Chapter 10 The Sign of St. Cuthberht.

I suppose that in our flight from Glastonbury to Bridgwater we passed through more dangers than we knew of; for Danes were hard after us, riding even into sight from the town that evening, and next day coming even to the eastern end of the old bridge, and bandying words with the townsfolk who guarded it. Across it they dared not come, for there is a strong earthwork on the little rise from the river, which guards both bridge and town, and in it were my Norsemen with the townsfolk.

So we were in safety for a time; and it seemed likely that we might be so for long if but a few men could be gathered, for here was a stretch of country that was, as it were, a natural fastness. Three hundred years ago the defeated Welsh had turned to bay here while Kenwalch of Wessex and his men could not follow them; and now it seemed likely that here in turn would Wessex stand her ground.

It is a great square-sided patch of rolling, forest-covered country, maybe twelve miles long from north to south, and half as much across. None can enter it from the north, because there is the sea, and a wild coast that is not safe for a landing; on the west the great, steep, fort-crested Quantock Hills keep the border; on the eastern side is the river Parret, and on the north the Tone, which joins it. Except at Bridgwater, at the eastern inland corner, and Taunton, at the western--one at the head of the tidal waters of the Parret, and the other guarding the place where the Quantocks end--there is no crossing the great and wide-stretching fens of Sedgemoor and Stanmoor and the rest that lie on either bank of the rivers. Paths there are that the fenmen know, winding through mere and peat bog and swamp, but no host can win through them; and perhaps those marches are safer borders than even the sea.

If one came from the sea, one must land at Watchet, and then win a path across the Quantocks, and there is the ancient camp of Dowsborough to block the way; or else put into the Parret, and there, at the first landing place, where they say that Joseph of Arimathaea landed, bearing the holy thorn staff in his hand, is the strong hill fort of Combwich, old as the days of that Joseph, or maybe older.

So with walled towns and hill forts the corners of Heregar's land were kept; and with sea and marsh and hill the sides were strong, and we thought to find Alfred the king here before us. But he was not; and next day we rode on to Taunton to seek him there, for that was the strongest fortress in that part of the west. And again he was not to be heard of. Then fear for his life began to creep into our minds, and we came back to Cannington sorely downcast.

Then Heregar spoke to me very kindly of what he thought I could best do, and it was nothing more or less than that I should leave this land, which seemed to have no hope of honour for me now.

"Go rather to Rolf, your countryman," he said. "There is great talk of his doings in Neustria {xii} beyond the Channel. It is your kindness only that holds you here, King Ranald, and there wait glory and wealth for you and your men."

So he urged me for a little while, not giving me time to answer him as I would; but when I said nothing he stayed his words, and then I spoke plainly, and it was good to see his face light up as I did so.

"It shall not be said of me that I left King Alfred, who has been my good friend, in time of trouble; rather will I stay here and do what I can to help him out of it. Why, there are ships that I have put in frame for him in the western ports that the Danes will not reach yet, if at all. When spring comes we will man them and make a landing somewhere, and so divide the Danish host at least."

"Now I will say no more," answered the thane, putting his hand on mine. "Speak thus to the king when we find him, and it will do him good, for I think that when he left Chippenham he was well-nigh despairing."

"It is hard to think that of Alfred," I said.

"Ay; but I saw his face as he rode away just before I sought you. Never saw I such a look on a man's face before, and I pray that I may not see it again. It was terrible to look on him, for I think he had lost all hope."

"For the time, maybe," I said; "but I cannot believe that when the first weight of the blow passed he was not himself again."

Presently there came a shift of wind and a quick thaw with driving rain, and floods grew and spread rapidly in the low-lying lands. One good thing can be said of this weather, and that was that because of it the Danes burned neither town nor farmstead, needing all the shelter they could find.

Three days that gale lasted, and then the wind flew round again to the north, with return of the frost in even greater strength than before; and the weather-wise fishers and shepherds said that this betokened long continuance thereof, and so it seemed likely to be.

