It seems dark all round me." Then I said, for she was in sore distress: "Lady, I am a stranger and hardly known to you, but I am to ride with your son.

Will it be aught if I tell you that I will watch him as if he were my own atheling, and if need be die for him, with his own thanes ?" "It is much," she said eagerly, "much; for in that court where I fear for him you will be a stranger, and may hear and note more than our folk, for if ill is plotted they may be careless of you.

I shall have less fear now that I may feel that one at least shares in my dread.

I do not know how to thank you for the promise." She set forth her hand to mine, and I bent and kissed it; but she pressed my great fingers as my own mother used to press them.

Then she said in a low voice: "I do not fear Offa, for he is noble in all he does.