rs?"

"I don't know, father," replied the boy, innocently enough. "They have
not come back from hunting, I think."

King Ethelwulf frowned, but said no more then, contenting himself with
pressing forward to give his hand to Swythe, who had followed the boy as
soon as he saw him change his course; and soon after the King's heart
was gladdened by seeing Osburga with her train of women and serfs coming
to meet them, answering the Saxon soldiers' cheers. But Bald, Bert, and
Red had even then not come back from the chase.

That night the King told of the great victory which he had at last
gained over the Danish invaders, who had been defeated with great
slaughter near Farringdon, and it was in memory of that victory that the
King returned to the battlefield with his men on a peaceful errand, and
that was to use the spade instead of the battle-axe and sword, while
they cut down through the green turf on one hill-side, right down to the
clean, white, glistening chalk, after the lines had been marked out and
the shape cleverly designed, working for weeks and weeks till there, on
the slope they had carved out a huge white horse over a hundred yards in
length--the Great White Horse of the Berkshire downs, which has remained
as if galloping along until this day.

Year after year the scouring of that horse, as it is called, takes
place, when men go and clear out the brown earth that has crumbled
through frost and rain into the ditch-like lines which mark the horse's
shape on the green hill-side, and make it stand out white and clear as
ever.

No one will think it strange after what has been told that the youngest
of those four boys grew up under Swythe's teaching wise and learned, and
as brave as, or braver than, either of his three brothers, who, when at
last King Ethelwulf died, succeeded in turn to be King of England. They
each sat on the throne--Ethelbald, Ethelbert, and Ethelred; but their
reigns were short, for in twenty years they too had passed away, to be
succeeded by the strong, brave, and learned man who drove the Danish'
invaders finally from the shores of England, or forced them to become
peaceful workers of the soil. He was the brave warrior who never knew
what it was to be conquered, but tried again and again till the enemy
fled before him and his gallant men.

Old chronicles tell many stories of his deeds--stories that have grown
old and old--and they tell too that the studious boy's teacher Swythe
became