But through it all we heard no tidings of the king; and in one way that was good, for had he been taken by the Danes, they would have let all men know thereof soon enough. But we feared that he might have been slain by some party who knew not who he was, and that fear hung heavily over us all.

Next we had a messenger from Odda, who was at Exeter, asking for sure word of what had befallen; and the one hope we had yet was gone, for he too knew nothing.

Very sad and silent was Osmund the jarl, though he and Thora were most kindly received as honoured guests by the Lady Alswythe and the household of the thane.

Once I asked him what his plans were, for we were both strangers, and I knew him best.

"Presently," he said, "I shall try to get back to Guthrum. While I am here I will be held as if I were no one--as a harmless ghost who walks the house, neither seeing nor hearing aught. If there were Welsh to be fought, I would fight beside you all, gladly, for Alfred; but as the war is against my own folk, I can do nothing. I will neither fight for them nor fight against them; for King Alfred and you, my friend, gave me life, and it is yours. I think that some day I may be of use to Alfred in helping to bring about a lasting peace."

"If we find him," I said.

"Ay, you will find him. He is hiding now for some wise reason that we shall know. I think it is not known how his plans are feared by our folk. I am sure that of this midwinter march the Danes will say that it is worthy of Alfred himself."

Nevertheless we heard nothing of him, though the thane had men out everywhere trying to gain news. All that they heard was the same tale of dismay from whoever they might meet, and I think that but for a chance we should not have found him until he chose to come forth from his refuge.

Heregar the thane had a strange serving man, the same who had ridden with him and me to meet the Danish forces; and this man was a fenman from Sedgemoor, who knew all the paths through the wastes. Lean and loose-limbed he was, and somewhat wild looking, mostly silent; but where his lord went he went also. They said that he had saved the thane's life more than once in the great battles about Reading, when the Danish host first came.

This man was out daily, seeking news with the rest; and one day, just a week after we had come to Cannington, when the frost had bound everything fast again, he came home and sought his master.

Heregar and I and Osmund sat together silently before the fire, and he looked from one to the other of us outlanders.

"Speak out, Dudda," said Heregar, who knew his ways; "here are none but friends."

"Ay, friends of ours sure enough; but are they the king's?"

"Most truly so. Have you news of him?"

"I have not; but I have heard some fenmen talking."

Then Osmund rose up and went his way silently, as was his wont; and Dudda grinned at us.

"He is a good Dane," he said; "now I can speak. They say there is some great lord hiding in the fens beyond the round hill where Tone and Parret join, that we call the Stane--somewhere by Long Hill, they say. Now I mind that one day when the king rode with you across the Petherton heights, he looked out over all the fens, and called me and asked much of them. And when I told him what he would, he said, 'Here is a place where a man might lie hid from all the world if he chose.' So he laughed, and we rode on."

"I mind it," said Heregar; "but it was many years ago."

"I think he may be there, for our king weighs his words, and does not forget. I held his horse at your door in Chippenham the other day, and he spoke to me by name, and put me in mind of little things for which he had laughed at me in those same old days. He is a good king."

So said Dudda, the rough housecarl; and it is in my mind that the kindly remembrance would have wiped out many a thought of wrong, had there been any. That is a kingly gift to remember all, and no king has ever been great who has not had it; for it binds every man to his prince when he knows that aught he has done is not forgotten, so it be good to recall.

So it came to pass that next day, very early, we rode away, taking Harek and Kolgrim and this man Dudda with us, well armed and mounted and full of hope, across the southward ridge that looks down over the fens of the meeting of Tone and Parret, where they are widest and wildest. No Danes had crossed them yet, and when I saw what they were like I thought that they never could do so.

And as I looked at the long chains of ice-bound meres and pools that ran among dense thickets of alder and wide snow-covered stretches of peat bogs, it seemed that we might search in vain for one who would hide among them. Only the strange round hill on Stanmoor seemed to be a point that might be noted on all the level, though Dudda told us that there were many islets hidden in the wooded parts.

