at to the Danes, and there they could be treated as guests,
apart from the great camp and fortress. Great were the preparations
there for the high festival that should be when Alfred himself
should take Guthrum to the font.

Then came Neot on foot, with Guerir his fellow hermit, from
Cornwall, to be present; and Harek and I rejoiced as much as the
king that he had come.

"I think I must answer for you two at the font," he said.

"For Kolgrim also, I pray you, Father Neot," said I; "for he will
be baptized with us."

"Ay, for honest Kolgrim also," he answered; "but what of old Thord,
my reprover?"

"He will have nought to do with the new faith," I said. "But at
least he does not blame us for leaving the old gods. He says he is
too old to learn what we younger men think good."

"I will seek him and speak with him again," Neot said. "I think I
owe him somewhat."

Then we thanked the holy man for the honour that he was showing us;
but he put thanks aside, saying that we were his sons in the truth,
and that the honour was his rather.

Now in the seven weeks that we waited for Guthrum at Aller, while
the priests whom Alfred sent taught him and his chiefs what they
should know rightly before baptism, Osmund and I were wont to go to
Taunton, across the well-known fens, and bide for days at a time in
Odda's house there, and we told Thora for what we waited.

She had come to England, when she was quite a child, with the first
women who came into East Anglia, and already she knew much of
Christianity from the Anglian thralls who had tended her. And when
she had heard more of late from Etheldreda and Alswythe, she had
longed to be of the same faith as these friends of hers, and now
rejoiced openly.

"Ranald," she said, "I had not dared to speak of this to my father,
but I was wont to fear the old gods terribly. They have no place
for a maiden in their wild heaven. There are many more Danish
ladies who long for this change, even as I have longed. Yet I still
fear the wrath of Odin for you and my father."

"The old gods are nought--they have no power at all," I said,
bravely enough; though even yet I had a little fear in thus defying
them, as it seemed.

"Then I will dread them no more," she answered. "Nor do I think
that you need fear them."

So I comforted her, and bade her ask more of Etheldreda, who would
gladly teach her; and the matter passed by in gladness, as a
trouble put away, for she and I were at one in