but it was too high for me to look out of. I got up and dressed
myself then, for no reason but that I must be doing something. I
waxed excited with the noise and flickering light, and no one came
near me. My old nurse was the only woman in the house, for the
married house-carles lived in the village, and I daresay she slept
through it all in her own loft. There was no thunderstorm that
could ever wake her.

At this time my father sent a few of the men to the back of the
house, that they might try at least to keep off the foe from
climbing the stockade and so falling on them in the rear. But the
timbers were high, and the ditch outside them full of water, and as
it happened there was no attack thence.

Erpwald watched the back indeed, but all his force was bent on the
gate.

It was not long before that fell, crashing inwards, and across it
strode the heathen priest into the gap. He was fully armed, and
wore the great golden ring of the temple--all that was left him of
his old surroundings since Ethelwalch the king, who sent Wilfrith
to us, had destroyed the building that stood with the image of
Woden in it hard by his house. Men used to take oath on that ring,
as do we on the Book of the Gospels, and they held it holier than
the oaken image of the god itself. I do not think that any man had
seen it since that time until this night.

Now Erpwald stood for a moment in the gate, with his men hard
behind him, expecting a rush at him, as it would seem. But our folk
stood firm in the line across the courtyard, shoulder to shoulder,
with my father and Owen before them. So they looked at one another.

Then Erpwald slipped the golden ring from his arm and held it up.
There may have been some thought in his mind that my father was
hesitating yet.

"By the holy ring I adjure you, Aldred, for the last time, to
return to the Asir," he said loudly.

My father shook his head only, but Stuf the house-carle, who had
stood beside him at the font this morning, had another answer which
was strange enough.

"This for the ring!" he said.

And with that he hurled a throwing spear at it as it shone in the
firelight, with a true aim. The spear went through the ring itself
without harming the hand of the holder, and coming a little
slantwise, twitched it away from him and stuck in the timber of the
stockade whence the gatepost had been riven. The ring hung spinning
on the shaft safely enough, but to Erpwald it seemed that his
treasu