A Prince of Cornwall by Charles W. WhistlerA Story of Glastonbury & the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex (page 5)

So in a little time I sought him again, and found him in a room with warm sunlight streaming into it, making the strange pictured walls bright and cheerful, and yet somewhat over close for one who loves the open air or the free timbered roof that loses itself in the smoke wreaths overhead, with the wind blowing through it as it blows through the forest whence it was wrought, and with twitter of birds to mind one of that also. Nevertheless, the old king in his purple mantle with its golden hem over the white linen tunic, and his little golden circlet on his curling white hair, seemed in place there, even as I minded thinking that Owen in his British array seemed in place.

Now Howel stood where Owen was wont to stand, and the only other in the room was the lady, who rose from the king’s side to greet me.

And if her smile was a little sad, it was plain that Nona the princess was glad as her father to see her guest again, and I will say that to me the sight of her was like a bright gleam in the grey of sadness that was over all things. It did not seem possible that she and trouble could find place together.

So I greeted her, and she went back to her place quickly, for hardly would Gerent wait for us to speak a few words before he would talk of that which was in all his thoughts; and then came Jago and stood at the door, guarding it as it were against listeners.

Now the old king told me all that I had heard from his thane already, and I must tell what I thought thereof, and that was little enough beyond what I have said, and at last, when he seemed to wait for me to ask him more, I put a question that had come into my mind as I rode, and asked if there might be any chance of Morfed the priest having a hand in the matter.

And at that the king’s frown grew black, and he answered fiercely:

“Morfed, the mad priest?–Ay, why had not I thought of him before? Look you, Oswald, into my hall of justice he came, barefoot and ragged from his wanderings, but a few days before Owen left me; and before all the folk, high and low, who were gathered there he cried out on all those who spoke for peace with the men who owned the rule of Canterbury, and who held traffic with the Saxon who has taken our lands. And Owen was for speaking him fair, seeing that he was crazed, but I bade him be silent, telling the priest that what was lost is lost, and there needed no more said thereof; and that if the men of Austin and we differed it was not the part of Christian men to make the difference wider, even as Owen and Aldhelm were wont to say. And at that he raved, and threatened to lay the heaviest ban of the Church on Owen, and on all who held with him, and so he was taken from my presence, and I have seen him no more. But he was a friend of Morgan.”

“That is the priest who was with Dunwal, surely,” Howel said.

“The same,” I answered–“and I was warned of him,” and I looked toward the princess, and she smiled a little and flushed.

“I mind how he glared at Oswald across my table,” Howel said. “But one need fear little from him, as I think. Who will heed a crazy priest?”

“Many,” answered Gerent. “The more because they deem him inspired. I will have him taken and brought to me.”

There fell a little uneasy silence after that outburst of the king’s, but I felt that I had not yet heard all that they would tell me. So we waited for the old king to speak, and at last he turned suddenly to the princess, setting his thin white hand on her shoulder, and said:

“Now tell Oswald what foolishness brought you here, Nona, daughter of Howel, that he may say what he thinks thereof.”

“Maybe he also will think it foolishness, King Gerent,” she said in her low clear voice. “But however that may be, I will tell him, for in what I have to say may be help. I cannot tell, but because it might be so I begged my father to bring me hither. It was all that I could do for my godfather.”

There was just a little quiver in her lip as she said this, and the fierce old king’s face softened somewhat.

“Nay,” he said, “I meant no unkindness. I forgot that it is not right to speak to a child as to grown warriors. It is long since there was a lady about the place who is one of us.”

Then Nona smiled wanly, and set her hand on that of the old king, and kept it there while she spoke.

“Indeed, Thane, it may be foolishness, and now perhaps as time goes on it begins to seem so to me. Once, as I know now, on the night when Owen first slept in his new house on the moor, I dreamed that he was in sore danger, for I seemed to see shadows of men creeping everywhere round the house that I have never set eyes on; and again, on the next night, and that was the night of the burning, I saw the house in flames, and men fought and fell around it among the flickering shadows, but I did not seem to see Owen. And then on the next night, soon after I first slept, I woke trembling with the most strange dream of all. I think that the light had hardly gone from the west, but the moon had not yet risen. I dreamed that I stood at the end of a narrow valley, whose sides were of tall cliffs of rough grey stone, and in the depth of the valley I saw a great menhir standing on the farther side of a black pool. And all the surface of the pool was rippling as if somewhat had disturbed it, and set upright in the ground on this side was a sword, like to that which King Ina gave you, Thane–ay, that which you wear now, not like my father’s swords. And I thought that I heard one call on your name.”

Now I heard Jago stifle a cry behind me, and as for myself I stood silent, biting my lip that I might know that I was not dreaming also, and I saw that Howel was looking at me in a wondering way, while Gerent glowered at me. All the time that she had been speaking, Nona had looked on the ground, in some fear lest we should smile at this which had been called foolishness, and I was glad when the king broke the silence with a short laugh.

“Well, Oswald, what think you of this? On my word, it seems that you half believe in the foolishness that some hold concerning dreams.”

“I would not hold this so,” said Howel,–“seeing that she has dreamed of things that did take place, as we know too well.”

“Fire and fighting? Things, forsooth, that every village girl on the Saxon marches is frayed with every time she sleeps.”

So said Gerent, and I answered him:

“Foolishness I cannot call this, either, Lord King. I also have seen the same in the night watches. I have seen pool and menhir, and the cliffs that hem them, even as the princess saw them. And I woke with the voice of Owen in my ears.”

“Dreams, dreams!” the old king said. “Go to, you do but tell me these trifles to please me, and as if to give me hope that in such an unheard-of place we shall find him whom we have lost. Say no more, but go your ways on the morrow and search. And may you find your dream valley and what is therein.”

He rose up impatiently, and Howel gave him his arm from the room. Jago followed him, and when the heavy curtain fell across the doorway, Nona, who had risen with Gerent, turned to me.

“I am sure now that there we shall find Owen,” she said, with a new light of hope in her eyes. “And also I am sure that at the bottom of all the matter is Morfed the priest.”

“It was a needed warning against him that I had from your hand, Princess,” I said; “now let me thank you for it.”

“I am glad you had it safely, for indeed I feared for you with those people on the ship with you. What has become of them?”

I told her the fate of Dunwal, so far as I knew it. I did not then know that Gerent had put an end to his plotting once for all two days after Owen was lost. As for his daughter, I knew no more than Jago told the ealdorman.

Then she said: “Now I would ask you to speak to my father, that he would let me go with you to Dartmoor, that I may help you search. I do not like to be far from him, but he says there may be danger. Which makes me the more anxious not to leave him, as you may suppose.”

She smiled, but as I made no answer she went on:

“And maybe Owen will need nursing when you find him. They say he was sorely wounded. Ay, I am sure we shall find him, else why did we have these strange visions? And I think that were he not disabled altogether he would have won to freedom in some way.”

“It is that wounding that makes me fear the worst,” I said in a low voice; for indeed the thought of Owen as hurt, in the care, or want of care, of those who hated him, was not easy to be borne. “It is my fear that we shall be too late.”

“Nay, but you must not fear that,” she said quickly. “That is no sort of mind in which you have to set to work. I will think rather that they have carried him to some safe tending. There will be time enough to dread the worst when it is certain. There was nought in the dreams to make us think that he was dead.”

The bright face and voice cheered me wonderfully, and for the moment, at least, I felt sure that our search would not fail. Then I tried to persuade her not to come with us. One could not say that there was any safety, even for her, among the men who would harm Owen, though I thought that none would be in the least likely to fall on Howel. Rather, they would keep out of his way altogether. In my own mind I wished that I was going alone, or with none but Jago, though, on the other hand, it might be possible that men would speak to him if they would not to me. And at last I did persuade her to bide here until we had news, promising that if need was she should come and see the place herself when all was known.

“Well, maybe it is not so needful that I should go now,” she said. “I thought that I alone could tell my father when that valley was found, but you know as much of it as I, and will be sure when you stand in it.”

And so we fell to talk of these visions which were so much alike, and there was but one difference in them. In the dream of the princess the pool had been ruffled, and mine was still as glass. And that seemed strange, and we could make nothing of it. Then Howel came back, and there is little more to say of the doings of that evening. There was no feasting in Gerent’s house now.

Very early in the next dawning Howel and I rode westward with five score men of Gerent’s best after us, into wilder country than I had ever yet seen; and late in the evening we came to where the countless folds of Dartmoor lie round the heads of Dart River. And there Tregoz had set his house, and I think that it was the first that had ever been in those wilds, save the huts of the villagers. Only the hall of the place had been burnt, and there yet stood the house of the steward on the village green, if one may call a meadow that had a dozen huts round it by that name, and we bestowed ourselves in the great room of that, while our men found places in stables and outhouses and the huts. Every man of the place had fled as they saw us coming, for the fear of Gerent was on them; but the women and children remained, and they had heard of the son of Owen, at least, since he and I were in Dartmoor in the spring. I had some of them brought to me when we were rested, and told them that none need fear aught, knowing that they would tell their menfolk.

And so it was, for after we had been quietly in the place for two days the men were back and at their work again. I do not think that even our Mendip miners were so wild as these people, and their strange Welsh was hard for me and Howel to understand. I will say that the whole matter seemed hopeless for a time, for no man would say anything to us about it. If we spoke to a man, questioning him, and presently wished to find him again, he was gone, and it would be days ere he came back.

