"Safe!" echoed Harold.

"Haco's fears are childish, my brother," said Wolnoth, "and he wrongs
the Duke."

"Not the Duke, but the policy which surrounds him like an atmosphere,"
exclaimed Haco. "Oh, Harold, generous indeed wert thou to come hither
for thy kinsfolk--generous! But for England's weal, better that we
had rotted out our lives in exile, ere thou, hope and prop of England,
set foot in these webs of wile."

"Tut!" said Wolnoth, impatiently; "good is it for England that the
Norman and Saxon should be friends." Harold, who had lived to grow as
wise in men's hearts as his father, save when the natural trustfulness
that lay under his calm reserve lulled his sagacity, turned his eye
steadily on the faces of his two kinsmen; and he saw at the first
glance that a deeper intellect and a graver temper than Wolnoth's fair
face betrayed characterised the dark eye and serious brow of Haco. He
therefore drew his nephew a little aside, and said to him:

"Forewarned is forearmed. Deemest thou that this fairspoken Duke will
dare aught against my life?"

"Life, no; liberty, yes."

Harold startled, and those strong passions native to his breast, but
usually curbed beneath his majestic will, heaved in his bosom and
flashed in his eye.