"Under seven kings have I dwelt," Ingelric the ancient murmured dreamily. "First Ethelred, then Sweyn, then Canute. Canute was a Dane, but a better man than Ethelred. Then Harefoot, then Hardicanute, then Edward whom they call the Blessed. Well, well, peace to his soul! There were no more righteous folk in England after his crowning than before. And so the son of Godwin is cast down and slain! It is a little thing, children, where or of whom a king be born, if so be he govern strongly and wisely."
"Now, Childe Edric, what say ye to this?" cried Ulwin of the Moor.
"Father Ingelric, ye know that my mind is quite other," said a hoarse, far-carrying voice. The speaker, a weather-tanned young man, with bright grey eyes and a resolute chin, bent towards Ulwin and whispered:
"A fair tide for the ploughing," Kenric's elephantine tact prompted him to observe. "I think there will be no more frost nor snow."
"We have one Norman here," said Ulwin to Edric. "Spared when the others were banished, through the might of the greedy Abbot. He has the Fiend's own luck. Frost and snow! I would the earth were ice-bound for his sake! I would the frost would shatter his plough-shares! I would he might drop dead as doth a sparrow!"
"Richard is a good fellow," Ingelric interjected stubbornly. "And one king is much as another king."
"Is it nothing to you all," cried Edric the Wild, "that England shall be no more England, but Normandy? What of Harold, our King and our Earl of late, and his bloody end? Must we all bow to the robber, because the men of the South loved their harvest-beer better than their motherland?"
"We are free English!" said one; and another: "What shall we do?"
"We have our hills and our woodlands," Edric continued. "When William sends his warriors amongst us, we will lead them jack-o'-lantern's dance, and utterly undo them. My men are all armed and ready to come forth whensoever I bid them; and I have the word of the Welsh lords that they will give us help."
"If Howel of Irchenfield were here," Kenric remarked ruminatively, "he would tell you to put no trust in the word of a Welshman. And Howel is right: they do never cleave to us, though time and again have they sworn faith and truth unto our kings. And I have not seen Howel this day...."