d that journey might never end, after a while.

For I was going homeward to where mother and father waited me, in
the first place. Then I had pleasant companions, and most of all
this one of whom I have just spoken. I had a good horse under me,
and a comrade in Erling who served me silently with that best of
service that is given for love. I was high in honour with this
wonderful young king, for the sake of Ecgbert first, I think, then
of King Carl, and lastly because he did indeed seem to like my own
company. I do not think that one could need more to add to
pleasure.

I have seen the progresses of kings before this and since, and
often it has been that after their passing there has been
grumbling, and the hearty hope that the long and greedy train which
ate men out of house and home, borrowed their best horses, and
otherwise made a little famine in their wake, might never come that
way again. But this Ethelbert left, as it were, a track of
happiness across England, in hall and in village, in cot and in
forest. He had ridden with so small a train that he might
overburden none of those who had to entertain him on his way, and
he stayed nowhere overlong. Everywhere he seemed to leave smiles
and wishes that he would honour that house or that town again on
his return, and not a man to whom he had spoken, if it were but a
word of thanks, would ever forget how Ethelbert the Anglian looked
on him with that kindly glance of his.

CHAPTER VIII. HOW ETHELBERT CAME TO THE PALACE OF SUTTON.

By Ely and Huntingdon and Northampton, and so through the very
heart of England, across the sweet Avon at Stratford, our way took
us, under trees that had their first leaves fresh and sweet on
them, and past orchards pink and white, with the bees busy among
the bloom. I had seen many a fair country beyond the sea in the
wide realms of Carl, but none so sweet as this to my mind. The warm
rain that came and stayed us now and then but made it all the
sweeter; and I mind, with a joy that bides with me, the hours of
waiting in old halls and quiet monasteries.

That black cloud of fears cleared away presently, for it was in all
truth a very bridal procession in which we rode. Everywhere the
news went before us that hither came the well-loved king to bear
away the sweet daughter of Mercia, and from town and hamlet the
bells greeted us, and the folk donned their holiday gear to come to
meet us. I had not known that the name of Ethelbert,