We went to the lower hills and then to the very edge of the fenland, skirting along it, and asking here and there of the cottagers if they knew of any folk in hiding in the islets. But though we heard of poor people in one or two places, none of them knew of any thane; and the day wore on, and hope began to grow dim, save for Dudda's certainty that what he had heard was true.

At last we came to a long spur of high ground that runs out into the fen, about midway between Bridgwater and Taunton; and there is the village they call Lyng, where we most hoped to hear good news. The day was drawing to sunset, and we would hasten; so Heregar went one way and I another, each to distant cottages that we saw. The lane down which I and my two comrades rode seemed to lead fenwards, and it was little more than a track, deep in snow and tree bordered. The cottage we sought was a quarter mile away when we left the thane, and as we drew near it we saw an old woman walking away from it, and from us also. She did not seem to hear us when we called to her; and, indeed, such was the fear of Danes that often folk would fly when they saw us, and the faster because we called, not waiting to find out who we were.

Then from out of the cottage came another old woman, who hobbled into the track and looked after the first, shaking her fist after her, and then following her slowly, looking on the ground. She never glanced our way at all, and our horses made no noise to speak of in the snow.

We drew up to her, and then I saw that she had a hammer in her right hand and a broad-headed nail in her left. I wondered idly what she was about with these things, when she stooped and began to hammer the nail into the iron-hard ground, and I could hear her muttering some words quickly.

I reined up to watch her, puzzled, and said to Harek:

"Here is wizardry; or else what is the old dame about?"

"It is somewhat new to me," the scald said, looking on with much interest; for if he could learn a new spell or charm, he was pleased as if he had found a treasure.

Then I saw that she was driving the nail into a footprint. There were three tracks only along the snow--two going away from the cottage and one returning. That which went and returned was made by this old woman, as one might see from her last steps, which made a fourth track from the door.

"She is hammering the nail into her own footprint," I said, noting this.

Now she sang in a cracked voice, hammering savagely the while; and now and then she shook her fist or hammer, or both, towards where the other old dame had gone out of sight round a bend of the lane.

Then she put her hand to her back and straightened herself with a sort of groan, as old dames will, and slowly turned round and saw us.

Whereat she screamed, and hurled the hammer at Kolgrim, who was laughing at her, cursing us valiantly for Danes and thieves, and nearly hitting him.

"Peace, good mother," I said; "we are not Danes. Here is earnest thereof," and I threw her a sceatta from my pouch.

She clutched it from the ice pool where it fell, and stared at us, muttering yet. Then Harek spoke to her.

"Mother, I have much skill in spells, but I know not what is wrought with hammer and nail and footprint. I would fain learn."

"Little know you of spells if you know not that," she said, having lost all fear of us, as it seemed.

"I am only a northerner," Harek said. "Maybe 'tis a spell against a sprained ankle, which seems likely. I only know one for that."

"Which know you?" she said scornfully; "you are over young to meddle with such like."

"This," said Harek. "It works well if the sprain be bathed with spring-cold water, while one says it twice daily:

"'Baldur and Woden

Went to the woodland;

There Baldur's foal fell,

Wrenching its foot.'

"That is how it begins."

Then the old woman's eyes sparkled.

"Ay; that is good. Learn it me, I pray you. Now I know that you have wizardry, for you name the old gods."

"Tell me first what hammer and nail work in footprint."

"Why, yon old hag has overlooked me," she said savagely. "Now, if one does as I have done, one nails her witchcraft to herself {xiii}."

"Whose footprint does the nail go into?" Harek asked.

"Why, hers surely. Now this is the spell," and she chanted somewhat in broad Wessex, and save that Baldur's name and Thor's hammer also came into it, I do not know what it all was. I waxed impatient now, for I thought that Heregar might be waiting for us.

But she and Harek exchanged spells, and then I said:

"Now, dame, know you of any thane in hiding hereabouts?"

Thereat she looked sharply at me.

"I know nothing. Here be I, lamed, in the cottage all day."

"There is a close friend of mine in hiding from the Danes somewhere here," I said, doubting, from her manner, if she spoke the truth. "I would take him to a safer place."

