Alswythe turned and looked hard at her aunt as we passed the gates, and I also.  She stood very still on the steps before the great door, with the portress beside her.  There was only the old lay brother in the court beside, and so we left her.  And what my fears were for her and hers I could not tell Alswythe.  For, as we left the gates, something in the sky over towards the battleground caught my eyes, and I turned cold with dread.  It was the smoke from burning houses at Cannington.

CHAPTER X. FLIGHT THROUGH SEDGEMOOR.

I was glad we had not to go through the town, for the sights there were such as Alswythe could not bear to look on.  And if that smoke meant aught, it meant that our men were beaten back, and would even now be flying into the place with perhaps the Danes at their heels.

I rode alongside Wulfhere, and motioned to him to look, and as he did so he groaned.  Then he spoke quite cheerfully to his lady, saying that we had better push on and make a good start; and so we broke into a steady trot and covered the ground rapidly enough, ever away from danger.

I rode next Alswythe, but I would not dare speak to her as vet.  She had her veil down, and was quite silent, and I felt that it would be best for me to wait for her wish.

Beside me trotted the collier, Wulfhere was leading, and next to Alswythe and me came the two maidens.  After them came the three men and two boys, all mounted, and leading with them the other three horses of the twelve we had brought from Stert.  They were laden with things for the journey given by the prioress, and with what they had saved from Matelgar’s hall, though that was little enough.

Wulfhere would fain have made the collier ride one of these spare horses; but the strange man had refused, saying that his own legs he could trust, but not those of a four-footed beast.

It was seven in the bright May morning when Dane and Saxon met on Combwich Hill.  It was midday when I met Wulfhere at the nunnery, and now it was three hours and more past.  But I thought there was yet light enough left for us to find our way across Sedgemoor, and lodge that night in safety in the village near the collier’s hut; and so, too, thought Wulfhere when I, thinking that perhaps Alswythe’s grief might find its own solace in tears when I was not by her, rode on beside him for a while.

“Once set me on Polden hills, master,” said Wulfhere, “I can do well enough, knowing that country from my youth.  But this is a good chance that has sent you your friend the collier.”

So he spoke, and then I fell to wondering, if it was all chance, as we say, that led my feet in that night of wandering to Dudda’s hut, that now I might find help in sorer need than that.  For few there are who could serve as guide over that waste of fen and swamp, and but for him we must needs have kept the main roads, far longer in their way to Glastonbury, as skirting Sedgemoor, and now to be choked with flying people.