“Don’t suppose that there is any help coming to you from the village,” said the hard voice from outside.  “There is a guard over every house.”

“Erpwald,” said my father, “it is a new thing that any man should be forced to quit his faith here in Sussex.  Nor is it the way of a thane to fall on a house at night in outlaw fashion.  Ina the king will have somewhat to say of this.”

“If there is one left to tell him, that is,” came back the reply.  “There will not be shortly, unless I have your word that tomorrow you come to me at Wisborough and make such atonement to the Asir as you may, quitting your new craze.”

Then said Stuf, the leader of the house-carles, growling: 

“That is out of the question, and he knows it.  He means to fall on us, else had he spoken to you elsewhere first, Thane.  It seems to me that here we shall die.”

He looked round on his fellows, and they nodded, and one set his helm more firmly on his head, and another tightened his belt, and one or two signed the cross on their broad chests, but not one paled, though they knew there was small hope for them if Erpwald chose to storm the house.  The court was light as day with the flames of the stack by this time.

“What think you of this, Owen,” my father said.

“That it is likely that we must seal our faith with our blood, brother,” he answered.  “Yet I think that there is more in this than heathenism, in some way.”

“There is an old feud of no account,” said my father, “but I would not think hardly of Erpwald.  After all, he was Woden’s priest, and is wroth, as I myself might have been.  It is good to die thus, and but for the boy I would be glad.”

“I do not think that he will be harmed,” said Owen, “even if the worst comes to the worst.”

“Well, if I fall, try to get him hence.  After that maybe Erpwald will be satisfied.  I set him in your charge, brother, for once you have saved him already.  Fail me not.”

Owen held out his hand and took his.

“I will not fail you,” he said—­“if I live after you.”

Now from outside the voices began to be impatient, and Erpwald had been crying to my father to be speedy, unheeded.  But in the midst of the growing shouts of the heathen my father turned to the men and asked them if they were content to die with him for the faith.  And with one accord they said that they would.

Then with a thundering crash a great timber beam was hurled against the gate, shaking its very posts with the force of the six men who wielded it at a run, and in the silence that fell as they drew back Erpwald cried: 

“For the last time, Aldred, will you yield?”

But he had no answer, and after a short space the timber crashed against the gate again and again.  And across it waited our few, silent and ready for its falling.