Some of our guards knew the country as well as most, and with them we rode many a long mile into the hills during the first few days, searching for the deepest valleys, and ever did I look to see the great menhir before me as we came to bend after bend of the hills. Circles of standing stones we found, and cromlechs, ruins of ancient round stone huts where villages had been before men could remember, and once we saw a menhir on the hillside; but that was not what I sought, and none could tell us of the lost valley.

Yet it was in my mind as I questioned one or two that their looks seemed to say that the description of the place was not unknown to them, and if they would they could tell me more. At last, when I came to know the speech better at the end of a week, I thought that I would try another plan; I would trust to the shepherds, and ride alone for once across the hills. I thought that, even were I set upon, my horse would take me from danger more quickly than hillmen could run, and Howel, unwillingly enough, agreed that it seemed to be the only chance. Maybe the men would speak more openly with me on the hillside and alone.

So I asked if there was any one could tell me where there were menhirs in the valleys, and a shepherd said that he knew two or three. So I rode with him at my side to one of these, but it was not that which I sought; and, as I hoped, the man was more willing to speak, and we got on well enough. We had not met with a soul all day, but my hawk had taken two bustard after I saw the stone and was disappointed. One of these as a gift to the shepherd had opened his lips wonderfully, and we were talking as we rode in the dusk, and were not so far from the village, of another stone that I was to see next day, when I asked him if he had ever heard of the lost valley of pool and menhir.

He did not answer, but shrunk to my side, looking round him fearfully.

“What comes, Lord,” he said, whispering;–“see yonder?”

He pointed across the bare hillside, and I looked but saw nothing.

“I saw nought,” I said. “Is it unlucky to speak of the place?”

“I saw somewhat leap from yonder rock,” he whispered; “it went behind that other.”

Plainly the man was terrified, and I asked him what he feared.

“The good folk, Lord.”

“Pixies?–Do they come when one speaks of the lost valley?”

“Speak lower, Lord,–lower! Look, yonder it is again!”

Then I also saw in the dusk the figure of a man who crept softly from one great boulder to another, and without thinking of the terror of the shepherd I spurred my horse, and rode straight for the rock behind which the figure disappeared, having no mind to have an arrow put into me at short range by one of the men of Tregoz–or of Morfed–unawares.

The shepherd howled in fright when he was left, but I did not heed him, and in a moment I was round the rock and almost on the cowering man whom I had seen. He turned to fly, and I cried to him to stop, but he only got another rock between me and him, for the hillside was covered with them, and shrank behind it, so that I could only see his wild eyes as he glared at me across it. He said nothing, and I did not think that he was armed, so far as the dim evening light would let me see.

“Why are you dogging me thus?” I cried; “come out, and no harm will befall you.”

I rode round, and he shifted as I did, so that he was between me and the shepherd, and then I called to the latter that this was but a man, and bade him come and help me to catch him. Whereon the man looked swiftly over his shoulder and saw that he was fairly trapped.

“Keep him back, Master,” he said in a strange growling voice, which was not that of a Dartmoor savage either in tone or speech. “Keep him back, and we will talk together; I mean no harm.”

But I had no need to tell the shepherd not to come, for he bided where he was, being afraid; but I held up my hand to him as if to bid him be still, lest the man should know that he would not help me.

“Come out like a man,” I said. “One would think that you were some evildoer.”

“Master, I will swear that I am not. Let that be, for I have somewhat to tell you that you will be glad to hear.”

“If that is true, why did you not come openly, instead of waiting till I had you in a corner? Every one knows that there is reward for news from any honest man.”

“There are those who would take my life if they caught me, Master. I have been seeking for speech with you alone all this day; I hoped the shepherd would leave you hereabout for his home, and then I would have come to you.”

“Well,” I said, “if you could tell me what I need to hear I will hold you safe from any.”

“Master, will you swear that?” said the man eagerly.

Then it came across me that maybe this was one of those who fell on Owen, for one might well look for a traitor among so many.

So I answered cautiously: “Save and except you are one of those who have wrought harm to the prince you shall be safe. If you are one who has him alive and in keeping you shall be safe also.”

“Master, you have promised, and it is well known that you keep your word. I am your man henceforward, by reason of that promise. I will give you a token that I have not harmed the prince.”

“What have you to tell?”

“Master, they say that you seek the lost valley, of which none will speak.”

“That seems true; but speak up, and mouth not your words so.”

“Here was I born and bred, Master,” said the man, still in the same growling voice. “I know where the lost valley is hidden, though none may go there save at peril of life. It is unlucky so much as to speak thereof.”

“Can you take me within sight of its place, so that I can find it?” I asked, with a wild hope at last springing up in me.

“I can; and, Master, unluckier than I am I cannot be, so that life is little to me. Into that place I will even go for you, and risk what may befall me, if only you will find pardon for me. Only, I do not know if you will find aught of Owen the prince there.”

“You must be in a bad way, my poor churl,” said I, “if things are thus with you. But if you will help me to that place, and there let me find what I may, there is naught that may not be forgiven you. Even were it murder, I will pay the weregild for you, and you shall have cause to say that the place has no ill luck for you.”

“Thane,” said the man, in a new voice that was strangely familiar to me, “you have spoken, and forgiven I shall surely be.”

Then he rose from behind the rock and came to my side, and took my hand and kissed it again and again, and surely I had seen his form before.

“Thane, I am Evan the outlaw, and my life is yours because you forgave me a little once, and saved me from the wolves, giving that life back to me when I knew it well nigh gone.”

I looked at the pale hair and beard of the man, and wondered. Evan’s had been black as night.

“It is Evan’s voice,” I said; “but you have changed strangely.”

“Needs must I, Thane, with every man’s hand against me, if I would serve you and Owen the prince for your sake.”

Then I looked round for my shepherd, but he had fled.

“Come to the house with me,” I said. “I think that none will know you, and if they do so I will answer for you.”

“No, Thane; after tomorrow, seeing that even Howel sets such store on finding the valley, as men tell me, I shall be safe even from him. I think that you are the only one who will trust me yet.”

There I knew that he was most likely right. Had I not been certain that he could have kept me from knowing him even yet, I think that I might have been doubtful of him myself.

“As you will,” I answered. “We can meet tomorrow. Now give me that token by which I am to know that you have not harmed Owen.”

“It is right that you should not yet trust me,” Evan said, as if he read my thoughts, “for I do not deserve it. Here is one token: ‘It is not good to sleep in the moonlight.’ And I will give you yet another, if I may, for, indeed, I would have you know that the words I spoke yonder were true when I said that you should be glad that you freed me, and that I have tried to serve you. That may be known by the token of the blackthorn spine and the dog whip.”

I reined up my horse in wonderment and stared at him, and he came close to my side, so that I could see him plainly. And, lo! his shoulders grew rounded, and his eyes crossed terribly, and they bided so, and he mumbled the words he had said when the whip of the huntsman fell on him.

Then he straightened himself again and looked timidly at me. He was not like the man who had bound me so cruelly in Holford combe on the Quantocks.

“Evan,” I cried, “what you did for me at the ealdorman’s gate is enough to win any pardon you may need.”

“It is wonderful that, after all, pardon should come from you, Thane. Do you mind how I said to you that I hoped to win it otherwise through you when we took you on the Quantocks? It is good to feel as a free man once more.”

“Free, and maybe honoured yet, Evan,” I said; for I knew that he had risked his life for me and Owen. “Presently you shall come with me to Wessex, where none know you, and there shall be a fresh life for you. It is in my mind that what you brought on me was as a last hope.”

“Ay, that is true, Thane.”

And then I asked him to tell me all he knew of Owen, and of what had happened here, and how it came about that he knew aught. And as he told me it was plain that this was a true tale, for one could feel it so.

He had followed Owen, keeping himself hidden, after I went to Winchester, for there he knew that I was safe, and yet he would serve me if he could. So from the hillside where he lay he had seen the burning and the fight; and after Owen fell he followed them who bore him away, till he lost them in a grey mist that rolled from the hills and hid them in the darkness. Nor had he been able to find trace of them again, though he had hunted far and wide.

And so he waited for my coming, being sure that I would not be long. But he knew that they had gone toward what he called the lost valley, if it was not likely that they would dare so much as look into it.

“But,” he said, “there was a priest with them, seeming to lead them. Maybe he would dare.”

Into my mind at once came the certainty that this must be Morfed, but Evan knew nought of him. He had no more to tell me of this.

CHAPTER XIII. HOW OSWALD AND HOWEL DARED THE SECRET OF THE MENHIR, AND MET A WIZARD.

So we two rode on together over the wild hills, and talked of what chance there might be of finding Owen on the morrow. He could not tell me if his wounds were deep, for he was far off and helpless, but he told me how he had fought, and that was even as I had known he would.

Now the soft June darkness had fallen, and we were not a mile from the first houses of the village. Soon, if they were alert, we should meet the first outpost of our men who guarded us, and mayhap it were better that Evan came no farther tonight. Yet I would know somewhat of himself and the way in which he had helped me thus. So I stayed my horse and dismounted for a few minutes.

“Tell me, Evan,” I said, “how came you into trouble at the first?”

“It is easy, Thane,” he answered. “I was Evan the chapman, and well known near and far in Cornwall and Dyvnaint as an honest man, even as I have seemed yet beyond the water. Two years ago I slew the steward of this Tregoz in the open market place of Isca, and there was indeed little blame to me, for I did but protect my goods which he would have taken by force, and smote too hard. Little order was there in that market if the king was not there, and Morgan and his friends were in the town. Men have taken heart again since the coming back of Owen, for it was bad enough, as you may suppose by what happened to me. So I fled, and then Tregoz had me outlawed, with a price on my head, so that, being well known, I had to take to Exmoor and herd with others in the same case. I knew that no weregild, as the Saxon calls it, would be enough to save me from the Cornishman.

