The tears stood in the old man’s eyes at this reception, and the mention of his dear prodigal son.

“He is well, I hope?” said he, striving to speak with such sternness and dignity as sell-respect taught in opposition to natural feeling.

“Well and happy; and I trust you will see him in a day or two, when we shall have chastised our rebels; justice, mingled with mercy, must first have its day.”

“Where is he now?”

“With the main body of the army; in fact, he is my right hand.  It is my fault, not his, that he is not here now; but we could not both leave, and he preferred that I should come and proffer my filial duty first, and perhaps that I should assure you of his love and duty, however appearances may have seemed against him.”

Then the eye of Edwy caught Alfred.  It must be remembered that Elfric had kept the secret of his brother’s supposed death, even from the king.

“And of Alfred, too, I have ever been reminded by his brother; your name has seldom been long absent from our conversation.”

Alfred reddened.

“I trust now,” he continued, “that I may profitably renew an acquaintance suspended for three years.  I am but young, only in my eighteenth year, and I have no father; let me find one in the wisest of the Mercians.”

So bewitching was the grace of the fair speaker that he seemed to carry all before him.  Ella began to think he must have misjudged the king.  Alfred alone, who knew much more of the relations between the king and the Church than his father, still suspended his belief in these most gracious words.

Leaning upon the still powerful arm of Ella, his young agile form contrasting strongly with the powerful build of the old thane—­ powerful even in decay—­they came in front of the hall, where the serfs and vassals all received them with joyful acclamations, and amidst the general homage the king entered the hall.

There he reverentially saluted the lady Edith.

“The mother of my friend, my brother, Elfric, is my mother also,” said he.

Then he was conducted to his chamber, where the bath was provided for him, and unguents for anointing himself, after which, accepting the loan of a change of clothing more suitable than his travelling apparel, he received the visit of Ella, who came to conduct him to the banquet.

All this while his followers had been received according to their several degrees; and a board was spread, of necessity, in a barn, for the due feasting of the soldiers of Edwy and the vassals of Aescendune; while the officers and the chief tenants of the family met at the royal table in the great hall once before introduced to our readers.

It boots not to repeat an oft-told tale, to describe the banquet in all its prodigal luxury, to tell how light the casks in the cellars of Aescendune seemed afterwards, how empty the larder; suffice it to say that in due course the banquet was ended, the toasts were drunk, and, with an occasional interlude in the gleeman’s song and the harper’s wild music, the conversation was at its height.  Wine and wassail unloosed men’s tongues.