Then I led her back to Osmund in his place among the rough huts within the wide circle of the camp ramparts, that now held but a few poor folk from the Parretside lands.
"King Alfred makes some new move," I said to him, "and it is possible that we may not meet again.

I think that what is coming will end all the trouble between Saxon and Dane." He shook his head.
"Some day it will end," he said, "but not in my time or yours--not until the Danes have grown to know that England is their home, and that they are English by birth and right of time--maybe not till Denmark has ceased to send forth the sons for whom she has no place in her own borders." Then I answered that perhaps he was right.

I did not see into things as far as he, and I was a stranger in the land.
"But this at last will give a strong overlord to England," I said.
"Ay, for the time.

So long as a strong king rules, there will be less trouble indeed; but if Alfred's sons are weak, it will begin afresh.

England will no longer bear two kings; and while there is a Saxon kingdom alongside a Danish, there cannot be lasting peace." Then I said: "What of yourself?
Shall you go back to Guthrum when this is over ?" "I cannot tell," he answered.