Then my father understood what my peril had been--even that which he and all the village had feared for me, and his face paled, and he held out his hand to the man, drawing in his breath sharply.

"Woden!" he cried, "what is this, friend? Are you hurt, yourself?

For the wolf must be slain ere his head can be hefted, as we say."

"No hurt to any but the wolf," the man said, smiling a little. "We did but meet with one who called the pack on us. So I even hung his head on a tree, that the pack when it came might stay to leap at it. They were all we had to fear, and maybe that saved us."

"I marvel that you are not even now in the tree, yourself--with the boy."

"Nay, but the frost is cruel, and he would have been sorely feared with the leaping and howls of the beasts. There were always trees at hand as we fled, if needs were to take to them. It was in my mind that it were best to try to get him home, or near it."

Then said my father, gripping the hand that met his: "There is more that I would say, but I cannot set thoughts into words well. Only, I know that I have a man before me. Tell me your name, that neither I nor the boy may ever forget it."

"Here, in the Saxon lands, men call me Owen the Briton," he answered simply.

"I thought your voice had somewhat of the Welsh tone," my father said. "And your English is of Mercia. I have heard that there are Britons in the fenland there."

"I am of West Wales, Thane, but I have bided long in Mercia."

Then came my old nurse, and there were words enough for the time.

Her eyes were red with weeping, but it was all that my father could do to prevent her scolding me soundly then and there for the fright I had given her. But she set a great bowl of bread and milk before me, and the men began to come in at that time, and they stood in a ring round me and watched me eat it as if they had never seen me before, while my father spoke aside of the flight to Owen on the high place. But concerning his own story my father asked the stranger no more until he chose to open the matter himself.

After supper there was all the tale to be told, and when that was done the Welshman slept before the hall fire with the house-carles, but my father had me with him in the closed chamber beyond the high seat, for it seemed that he would not let me go beyond his sight again yet.

Now, that is how Owen came to me at first, and the first thing therefore that I owe to him is nothing less than life itself. And from that time we have been, as I have said, together in all things.

On the next morning my father made his guest take him back over the ground we had crossed together, for no fresh snow had fallen, and the footprints were plain to be followed almost from the gate of the hall stockade. So they came at last to the tree, and on it the head hung yet, but the body was clean gone. All round the tree the snow was reddened and trampled by the fierce beasts who leapt to reach the head, and the marks of their clawing was on the trunk, where they had tried to climb it. From the footmarks it seemed that there were eight or nine of them. Three great ones had left the head and followed us presently as far as the brook, half a mile away.

After that the two men went on to the place where Owen had found me, and there my father, judging from the dress and loneliness of the Briton that he might be able to help him somewhat, said:

"I do not know what your plans may be, but is there any reason why you should not bide here and help me tend the life you have kept for me?"

Then answered Owen: "You know nought of me, Thane. For all you ken, I may be but an outlaw who is fleeing from justice."

"Do I know nought about you? I think that last night and what I have seen today have told me much, and I have been held as a good judge of a man. If so be that you were an outlaw, which I do not think, what you have done is enough to inlaw you again with any honest man--even had you taken a life, for you have saved one. Did I know you were an outlaw I would see to your pardon. But maybe you are on a journey that may not be hindered?"

Now Owen was silent for a little, and there came a shadow over his face as he answered, slowly and with his eyes on the far sea:

"No man's man am I, and I am but drifting Westward again at random.

Yet I can say in all truth, that I am no wanderer for ill reason in any wise. I will tell you, Thane, here and alone, that there are foes in my home for whose pa.s.sing, in one way or another, I must needs wait. Even now I was on my way to Bosham, where they tell me are Western monks with whom I might bide for a time, if not altogether. I was lost in the forest last night."

Now my father saw that some heavy sorrow of no common sort lay beneath the quiet words of the man before him, and he forbore to ask him more. Also, he deemed that in the Welsh land he would surely rank as a thane, for his ways and words bespoke more than his dress would tell. Therefore he said:

"Wait here with us for a while at least. There will be no more welcome guest."

"Let me be of some use, rather," Owen answered. "If I bide with you, Thane, and I thank you for the offer, let it be as I have bided elsewhere from time to time--as one of the household, not as an idle guest, if it were but to help the woodmen in the forest."

"Why, that will be well. I need a forester, and it is plain that you are a master of woodcraft. Let it be so. Yet I must tell you one thing fairly, and that is, that I am what you would call a heathen. I know that you are a good Christian man, for I saw you sign your holy sign before you ate last night and this morning. Yet I do not hate Christians."

"I had heard that all Suss.e.x was turned to the faith," Owen said.

"If one says that all the men have gone to market, one knows that here and there one is excepted for good reason. It is not for a thane of the line of Woden to give up the faith of his fathers idly. I do not know what may be in the days to come, but here in the Andredsweald some dozen of us will not leave the old G.o.ds. It was the bidding of Ethelwalch the king that we should do so, but that is not a matter wherein a king may meddle, as it seems to us."

"I do not know why I should not bide with you, Thane, if so be that there is no hindrance to my faith."

"That there will be none. Why, the most of my folk are Christian enough. And if a man of the Britons did not honour his old faith it would be as strange as if I honoured not that of my fathers. I have no quarrel with the faith of any man, either king or thrall."

"Then I will be your forester, Thane, for such time as I may, and I thank you."