“There I was the one who could sell the stolen goods across the water, being held in good repute there, and I traded with the Norse strangers who ferried me across. So it was that when Owen came I was in Watchet, and there Tregoz saw me and laid hands on me. Then he needed men to carry out that which he would do, and he had me forth and spoke to me, saying that if I would manage the Quantock outlaws for him he would forgive me and have me inlawed again. I was to have been hanged that day, Thane, and so you will see that I had no choice. Owen’s coming saved me then.”

Evan was not the first man whom I had known to be driven into evil ways by misfortune and powerful enemies. I had little blame for him. A man will do much to save his neck from the rope. But this did not tell me how he knew the plans of Tregoz after I set him free in Dyfed.

“Then you came back to the Cornishman after I freed you?” I asked.

“That I did not, Thane, for the best of reasons. He would have hanged me at once if he were in power, and I had not meant to let him set eyes on me again in any case, for he was treacherous. I came back round the head waters of the Severn, through Wessex, where I was only a Weala, though, indeed, that is almost the same as an outlaw there; and there, by reason of Gerent’s seeking for me, I changed my looks and watched for Tregoz, for I found that he was yet about the place in hiding. Thralls know and tell these things to men of their own sort, though they seem to know nothing if you ask them, Thane.”

“Then you wrote the letters?”

“I had them written by the old priest of Combwich by the Parrett River, who will tell you that he did so. I took them myself to the palaces for you.”

“And was it you who slew Tregoz?”

“Ay, with that seax you gave me back at the Caerau wolf’s den. I heard that he had been speaking with a sentry, and thereafter I followed him and heard his plan. I saw him change arms with the sentry, and presently I fell on him, but the arrow had sped and I feared I was too late. I had to cross the trench from the bushes where I was hidden.”

“But the poisoning at Glastonbury?–How did you know of that?

“Easy it was to know of, but less easy to prevent. I lurked round Glastonbury until I saw the girl, and knew that some fresh trouble was on hand for you. I knew her, for I had seen to that at Norton, that I might learn somewhat, if I could, while she attended on the lady, the daughter of Dunwal. She met her master there once or twice with messages, and it was by following her that I found his hiding in the hills. It was not hard for me to get her to tell me all that she had to do, for I made her think that I was in the plotting. Then she found it harder than had been expected to serve you, for she was kept about the lady. So she asked me, and I told her to wait. I thought she would most likely lose her chance altogether, and maybe but for your staying at the gate that day she would have done so.”

“It was not the first time that we have had half the household outside serving a hunting party,” I said.

“And each time I have been there, Thane, lest this should happen. The girl told me that such times were her only chance, and I said she had better wait for such a one again. I knew that in the open I could in some way spill the horn, so that she would be helpless and harmless afterward. Therefore I bade her not to try to harm you in the house, for my own reasons, but told her that it were safer for herself to wait for some stirrup cup chance, as it were. That day I saw that it had come, and I cut a thorn from the nearest bush and was ready. I could not reach the girl to stumble against her.”

I minded that Thorgils had said that this Evan could beguile Loki himself with fair words, and I could well believe it. But he did not do things by halves when he set himself a task, and I felt that but for him I should certainly have been a victim–to Mara, or to whom?”

“Who wrought this plot? Was it Mara, the Cornish lady?”

“I do not think so,” he answered, shaking his head. “There is one thing that the girl would never tell me. In no wise could I get the name of the one who gave her the poison. I do not know where she fled to, but it is likely that it was to that one.”

“Some day you shall know how grateful I am for this, Evan,” I said. “Now I must go. Only one thing more.–Where do you sleep?”

“Wheresoever I may, that I may be near you, Thane. Now meet me tomorrow at this place, and we will go to the lost valley. After that let me serve you for good and all if I may. I can do many things for you, and you had my life in your hand and gave it back to me; though indeed I know that it was hard for you to do so, seeing that a thane is sorely wronged by being bound by such as I.”

“I can give you little, Evan; but I can, as I have said, find you a place in the court, whence you may rise.”

“Let me serve you, Master,” he said earnestly. “I have served myself for long enough, and it has not turned out well. If I please you not, I will go where you bid me, but in anywise let me try.”

“As you will,” I said. “I owe you well-nigh aught you can ask, and this is little enough.”

Then I shook hands with him and parted. It was a strange meeting.

I went back to Howel with a mind that was full of what I might find on the morrow, but with little hope that there would be anything of sign that Owen yet lived. Howel was growing anxious for me as the darkness fell, and was glad to greet me, and I suppose my face told him somewhat.

“Why,” he said, as I stepped into the firelight on the hearth of the little house, “what is this? Have you heard news at last?”

“I have found one who will take us to the lost valley, but nothing more. I have heard nought fresh, but that there was indeed a priest with the men who took Owen away.”

“Well, we guessed as much as that; but I tell you plainly, Oswald, that I fear what may be in store for us in that place. Nona is not the girl to fancy things, and I know that her dreams must have been terrible to her. And then you also–“

“I fear, too,” I said. “But I do not think that anything will be worse than this long uncertainty. Well, that is to be seen. Now I must tell you who it is that is to guide us, and maybe you will say that it is a strange story enough. Have patience until you hear all, however.”

So I told him, beginning with the certainty that I had had some friend at work for me, and then telling him at last that I had found the man who had indeed saved me from these two dangers, and would also have saved Owen if he could.

“Why, how is it that he kept himself hidden all the time?”

“For good reason enough, in which you have some share,” I answered, laughing. “It is none other than Evan the chapman.”

“Evan!–How did he escape the Caerau wolves? I tell you that I had him tied up for them–and hard words from Nona did I get therefore when she knew. I was ashamed of myself for the thing afterwards, and on my word I am glad he got away. But when I am wroth I wax hasty, and things go hard with those who have angered me. But he was a foe of yours.”

“Laugh at me as you will,” I said; “I made him my friend when I cut his bonds in your woods.”

He stared at me in wonder, and I told him what the hunting led to. And then I also told of what had sent Evan among the outlaws, and how he came to fall in with me.

“You are a better man than I, Oswald,” he said thoughtfully, when I ended. “I could not have let him go. I am glad that you did it, and that for other reasons than that the deed has turned out to be of use.”

Then he would hear more, and when it came to the way in which Evan had beguiled the Welsh servant he laughed.

“Surely he laid aside the squint when he made up to her, else from your account he would not have been welcome. But he could hardly have kept it up, lest the wind should change and it should bide with him, as the old women say. Well, I used to like the man, and so did Nona, and it is good to think that one was not so far wrong.”

Now we thought that on the morrow we would go with but half a dozen men to the valley, if that would seem good to Evan. If he thought more were needed it would be easy to call them to us from the place where we were to meet him; and so we slept as well as the thought of that search would let us, and it was a long night to me. I think it was so for Howel also, for once in the night he stirred and spoke my name softly, and finding that I waked he said:

“I know why that girl of Mara’s would not tell who set her on you. It is not like a maid to be sparing with her mistress’ secrets, and Morfed is at the back of it. It is his work, and he laid a curse on the girl if she told who sent her. About the only thing that would keep her quiet.”

“Why would Morfed want to hurt me?”

“Plain enough is that. If you were slain, Gerent would hold Ina responsible for Owen’s sake, and Ina would blame Gerent, and there would be a breach at the least in the peace that your bishop has made.”

Then we were silent, and presently sleep came to me, until the first light crept into the house and woke me.

In an hour we were riding across the hills with Evan, for whom we had brought a horse, and there were fifty men with us. We should leave them at a place which Evan would show us, and so go on with him without them. It was not so certain that we might not run into the nest of the men who had taken Owen, though this would surely not be in the lost valley.

Many a long mile Evan led us into the hills northwestward, and far beyond where I had yet been. I cannot tell how far it was altogether, for the way was winding, but I lost sight of all landmarks that I knew, and ever the bare hills grew barer and yet more wild, and I could understand that there were places where even the shepherds never went.

At first we saw one or two of these watching us from a distance, but soon we passed into utter loneliness, and nought but the cries of the nesting curlew which we startled, and the wail of the plover round our heads, broke the solemn stillness of the grey rocks on every side. Even our men grew silent, and the ring of sword on stirrup seemed too loud to be natural at last. We were all fully armed, of course.

Then we came to a place where the hills drew together, and doubled fold on fold under a cloud of hanging mist that hid their heads, and as we rode, once Evan pointed silently to a rock, and I looked and saw strange markings on it that had surely some meaning in them, though I could not tell what it was. And when I looked at him in question I saw that his face was growing pale and anxious, so that I thought we must be near the place which we sought. So it was, for after we had left that stone some two score fathoms behind us, as we passed up a narrow valley, there opened out yet another, wilder and more narrow still, and at its mouth he would have us leave the men and go on with him.

Now, we had seen no man, but when it came to this, Howel said:

“By all right of caution, we should have an outpost or two on those ridges. If we are going into this place it will not do to be trapped there.”

So without question Evan pointed out places whence men could watch well enough against any possible comers, but he told me that we were close to the place we would see, and a call from our horns would bring help at once if it were needed. Howel sent men by twos to the hilltops, and the rest dismounted and waited where we stayed them, while we three went on together up the valley. I bade one of the men give Evan his spear, for he had none.

Grey and warm it was there, for the clouds hung overhead, and no breeze could find its way into the depths of this place, and it was very silent, but it was not the lost valley itself. And now Howel, who had not yet so much as seemed to know Evan, rode alongside him for a moment, and spoke kindly to him, telling him that he was glad of all that I had told him, and at last asking him to forget that which he had done to him in the woods of Dyfed. And that was much for the proud prince to ask, as I think, and I held him the more highly therefor in my mind.

