The stack was outside the stockade, and some twenty yards from its corner.  One of the men ran to the hall and brought a torch from its socket on the wall, and handed it to Stuf, who threw it fairly on the stack top, from the ladder.  It blazed up fiercely as it went through the air, and from the men who beset us there rose a howl as they saw it.  Several ran and tried to reach it with their spears, but they were not in time.  The first damp straws of the thatch hissed for a moment, dried, and burst into flame, and then nought could stop the burning.  The red flames gathered brightness every moment, lighting up two sides of the stockading, in the midst of which the hall stood.  Then an arrow clicked on Stuf’s helm, and he came down into shelter.

“This is a strange affair, Master,” he said.  “I have seen three men whom I know well among them.”

“Who are they?”

“Wisborough men—­freemen of Erpwald’s.”

My father and Owen looked at one another.  Words my father knew he should have to put up with, after today, from Erpwald, but this seemed token of more than words only.

Then came the blast of a horn from outside, and a strange voice shouted that the thane must come and speak with those who called him.  So my father went to the gate and answered from within it: 

“Here am I. What is all the trouble?”

“Open the gate, and you shall know.”

“Not so, Thane,” cried one of our men, who was peering through the timbers of the stockade.  “Now that I can see, I have counted full fifty men, and they are waiting as if to rush in.”

Then said my father: 

“Maybe we will open the gate when we are sure you are friends.  One may be forgiven for doubting that when you come thus at midnight to a peaceful house.”

“We are friends or not, as you choose, Aldred,” the voice answered.  “I am Erpwald, Woden’s priest, and I am here to stay wrong to the Asir of which I have heard.”

“I will not pretend not to know what you mean, Erpwald,” answered my father.  “But this, as it seems to me, is a matter that concerns me most of all.”

“If it concerns not Woden’s priest, whom shall it concern?” answered Erpwald.  “It is true, then, that you have left the Asir to follow the way of the thralls, led aside by that Welshman you have with you?”

“It is true enough that I am a Christian,” said my father steadily.  “As for leaving the Asir, that is not to be said of one whose line goes back to Woden, his forefather.  But I cannot worship him any longer.  Forefather of mine he may be, but not a god.”

“Ho! that is all I needed to hear.  Now, I will not mince matters with you, Aldred.  Either you give up this foolishness, or I am here to make you do so.”

Now, my father looked round at the men and saw that all the house-carles and one or two from the village were in the courtyard, fifteen of them altogether, besides himself and Owen.  They were all Christian men, and they stood in a sort of line behind him across the closed gate with their faces set, listening.