ch as he feared De Aquila. At least he would not leave us--not even
when Vivian, the King's Clerk, would have made him Sacristan of Battle
Abbey. A false fellow, but, in his fashion, bold.'

'Did Robert ever land in Pevensey after all?' Dan went on.

'We guarded the coast too well while Henry was fighting his Barons; and
three or four years later, when England had peace, Henry crossed to
Normandy and showed his brother some work at Tenchebrai that cured Robert
of fighting. Many of Henry's men sailed from Pevensey to that war. Fulke
came, I remember, and we all four lay in the little chamber once again,
and drank together. De Aquila was right. One should not judge men. Fulke
was merry. Yes, always merry--with a catch in his breath.'

'And what did you do afterwards?' said Una.

'We talked together of times past. That is all men can do when they grow
old, little maid.'

The bell for tea rang faintly across the meadows. Dan lay in the bows of
the _Golden Hind_; Una in the stern, the book of verses open in her lap,
was reading from 'The Slave's Dream':--

'Again in the mist and shadow of sleep
He saw his native land.'

'I don't know when you began that,' said Dan, sleepily.

On the middle thwart of the boat, beside Una's sun-bonnet, lay an Oak
leaf, an Ash leaf, and a Thorn leaf, that must have dropped down from the
trees above; and the brook giggled as though it had just seen some joke.

THE RUNES ON WELAND'S SWORD

_A Smith makes me_
_To betray my Man_
_In my first fight._

_To gather Gold_
_At the world's end_
_I am sent._

_The Gold I gather_
_Comes into England_
_Out of deep Water._

_Like a shining Fish_
_Then it descends_
_Into deep Water._

_It is not given_
_For goods or gear._
_But for The Thing_

_The Gold I gather_
_A King covets_
_For an ill use._

_The Gold I gather_
_Is drawn up_
_Out of deep Water._

_Like a shining Fish_
_Then it descends_
_Into deep Water._

_It is not given_
_For goods or gear_
_But for The Thing._

A CENTURION OF THE THIRTIETH

_Cities and Thrones and Powers,_
_Stand in Time's eye,_
_Almost as long as flowers,_
_Which daily die:_
_But, as new buds put forth,_
_To glad new men,_
_Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth,_
_The Cities rise again._

_This season's Daffodil,_
_She never hears,_
_What change, what chance, what chill,_