And Evan replied by asking Howel to forget rather that he had ever deserved death at his hands.

“It shall be seen that I am not ungrateful to the Thane, my master, hereafter–if I may live after seeing this place,” he said.

“Is it so deadly, then?” asked Howel, speaking low in the hush of the valley.

“It is said that those who see it must die–at least, of us who ken the curse on it. I do not think that it will harm you or the thane to see it, for you are not of this land at all. I have known men see this valley by mischance, and they have died shortly, crying out on the terror thereof. Yet none has ever told what he saw therein.”

Now it seemed to me that it was possible that such men died of fear of what might be, as men who think they are accursed, whether by witchcraft or in other ways, will die, being killed by the trouble on their minds, and so I said to Evan:

“I will not take you into this place. Show us the way, and I will go alone.”

“No, Master,” he said, in such wise that it was plain that there was no turning him. “I am a Christian man, and I will not let old heathen curses hold me back, now that there is good reason why I should stand in that place. I will not be afraid thereof.”

“Is the curse so old?” I asked.

“Old beyond memory,” he said. “As old as what is in that place.”

“As the menhir, therefore.”

“I do not know that there is a menhir, Thane. How know you?”

I reined up, and told him shortly. It was only fair that I should do so. Then he said:

“The prince is dead, and maybe that he lies there will end the curse. Come, we will see.”

A few paces more, and suddenly the hillside seemed to open in a ragged cleft that made another branching valley into the heart of the left-hand hillside, so deep that it seemed rather to sink downward from the mouth than to rise as a valley ever will. In all truth, none would ever have found that place unless he sought for it with a guide. I had not guessed that we were so near its entrance.

I looked round the hills, but from here I could see not one of our men on their watch posts, though one would have thought that where they stood it would have been impossible to lose sight of all. We were almost at the head of the wider valley along which we had ridden.

Now I had thought to be the leader into the lost valley when we came to it, but this Evan would not suffer. There was not room for us to ride abreast into its depths, for the narrow bottom of the cleft in the hills was littered with fallen boulders from the steeps that bordered it, and through these we had to pick our way. There was no path, nor was it possible to trace any mark of the foot of man or horse that might have been there before us, and the valley turned almost in a half circle, so that we could see no distance before us.

Now, I know that Evan had a hard struggle with his fears, but nevertheless, without drawing rein he led on, only turning to me with one word that told me that we had found the place; and as he turned I saw that his face was ashy pale, and as he rode on he crossed himself again and again, and his lips moved in prayer.

Down the long curve of the valley we rode, and it ever narrowed under rocky hills that grew at last to cliffs, and I knew that this must be but the bed of a raging torrent in the winter, for the stones that rattled under the horse hoofs were rounded, and here and there were pools of clear water among them. Any moment now might set us face to face with what I longed to see.

And when I saw Evan, ten paces ahead of me, straighten himself in the saddle as if he would guard a blow from his face, and draw rein, I knew that we were there, and I rode to his side and looked.

Suddenly the valley had ended in the place which I had seen in my vision–a rugged circle of cliffs, in whose only outlet, to all seeming, we stood. And in the midst of that circle was the pool of still, black water, and across that towered the tall menhir from a green bank on which it stood facing me. All round the pool was green grass, bright with the treacherous greenness that tells of deep bog beneath it, and then fair turf, and beyond the turf the rocky scree from the cliffs again. The menhir was full thrice a man’s height.

It was even as I had seen it. I knew every rock and patch of green, and the very outline of the edge of the beetling crags that had been so plain to me in the dream light ere Owen called me.

But I did not heed these things at the first. My eyes went to the place where Nona the princess had seen the sword in the long grass on the hither side of the pool’s edge, but I could not see it now. Then I must ride forward and search for it, and at that time Howel was close to me, and together we rode yet a little farther into the circle that the cliffs made, and as we drew closer to the edge of the pool I scanned every inch of the ground, seeking the sword which it seemed impossible that I should not find.

“It has gone,” said Howel in a hushed voice.

And at that moment I saw a sparkle among the new grass at the very edge of the bog that surrounded the pool, and I threw the reins to the prince and sprang from my horse and went toward it. The light was very dull here, though it was nigh midday now, and indeed so high and overhanging were the cliffs that I do not think the sun ever reached the surface of the pool, save at this high midsummer, and then but as it passed athwart the narrow entrance, which faced south. Then it would send its rays across the pool full on the face of the menhir, as it seemed.

So I could see nought again until I was close to the spot whence the spark shone, and then I caught it once more, and hastily I cleared aside the rank grass with my spear butt, and lo! even as she had seen it in dreams the sword of Owen was there, and it was the gleam from the gem in its hilt, which no damp could dim, which had caught my eye. But a little while longer and we should never have seen even that, for the weapon was slowly sinking into the bog in which its scabbard point had been set, and even as I stepped forward a pace to reach it the black ooze rose round my foot, and Evan, who was behind me, caught my hand and pulled me back from its edge.

Then I turned with the sword in my hand, and I saw that his face had found its colour again, and that his fears had left him, for he had looked on the valley of the mighty curse and yet lived. His horse was at his side, and he had sprung to help me, but I hardly heeded him, for I had what I sought in my hand, and I held it up to Howel without a word, and a sort of fresh hope began to rise in my heart. Owen might not be so far from us.

“How came it there?” Howel said, wondering.

“Who can tell,” I answered, turning over many possibilities in my mind.

“One thing is certain,” Evan said,–“no man set it in that place meaningly, for there he must have known that it would be whelmed soon or late.”

“Nor could it have been dropped there,” I answered. “None would go so near the edge of the bog. It was surely thrown there. One thought to hurl it into the pool. Yet if so he could have done it, or would have tried again.”

“Come, let us search the place,” said Howel.

I hung the sword to my saddle bow, while Evan took the horses. The leather scabbard was black with the bog water of the turf where it had been set, but the blade within it was yet bright and keen.

Then I and the prince together walked slowly round the edge of the black pool on the broad stretch of grass between the bog around it and the loosely piled stones of the cliffs’ foot. Here and there even this turf shook to our tread, as if it too were undermined with bog, and we went warily, therefore, wishing that we had not left our spears by the horses.

“One would call such a place as this ‘the devil’s cauldron’ in our land,” said Howel. “I mislike it altogether.”

Then he sprang back with a start, and clutched my arm and pointed to the ground at his feet. The skull of a man grinned up at us, half sunk in the green turf, and the ends of ribs shewed how he to whom it had belonged lay. There went a cold chill through me as I looked; but I saw that the bones were old, very old. They had nought to do with our trouble, and what had been to others about the loss of him who had died here was long past and forgotten, or amended. But for the sake of what had been I was fain to unhelm for a moment as we stepped past them.

So we went on silently until we were halfway to the menhir, and then we saw that there was yet another way into this place, for across the water a jutting wall of rock had hidden a gorge that had surely been cleft by water, for down it came a little stream that seemed to sink into the turf so soon as it reached it.

“That is what fills the pool,” said I, “and it must find its way hence underground like the stream at Cheddar. The pool may be fathomless. I would that I could look into its depths.”

“What may not be in yonder gorge?” said Howel. “We must go and see.”

So we came to the menhir’s foot, and though the bog came almost to it there was yet a little mound of turf on which it stood, and I went to that to see if thence I could peer deeper into the dark water, but I could not.

“Come,” Howel said, “it is midday, and I for one would not be on these hills on Midsummer Eve. Call me heathenish if you like, but this is an unlucky night whereon to walk in the haunts of the good folk.”

I had forgotten that so it was, and even now I only smiled at the prince, for my mind was full of other things as I followed him toward the glen whence the stream came. And now I was sure that here was growing more clearly a trace as of a seldom trodden path toward its mouth. We passed a great flat rock, whereon were strange markings and a hollowed basin, which stood behind the menhir near the cliff, and to this the path led, but not beyond, from the glen. Now we were almost in the opening, when both of us stopped and looked at one another.

Surely there were footsteps coming among the rocks of the water course before us. Steep and crooked as this was, we could hear them, though as yet if it were a man or men who came we could not see. I pulled the prince back into cover, where the rocks hid us from any one who came down the stream, and I loosened my sword in its sheath, for I could not be so sure that it might not be sorely needed.

The rattle of stones came nearer, and I saw Evan hurrying to us. He also had heard, and he had made shift to tie the horses to some point of rock, and he ran with our spears in his hand to join us.

“Get to the other side of the pool, Thane,” he said. “It may be the band of men who wrought the burning.”

“No,” I answered. “Listen. Maybe there are three or four men, not more. I want to take one if I can. He shall tell me all he knows of this place.”

For I had made up my mind that one who would come here freely must needs be of those who had brought Owen.

Then from the narrow portal of the glen passed quickly, looking neither to the right nor left, a tall man, followed by two others, and they seemed not to see us, but went straight toward the menhir along that path I thought I had traced, and Howel and I stared at them, speechless and motionless, for the like of them we had never seen.

As for Evan, he reeled against the rock, and stared after them, clutching it with both hands, so that his spear fell rattling along the rocks.

“The Druids!” he gasped. “We are dead men.”

At the sharp rattle the leader of the three men turned, and I knew him. He was clad in a wonderful gold and white robe that swept the ground, priest-like, but not that of any Christian, and his hair was bound with a golden fillet with which oak leaves were twisted, and in his ears were large earrings. On his bare right arm was a coiled golden bracelet, and a heavy golden torque was round his neck, and a great golden brooch knit up the folds of his flowing white cloak on his right shoulder. But for all this strange dress I knew him, and he was Morfed the priest, and I heard Howel mutter the name also.

