past, I little counted on finding
thee--like a slug in thy cell! No; but with mail on thy back, the canons
clean forgotten, and helping stout Harold to sliver and brain these
turbulent Welchmen."

"Ah me! ah me! No such good fortune!" sighed the tall abbot. "Little,
despite thy former sojourn in London, and thy lore of their tongue,
knowest thou of these unmannerly Saxons. Rarely indeed do abbot and
prelate ride to the battle [155]; and were it not for a huge Danish monk,
who took refuge here to escape mutilation for robbery, and who mistakes
the Virgin for a Valkyr, and St. Peter for Thor,--were it not, I say,
that we now and then have a bout at sword-play together, my arm would be
quite out of practice."

"Cheer thee, old friend," said the knight, pityingly, "better times may
come yet. Meanwhile, now to affairs. For all I hear strengthens all
William has heard, that Harold the Earl is the first man in England. Is
it not so?"

"Truly, and without dispute."

"Is he married, or celibate? For that is a question which even his own
men seem to answer equivocally."

"Why, all the wandering minstrels have songs, I am told by those who
comprehend this poor barbarous tongue, of the beauty of Editha pulchra,
to whom it is said the Earl is betrothed, or it may be worse. But he is
certainly not married, for the dame is akin to him within the degrees of
the Church."

"Hem, not married! that is well; and this Algar, or Elgar, he is not now
with the Welch, I hear."

"No; sore ill at Chester with wounds and much chafing, for he hath sense
to see that his cause is lost. The Norwegian fleet have been scattered
over the seas by the Earl's ships, like birds in a storm. The rebel
Saxons who joined Gryffyth under Algar have been so beaten, that those
who survive have deserted their chief, and Gryffyth himself is penned up
in his last defiles, and cannot much longer resist the stout foe, who, by
valorous St. Michael, is truly a great captain. As soon as Gryffyth is
subdued, Algar will be crushed in his retreat, like a bloated spider in
his web; and then England will have rest, unless our liege, as thou
hintest, set her to work again."

The Norman knight mused a few moments, before he said:

"I understand, then, that there is no man in the land who is peer to
Harold:--not, I suppose, Tostig his brother?"

"Not Tostig, surely, whom nought but Harold's repute keeps a day in his
earldom. But of late--for he is brave and sk