"None safer," she answered. "What is his name?"

Then I doubted for a moment; but Harek's quick wit helped me.

"Godred," he said; for the name by which the king had called himself once it was likely that he would use again.

"I know of no thanes," she said, though not at once, so that I was sure she knew somewhat more than she thought safe to tell.

Then she was going, but Harek stayed her.

"Yours is a good spell against the evil eye, mother," he said, "but I can tell you a better."

"What is it?" she said eagerly.

"News for news," he answered carelessly. "Tell us if you know aught of this thane, and I will tell you."

"I said not that there was a thane." she said at once.

"Nay, mother; but you denied it not. Come now; I think what I can tell you will save you trouble."

She thought for a little, weighing somewhat in her mind, as it seemed, and then she chose to add to her store of witchcraft.

"Yonder, then," she said, nodding to the dense alder thickets that hid the river Tone from us, across a stretch of frozen mere or flooded land. "I wot well that he who bides in Denewulf's cottage is a thane, for he wears a gold ring, and wipes his hands in the middle of the towel, and sits all day studying and troubling in his mind in such wise that he is no good to any one--not even turning a loaf that burns on the hearth before his eyes. Ay, they call him Godred."

Then my heart leaped up with gladness, and I turned to seek Heregar; but he was coming, and so I waited. Then the dame clamoured for her reward, which Harek had as nearly forgotten as had I.

"Mother," the scald said gravely, "when I work a spell with hammer and nail, the footprint into which the nail is driven is of her who cast the evil eye on me."

"Why, so it should be."

"Nay, but you drive it into your own," he said.

She looked, and then looked again. Then she stamped a new print alongside the nailed one, and it was true. She had paid no heed to the matter in her fury, and when she knew that she turned pale.

"Man," she cried, "help me out of this. I fear that I have even nailed the evil overlooking fast to myself."

"Ay, so you have," said Harek; "but it is you who know little of spells if you cannot tell what to do. Draw the nail out while saying the spell backwards, and then put it into the right place carefully. Then you will surely draw away also any ill that she has already sent you, and fasten it to her."

"Then I think she will shrivel up," said the old witch, with much content. "You are a great wizard, lord; and I thank you."

"Here is a true saying of a friend of mine," said Heregar, coming up in time to hear this. "But what has come to you, king? have you heard aught?"

Now when the old woman heard the thane name the king, before I could answer she cried out and came and clung to my stirrup, taking my hand and kissing it, and weeping over it till I was ashamed.

"What is this?" I said.

"O my lord the king!" she cried. "I thought that yon sad-faced man in Denewulf's house was our king maybe, so wondrous proud are his ways, and so strange things they hear him speak when he sleeps. But now I am glad, for I have seen the king and kissed his hand, and, lo, the sight of him is good. Ay, but glad will all the countryside be to know that you live."

Then I knew not what to say; but Heregar beckoned to me, saying:

"Come, leave her her joy; it were cruel to spoil it, and maybe she will never know her mistake."

So we rode on, and Heregar called Dudda, asking him if he knew Denewulf's cottage; while in the track stood the witch, blessing her king as eagerly as she had cursed her gossip just now.

"I know not the path, though I have heard of the cottage," Dudda said; "but it will be strange if I cannot find a way to the place."

He took us carefully into the fen for some way until we passed through a thicket and came to the edge of a mere, and there were five men who bore fishing nets and eel spears, which had not been used, as one might suppose, seeing that the ice was nigh a foot thick after the thaw and heavy frost again.

And those two men who came first were Ethelnoth, the Somerset ealdorman, and young Ethered of Mercia. It was strange to see those nobles bearing such burdens; but we knew that we had found the king.

They saw us, and halted; but Heregar waved his hand, and they came on, for they knew him. It would be hard to say which party was the more pleased to meet the other.

"Where is the king?" we asked.

"Come with us, and we will take you to him," Ethered said. "But supperless you must be tonight. We have nought in the house, and nothing can we catch."

