are for Alswythe and sorrow
for her need to fly from her lost home, for it took but few words to
explain what had befallen.

They brought us in, and the thralls left supper to tend our horses,
though Wulfhere would go with them to see that done before he joined us
in the wide oak-built room that made all the lower floor of the house.
Overhead was the place where Alswythe and her maidens should be, and
built against the walls outside were the thralls' quarters, save for a
few who slept in the lower room round the great fire.

Now, how they treated us it needs not to be told, for it was in the way
of a good Somerset franklin, and that is saying much. But that night he
would talk little, seeing that I and Wulfhere were overdone with want of
sleep. Indeed it was but the need of caution that had kept me from
falling asleep on my horse more than once on the road. So very soon they
brought us skins and cloaks, and we stretched ourselves before the fire,
and warmed, and cleansed, and well refreshed with food and drink, fell
to sleep on the instant.

Yet not so soundly could I sleep at first, but that I woke once,
thinking I heard the yells of the Danes close on us: but it was some
farmyard sound from without, and peaceful.

Then I slept again until, towards dawning I think, I awoke, shivering,
and with a great untellable fear on me, and saw a tall, gray figure
standing by my couch. And I looked, and lo it was Matelgar the Thane.

Then I went to rouse Wulfhere, but my hand would not be stretched out,
and the other men slept heavily, so that I lay still and looked in the
dead thane's face and grew calmer.

For his face was set with a look of sorrow such as I had never seen
there, and he gazed steadfastly at me and I at him, and the grief in his
face did but deepen. And at last he spoke, and the voice was his own,
and yet not his own.

"Heregar, sorely have I wronged you," he said, "and my rest is troubled
therefor. Yet, when I heard what you had done for mine last night, my
heart was sore within me, and I repented of all, and would surely have
made amends. And now it is too late, and my body lies dishonoured on
Parret side while I am here. Yet do you forgive, and mayhap I shall rest."

Then I strove to speak, bidding him know that I forgave, but I could
not, and he seemed to grow more sad, watching me yet. And when I saw
that, I made a great effort, and stretching my hand towards him signed
the blessed sign in token that