“Ay, that is right.  You were bound to say somewhat, and you did it well.  But it has not pleased the girl, nevertheless.”

“I did think, at least, she would have been more glad to see me.”

“Trouble yourself not at all about the ways of damsels for the next five years, or maybe ten, Oswald, my friend,” said the ealdorman.  “So will you have an easier life, and maybe a longer one.”

Discontented enough I went away, and that same discontent lasted for a full half-hour.  At the end of that time I found myself laughing at the antics of two boys who were sporting on a flooded meadow in a great brew tub, while their mother threatened them with a stick from the bank.  It was my thought that a cake would have fetched them back sooner than the stick, but maybe she knew best.  It was like a hen with ducklings.

Then I grew tired of loitering outside the town and nursing my wounded pride, and when it began to rain I forgot it, and went back to the palace and talked about the British warriors with Nunna and some of the other young thanes until supper time.

Next morning I waited on the king as he had bidden me, finding him in his chamber with a pile of great parchments and the like before him.  He bade me be seated, and I sat in the window seat opposite him.

“It is no light matter that I have to speak of,” he said, “but I will get to the point straightway.  What do you remember of your old home, Eastdean?”

Now the thoughts of old days there that had sprung afresh in my mind in the parting with Owen, made me ready to answer that at once.

“Little, my King.  I was but ten years old when we fled,” I answered therefore.

“That is likely.  But would you go back there?  As the Thane of Eastdean, I mean; for I know that you would wish to see the place where your father lies.”

I could not answer him this at once, for it was indeed a matter that needed thought.  So I said, and he turned to his writings with a nod and left me to myself.

In all these thoughts of mine, pleasant as they were with some memories, it had never come to me to wish that the lands were mine again.  Save for that one thing of which Ina spoke, and for the pleasantness of seeing old scenes again, I had never cared to go back.  Owen had not spoken of the lands that should have been mine for years, and even as he talked with me and Gerent he had not seemed to remember that old loss at all.  Gerent had done so, saying that I should be back there, but even that did not stir me now.  I was of the court, and here I had my place, and all my life was knit with the ways of the atheling guard and the ordering of the house-carles under Owen.  If I were to turn from all this to become a forest thane it would be banishment.

And then I thought of Owen, and how this would take me yet farther from him.  I would sooner, if I must be sent from Ina, go to him and find what home I might on the lands of Tregoz in wild Dartmoor.  And then the thought of leaving Ina, who had cared for me since I was a child, was almost as terrible.