"
"Then it would be madness to proceed; you must sleep, and at early dawn
you shall precede us on my own charger--which has been led all the way
--if your own is too wearied, and with an attendant or two in case of
danger from man or beast. Nay, it must be so."
Alfred, who could scarcely stand for very fatigue, was forced to yield,
and that night he slept soundly in the camp of Edgar. At the first dawn
they aroused him from sleep, and he found a splendid warhorse awaiting
him--a gift, they told him, from Edgar. Two attendants, well mounted,
awaited him in company with Oswy. He would willingly have dispensed with
their company; but he was told that the king, anxious for his safety,
had insisted upon their attending him, and that they were answerable for
his safe return to Aescendune, the country being considered dangerous
for travellers in its present disturbed state.
So he yielded; and before the king had arisen he left the camp, after a
hasty meal, and rode as rapidly as the roads would permit towards his
desolated home.
CHAPTER XXIII. LOVE STRONG AS DEATH.
Meanwhile Father Swithin had gone alone and unprotected, save by his
sacred character, into the very jaws of the lion; or rather, would have
gone, had he been suffered to do so; for when he approached the hall he
found the drawbridge up, and the whole place guarded as in a state of siege.
He advanced, nothing daunted, in front of the yawning gap where the
bridge should have been, and cried aloud--"What ho! porter; I demand
speech of my lord Redwald.
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