"
Eanulf signed assent.
On that they gave me a woodman's billhook, and a seax, [iii] such as the
churls wear, and one thrust a good ash, iron-shod quarterstaff into my
hands. Then my guards led me away from the assembly, and set my face
towards the downward path. Once again the old man spoke to me with words
of good counsel.
"Keep up heart, master. Make for Cornwall, and turn viking with the next
Danes who come."
I would not answer him, but walked down the hill a little. Then the
bitterness of my heart overcame me, and I turned, and shaking my staff
up at the hill, cursed the Moot deeply.
So I went--an outlaw.
CHAPTER II. THE FIGHT WITH TWO.
Now whither I went for the next two hours I cannot tell, for my mind was
heedless of time or place or direction--only full of burning hate of
all men, and of Matelgar most of all. And though that has long passed
away from me, so that I may even think of him now as the pleasant
comrade in field and feast that he once was, I wonder not at all I then
felt; for this treachery had come on me so unawares, and was so deep.
Wherever it was I wandered it took me away from men, and at last, when I
roused myself to a knowledge again of the land round me, I was hard on
the borders of Sedgemoor Waste; and the sun was low down, and near setting.
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