busy and too great for me to come across him in the old palace
yonder. I have a mind to go back and look for him at his own house."

"You will not find him there," said Godrith, "for I know that as soon as
he hath finished his conference with the Atheling, he will leave the
city; and I shall be at his own favourite manse over the water at sunset,
to take orders for repairing the forts and dykes on the Marches. You can
tarry awhile and meet us; you know his old lodge in the forest land?"

"Nay, I must be back and at home ere night, for all things go wrong when
the master is away. Yet, indeed, my good wife will scold me for not
having shaken hands with the handsome Earl."

"Thou shalt not come under that sad infliction," said the good-natured
Godrith, who was pleased with the thegn's devotion to Harold, and who,
knowing the great weight which Vebba (homely as he seemed) carried in his
important county, was politically anxious that the Earl should humour so
sturdy a friend,--"Thou shalt not sour thy wife's kiss, man. For look
you, as you ride back you will pass by a large old house, with broken
columns at the back."

"I have marked it well," said the thegn, "when I have gone that way, with
a heap of queer stones, on a little hillock, which they say the witches
or the Britons heaped together."

"The same. When Harold leaves London, I trow well towards that house
will his road wend; for there lives Edith the swan's-neck, with her awful
grandam the Wicca. If thou art there a little after noon, depend on it
thou wilt see Harold riding that way."

"Thank thee heartily, friend Godrith," said Vebba, taking his leave, "and
forgive my bluntness if I laughed at thy cropped head, for I see thou art
as good a Saxon as e'er a franklin of Kent--and so the saints keep thee."

Vebba then strode briskly over the bridge; and Godrith, animated by the
wine he had drunk, turned gaily on his heel to look amongst the crowded
tables for some chance friend with whom to while away an hour or so at
the games of hazard then in vogue.

Scarce had he turned, when the two listeners, who, having paid their
reckoning, had moved under shade of one of the arcades, dropped into a
boat which they had summoned to the margin by a noiseless signal, and
were rowed over the water. They preserved a silence which seemed
thoughtful and gloomy until they reached the opposite shore; then one of
them, pushing back his bonnet, showed the sharp and haughty f