s of the soil; the barns and stables were filled with the
produce of a goodly harvest; the meadows full of sheep and oxen--a
scene of rich pastoral beauty.

On his left hand a road led to the northeast, following at first
the upward course of the river, until it left the stream and
penetrated into the thick woodland.

Just as the orb of day was descending into the dense bank of cloud
afore mentioned, the watchman marked the sheen of spear and lance,
gilded by the departing rays, where the road left the forest.
Immediately he blew the huge curved horn which he carried at his
belt; and at the blast the inhabitants of the castle and village
poured forth; loud shouts of joy rent the air--the deeper
exclamations of the aged, the glad huzzas of children--and all
hastened along the road to greet the coming warriors.

For well they knew that a glorious victory had gladdened the arms
of old England; that at Stamford Bridge the proud Danes and
Norwegians had sustained a crushing defeat, and been driven to seek
refuge in their ships, and that these warriors, now approaching,
were their own sons, husbands, or fathers, who had gone forth with
Edmund, Thane of Aescendune, to fight under the royal banner of
Harold, the hero king.

Who shall describe the meeting, the glad embraces, the
half-delirious joy with which those home-bred soldiers were
welcomed? No hirelings they, who fought for mere glory, or lust of
gold, but husbands, fathers of families--men who had left the
ploughshare and pruning hook to fight for hearth and altar.

"Home again"--home, saved from the fire and sword of the Northman,
of whom tradition told so many dread stories--stories well known at
Aescendune, where a young son of the then thane fifty years agone
had died a martyr's death, pierced through and through by arrows,
shot slowly to death because he would not save himself by denying
his Lord {v}.

At that dismal period the whole district had been devastated with
fire and sword, and there were old men amongst the crowd who well
remembered the destruction of the former hall and village by the
ferocious Danes. And now God had heard their litanies: "From the
fury of the Northmen, good Lord deliver us," and had averted the
scourge through the stout battle-axes and valiant swords of these
warrior peasants and their noble leaders, such as Edmund, son of
Alfgar.

Amidst all this joy the Lady Winifred of Aescendune stood upon the
steps of the great hall to re