and new scenes age and harden a youth very
quickly. Soon I might ride at the side of Eadmund the Atheling to
try to stay the march of Swein through England; and many were the
fights I saw with him, until I was the only one left of all the
youths who had been my comrades at first, and Eadmund had won his
name of "Ironside" in bravest hopeless struggle.

I grew to be a close and trusted friend of his, and so at last
amidst the trouble that was all round us in those heavy times the
remembrance of Hertha became but as part of a childhood that was
long gone, and I thought of her but as of the little one with whom
I had played in the old days beside the quiet Stour. There were
none left to remind me of her, for one by one my few Bures men had
fallen, and Edred, who had been my servant at the court, gave his
life for mine in my first battle. Into Swein's East Anglia our
levies never made their way.

What need for me to say aught of those three years of warfare?
Their tale is written in fire over all the fair face of England.
For nothing checked Swein Forkbeard until step by step the Danish
hosts closed on London, and at last even the brave citizens were
forced to yield to him. Then Ethelred our king must needs fly from
his throne, and leave the land to its Danish master.

Yet it was true, as Eadmund the Atheling said, that the Dane was
but master of the land, and not of the English people. Even today
my mind is full of wondering honour for those sullen Saxon levies
of ours who for three years bore defeat after defeat at the hands
of the trained and hardened veterans of the north, uncomplaining
and unbent. What wonder if at last we were wearied out and must
hold our hands for a while?

So now when I was nineteen, and looking and feeling many years
older by reason of the long stress of warfare and trouble, I was at
Rouen, in Normandy, at the court of our queen's brother, Richard
the Duke. To him Ethelred had fled at the last and there, too, were
the queen and the athelings, good Abbot Elfric of Peterborough, and
a few more of the court, besides myself. Ethelred had hoped to gain
some help from the duke; but he could only give us shelter in our
need, for he had even yet to hold the land that Rolf, his
forefather, had won against his neighbours, and could spare us not
one of his warriors.

So in Rouen we waited and watched for some new turn of things that
might give us fresh hopes of regaining our own land. Yet it was a
w