The whole round sweep of the horizon lay about them in an unbroken chain
of ripening vineyards and rich timber-land, of grain-fields and laden
orchards; not one spot that did not make glorious pledges to the harvest time.
Drinking its fairness with his eyes, the lord of the manor sighed in full
content. "When I see how fine a thing it is to cause wealth to be where before
was nothing, I cannot understand how I once thought to find my pleasure only
in destroying," he said. "Next month, when the barley beer is brewed, we will
have a harvest feast plentiful enough to flesh even your bones, you bodkin!"
The Danish page laughed as he dodged the plaguing wand. "It is true that you
owe something to my race, lord. He had great good sense, the Wide-Fathomer, to
stretch his strips of oxhide around this dale and turn it into an odal."
"Nay now, it was Alfred who had sense to take it away from him," the Etheling
teased.
But the boy shook back his long tresses in airy defiance. "Then will Canute be
foremost in wisdom, for soon he will get it back, together with all England.
Remember who got the victory last week at Brentford, lord."
In the midst of his exulting, a cloud came over the young Englishman's smile.
"I would I knew the truth concerning that," he said slowly. "The man who
passes to-day says one thing; whoso comes to-morrow tells another story.
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