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Already have I, in my office as Count of the Saxon Shore, battered them back to their ships at Lemanis, Llongporth and Rutupiæ; but here in the north, for all that the old lion, Uriens of Reged, worn with war and full of age, hath taken the field against them, here, behind your backs as ye battle, kin with kin, a great and a stubborn pagan, whom men call Hyring the Land-waster, hath entered the land and still prevails.

It was the big port of England in Roman times, Portus Lemanis, and now the sea is four miles away. All down the steep hill are boulders and masses of Roman brickwork, and from it old Watling Street, still paved in places, starts like an arrow to the north.

Ever will the sorrow of the death of thy brethren lie upon my soul; and to make some small amends I will, if my lord will suffer it and it will please you, Sir Gawaine, I will walk in my shirt and barefoot from Lemanis even unto this town, and at every ten miles I will found a holy house, and endow it with monks to pray for the souls of Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris.

And now just a few lumps of rubble on a grassy slope, and a sheep or two and I. And where the port had been were the levels of the marsh, sweeping round in a broad curve to distant Dungeness, and dotted here and there with tree clumps and the church towers of old medical towns that are following Lemanis now towards extinction.