unmindful of his
wrongs {ix}, he was content to labour with the wild heathen
folk, teaching them, both in body and soul, the first lessons of
our holy faith.

Well knew I the stories of those places which I saw as the ships
crept up the haven, for Humbert our bishop had told me them many a
time when as a child I sat on his knee and listened, wondering.
There was Selsea with its pile of buildings--Wilfrith's own--there
the little cliff over which the starving heathen had cast
themselves in their despair, and there, at last, the village,
clustering round the little monastery that Dicul, the Irish monk,
had founded, and where Wilfrith had first taught. And now, maybe, I
must see the roofs that had sheltered him, and heard the first
praises of his converts, burnt before my eyes, and that while I
myself was siding with the destroyers.

Then at last I took Halfden aside and told him my trouble, putting
him in mind of the promise he had made me.

"Aye," said he, "I knew what made you so silent, and I have but
waited for you to speak. Ill should I have thought of you had you
not done so. But I have this plan for you. You shall go ashore with
the first, and speak to the Saxons to give us ransom, if they have
aught, or if any man is foolish enough to bide in the place when we
come. Then, if you will, you shall leave us and make your way
homeward, there to give messages to my father and yours, and to
look for my coming to Reedham shortly. There will I winter with
you, and we will sail to Jutland in the spring."

Then he looked long at me, and put his arm round my shoulder.

"Truly I shall miss you, Wulfric, my brother, yet it is but for a
short time."

Now I knew not how to thank him, for this plan was all that I could
wish. And he would have no delay, but gave me good Saxon arms and
helm, and a chain-mail byrnie {x} of the best, such as Saxon or
Dane alike would wear, for he had many such, gathered from the
different lands he had raided with his father and brothers.

"Any man, seeing you in Danish arms and helm," he said, "might well
mistrust you. So you must needs take these, for you have far to
go."

Then, too, he pressed on me a heavy leathern bag, for he said truly
enough that I should need gold withal to buy a horse. And this I
took willingly, saying that it should be as a loan till he came to
Reedham.

"Nay," quoth he, "this is your share of booty; we surely gained
enough on yonder shores to bring you this mu