The frost lasted till February went out in rain and south winds.  And then the Danes began to gather along the southern hills, watching us.  By that time we had made causeways to other islets from the fort, and the best of these was to Othery, a long, flat island that lay to the east, nearer to the Polden Hills and Edington.

So one day the king sent for me as we wrought at the fort, and both he and I were horny handed and clay stained from the work.  I came with spade in hand, and he leaned on a pick.  Whereat he laughed.

“Faith, brother king, now can I speak in comrade’s wise to my churls as you speak to your seamen.  Nor do I think that I shall be the worse ruler for that.”

Then he took my arm, and pointed to Edington hill.

“For many nights past I have seen watch fires yonder,” he said; “and that is a place where I might strike the Danes well.  So I would draw them thither in force.  Do you feel as if a fight would be cheerful after this spade work?”

Now I could wish for nothing better, and I said so.

“Well, then,” he went on, laughing at my eagerness, “go to Ethelnoth, and take twenty men, and do you and he fall on that post from Othery by night; and when you have scattered it, come back into the fen.  I would have you lose no men, but I would make the Danes mass together by attack on some one point, and that as soon as may be, before Hubba comes.  I do not want to hold their place.”

Now that was the first of daily attacks on the Danish posts, at different places along the Selwood and Polden hills, until they thought that we wished to win Edington height, where we began and annoyed them most often.  So I will tell how such a raid fared.

Good it was to lay aside pick and spade and take sword Helmbiter again, and don mail and helm; and I made Harek fence with me, lest I should have lost my sword craft through use of the weapons whereby the churl conquers mother earth.  But once the good sword was in my hand I forgot all but the warrior’s trade.

So Ethelnoth and I and twenty young thanes went in the evening to Othery island, and there found a fenman to guide us, and so went to the foot of Edington hill just as darkness fell.  The watch-fire lights, that were our guide, twinkled above us through the trees that were on the hillside; and we made at once for them, sending on the fenman to spy out the post before we were near it.  It was very dark, and it rained now and then.

When he came back to where we had halted, he said that there were about twenty tents, pitched in four lines, with a fire between each line; and that the men were mostly under cover, drinking before setting watch, if they set any at all.

So we drew nearer, skirting round into cover of some trees that came up to the tents, for the hilltop was bare for some way.  The lighted tents looked very cheerful, and sounds of song and laughter came from them, and now and then a man crossed from one to another, or fed the fires with fresh wood, that hissed and sputtered as he cast it on.