Then I was surprised, and said:

"Is it so bad as that here? In our land, when the ice is at its thickest we can take as much fish as we will easily."

"Save us from starvation, Ranald," said Ethered, laughing ruefully, "and we will raise a big stone heap here in your honour."

"Kolgrim will show you," I said; "let me go to the king."

"I am a great ice fisherman," said Harek; "let me go also."

Then Heregar laughed in lightness of heart.

"Ay, wizard, go also. There will be charms of some sort needed before Ethered sees so much as a scale."

Whereon they dismounted, and Kolgrim took his axe from his saddle bow, asking where the river was, while he wondered that such a simple matter as breaking a hole in the ice and dropping a line among the hungry fish, who would swarm to the air, had not been thought of. We had not yet learned that such a winter as this comes but seldom to the west of England, and the thanes knew nothing of our northern ways.

Then Ethelnoth led Heregar and me across twisting and almost unseen paths, safer now because of the frost, though one knew that in some places a step to right or left would plunge him through the crust of hard snow into a bottomless peat bog. The alder thickets grew everywhere round dark, ice-bound pools of peat-stained water, and we could nowhere see more than a few yards before us; and it was hard to say how far we had gone from the upland edge of the swamp when the ground began to rise from the fen, and grew harder among better timber. But for the great frost, one would have needed a boat in many places.

Then we came to a clearing, in which stood a house that was hardly more than a cottage, and round it were huts and cattle sheds. And this was where the king was--the house of Denewulf the herdsman, the king's own thrall. There was a rough-wattled stockade round the place, and quick-set fences within which to pen the cattle and swine outside that, and all around were the thickets. None could have known that such an island was here, for not even the house overtopped the low trees; and though all the higher ground was cleared, there were barely two acres above the watery level--a long, narrow patch of land that lay southeast and northwest, with its southerly end close to the banks of the river Tone. Men call the place Athelney now, since the king and his nobles lay there. It had no name until he came, but I think that it will bear ever hereafter that which it earned thus.

Two shaggy grey sheepdogs came out to meet us, changing their angry bark for welcome when they saw Ethelnoth; and a man came to the door to see what roused them, and he had a hunting spear in his hand. I took him for some thane, as he spoke to us in courtly wise; but he was only Denewulf the herdsman himself.

"How fares the king?" asked Ethelnoth.

"His dark hour came on him after you went," Denewulf answered; "and then the pain passed, and he slept well, and now has just wakened wonderfully cheerful. I have not seen him so bright since he came here; and he is looking eagerly for your return, seeming to expect some news."

"It may be that our coming has been foretold him beforehand," said Heregar. "Our king has warnings given him in his dreams at times."

Then from out of the house Alfred's voice hailed us:

"Surely that is the voice of my standard bearer.

"Come in quickly, Heregar, for all men know that hope comes with you."

We went in; and it was a poor place enough for a king's lodging, though it was warm and neat. Alfred sat over the fire in the middle of the larger room of the two which the house had, and a strew of chips and shreds of feathers and the like was round him; for he was arrow making--an art in which he was skilful, and he had all the care and patience which it needs. When we came in he rose up, shaking the litter from his dress into the fire; and we bent our knees to him and kissed his hand.

"O my king," said Heregar, "why have you thus hidden yourself from us? All the land is mourning for you."

Then Alfred looked sadly at him and wistfully, answering:

"First, because I must hide; lastly, because I would be hidden: but between these two reasons is one of which I repent--because I despaired."

"Nay," said Denewulf, "it was not despair; it was grief and anxiousness and thought and waiting for hope. Never have you spoken of despair, my king."

"But I have felt it," he answered, "and I was wrong. Hope should not leave a man while he has life, and friends like these, and counsellors like yourself. Now have I been rebuked, and hope is given me afresh."

Then he smiled and turned to me.

"Why, Ranald my cousin, this is kindness indeed. I had not thought that you would bide with a lost cause, nor should I have thought of blame for you had you gone from this poor England; you are not bound to her as are her sons."