Then a word from Morfed caused the other two to turn, and they saw us, and there flashed from under their robes–which were like those of their leader, save for golden ornaments–a long knife in the hand of each, and they made as if to fly on us.

Morfed held up his hand, and they stayed, glaring at us. I listened for the coming of more of his followers down the water course, but I heard none.

Then Morfed spoke a word or two to his men, and came toward us, leaving them standing where they were, some twenty paces or less behind him, and as he came his pale face shewed no sort of feeling of any kind. His strange bright eyes seemed to look past us, as if we were but stones at the path side.

“So it is the Saxon,” he said, staying close before us. “Well, I have waited for you, if I did not look to see you here. And this is Howel of Dyfed. Surely a Briton knows that to break in on the rites of the Druid is death? But Howel ever was rash. And this is the outlaw. It is a true saying that he who sees this place shall die, Evan.”

Then said Howel boldly: “Briton I am, and therefore I know that the rites of the Druid are banned by Holy Church. Wherefore does one of her priests come in this heathen robe to such a place as this on the eve of midsummer?”

“Seeing that none but the initiated may know what truth the ancient faith holds, it is not for you to say that this is heathenry, Prince,” Morfed answered more quietly than I expected. “Ask yon Saxon if his Yule feast is less sacred to him now because it is not so long since that it was Woden’s. Is tomorrow less Midsummer Day because it is the day of St. John? Hold your peace thereon, and go hence while I suffer you.”

At that I glanced at the mouth of the valley whence we came, half looking to see it blocked by men, but it was not. There was nothing to stay us three armed men in this place, with but three against us, and they well-nigh defenceless. Morfed saw that glance and laughed.

“The Druid has other arms than those of steel,” he said, and he drew slowly from the wide cincture round his waist a little golden sickle and balanced it in his hand before me, flashing it to and fro.

Now I was sure that he was crazed in all truth, and I would speak him fair that I might learn what he would tell me. Howel was silent, seeming to look curiously at the golden toy in the priest’s hand, as it shifted restlessly backward and forward.

“We have come hither to pry into no ancient rites, Morfed,” I said. “Tell me what you know of Owen the prince, my foster father, and we will go hence. I have seen that which tells me that he is near, but there are yet things that I must learn of how he came and where he lies.”

But Morfed seemed to heed me not at all as I spoke. Only, he kept moving the little sickle which Howel watched, and its glancings drew my eyes to it in spite of myself, for overhead the sky was clearing somewhat and the sun was trying to break through, and the gold shone brightly.

“Midday,” muttered the priest, “nigh midday, and what is to be done against the morrow must be done, else will the tale of many a thousand years be marred, and by me. Lo! the sun comes, and time passes swiftly.”

The sun did indeed shine out now as some cloud passed, and I saw that its rays came slanting through the gap in the cliffs across the pool, passing the menhir without lighting on it, but falling now on the flat rock that was behind it, though not fully yet. Half thereof was still in the shadow thrown by the hills.

Morfed glanced at that shadow, and his face changed, for I think that he knew the time for some midday rite which we might not see was near, and at that he seemed to make some resolve. He did not turn from us, but he lifted his voice in a strange chant, and said somewhat in Welsh that I could not understand, and as they heard it his two followers placed themselves on either side of the flat rock three paces behind him, and stood motionless. Then Morfed lifted his arm and began to sing softly, swinging the sickle in time to the song, with his eyes on us.

I thought that maybe he would sing to us the end of Owen, as would Thorgils, but the tongue in which the words were spoken was not the Welsh that I knew. I think now that it was the tongue of the men who reared the menhir, and that which was the mother of the tongue of Howel and Gerent alike. It was an uncanny song, and I waxed uneasy as it went on, and the flashing sickle waved more quickly before my eyes.

Soon the murmur of the song seemed to get into my brain, as it were, and the sparkle of the gold in the sunlight wove itself into strange circles of light before my eyes, widening and narrowing in mystic curves that dazzled me, until at last I would look no longer, and with an effort I turned my head and glanced at Howel to ask if this foolishness should not be ended.

But he shook his head.

“Let him be,” he said in a whisper. “It is ill to anger a crazed man. Surely he will tell what we need soon.”

But beside him Evan seemed to be shrinking as in terror. I suppose the Briton has old memories of the Druids of past days which yet bid him fear them.

“Hearken to me, and heed them not,” sang Morfed in words that I could understand. “Hearken, for you have much to learn.”

That was true, and I turned to him. I supposed that he was in truth about to speak to me as I would, and straightway the look of Morfed was on my face, and the song went back to its old burden, and the flashing sickle held my eyes with its circling, and I knew that if I looked long I also must pass as it were from myself, as had those two, and I wrenched my eyes from him.

Then a movement on the stone caught my gaze, and I saw that the two men yet stood motionless, but across the sunlit patch which had crept nearer the centre where the hollowed bowl was, a great adder, greater than any I had ever seen, thick and spade-headed, had coiled itself in shining folds peaceably and seeming not to heed the men. Only its head was raised a little, and it swayed as in time to the chant of the priest, while the long forked tongue flickered forth now and then restlessly.

But Morfed went on with his song and his waving, seeming to try to draw my look back to him, and I noted, as I glanced again at him, that a shade of doubt crossed his face, and at that a new thought came to me. Maybe if he saw that I feared him not he would speak. So I looked in his eyes and bade him be silent and hearken to what I said to him.

Some wave of anger flushed his face then, and he drew a pace nearer to me, but he was not silent, and the waving sickle was not still. Neither of these things troubled me any longer, and I looked past them, in such wise that he might see that I meant him to obey me, even as one will look at a sullen thrall who delays to carry out an order given. A captain of warriors will know what signs to watch for in a man’s face well enough, and slowly and at last I saw the look for which I waited steal across the face of the man before me, and then I raised my hand and said:

“Be still, and answer me.”

The song stopped, and the lifted sickle sank with the hand that held it, and the eyes of Morfed left mine and sought the ground.

“What will you?” he said. “Let me go, for it is time.”

“When you have answered,” I said sternly. “Tell me, where is Owen?”

“In yonder pool,” he said, as a child will answer its teacher.

But if he answered as a child, his face was sullen as of a child that is minded to rebel, and I knew that he would try not to tell me aught.

“You lie,” I said coldly. “Neither Christian priest nor Druid would dare set a prince of Cornwall in an unhallowed grave. Tell me the truth.”

“Ay, I lied,” he said, speaking in a strange voice that seemed to come from him against his will. And then he spoke quickly, without faltering or excuse. “I led the men who should slay the despiser of the faith of his youth and friend of the Saxon, and we came to the house and destroyed it, but they slew him not. Sorely wounded he was, and yet they would not do my bidding and make an end, but murmured at me. Then they bore him away into the hills, saying that they would heal him of his hurts and thereafter win his pardon, for he was ever forgiving, and it is true that I told them not who it was they were to slay. I said that it was Oswald the Saxon, who slew Morgan, and they were glad. I do not know how it has come to pass that you are here. I hate you!”

“Speak on, Morfed,” I said, for he had stayed his words on that, and I bent all my mind into that command as it were, so that he knew that I meant to be his master in this.

“Why should I not speak,” he said dully. “Let me end quickly. Ay, I went with them, thinking that he would die on the way, for he was sorely wounded, and I mocked them and threatened them in vain. I led them to this place, and when they knew it they fled, and left him to me. Wherefore I brought him here, that I might see him die–I and these two carried him on the litter the men made. Then will I bury him in no hallowed grave, for I myself spoke the uttermost ban of Holy Church against him, for that he had herded with the men of the Saxons who follow Canterbury, and has wrought for peace with them.”

Then I knew at last that Owen was not dead, and I think that in my gladness I lost my hold on Morfed, as it were, for I half forgot him. And at that moment there came a little cry from one of the men who waited by the flat altar stone, and both of them looked to Morfed for some command, as if a time had come. The stone was in full light now, and I noted that the shadow of the menhir was creeping toward its base, but not yet quite pointing to it.

But Morfed did not answer the cry, and the great adder, roused by it, moved restlessly in its coils, darting its long forked tongue into the hollow of the stone as if it sought somewhat. Then one of the men who seemed the younger took from under his robe a golden flask and poured what looked like milk into the hollow, and the creature lowered its head and lapped it thence.

At that cry Morfed started and half turned. But I had more to ask him, and I spoke sternly. Behind me was a rattle of arms, as if Howel would have stayed him.

“Morfed,” I said, “you have yet to tell me where Owen, the prince, is hidden. If you would finish what you are about here, tell me straightway, or bid one of these men shew me, or we will stay all this wizardry.”

Maybe I spoke more boldly than I felt, for indeed the whole business and the place made all seem uncanny. I know that my comrades feared it all.

But now Morfed heeded my word no longer. Slowly at last he turned away, and now he must needs look back toward the altar stone and the menhir in turning, and the sight of them seemed to bring to his mind what work he had here, so that in a moment I was forgotten, and he sprang past me toward his attendants, one of whom was pointing silently, but with a white face, to the shadow of the menhir. And I saw that now it touched the stone and crept up on its surface for an inch or less.

I suppose that tomorrow that shadow would be so much shorter, and would not lie on the flat top of the stone at all. Then for a little space the sun would seem to one at the back of the altar to stand on the menhir’s top, while all the stone and the bowl where the adder lay was in full light, even as men say the sun seems to stand on the great stone of Stonehenge on Midsummer Day at its rising. I had seen that wonder once, and this minded me of it.

