Trouble With Wales.
Harold took his place on the poop as the vessel started, and remained looking fixedly at the duke, until the latter with the group of barons turned and entered the town.

"Farewell, William of Normandy," he said; "false friend and dishonoured host. How shall we meet next time, I wonder, and where?"

Hitherto the presence of the Norman attendants had prevented any private converse between Harold and his followers, but having the poop to themselves they now broke out into angry exclamations against the duke.

"It was an unworthy and unknightly trick," Harold said calmly; "but let us not talk of it now; it will be for the English people to decide the question some day, and for English bishops to determine whether I am bound by a vow thus extorted. Better at all events that I should be held for all time to have been false and perjured, than that the English people should fall under the Norman yoke. But maybe there will be no occasion for the oath ever to come in question, William of Normandy or I may die before the king, and then there will be an end of it. Let us talk of other things. Thank God we are free men again, and our faces are set towards England, where, from what I hear, we may have to meet open foes instead of false friends, and may have to teach the Welsh, once and for all, that they and their king cannot with impunity continually rise in rebellion against England.