I suppose that there is not a more wonderful outlook in all England than from the Malvern heights, save only that from our own Quantocks, in the west.  I hold that the more wonderful, for there one has the sea, and across it the mountains of Wales, which one misses here, while it were hard to say whence the eye can range the furthest.

I told Hilda so as we reined up the horses for a moment at the top of the steep to breathe them, and she sighed, with all the wonder before her.  We of the hill countries do not know all the pleasure that comes into the heart of one from the level east counties, as he looks for the first time from a height over the lands spread out below.  I had been long enough in Friesland now to learn some of that wonder for myself anew.

“Well,” she said, “you will be back again at home in your hills shortly, and all this ride will be forgotten.  Where does your home lie?  Can it be seen?”

I pointed south or thereabout.  I could almost fancy that I should be able to see the far blue line of the Mendips under the sun, so bright it all was and clear.

Then she asked if my folk knew that I was on my way home.

“No; else I had ridden straightway from Thetford to them.  They think that I am yet with the Franks across the sea, and a few days can make no difference to them.  Nor could I be so churlish as to refuse the king’s offer of help on my way.”

“I wonder how you will find all when you get back?”

“And so do I. There were merchants from Bristol who brought me a message that all was well with them six months ago, and by the same hands I sent back word that so it was with me.  Possibly that message has reached them about this time.”

That was the third time I had heard from home during these years, and I was lucky to have heard at all.  It seems that my father had bidden friends of ours at the ports to let him hear of men from across the seas who were to go to the court of Carl.

“Ah,” she said, “I hope so.  That would be more than joy to your mother.  And then for you to follow so quickly on the message! that will be wonderful.  I would that I could see that meeting.”

She turned and laughed in the pleasure of the thought, and I suppose there was that in my eyes which told her that I had the same wish.  Maybe I should have said so, but she flushed a little, and gave me no time.

“But I shall be on the way back to East Anglia with the princess, and I will picture it all.  Some day, when you come back to see the king, as you say he has asked you, I shall hear of it.”