But what Morfed saw told him that midday had come and was passing; and all that meant to him, beyond that the time for some rite had been forgotten, I cannot tell. There came from his lips a cry that was of terror and of sorrow as I thought, and the adder lifted its head from its lapping and coiled itself menacingly.

He did not heed the creature, but threw abroad his hands sunwards, and began to speak hurriedly in that tongue which I could not follow; and as his words went on the faces of his men grew haggard, and one of them wept openly. The younger threw the golden vessel he had in his hand into the pool, and turned on me a look of the most terrible hate, and his hand stole under his robes as if he sought the knife I had seen him draw when they first came.

Now Howel and Evan were beside me, wondering, but spear in hand, and I was glad. There was more than enmity in the look of these men, and one to three has little chance. Whatever strange fears my friends had felt passed with the sight of danger.

But while Morfed spoke his followers were still, listening to him intently, until at last he seemed to dismiss them; and then they turned from him with a strange deep reverence, and folded their hands on their breasts, and came past where we stood, not looking at us, but with their eyes on the ground as if they were going back, up the water course whence they came. And at that I thought they might be going to where Owen was, and that they would harm him.

“Quick, Evan,” I said; “follow them. See where they go.”

“Ay, follow them,” said Morfed. “Now I care not what befalls.”

And with that he raised his voice and called somewhat to the men, and they quickened their pace into the glen. I did not understand what they said in return, but somewhat in the words of the ancient tongue they spoke was more plain to Howel, and he cried to me hastily, hurrying after Evan.

“Guard you the priest here, and beware of him!”

Then he dashed up the water course into which Evan had already disappeared, and I heard the feet of the four on the loose stone as they climbed upward. I had almost a mind to follow them, for I thought that their way led to Owen, but I dared not leave Morfed to go elsewhere. This might only be a plan to lead us astray.

CHAPTER XIV. HOW OSWALD FOUND WHAT HE SOUGHT, AND RODE HOMEWARD WITH NONA THE PRINCESS.

So I was left with Morfed the priest, and he did not offer to follow his men, but stood and faced me with eyes that gleamed with the fire of wrath or madness, or both. We waited, both of us, as I think, to hear if any sound beyond the lessening footfalls came from the water course, but they died away upward, and there was still no word between us. Then I thought that I would try one more plan with him.

“Morfed,” I said, “take me to Owen, and I will pledge my word that Gerent shall seek no revenge for what has been done by you.”

“What I have done!” he broke out. “I sought to rid the land of a foe, and that was a deed worth doing. Know you what you have done?–Through you is ended the tale of many a thousand years. The time is past when I, the priest and Archdruid of this poor land, should have done what has been done, since time untold, without fail, against tomorrow’s rites. That day, therefore, through you shall be unobserved. It is strange that a mere Saxon warrior, with no thought beyond his feasting and fighting, should set his will against mine and prove the stronger. Now I wit well that this is some fated day, and that herein lies some omen of what shall be.”

Then he turned a little from me, and looked at the shadow which had passed altogether from the altar stone now, and half to himself he said:

“I had thought that this menhir had fallen when this came to pass. But maybe the old prophecy meant that not until it fell we must cease our rites. But that was not how we read the words of old time. If we read them wrong, what else have we mistaken?”

“Morfed,” I broke in on his musings, “end this idle talk, and tell me of Owen. Then I will go hence and leave you to work what you will here. I had no wish to disturb your rites, whatsoever they were. If aught has happened amiss, it was your own fault, not mine. Your own deed brought me here.”

But he paid not the least heed to me, and yet I thought that he tried to put me off, as it were, by seeming wrapt in thoughts.

“Surely it should have fallen on this day that sees the end, even as runs the ancient prophecy–‘When the pool shall whelm the stone, Druid rite and chant are done.’ But it has not fallen, and the end is not yet. But what shall amend this fault?”

I had listened for some sound from Howel and Evan, but since the footsteps passed up the glen I had heard none until this moment. Then came one cry from far upward, and silence thereafter. Morfed heard it and looked up, setting at the same time his hand on the edge of the altar stone.

The golden sickle flashed as he did so, and at that, swift as the flash itself, the adder stiffened its coils, and its head flew back, baring the long fangs, and twice it struck the hand deeply.

“I am answered,” Morfed said quietly. “My life shall amend.”

But he never moved his hand, and the adder swiftly slid from off the stone and sought some hiding place in the loose rocks at the cliff foot, and the priest watched it go, motionless.

“Look you, Saxon,” he said, lifting his eyes to me; “now I must die, and with me ends the line of the Druids of this land of the olden faith. Yonder in the Cymric land beyond the narrow sea whence Howel came it shall not be lost. The hills shall keep it, and there the slow mind of the Saxon shall not slay the old powers as you have slain them in me. Now I know that nought but the power of the cross shall avail on such minds as yours, for the lore of the older days is not for you. See! This is an end, and now you in your simpleness shall do one last thing for me.”

I saw that the hand which yet rested on the altar was swelling already, and was waxing fiery red with four black marks where the fangs struck it. And I had a sort of pity for him, seeing him bear this, which he deemed his punishment, bravely. Still, he had answered nothing as to where Owen was.

“Morfed,” I said, therefore–“if it is indeed the last hour for you, make amends for another ill by telling me where Owen is, and I will do what you ask me, if it is what I may do honestly and as a Christian.”

“Grave me a cross on yonder menhir in token that the days of the Druid are numbered,” he said softly, sitting down on the stone with his head bowed, as if in deadly faintness.

Two steps took me to the menhir, and I drew my seax that I might do as he asked me. It was a little thing, and Christian, and I thought that maybe he had come to himself from the madness of which men spoke. Yet though it seemed long that Howel was away, and I longed to follow him, I dared not leave this man, seeing that for all I knew Owen was somewhere close at hand, and it was not to be known what this priest might do in his despair. Howel and Evan might be following the men yet into some hiding place.

I set the point of my weapon to the stone and went to work, graving the upright stem of the cross first, thinking that Morfed would speak when he saw that I was indeed doing as he asked me. The stone was softer than I expected, and surely was not of the granite of the cliffs around, but had been brought from far, else I could not have marked it at all. Yet I had to lean heavily on my seax as I cut, and it was no light task, as I stood sidewise that I might not lose sight of Morfed.

“I die,” he said presently. “There will be none left who may bring back the ancient secrets hither from the land of the Cymro. See, this is an end.”

He rose up, staggering a little, and cast the golden sickle from him into the pool with a light eddying splash, as if it skimmed the surface ere it sank, but I did not look at it, and that was well for me. I saw his hand fly to his breast, as the hands of his men had gone for their weapons when they first saw us, and I knew what was coming.

Hardly had the golden toy touched the water when out flashed a long dagger from his robes, and he flew on me, thinking, no doubt, that I must needs turn my head to watch the fall of his sickle, and I was ready for him. He was no warrior, and his hand was too high, but he was a priest, and on him I would not use my weapon. I swung aside from him, striking up his arm, and his blind rush carried him against the menhir, so that the blow which was meant for me fell thereon, scoring the stone deeply; and lo! his own hand ended with that blow what I had begun, marking the cross-beam I had yet to make, so that the holy sign was complete.

And I saw that in a flash, even as he reeled back from the menhir and staggered. His foot splashed into the ooze of the bank and went down; and with that he lost his footing altogether and fell headlong into the pool, swaying as he went, across the front of the menhir.

Now there was a shout and the sound of hurrying footsteps behind me, but it was Howel’s voice, and I did not turn. I leaned on the menhir to try to catch the white robes that swirled below me, and then I felt a heave and quaking in the turf on which I knelt as I reached over the black water, and Howel cried out and dragged me back roughly for a long fathom.

The menhir was falling. Slowly at first, and then more swiftly, it bent forward over the pool, and then it gathered way suddenly, and with a mighty crash it fell with all its towering height across it–and across the last flash of the white robes of the man who yet struggled therein.

For a moment the cross looked skyward, and then the wave swept over the stone, and it was gone into the unknown depths that maybe held so many secrets of the strange rites of those who had reared it. Only where its foot had been planted was a pit to shew that somewhat had been there, and that was slowly filling with the black bog which had undermined the stone at last. The old prophecy had come to pass, and there was indeed an end.

But I saw for a moment into that pit before it was filled, and in it was laid open as it were a great stone chest, where the base of the menhir had been to cover it, and in that were skulls and bones of men, and among them the dull gleam of ancient gold and flint.

The wild tumult of the water died away, and the ripples came, and then the pool was glassy as before, but there was no sign of movement in it, and now it was clear no longer. And still Howel and I stared silently at that place whence the great stone had passed like a dream.

“Nona saw it troubled,” Howel said at last.

But I answered what was in my mind, with a sort of despair:

“He never told me where Owen lies.”

“But I think we have found him, or nearly,” Howel answered. “Come with me. This is no place for us to bide in. Did you hear those voices?”

I had heard the echoes from the rocks after the great crash, and they were strange and wild enough, but I heard nothing more.

“I heard one shout some time since,” I said, rising up from where I still sat as Howel had left me.

“Nay, but the wailing when the stone fell,” he said. “Wailing from all around. Wailing as of the lost. Come hence, Oswald.”

I do not know if the man of the more ancient race heard more than I, mingled with those wild echoes, but I know that Howel the prince feared little. Now he was afraid, even in the bright sunlight, and owned it.

But the first shock had passed from me, and I looked for our horses. They had gone. I think that the fall of the menhir scared them, for they were yet tied where Evan left them, just before that.