"Nay, but the thanks are all on my side," answered my father. "Now I shall know that the boy will have one with whom he may live all day in the woods if he will, and I shall be content."

So Owen bided with us, half as honoured guest and half as forester, and as time went on he was well loved by all who knew him, for he was ever the same to each man about the place. As for me, it was the best day that could have dawned when he found me in the woods as a lost child. And that my father said also.

CHAPTER II. HOW ALDRED THE THANE KEPT HIS FAITH, AND OWEN FLED WITH OSWALD.

Our Suss.e.x was the last land in all England that was heathen. I suppose that the last heathen thanes in Suss.e.x were those whose manors lay in the Andredsweald, as did ours. Most of these thanes had held aloof from the faith because at the first coming of good Bishop Wilfrith, some twelve years ago, those who had hearkened to him were mostly thralls and freemen of the lower ranks, and they would not follow their lead. Yet of these there were some, like my father, who had no hatred, to say the least, of the Christian and his creed, and did but need the words of one who could speak rightly to them to turn altogether from the Asir.

Maybe the only man who was at this time really fierce against the faith was Erpwald, the thane of Wisborough, some half-score miles from us northwards across the forest. He had been the priest of Woden in the old days, and indeed held himself so even now, though secretly, for fear of Ina the Wess.e.x king, who ruled our land well and strongly. This Erpwald was no very good neighbour of ours, as it happened, for he and my father had some old feud concerning forest rights and the like which he had taken to heart more than there was any occasion for, seeing that it was but such a matter as most thanes have, unless they are unusually lucky, in a place where boundaries are none. It is likely enough that but for the easy ways of my father, who gave in to him so far as he could, this feud would have been of trouble some time ago, for as the power of Erpwald, as priest, waned he seemed to look more for power in other ways. Yet in the end both the matter of the faith and the matter of the feud seemed to work together in some way that brought trouble enough on our house, which must be told; for it set Owen and me out into the world together for a time, and because of it there befell many happenings thereafter which have not all been sad in their ending.

Owen had been with us for a year and a half when what I am going to tell came to pa.s.s, and in that time my father had come to look on him rather as a brother than as a guest, and the thought that he might leave him at any time was one which he did not like to keep in his mind.

That being so, it was not at all surprising that in this summer my father had at last borne witness that he wished to become a Christian altogether, and so it had come to pa.s.s that he and Owen and I used to ride to Bosham, the little seacoast village beyond Chichester town, to speak with Dicul, the good old Irish priest, who yet bided there rather than in the new monastery which Wilfrith built at Selsea, until we were taught all that was needful, and the time came when we should be baptized.

That my father would have done here at Eastdean, that all his people, who were Christians before him, should see and rejoice. Yet it was not an easy matter for him as it had been for them, for now he would stand alone among his fellows, the heathen thanes; and most of all Erpwald the priest would be wroth with him for leaving that which he had held so long. He must meet these men often enough, and he knew that they would have biting words to hurl at him, but that thought did not stay him for a moment. It was more than likely that one or two more would follow him when once the old circle was broken.

So on a certain day Dicul rode over from Bosham on his mule, and early on the next morning he set up a little wooden cross by the spring above the hall, and there my father and I and Stuf, the head man of the house-carles, who had bided in the old faith for love of my father, were baptized, Owen and one of the village freemen standing sponsors for us, and that was a wondrous day to us all, as I think. For when all was done my father gave their freedom to all our thralls, for the sake of the freedom that had been given him, and he promised that here, where he and they had been freed, a church should be built of good forest oak, after the woodcutting of the winter to come.

Then Dicul went his way homewards, with one of our men to lead his mule and carry some few presents for his people to Bosham, and after he was gone we had a quiet feasting in our hall until the light was gone. And even as our feasting ended there came in a swineherd from the forest with word that from the northward there came a strong band of armed men through the forest, and he held it right that my father should be warned thereof, for he feared they were some banded outlaws, seeing that there was peace in the land.

That was no unlikely thing at all, for our forests shelter many, and game being plentiful they live there well enough, if not altogether at ease. As a rule they gave little trouble to us, and at times in the winter we would even have men who were said to be outlaws from far off working in the woods for us.

Yet now and then some leader would rise among them and gather them into bands which waxed bold to harry cattle and even houses, so that there might be truth in what the swineherd told. Nevertheless my father thought of little danger but to the herds, and so had them driven into the sheds from the home fields, and set the men their watches as he had more than once done before in like alarms.

Presently I was awakened, for I had gone to rest before the message came, by the hoa.r.s.e call of a horn and the savage barking of the dogs. I heard the hall doors shut and open once or twice as men pa.s.sed in and out, and in the hall was the rattle of weapons as the men took them from their places on the walls, but I heard no voices raised more than usual. Then I got out of my bed and tried to open the sliding doors that would let me out on the high place from my father's chamber, where I always slept now, but I could not move them. So I went back to my place and listened.

What was happening I must tell, therefore, as Owen has told me, for I saw nothing to speak of.

As the horn was blown, one of the men who had been on guard came into the hall hastily and spoke to my father.

"The house is beset, Lord. Stuf blew the horn and bade me tell you.

There are men all round the stockade."

"Outlaws?"

The man shook his head.

"We think not, Lord. But it is dark, and we cannot fairly see them.

We heard them call one 'Thane.' Nor are there any outland voices among them, as there would be were they outlaws."