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Therefore shall you see to all that, and you shall have writings from me to back you. But men must know that you yourself have power there, and, therefore, I make you lord of all Quantock side, from Watchet stream to Parret, and from the borders of your own land at Cannington to Severn shore between those two.
But that was Wulfhere's last fight, for of his wounds he might not recover, though we bore him back and tended him carefully for a month or more. So he lies in God's Acre at Cannington, and is at rest. Then came long years of fighting, and ever I bore the banner, and ever Alswythe set me forth most lovingly, with brave words that should bide with me till I came back to her.
So we struck off the road into by-lanes that Heregar knew, resting at lonely houses as we went on. And when we came to Glastonbury at last, the king was not there, nor did any know of his fate. Then we rode, with the Danes swarming everywhere, through the Sedgemoor wastes to Bridgwater, and found rest at Cannington, Heregar's great house not far off. Cuthberht.
"Now when I came three parts of the way to Cannington, our men there were sped and driven back on us. Whereupon I could no longer hold together any force, and whither the men are scattered I know not. Scarcely could I save the holy women and the monks, for even as they fled under guard into the Quantock woods, and so to go beyond the hills, the houses of Bridgwater next the Danes were burning.
But when we came over Brent Knoll, on our way back to my place and Alswythe's at Cannington, there lay the black ships under the holms yet, and there, too, were the burnt walls of our houses, though these were rising up again as the king's men wrought at them.
How that, when all seemed lost, there came suddenly a wondrous vision, rising up before the men, of a saint clad in armour and riding a white horse, having his face covered lest men should be blinded by the light thereof, who, standing with drawn sword on Cannington Hill, so bade the men take courage that they turned and beat the Danes back.
"Heregar," he said at last, "it is well for Bridgwater town, and these here in this nunnery, that you obeyed and fought not." "Wherefore?" I said. "Must we fly?" "I saw you rally the men on Cannington Hill, and that was the best thing done in all this evil day." "Then," I asked, "do they yet stand?" "Aye; for the Danes have drawn off, and our men bar the way here."
But this again has outworks; and the road into the ramparts from the long slope of Cannington hill to the southward runs slantwise through them, so that the gap it makes in the first line is covered by the second.
We know now that there is no truer man, for he has proved it, as some of you know-he being the man who lit the huts at Stert in face of the Danes, and being likewise the Saint of Cannington " "Aye, it is so," said several voices, and others laughed.
Yet shall all my power be bent to help you back to your own, if only for the sake of today." Then would I thank him, but he stopped me. "To the man who lit the fire of Stert, who checked the panic on Cannington Hill, thanks are due, not gratitude from him. And to him justice and reward."
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