riding ever homeward through wood and over wild, with one whose
ways fit with one's own, in the days of youth, when cares are none
and shadows fall not yet across the path.

When we came to Colchester town we heard that Eadmund was yet at
Thetford, and when we asked more we learnt that Lodbrok was there
also with my father. So, because Hoxne was but twenty miles or
thereby from Thetford, both Egfrid and I were glad that our way was
yet together, and we would go there first of all.

One other thing we heard in Colchester, for we waited there for two
days, resting our horses. There was a wandering gleeman who came
into the marketplace on the hill top, and we stood and listened to
him.

And first he sang of how Danes had come and burnt Harwich town. But
the people told him to sing less stale news than that, for Harwich
was close at hand. Now it was Halfden's ship which had done that,
and the fires we saw before the fog came had been the beacons lit
because of his landing.

Then he made a great outcry until he had many folk to listen, and
they paid him well before he would sing. Whereon, forsooth, my ears
tingled, for he sang of the burning of Bosham. And when he came to
the stealing of the bell, his tale was, that it, being hallowed,
would by no means bear that heathen hands should touch it, so that
when it came to the deepest pool in the haven it turned red hot,
and so, burning a great hole through the Danish ship, sank to the
bottom, and the Danes were all drowned. Whereat the people
marvelled, and the gleeman fared well.

I suppose that the flashing of the great bell that I had seen gave
rise to this tale, and that is how men tell it to this day. And I
care not to gainsay them, for it is close enough to the truth, and
few know that I had so nearly a hand in the matter.

So we rode to Thetford, and how we were received there is no need
for me to tell, for I came back as it were from the dead, and
Egfrid after years of absence. And there with Eadmund were my
father and mother, and Eadgyth, and Lodbrok, and Egfrid's folk
also, with many more friends to greet us, and the king would have
us keep Yuletide with him.

It had been in my mind that Halfden would have come to Reedham, and
at first I looked for him, but he had not been heard of, so that
now we knew that we should not see him before springtime came, for
he must needs be wintering somewhere westward. Yet now Lodbrok was
at ease with us, seeing the end of h