And when the red light
from wharf and open house doors danced in long lines on the ripples
towards us, and voices hailed our ship from shore, and our men
answered back in cheery wise, she drew nearer me, saying:
"Is this home, Wulfric?"
"Aye," I answered. "Your home and mine, Osritha--and peace."
Now have I little more to say, for I have told what I set out to
tell--how Lodbrok the Dane came from over seas, and what befell
thereafter. For now came to us at Reedham long years of peace that
nothing troubled. And those years, since Osritha and I were wedded
at Reedham very soon after we came home, have flown very quickly.
Yet there came to us echoes of war from far-off Wessex, as man
after man crept back to Anglia from the great host where Guthrum
and Hubba warred with Alfred the king. And tired and worn out with
countless battles, these men settled down with us in peace to till
the land they had helped to lay waste and win. Hard it was to see
the farms pass to alien owners at first, but I will not say that
England has altogether lost, for these Danes are surely becoming
English in all love of our land; and they have brought us new
strength, with the old freedom of our forefathers, which some of us
had nigh forgotten.
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