“Every one to his trade. Well, yes, I am glad that it is a girl.”
“I thought you seemed vexed. Why did you cross yourself?”
“Because I thought to myself, how unfit I was to bring up a boy to be such a knight as--as you would have him; how likely I was, ere all was over, to make him as great a ruffian as myself.”
“Hereward! Hereward!” and she threw her arms round his neck for the tenth time. “Blessed be you for those words! Those are the fears which never come true, for they bring down from heaven the grace of God, to guard the humble and contrite heart from that which it fears.”
“Ah, Torfrida, I wish I were as good as you!”
“Now--my joy and my life, my hero and my scald--I have great news for you, as well as a little baby. News from England.”
“You, and a baby over and above, are worth all England to me.”
“Then there is one fool less on earth; and one saint more, I suppose, in heaven.”
“And Harold Godwinsson is king in his stead. And he has married your niece Aldytha, and sworn friendship with her brothers.”
“I expected no less. Well, every dog has his day.”
“And his will be a short one. William of Normandy has sworn to drive him out.”
“Then he will do it. And so the poor little Swan-neck is packed into a convent, that the houses of Godwin and Leofric may rush into each other’s arms, and perish together! Fools, fools, fools! I will hear no more of such a mad world. My queen, tell me about your sweet self. What is all this to me? Am I not a wolf’s head, and a landless man?”
“O my king, have not the stars told me that you will be an earl and a ruler of men, when all your foes are wolves’ heads as you are now? And the weird is coming true already. Tosti Godwinsson is in the town at this moment, an outlaw and a wolf’s head himself.”
“Aha! Every man to his right place at last. Tell me about that, for it will amuse me. I have heard naught of him since he sent the king his Hereford thralls’ arms and legs in the pickle-barrels; to show him, he said, that there was plenty of cold meat on his royal demesnes.”
“You have not heard, then, how he murdered in his own chamber at York, Gamel Ormsson and Ulf Dolfinsson?”
“That poor little lad? Well, a gracious youth was Tosti, ever since he went to kill his brother Harold with teeth and claws, like a wolf; and as he grows in years, he grows in grace. But what said Ulf’s father and the Gospatricks?”