ppose he never thought thereof.

I passed out into the street, but now it was falling dark, and few
noticed me. The men sat about along the house walls on settles, eating
and drinking and singing. And I, coming to a dark place, sat down among
a few and ate and drank as well for half an hour, and then passing the
guards at the entrance to the town on the road to Cannington, struck out
for Stert, that I might be near Alswythe, and wait for the possible
coming of the Danes, and the battle in which I might join.

CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRES OF STERT.

I went along the highroad now, for it was dark, and few were about. Only
now and then I met a little party of men hurrying to the gathering
place, and mostly they spoke to me, asking for news. And from them I
learned, too, that nothing had been seen, while daylight served, of the
Danes. Once, I had to say I was on Osric's errand, as he bade me, being
questioned as to why I was heading away from the town.

I could not see my hall as I passed close by its place, for the lights
that ever shone thence in the old days, so lately, yet seeming so long,
gone, were quenched. But I thought of a safe place whence to watch if
the Danes came, where were trees in which I might hide if need were, as
I had hidden this morning. This was on the little spur of hill men call
by the name of the fisher's village below it, Combwich. It looked on all
the windings of Parret river, and there would I soon know if landing was
to be made for attack on Bridgwater. But I thought it likely that there
would be an outpost of our men there for the same reason, and going
thither went carefully.

Sure enough there was a little watchfire and half a dozen men round it
on the best outlook, and so I passed on still further, following round
the spur of hill till I came to where the land overlooks the whole long
tongue of Stert Point. That would do as well for me, I thought, and
choosing, as best I could in the dark, a tree into which I knew by
remembrance that I might easily get, I sat down at its foot, looking
seaward.

Now by this time the tide, which runs very strong and swiftly, must be
flowing again, and I thought that most likely the Danes, having anchored
during the ebb, would go on up channel with it, and that therefore I
might have to hang about here for days before they landed, even were
they to land at all. And this I had heard said many times by the men of
the levy, some, indeed, saying that they m