Then Owen unhelmed and turned his horse to the gates, and after him we went clattering down the street.  In a minute or two Thorgils came alongside me.

“So that was the lady of the vow, surely.  Well, you may be excused for making it, though indeed it is rash to bind oneself—­nay, but it seems that this is one of those matters whereon I must hold my tongue!”

For I had spurred my horse a little impatiently, and he understood well enough.  I did not altogether care that this stranger should talk of my affairs—­more particularly as they did not seem to be going at all rightly.  So he said no more of them, but began to talk of himself gaily, while Owen rode alone at our head, as he would sometimes if his thoughts were busy.

Presently he reined up and came alongside us, taking his part in our talk in all cheerfulness.  And from that time I had little thought but of the pleasantness of the ride in the sharp winter air and under the bright sun with him toward the new court which I had often longed to see, with its strange ways, in the ancient British-Roman palace that he had so often told me of.

So we rode along the ancient and grass-grown Roman road that lies on the Polden ridge, hardly travelled save by a few chapmen, since the old town they called Uxella was lost in the days of my forefathers.  The road had no ending now, as one may say, for beyond the turning to the bridge across the Parrett for which we were making it passed to nought but fen and mere where once had been the city.  All the wide waters on either side of the hills were hard frozen, and southward, across to where we could see the blue hill of ancient Camelot, the ice flashed black and steely under the red low sun of midwinter.  Before us the Quantocks lay purple and deepest brown where the woods hid the snow that covered them.  Over us, too, went the long strings of wild geese, clanging in their flight in search of open water—­and it was the wolf month again, and even so had they fled on that day when Owen found me in the snow.

And therewith we fell into talk of Eastdean, and dimly enough I recalled it all.  I knew that an Erpwald held the place even yet, but I cared not.  It was but a pleasant memory by reason of the coming of Owen, and I had no thought even to see the place again.  Only, as we talked it did seem to me that I would that I knew that the grave of my father was honoured.

Then we left the old road, and crossed the ancient Parrett bridge, where the Roman earthworks yet stood frowning as if they would stay us.  They were last held against Kenwalch, and now we were in that no-man’s land which he had won and wasted.  Then we climbed the long slope of the Quantocks, whence we might look back over the land we had left, to see the Tor at Glastonbury shouldering higher and higher above the lower Poldens, until the height was reached and the swift descent toward Norton began.  There we could see all the wild Exmoor hills before us, with the sea away to our right, and Thorgils shewed us where lay, under the very headlands of the hills we were crossing, the place where his folk had their haven.  He said that he could see the very smoke from the hearths, but maybe that was only because he knew where it ought to be, and we laughed at him.