to me, so that every least
thing is clear to me today as then.

I sat plaiting a leash for my hounds on the settle before the fire
in our great hall at Bures, and I remember how the strands of
leather thong fell in my hand; I remember how my mother's spinning
wheel stopped short with a snapping of broken threads; how the
thrall who was feeding the fire stayed with the log in his hands;
how the sleepy men at the lower end of the hall sprang up with
heavy words checked on their lips before the lady's presence; how
the maidens screamed--aye, and how the draught swayed the wall
hangings, and sent a long train of sparks flying from a half-dead
torch, as the great door was thrown open and a man flung himself
into our midst, mud splashed and white faced, with hands that
quivered towards us as he cried hoarsely:

"In haste, mistress--you must fly--the Danes--" and fell like a log
at my mother's feet where she sat on the dais, neither moving nor
speaking more.

It was Grinkel, the leader of our housecarles {1}. His armour
was rent and gashed, and no sword was in the scabbard at his side,
and his helm was gone, and now as he fell a bandage slipped from
his arm, and slowly the red stream from a great wound ran among the
sweet sedges wherewith the floor was strewn.

There came a mist before my eyes, and my heart beat thick and fast
as I saw him; but my mother rose up neither screaming nor growing
faint, though through her mind, as through mine, must have glanced
the knowledge of all that this homecoming of brave Grinkel meant.
She stepped from the high place to the warrior's side and hastily
rebound the wound, telling the maidens meanwhile to bring wine that
she might revive him if he were not already sped.

Then she rose up while the old steward took the wine and tried to
force it between the close-set teeth, and she called the farm
servants to her.

"Make ready all the horses and yoke the oxen to the wains," she
said in a clear voice that would not tremble. "Send the lads to
warn the village folk to fly beyond the river. For Grinkel comes
not in this wise for nought. The Danes are on us."

Now I remember the grim faces of the men as they went, and I
remember the look on the faces of the women as they heard, and in
the midst of us seemed to lie terror itself glaring from the set
eyes of the dead warrior. And of those memories I will say
nought--I would not have them live in the minds of any by day and
night as they liv