“Howel, the horses have broken loose and gone,” I cried.

“Let them be,” he said; “they will but go to the men down the valley, and will be caught there. Come, we must get hence.”

He fairly dragged me with him towards the glen, and it was not until we were out of the circle of cliffs round the pool and picking our way among the boulders of the water course, that he spoke again.

“That is better,” he said,–“one can breathe here. I do not care if I never set eyes on that place again, and indeed I hope we need not. Now we have to find Owen as quickly as we may.”

“What of the two men?”

“One turned on us, and we slew him perforce. The other Evan has tied up safely, though it took us all our time to catch him. I left Evan trying to make him speak.”

I wondered in what way he was trying, but the path grew steeper and steeper, and the plash of water falling among the stones made it hard to hear. We went on and on, ever upward, until the walls of the narrow glen widened, and at last we were on a barren hillside, across which the little stream found its way in a belt of green grass and fern and bog from farther heights yet, and there I looked for Evan. The path reappeared here again, and it went slanting across the hill and over its shoulder, hardly more than a sheep track as it was. And here lay the body of the slain man.

“Over the hill crest,” Howel said, noting my look around. “The man ran across this track. Did you hear what Morfed said to them?”

“No, I heard him call, of course, but his tongue is unknown to me.”

“It was the ancient British, I think. I heard a word or two here and there, but few of those we use yet. I heard more that are written in our oldest writings, and few enough of them. But what he said to his men was plain enough, happily. He bade them kill the captive to amend the wrong done. I do not know what the wrong was.”

I knew then that Owen had had a narrow escape, and but for the fleetness of foot of Evan he would surely have been slain. I told Howel of what had passed while he was absent, and so we came to the hilltop, and I saw a little below me the white robes of the captive, and Evan sitting by him, resting on his spear. He rose up as we came to him.

“Has he spoken, Evan?” I said.

“Ay, Master,” he answered, with a grin that minded me of other days with him. “He says he will take us to the place where Owen lies, if we will promise to spare his life.”

“We will promise that,” I answered. “We will let him go his own way after we have seen all that we need.”

“Let me rise, then,” the man said quietly. “I will shew you all.”

“Do not untie his hands, Evan, but let him walk,” I said. “He is not to be trusted, if he is like his master.”

It was the elder of the two whom we had before us, and he seemed downcast and harmless enough as we let him rise, though he was unhurt. He had run on while the younger turned to stay the pursuers, but Evan had caught him. He led us along the path, which I suppose his own feet and those of Morfed had worn, unless it was old as the menhir itself, and on the way he said suddenly:

“Let me ask one thing of you. Has the menhir fallen?”

“Ay, with the cross graven on it,” I answered; and my words checked a laugh that was on Evan’s lips.

“I knew it. I heard the crash,” the man said. “That is an end therefore.”

But Howel told the whole story as he had seen it take place, from the time when Morfed flew at me, to the time when the waters were still again; and as he heard, the man clenched his hands and bowed his head and went on quickly, as if that would prevent his hearing. After that he said nothing.

Then the path took us round the shoulder of a hill, and before us was a rocky platform on the sunward slope which went steeply down to another brook far below us. Far and wide from that platform one could see over the heads of three streams, and across three hill peaks that were right before us, and at the back of the level place was a great cromlech made of one vast flat stone reared on three others that were set in a triangle to uphold it. Seven good feet from the ground its top was, and each of the three supporting stones was some twelve feet long, so that it was like a house for space within, and the two foremost stones were apart as a doorway. And again beyond the cromlech was a hut, shaped like a beehive of straw, built of many stones most wonderfully, both walls and roof. There were things about this hut that seemed to tell that it was in use, and even as our footsteps rang on the rocky platform, out of its low doorway crept an ancient woman and stared at us wildly.

“What is this?” she screamed. “How should these unhallowed ones come hither?”

“Silence, mother,” our captive said. “All is done, and these men come to take away the prince.”

Then she saw that he was bound with Evan’s belt, and at that she screamed again, and a wild look came into her face, and with a bound that was wonderful in one so old and bent she fled to the cromlech, and climbed up the rearward stone in some way, perching herself on the flat top, whence she glared at us.

“We will not harm you, mother,” I said, seeing her terror.

And even as I spoke, from within the stone walls of the cromlech came the voice that I longed to hear again, weak, indeed, but yet that of Owen:

“Oswald, Oswald!”

Then I paid no more heed to the hag, but ran into the dark place, and there indeed was my foster father, swathed in bandages, and lying white and helpless on a rough couch, but yet with a bright smile and greeting for me, and I went on my knees at his side and answered him.

I will not say more of that meeting. Outside the old woman cursed and reviled Howel and Evan and the captive in turns unceasingly; but I heeded her no more than one heeds a starling chattering on the roof in the early morning. I had all that I sought, and aught else was as nothing to me.

After a little while Howel’s face came into the doorway, and Owen called him in. I saw the look of the prince change as he marked the many swathings that told of Owen’s sore hurts.

“Nay, but trouble not,” Owen said, seeing this. “I am cut about a bit, for certain, but not so badly that I may not be about again soon. The old lady overhead has a shrewd tongue, but she is a marvellous good leech. I have not fared so badly here, and I knew Oswald would not rest until he found me.”

“Now we must take you hence,” I said. “Our men wait, and we can no doubt get them here.”

He smiled, being tired with the joy of seeing us and the speaking, and I went out to Evan. The old woman still sat on the cromlech, and when she saw me her voice rose afresh with more hard words, which I would not notice.

“Evan,” I said, “how shall we take the prince hence?”

“The litter they brought him on stands behind the hut yonder,” he answered; “for this man tells me so. Also he says that we are not half a mile from our men, and that we can see one from just above here.”

So I sent him to bring them, telling him how the horses were gone, so that we had no need to go back into the valley. To tell the truth, I was as much relieved in my mind that we need not do so as it was plain that he was. Then when he was gone I went back to Owen, and he asked me if we had seen Morfed. I did not tell him more than that we had done so, but that he was not here, one of his two men having guided us, for the tale we must tell him by and by might be better untold as yet.

“It does not matter,” he said. “I cannot understand the man. At one time I think that he was at the bottom of all the trouble, and at another that he rescued me from the men who fell on the house. I have seen little of him here until yesterday and today. There is a man whom he calls ‘the Bard,’ who has tended me well enough with the old dame, and another whom he names ‘the Ovate,’ whom I have seen now and then–a younger man. I have set eyes on none but these four since the men of the burning left me to them in the hills.”

We asked him how all that went, and he told us what he could remember. He had waked from some sort of a swoon while he was being carried, in the midst of many men, and again had come to himself when his litter had been set down. At that time there was seemingly a quarrel between Morfed and his two followers and these men, and it ended by the many departing and leaving him to the priest. That was, as I knew, when the hillmen would not come into the lost valley.

“They set my sword beside me,” he said. “Presently in the dark I saw the gleam of a pool, and I made shift to throw it into the water, so that no outlaw or Morgan’s man should boast that he wore it. Ina gave it me. One of the men saw me throw it, and was for staying, but the other said he had heard the splash and that it was gone. Morfed was not near at the time, having gone on. I heard him singing somewhere beyond the water.”

“I have found it, father,” I said. “It was on the edge of the pool, in long grass, and it helped us somewhat, for we knew you were near. Now say if it is well to move you yet. We can bide here with the men if not.”

He laughed a little.

“I think so, but that is a question for the leech. Ask the dame. Maybe she will answer if you speak her fair.”

Howel went to do that, saying that maybe she would listen to a Briton, for most of her wrath was concerning my Saxon arms. So presently I heard her shrill voice growing calmer as Howel coaxed her, and then there was a sound as if she climbed from her perch, and Howel came back to us.

“We may take you, she says. Hither come the men in all haste also, and we may get away from this place at once. These hills are uncanny on Midsummer Eve, and I am glad that we have long daylight before us.”

Then said Owen:

“Oswald, I have not withal, but I would fain reward the bard and the old woman for their care of me. I think that even at Glastonbury there are none who would have healed these hurts of mine more easily than she.”

I had my own thoughts about the bard, but I said that I would see to this, and went to him. The men were close at hand, and I saw that they led our horses with them.

“Bard,” I said, “Owen the prince speaks well of you. Is it true that you would have slain him had you not been stayed on your way?”

“I do not know, Lord,” he answered. “When I was with Morfed, needs must I do his bidding, even against my will. Yet, away from him, I think that I should not have harmed the prince. I am a Christian man, for all that you have seen.”

“There was somewhat strangely heathenish in what I did see,” I said. “But I suppose that is all done with?”

“I might go across the sea to the British lands in the north or in the south and learn to attain to druidship,” he said. “But I will not. What I know shall die with me. He who was the next to me above, even Morfed, is gone, and he who was next below is gone also. Druid and Ovate both. I am the only one of the old line left, and I will be the last. Call me Bard no longer, I pray you.”

“Well,” I said, for there was that in the face of the man which told me that he was in earnest, “I will believe you, and the more that Owen trusts you.”

I let loose his hands then, and he stretched his cramped arms and thanked me. I minded well what that feeling was like.

“What would Morfed have done with the prince?” I asked.

“I do not know. I have heard him plan many things. I think that if he had won him to his thoughts concerning the men of Canterbury he would have taken him home. If not, I only know this, that he would never have been seen in this land again. There was a thought of carrying him even across the sea to the Britons in the south–in Gaul. But of all things Morfed hoped that he would die here.”

