of days of unbroken ease to come, wherein the weapons, save always
for the ways of the border Welsh, should rust on the wall, and the
trodden grass of the old camps of the downs on our north should
grow green in loneliness. And that was a good dream, for our land
had been torn with war for overlong--Saxon against Angle,
Kentishman against Sussexman, Northumbrian against Mercian, and so
on in a terrible round of hate and jealousy and pride, till we
tired thereof, and the rest was needed most sorely.

And in that same year the shadow of a new trouble fell on England,
and none heeded it, though we know it over well now--the shadow of
the coming of the Danes. My own story must needs begin with that,
for I saw its falling, and presently understood its blackness.

I had been to Winchester with my father, Ethelward the thane of
Frome Selwood, to see the bringing home of the bride by our king,
and there met a far cousin of ours, with whom it was good to enjoy
all the gay doings of the court for the week while we were there.
He belonged to Dorchester, and taking as much fancy to my company
as a man double his age can have pleasure in the ways of a lad of
eighteen, he asked me to ride home with him, and so stay in his
house for a time, seeing the new country, and hunting with him for
a while before I went home. And my father being very willing that I
should do so, I went accordingly, and merry days on down and in
forest I had with Elfric the thane, this new-found cousin of ours.

So it came to pass that one day we found ourselves on the steep of
a down whence we could overlook the sea and the deep bay of
Weymouth, with the great rock of Portland across it; and the width
and beauty of that outlook were wonderful to me, whose home was