be slain ere his head can be hefted, as we say."

"No hurt to any but the wolf," the man said, smiling a little. "We
did but meet with one who called the pack on us. So I even hung his
head on a tree, that the pack when it came might stay to leap at
it. They were all we had to fear, and maybe that saved us."

"I marvel that you are not even now in the tree, yourself--with the
boy."

"Nay, but the frost is cruel, and he would have been sorely feared
with the leaping and howls of the beasts. There were always trees
at hand as we fled, if needs were to take to them. It was in my
mind that it were best to try to get him home, or near it."

Then said my father, gripping the hand that met his: "There is more
that I would say, but I cannot set thoughts into words well. Only,
I know that I have a man before me. Tell me your name, that neither
I nor the boy may ever forget it."

"Here, in the Saxon lands, men call me Owen the Briton," he
answered simply.

"I thought your voice had somewhat of the Welsh tone," my father
said. "And your English is of Mercia. I have heard that there are
Britons in the fenland there."

"I am of West Wales, Thane, but I have bided long in Mercia."

Then came my old nurse, and there were words enough for the time.
Her eyes were red with weeping, but it was all that my father could
do to prevent her scolding me soundly then and there for the fright
I had given her. But she set a great bowl of bread and milk before
me, and the men began to come in at that time, and they stood in a
ring round me and watched me eat it as if they had never seen me
before, while my father spoke aside of the flight to Owen on the
high place. But concerning his own story my father asked the
stranger no more until he chose to open the matter himself.

After supper there was all the tale to be told, and when that was
done the Welshman slept before the hall fire with the house-carles,
but my father had me with him in the closed chamber beyond the high
seat, for it seemed that he would not let me go beyond his sight
again yet.

Now, that is how Owen came to me at first, and the first thing
therefore that I owe to him is nothing less than life itself. And
from that time we have been, as I have said, together in all
things.

On the next morning my father made his guest take him back over the
ground we had crossed together, for no fresh snow had fallen, and
the footprints were plain to be followed almost from the gate