fault than he; but instead of taking my apology as one of
gentle blood should do, he spoke like a churl, and threatened me
with chastisement, and then I did say that I hoped he and all other
Normans in the land would some day be packed across the Channel."

"Your ears ought to be slit as an insolent varlet."

"I meant no insolence, my Lord Bishop; and as to the slitting of
my ears, I fancy Earl Harold, my master, would have something to
say on that score."

The prelate was about to reply, but glancing at the angry faces of
the growing crowd, he said coldly:

"I shall lay the matter before him. Come, Walter, enough of this.
You are also somewhat to blame for not having received more courteously
the apologies of this saucy page."

The crowd fell back with angry mutterings as he turned, and, followed
by Walter Fitz-Urse and the ecclesiastics, made his way along the
street to the principal entrance of the palace. Without waiting
to watch his departure, Wulf, the Saxon page, pushed his way through
the crowd, and went off at full speed to carry the message with
which he had been charged.