“I have no doubt that is so, Osgod, and heartily glad am I that you showed no genius for smith’s work. Nature evidently intended you to damage casques and armour rather than to repair them. You have not got all my clothes with you,” he added, as he looked round at the led horse.
“No indeed, Wulf,” Osgod said, “nor a quarter of them, for in truth your wardrobe has grown prodigiously since we came here. I had to talk it over with Egbert, having but little faith in my own wits. He advised me to take the two suits that were most fitted for court, saying that if he heard you were going to remain there he would send on the rest in charge of a couple of well-armed men.”
“That is the best plan, doubtless,” Wulf agreed. “My hawking suit and some of the others would be useless to me at court, and it would have been folly to have burdened ourselves with them if we are likely to return hither shortly.”
“Where shall we stop to-night?” Osgod asked.
“At the monastery of the Grey Friars, where we put up on our way from London. It will not be a long ride, but we started late. To-morrow we shall of course make a long day’s journey to Guildford. I don’t know what travellers would do were it not for the priories.”
“Sleep in the woods, Wulf, and be none the worse for it. For myself, I would rather lie on the sward with a blazing fire and the greenwood overhead, than sleep on the cold stones in a monk’s kitchen, especially if it happened to be a fast-day and one had gone to rest on a well-nigh empty stomach.”
“It is never so bad as that,” Wulf laughed; “as a rule, however much the monks may fast, they entertain their guests well.”
“If it is an English monastery they do,” Osgod admitted, “but not where there is a Norman prior, with his new-fangled notions, and his vigils and fasts and flagellations. If I ever become a monk, which I trust is not likely, I will take care to enter a Saxon house, where a man may laugh without its being held to be a deadly sin, and can sleep honestly without being wakened up half a dozen times by the chapel bell.”
“You would assuredly make but a bad monk, Osgod, and come what will I do not think you will ever take to that vocation. But let us urge on our horses to a better pace, or the kitchen will be closed, and there will be but a poor chance of supper when we reach the priory.”
“Well, Osgod,” Wulf asked the next morning as they rode on their way, “how did you fare last night?”
“Well enough as to the eating, there was a haunch of cold venison that a king needn’t have grumbled at, but truly my bones ache now with the hardness of my couch. Couch! there was but the barest handful of rushes on the cold stone floor, and I woke a score of times feeling as if my bones were coming through the skin.”
“You have been spoilt, Osgod, by a year of sleeping softly I marked more than once how thickly the rushes were strewn in that corner in which you always slept. How will it be when you have to stand the hardships of a soldier’s life?”
“I can sleep well on the ground with my cloak round me,” Osgod said steadily, “and if the place be hard you have but to take up a sod 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 return directly it was shown that it was the bishop’s page who was in fault, and from that day I have never thought of it.’
“I told the king that I had purposely kept silence, for I thought the day had come when you should learn your duties down there instead of dawdling away your time at court. You need not put on a page’s attire any more. You will remain here as my ward, and I have had so good an account from the good prior of Bramber that in a short time I shall be able to receive your oath as Thane of Steyning. You will attend me to court this evening as one of my gentlemen, and I will then present you to the king, whom it is well that you should thank for having pardoned you. I hear from the prior that the varlet you took down with you has grown into a big man, and is well-nigh as tall as I am already. He must have lodging with my followers while you are here.”
Finding that he was to remain for the present at Westminster, Wulf sent off a messenger at once to request Egbert to forward the rest of his clothes immediately. That evening the earl took him into a chamber, where the king was seated surrounded by a few of his favourites.
“This is Wulf of Steyning, my lord king,” Harold said, “the youth who was unfortunate enough to incur your royal displeasure a year since, and who has upon your order returned from his estates. I have had excellent accounts of him from my good friend the prior of Bramber, who speaks well alike of his love of study and his attention to the affairs of his estate. I have also heard from other hands of his progress in military exercises, and that he bids fair to become a valiant and skilful soldier of your majesty. He has prayed me to express his thanks to your majesty for having pardoned him, and having authorized me to enrol him again in the ranks of my followers here.”
The king nodded pleasantly in answer to the deep bow that Wulf made. “I was somewhat hasty in your matter,” he said graciously, “and dealt out somewhat hard measure to you, but doubtless, as Earl Harold said, your stay in the country has been for your good, and I am glad to hear that the worthy prior of Bramber speaks so well of you.”
The earl gave a little nod to Wulf, and the latter, gathering that his case was concluded, and that he could now go at once, retired with another deep obeisance.
Leaving the palace he made his way to the armourer’s, whither he had sent Osgod as soon as they arrived. The smith doffed his cap as he entered. “I am right glad to see you back again, young master. My son gave me a rare surprise, for truly when he walked in I did not know him again, not having had him in my thoughts or having heard of his arrival. The varlet saw that I did not know him, and said, ‘Canst mend me a broken dagger, master armourer?’
“’That can I,’ I answered, and would have said more, when a laugh came from his great mouth that well-nigh shook the house, and I knew that it was my son, though the note was deeper than his used to be, and was, as I told him, more like the bellow of a bull than the laugh of a young fellow of eighteen. His mother looked in from behind the shop and said, ‘Surely that must have been Osgod’s laugh.’ ‘It was,’ I said, ‘and there he stands before you. The impudent rascal has topped me by over half a head, though I am a fair height myself.’ Then she carried him away, and I saw no more of him until I had finished my work. Since supper he has been telling me somewhat of what he has been doing down with you, which, as far as I can learn, amounts to nothing, save the exercising of his arms and the devouring of victuals.”
“He did all there was to do, Ulred, except that he could not bring that long body and