"My king," I said truly, "there are things that bind more closely even than birth."

I think he was pleased, for he smiled, and shook his head at me as though to say that he could not take my saying to himself, as I meant it. And then, before we could ask him more, he began to think of our needs.

"Here we have been pressed for food, friends, for the last few days, and I fear you must fast with us. The deer have fled from our daily hunting, and the wild fowl have sought open water. Unless our fishers have luck, which seems unlikely, we must do as well as we can on oaten bread."

Then Ethelnoth said:

"There have been no fish caught today, my king."

"Why, then, we will wait till the others return; and meanwhile I will hear all the news, for Ranald and Heregar will have much to tell me."

So we told him all that we knew, and he asked many questions, until darkness fell.

"Why are you here, lord king?" asked Heregar; "my hall is safe."

"Your hall and countryside are safe yet because I am not there," Alfred answered, fixing his bright eyes on the thane. "The Danes are hunting for me, and were I in any known place, thither would they come. Therefore I said that now I choose to bide hidden. Moreover, in this quiet and loneliness there comes to me a plan that I think will work out well; for this afternoon, as I slept, I was bidden to look for a sign that out of hopelessness should come help and victory."

Just then the dogs rose up and whined at the door, as if friends came; and there were cheerful voices outside. The door opened, and in stumbled Ethered, bearing a heavy basket of great fish, which he cast on the floor--lean green and golden pike, and red-finned roach, in a glittering, flapping heap.

"Here is supper!" he cried joyfully, "and more than supper, for each of us is thus laden. Fish enough for an army could we have taken had we not held our hands. I could not have thought it possible."

Whereat Alfred rose up and stared, crossing himself.

"Deo gratias," he said under his breath, and then said aloud, "Lo, this is the sign of which I spoke even now--that my fishers should return laden with spoil, even for an army, although frost and snow have prevented them from taking fish for many days, and today was less likelihood of their doing so than ever."

"Ranald knew well how this would cheer you, King Alfred," said Ethered, thinking that I had spoken of this as a proof that all was not lost, in some way.

"Ranald said nought; but the sign came from above, thus," the king said gravely. "In my dream the holy Saint Cuthberht stood by my side, and reproved me sharply for my downheartedness and despair, and for my doubt of help against the heathen; and when he knew that I was sorry, he foretold to me that all would yet be well, and that I should obtain the kingdom once more with even greater honour than I have had--with many more wondrous promises. And then he gave me this sign, as I have told you and, behold, it has come, and my heart is full of thankfulness. Now I know that all will be well with England."

Then said Denewulf, who it was plain took no mean place with the king and thanes:

"Say how this miracle was wrought, I pray you, for it is surely such."

"Hither came King Ranald and his two friends and bade us make holes in the ice and fish through them. So we did, and this is what came thereof," said Ethered.

"Therefore King Ranald and his coming are by the hand of God," said Denewulf. "Therein lies the miracle."

Then I was feared, for all were silent in wonder at the coming to pass of the sign; and it seemed to me that I was most truly under a power stronger than that of the old gods, who never wrought the like of this.

Then came Harek's voice outside, where he hung up fish to freeze against the morrow; and he sang softly some old saga of the fishing for the Midgard snake by Asa Thor. And that grated on me, though I ever waited to hear what song the blithe scald had to fit what was on hand, after his custom. Alfred heard too, and he glanced at me, and I was fain to hang my head.

"Ranald, who brought to pass the sign, shall surely share in its bodings of good," he said, quickly and kindly. "I think that he is highly favoured."

Then in came my comrades, and they bent to the king, and he thanked them; and after that was supper and much cheerfulness. Harek sang, and Alfred, and after them Denewulf. Much I marvelled at the wisdom of this strange man, but I never knew how he gained it. King Alfred was ever wont to say that in him he had found his veriest counsellor against despair in that dark time; and when in after days he took him from the fen and made him a bishop, he filled the place well and wisely, being ever the same humble-minded man that I had known in Athelney {xiv}.

* * *