had on me, which
was that when I went back to continue my insect-watching and rested at
noon at Dead Man's Plack, the old legend would keep intruding itself on
my mind, until, wishing to have done with it, I said and I swore that it
was true--that the tradition preserved in the neighbourhood, that on
this very spot Athelwold was slain by the king, was better than any
document or history. It was an act which had been witnessed by many
persons, and the memory of it preserved and handed down from father to
son for thirty generations; for it must be borne in mind that the
inhabitants of this district of Andover and the villages on the Test
have never in the last thousand years been exterminated or expelled. And
ten centuries is not so long for an event of so startling a character to
persist in the memory of the people when we consider that such
traditions have come down to us even from prehistoric times and have
proved true. Our archaeologists, for example, after long study of the
remains, cannot tell us how long ago--centuries or thousands of years--a
warrior with golden armour was buried under the great cairn at Mold in
Flintshire.

And now the curious part of all this matter comes in. Having taken my
side in the controversy and made my pronouncement, I found that I was
not yet free of it. It remained with me, but in a new way--not as an old
story in old books, but as an event, or series of events, now being
re-enacted before my very eyes. I actually saw and heard it all, from
the very beginning to the dreadful end; and this is what I am now going
to relate. But whether or not I shall in my relation be in close accord
with what history tells us I know not, nor does it matter in the least.
For just as the religious mystic is exempt from the study of theology
and the whole body of religious doctrine, and from all the observances
necessary to those who in fear and trembling are seeking their
salvation, even so those who have been brought to the _Gate of
Remembrance_ are independent of written documents, chronicles and
histories, and of the weary task of separating the false from the true.
They have better sources of information. For I am not so vain as to
imagine for one moment that without such external aid I am able to make
shadows breathe, revive the dead, and know what silent mouths once said.

I

When, sitting at noon in the shade of an oak tree at Dead Man's Plack, I
beheld Edgar, I almost ceased to wonder