"Your father, as we told you, is dead."
"So much the better for him, and the worse for England. And Harold and the
Godwinssons, of course, are lords and masters far and wide?"
"Tosti has our grandfather Siward's earldom."
"I know that. I know, too, that he will not keep it long, unless he learns
that Northumbrians are free men, and not Wessex slaves."
"And Algar our uncle is outlawed again, after King Edward had given him
peaceably your father's earldom."
"And why?"
"Why was he outlawed two years ago?"
"Because the Godwinssons hate him, I suppose."
"And Algar is gone to Griffin, the Welshman, and from him on to Dublin to
get ships, just as he did two years ago; and has sent us here to get ships
likewise."
"And what will he do with them when he has got them? He burnt Hereford
last time he was outlawed, by way of a wise deed, minster and all, with
St. Ethelbert's relics on board; and slew seven clergymen: but they were
only honest canons with wives at home, and not shaveling monks, so I
suppose that sin was easily shrived. Well, I robbed a priest of a few
pence, and was outlawed; he plunders and burns a whole minster, and is
made a great earl for if. One law for the weak and one for the strong,
young lads, as you will know when you are as old as I.
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