and looked southward
across the river toward the Severn sea, beyond which lay my home.

"See, friend," he said, "there is your way, and there is a ship
crossing to the old port at Worle tomorrow. Now, from all you have
told me, there is a chance that through her daughter Quendritha may
yet try to harm you."

"I think she cannot," I said. "So far as I know, she has never
learned where my home is."

"Yet," he said, "go home and see how things are for you. Well I
know that your first thought is for the Lady Hilda, and that is
right. I am going to see your wedding. But you cannot take her home
without going there first to learn whether she will have any home
to go to."

"That is what I have been thinking," said I. "You are but first in
speaking of the matter by a day or so."

"Well, then, do you go at once. If all is well, then you shall come
back here, and so there will be a wedding. If not, come back, and I
will give you a place with me.

"Nay, but listen. I have sorely troublesome tenants, the Danes, in
our land of Gower, and you can take them in hand for me. You are
the man I need as what you would call the ealdorman there. You may
take such a place in all honour."

"Jefan," I said, "you are indeed a friend, and I will not say no to
you. All seems to go well when you have a hand in it."

"Sometimes," said he, laughing. "I only wish that everything was as
easily arranged as this. Well, go. I want you back to stay, and yet
I don't, as one may say. At all events, we will have the wedding
here."

Now it need not be said that on the next day I did go, landing in
the early morning under the ancient walled camp of Worle, which the
Eastern traders made when they used to come for our Mendip metals;
and there I hired a horse and rode homeward, sorely longing for my
good skew-bald steed, which stood in a Roman stable at Caerleon.

Now I cannot tell all the thoughts which came into my mind as I
climbed the last hill and looked down into the wooded hollow where
lay our home. The long years seemed to roll back, and it was but as
yesterday that I had been there. And then I met a man I knew, one
of our own thralls; and he seemed to have aged all in a moment, for
I had thought, before he drew near, to see his face as it had been
on the day when I went to Winchester to see the bride of our king
brought home. He did not know me, but he doffed his cap.

"Wulf," said I, "how fares the thane?"

"Well, lord," he answered, sta