So I supposed, but I said no more, for Evan and the men reined up close to us. There was joy enough among them all as Owen was slowly and carefully laid on the rough litter. And we left those two staring after us, silent. But I suppose that the terror of that strange place will still lie on all the countryside, and I hold that since the day when the wizards of old time reared the menhir on that which it covered, with cruel rites and terrible words that have bided in the minds of men as a terror will bide, no man but such as Morfed has dared to pry into that valley lest the ancient curse should fall on them–the curse of the Druid who would hide his secrets. It may be, therefore, that it will not be known by the folk that the menhir has fallen, even yet, for we who did know it told them nought thereof.

As for that falling, it is the saying of Howel that it was wrought by the might of the holy sign, and maybe he is not so far wrong in a way. For if the slow creeping of the bog had at last undermined the base of the tall stone so that it needed but little to disturb its balance, no wind could reach it in that cliff-walled place even in the wildest gale, and it is likely that no hand but mine had touched it for long ages. I began, and the rush and blow of Morfed ended, the work of overthrow, with the sign of might complete. And Evan holds that but for the graving thereof he at least were by this time a dead man.

It was late evening when we came to the village, with no harm to Owen at all beyond tiredness, which a good sleep would amend; and after that there is little that I need tell of Howel’s going to Exeter with the good news, and of his bringing back to us a litter more fitted for the carrying of the hurt prince, and then the welcome that was for us from Gerent.

When we were back with him, Owen passed into the loving hands of Nona the princess, and I do not think that he had any cause to regret his older leech of the beehive hut, skilful as she was, for we who loved him saw him gain strength daily.

Now I found means to send a letter to Ina, by the tin traders who were on the way to London, telling him that all was well, and begging him to suffer me to bide with my foster father for a time yet, as I knew indeed that I might, for my new place in the household had few duties save at times of ceremony, and in war, when I must lead the men of the household as the bearer of the king’s own banner. And as the days went on it grew plain to me that there was somewhat amiss about the court here.

There was no dislike of myself, as I may truly say, among the men of West Wales whom I met with, but there was a coldness now and then which I could not altogether fathom, and that specially among the priests. It seemed that while Gerent had forgotten that I was aught but the son of Owen, who had brought him back, no one else forgot that I was a Saxon, and that there was more in the remembrance than should be in these times of peace. I could not think that this was due to my share in the death of Morgan either, for it was plain that not one of his friends was about the court.

At last I spoke of this to Howel, and found that he also had seen somewhat of the kind.

“I know it,” he said. “If I am not very much mistaken, and I ought to know the signs of coming trouble by this time, there is somewhat brewing in the way of fresh enmity with your folk. It comes from the priests.”

“There are more of the way of thinking of Morfed, therefore,” I answered.

“And if that is so there may be more danger for Owen. It is well known that he is for peace, and that Gerent will listen to him in all things.”

We talked of that for some time, not being at all easy yet concerning the matter, after seeing how far some were willing to go toward removing one who was in their way. I could not stay here long, nor could Howel, and it was certain that Gerent could not well guard Owen up to this time.

And at last Howel spoke the best counsel yet, after many plans turned over between us.

“We will even take him to Dyfed, and nurse him to strength in Pembroke. Then if aught is in the wind it will break out at once, lest he should return and spoil all. Gerent will either have to bow to the storm and fight, or else he will get the upper hand and quiet things again. If he can do that last, at least till Owen is back, all will be well. Owen will take things in hand then, and will be master.”

That was indeed a way out of the trouble, and therein Nona helped us with Owen, so that at last he consented. I will say that he knew little or nothing of possible trouble here, and we told him nothing, for, in the first place, we had no certainty thereof, and in the next, he was not strong enough to do anything against it if we had.

When we came to ask Gerent if Howel might take him to Dyfed, we found no difficulty at all, which surprised me not a little. I think that the king knew that it was well for him to be across the channel in all quiet.

So it came to pass that in a few days all was ready for our going to Watchet to find Thorgils or some other shipmaster who would take us over. We could wait at Norton until the time of sailing came, if we might not cross at once, and thence I should go back to Ina.

One may guess without any telling of mine what the parting with Owen was for Gerent. As for myself, I was somewhat sorry to bid the old king farewell, for I liked him, and he was ever most kind to me. But I was not sorry to leave his court, by any means, for those reasons of which I have spoken, and of them most of all for fear of more plotting against Owen.

Now I will say that the ride to Watchet, slow and careful for his sake who must yet travel in the litter, and in fair summer weather, is one that I love to look back on. As may be supposed, by this time I and the princess were very good friends, and it is likely that I rode beside her for most of the way. We had many things to talk of.

One thing I have not set down yet is, that it had been easy, after what he had done for us, to win full pardon for Evan from Gerent. Now he rode with me, well armed and stalwart, as my servant, and one could hardly want a more likely looking one. And Nona had some good words and friendly to say to him, which made him hold his head higher yet after a time.

Presently, since I was on my way back to Glastonbury and onwards, we must needs speak of Elfrida, and I told her how I had fared when I came back from Dyfed. She laughed at me, and I laughed at myself also; for now I knew at last that the old fancy had in all truth passed from my mind.

So we came to Norton, and then sought Thorgils, and after that it was a week before he was ready. I mind the wonder on the face of the Norseman when he saw Evan at my heels on the day when his ship came home and I met him on the wharf; but he was glad to see him there.

“Faith,” he said, “it has been a trouble to me that a man whom I was wont to trust had turned out so ill. It shook my own belief in my better judgment. I did think I knew a man when I saw him, until then. So I was not far wrong after all. Now I will make a new song of his deeds, and I do not think it will be a bad one.”

Then it came to pass that one day, when the wind blew fair for Tenby, I saw the ship draw away from me as her broad sail filled, while on the deck was Owen in a great chair, and from his side Nona waved to me, and Howel shouted that I must come over ere long and fetch Owen home. Thorgils was steering, and he lifted his arm and cried his parting words, and so I turned away, feeling lonely as a man may feel for a little while. And presently I looked again toward the ship, and I think that the last I saw of her was the flutter of Nona’s kerchief in the soft wind, and I vowed that nought should hinder me from Dyfed when the time came.

Thereafter I rode to Glastonbury, and told Herewald what I thought of the trouble that was surely brewing in the west; and he said that he also had some reason to think that along his borders men were getting more unruly, as if none tried to hinder them from giving cause of offence to us.

“Well, if they will but keep quiet until this wedding is over it will be a comfort,” he said. “I should be more at ease if once Elfrida was safely in Sussex.”

Then I learned that the wedding was to be in a month’s time or so, and already there were preparations in hand for it. With all my heart I hoped also that nought might mar it.

Then I passed on to the king at Winchester, and glad was he to hear that we had indeed found Owen. But as he listened to what I thought was coming on us from the west, he said:

“It is even what Owen and I foresaw with the death of Aldhelm. This is a matter that not even Owen could have prevented, for it comes of the jealousy of the priests. We will go to Glastonbury and watch, and maybe we shall be in time for the wedding. But I will not be the one to break the peace. If war there must be, it must come from Gerent.”

And so he mused for a while, and then said:

“Well, so it will be. And not before West Wales has tried her failing force for the last time will there be a lasting peace.”

CHAPTER XV. HOW ERPWALD SAW HIS FIRST FIGHT ON HIS WEDDING DAY.

So we went to Glastonbury in a little time, and now it was as if Yuletide had come again in high summer, so full was the little town with guests who came to the wedding. Erpwald had come soon after us, with a train of Sussex thanes, who were his neighbours and would see him through the business, and take him and his bride home again. Well loved were the ealdorman and his fair daughter, and this was the first wedding in the new church, of which all the land was proud.

Only Ina was somewhat uneasy, though he would not shew it. For on all the Wessex border from Severn Sea to the Channel there was unrest. It seemed that the hand of Gerent had altogether slackened on his people, so that they did what they listed, and it was even worse than it had been in the days of Morgan and his brother, for at least they were answerable for what the men of Dyvnaint wrought of harm. There was none to take their place here, while the old king bided in Exeter or in Cornwall, and never came to Norton at all now. So there was pillage and raiding across the Parrett, and at last Ina had sent messages to Gerent concerning it.

A fortnight ago that was, and now the messengers had returned, bearing word from Gerent that he himself would come and speak to Ina of Wessex and answer him, and it was doubtful what that answer meant. There might well be a menace of war therein, or it might mean that he was only coming to Norton. It would not be the first time that the two kings had met there and spoken with one another in all friendliness concerning matters which might have been of much trouble. And we heard at least of no gathering of forces by the Welsh.

Yet Ina warned all the sheriffs of the Wessex borderland, and could do no more. The levies would come up at once when the first summons came.

All of which the ealdorman spoke to me of, but neither Erpwald nor Elfrida knew that war was in the air. We did not tell them. Thus we hoped to keep all knowledge that aught was unrestful from them in their happiness, until at least they two were beyond the sound of war, if it needs must come.

But it came to pass on the day before the wedding that all men knew thereof in stern truth, and that was a hard time for many.

Erpwald and I sat on the bench before the ealdorman’s house in the late sunshine of the long July evening, talking of the morrow, and of Eastdean, and aught else that came uppermost, so that it was pleasant to think of, and before us we could see the long road that goes up the slope of Polden hills and so westward toward the Devon border. Along it came a wain or two laden high with the first rye that was harvested that year, and a herd or two of lazy kine finding their way to the byres for the evening milking. And then beyond the wains rose a dust, and I saw the waggoners draw aside, and the dust passed them, and the kine scattered wildly as it neared them; and so down the peaceful road spurred a little company of men who shouted as they came, never drawing rein or sparing spur for all that the farm horses reared and plunged and the kine fled