“That is straightforward,” he said, smiling as if he would seem content.  “Let it be so.  But it is only fair that before we close this bargain you should see the well-dowered fair lady of whom I speak.”

“I will do so if this matter is unknown to her,” I answered, “else would be trouble, perhaps, and discomfort.  But it is of no use.  I have eyes and heart but for that one.  Do I know the lady already, perhaps?”

“I believe that you may do so,” Alfred said, looking grieved, in a strange way, as if he were half minded to laugh at me for all his seeming vexation.  “Odda says that you do, and so also says Etheldreda.  Her name is Thora, daughter of Jarl Osmund, and she will have Wareham town and Poole in right of her marriage, as dower to her and to my sea captain.”

So spoke the king quickly, and then he could make pretence no longer, but laughed joyously, putting his hands on my shoulders and shaking me a little, while he cried: 

“Ay, Ranald; I did but play with you.  True lover you are indeed, as I thought.  If you are faithful to the king as to the maiden of your choice, both she and I are happy, and it is well.”

Then I knew not how to thank him; but he said that Etheldreda and Odda, Heregar and the Lady Alswythe, and maybe Guthrum also, as Thora’s guardian, were to be thanked as well.

“You have found many friends here in England already, Ranald my cousin,” Alfred said.  “Wait until you meet some gathering of them all at Wareham, presently perhaps, where Osmund and Thora are preparing for a wedding—­and then make a great thanking if you will, and save words.  But I wonder that I have never heard of this matter from you before, for we have been close comrades.”

“You must have heard thereof today, my king,” I answered; “and you were but beforehand with me.  I could speak of such things now that peace has come.  Yet I feared that you would be against my wedding a Danish lady.”

“It was a natural thought,” answered Alfred; “but Thora and Osmund are ours, surely.  Perhaps I should have doubted were your mind set on any other.  But I have no fears for you.”

Then he pondered a little, and went on: 

“You say that peace has come.  So it has—­for a time; and had we to do only with the force that is in England now, I think it would grow and strengthen.  We cannot drive out the Danes, and there is room in England for both them and us, and in the days to come the difference of race will be forgotten—­not in our time, Ranald, but hereafter, as long years go by.  Some day one of my line, if God will, shall reign alone over a united England, stronger for the new blood that has come among us.  But it is a great charge that I give to you, Ranald.  What we have to fear are the new hosts that come from Denmark, and only a strong fleet can stay them from our shores.  I can deal with those who are here, and these in time will help me against fresh comers to the land.  There is that in English soil that makes every settler an Englishman in heart.  But there is warfare before us yet, and the fleet must break the force of the storm, if it cannot altogether turn it aside.”