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Updated: May 10, 2025
You are not fair, for, by Thor's hammer, Erpwald, both of you had been mincemeat but for that." "Nay," said I, laughing; "you and I were those who held back the crowd. I could not have done it alone." "But you did, though," the Norseman answered at once. "Nevertheless, it was as well that I happened up in good time."
I mind every jutting stone and twisted yew that is on the cliff there, to this day. However, one of the others went a little to one side, where Erpwald had appeared, and swung himself to the tiny ledge that had given him foothold as he came up, and so looked at the place.
Erpwald said no more, and Owen came back to me, closing the door after him again. There was another door, seldom used, from this chamber to the back of the house where the servants had their quarters, and through that he took me, wrapped in such warm furs as he could find.
"Here is a hurry beyond a jest," said Erpwald, sitting up; "somewhat is amiss, surely." Never rode men in that wise but for life. In a minute they were close, and one of them spied me and called to me, waving his arm toward the palace and reeling in his saddle as he did so.
However, Erpwald answered somewhat wearily, and not looking at him: "Take them all, if you will. I am no common reiver, and they are not mine. The farther you go the better. But let me tell you, that it will be safer for you not to make for Winchester and the king. I shall have you watched." "A plain warning not to be disregarded," answered Owen. "We shall not need it."
He looked round on his fellows, and they nodded, and one set his helm more firmly on his head, and another tightened his belt, and one or two signed the cross on their broad chests, but not one paled, though they knew there was small hope for them if Erpwald chose to storm the house. The court was light as day with the flames of the stack by this time.
The ring hung spinning on the shaft safely enough, but to Erpwald it seemed that his treasure had gone altogether, and he yelled with rage and sprang forward. After him came his men, and in a moment the two parties were hand to hand. Then was fighting such as the gleemen sing of, with the light of the red fire waxing and waning across the courtyard the while.
Men have nicknames that seem foolish to any but those who are in the jest of them. We used to call Erpwald the "Saxon" sometimes, because he was not of Wessex, although we were as much Saxon as he, or more so, according to our own pride.
"It is a great thing that you speak so lightly of giving up," he answered gravely; "Erpwald, the heathen, was willing to risk his life for those lands, and he held them dear. And a captain of the king's house-carles will always look to be rewarded for service with lands. In time you will seek the same." "That time has not yet come to me, King Ina."
There is happiness at Eastdean, and we meet with Erpwald and Elfrida at the house of her father now and then, and they have been here also. But I have never had time to go to Eastdean again, though it is a promise that we will do so when we may.
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