So we found a welcome in that quiet place, and soon the good franklin's
wife came out, bustling and pitiful in her care for Alswythe and sorrow
for her need to fly from her lost home, for it took but few words to
explain what had befallen.
They brought us in, and the thralls left supper to tend our horses,
though Wulfhere would go with them to see that done before he joined us
in the wide oak-built room that made all the lower floor of the house.
Overhead was the place where Alswythe and her maidens should be, and
built against the walls outside were the thralls' quarters, save for a
few who slept in the lower room round the great fire.
Now, how they treated us it needs not to be told, for it was in the way
of a good Somerset franklin, and that is saying much. But that night he
would talk little, seeing that I and Wulfhere were overdone with want of
sleep. Indeed it was but the need of caution that had kept me from
falling asleep on my horse more than once on the road. So very soon they
brought us skins and cloaks, and we stretched ourselves before the fire,
and warmed, and cleansed, and well refreshed with food and drink, fell
to sleep on the instant.
Yet not so soundly could I sleep at first, but that I woke once,
thinking I heard the yells of the Danes close on us: but it was some
farmyard sound from without, and peaceful.
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