well done, though maybe I should blame you for running
over-much risk."

"I think I ran little, lord king," I said; "and I could have done
no less for the poor maiden."

"Surely; but I meant that to go at all was over dangerous."

"I am ready to do the same again for you, my king," I said. "And
after all I was in no danger."

Then said the king, smiling gravely at me:

"Greater often are the dangers one sees not than those which one
has to meet. I have my own thoughts of what risk you ran.

"Well, take your fair lady and the jarl also where you will. But
the feast is set for two hours after noon, and all must be there."

So I thanked him, and he bade me ask his steward for horses if I
would, and I went straight to Osmund from his presence.

"I think it will be a more pleasant ride than our last," said
Thora. "Yet that is one that I shall not forget."

Then I tried to say that I hoped she did not regret it either, but
I minded me of the loved nurse she had to leave, and was silent in
time. Yet I thought that she meant nothing of sorrow in the
remembrance as she spoke.

We called out my two comrades, for Osmund liked them well, and rode
away northward, that the keen air might be behind us as we
returned. That was all the chance that led us that way, and it was
well that we were so led, as things turned out.

The white downs and woodlands sparkling with frost were very
beautiful as we rode, and we went fast and joyously in the fresh
air; but the countryside was almost deserted, for the farmsteads
were burned when the Danes broke in on the land last spring, and
few were built up as yet. The poor folk were in the town now, for
the most part, finding empty houses enough to shelter them, and
none left to whom they belonged.

Now we rode for twelve miles or so, and then won to a hilltop which
we had set as our turning place. I longed to stand there and look
out over all this country, that seemed so fair after the rugged
northern lands I had known all my life. But when we were there we
saw a farmstead just below us, on the far slope of the gentle hill;
and we thought it well to go there and dismount, and maybe find
some food for ourselves and the horses before turning back.

So we went on. It was but a couple of furlongs distant, and the
buildings lay to the right of the road, up a tree-shaded lane of
their own.

We turned into this, and before we had gone ten yards along it I
halted suddenly. I had seen some