g after torch and ceorl had
passed away, nor did he wake from his reverie till Gurth, springing from
his panting horse, passed his arm round the Earl's shoulder, and cried:

"How did I miss thee, my brother? and why didst thou forsake thy train?"

"I will tell thee anon. Gurth, has my father ailed? There is that in
his face which I like not."

"He hath not complained of misease," said Gurth, startled; "but now thou
speakest of it, his mood hath altered of late, and he hath wandered much
alone, or only with the old hound and the old falcon."

Then Harold turned back, and, his heart was full; and, when he reached
the house, his father was sitting in the hall on his chair of state; and
Githa sate on his right hand, and a little below her sate Tostig and
Leofwine, who had come in from the bear-hunt by the river-gate, and were
talking loud and merrily; and thegns and cnehts sate all around, and
there was wassail as Harold entered. But the Earl looked only to his
father, and he saw that his eyes were absent from the glee, and that he
was bending his head over the old falcon, which sate on his wrist.

CHAPTER III.

No subject of England, since the race of Cerdic sate on the throne, ever
entered the courtyard of Windshore with such train and such state as Earl
Godwin.--Proud of that first occasion, since his return, to do homage to
him with whose cause that of England against the stranger was bound, all
truly English at heart amongst the thegns of the land swelled his
retinue. Whether Saxon or Dane, those who alike loved the laws and the
soil, came from north and from south to the peaceful banner of the old
Earl. But most of these were of the past generation, for the rising race
were still dazzled by the pomp of the Norman; and the fashion of English
manners, and the pride in English deeds, had gone out of date with long
locks and bearded chins. Nor there were the bishops and abbots and the
lords of the Church,--for dear to them already the fame of the Norman
piety, and they shared the distaste of their holy King to the strong
sense and homely religion of Godwin, who founded no convents, and rode to
war with no relics round his neck. But they with Godwin were the stout
and the frank and the free, in whom rested the pith and marrow of English
manhood; and they who were against him were the blind and willing and
fated fathers of slaves unborn.

Not then the stately castle we now behold, which is of the masonry