Our young friend Osric was committed to the care of the senior page Alain, who anticipated much sportive pleasure in catechising and instructing his young companion—such a novice in the art of war.
And it may be added in equitation, for we need not say old Sexwulf kept no horses, and Osric had much ado to ride, not gracefully, but so as to avoid the jeers and laughter of his companions.
The young reader, who remembers his own first essay in horsemanship, will appreciate poor Osric's difficulty, and will easily picture the suppressed, hardly suppressed, laughter of Alain, at each uneasy jolt. However, Osric was a youth of good sense, and instead of turning red, or seeming annoyed, laughed heartily too at himself. His spirits were light, and he soon shook off the depression of the morning under the influence of the fresh air and smiling landscape, for the tears of youth are happily—like an April shower—soon followed by sunshine.
They rode across Cholsey common, then a wide meadowed space, stretching from Wallingford to the foot of the downs; they left the newly-restored or rather rebuilt Church of St. Mary's of Cholsey on their right, around which, at that time, clustered nearly all the houses of the village, mainly built upon the rising ground to the north of the church, avoiding the swampy common.[15]
Farther on to the left, across the clear and sparkling brook, they saw the burnt and blackened ruins of the former monastery, founded by Ethelred "the unready," in atonement for the murder of his half-brother, Edward the Martyr, and burnt in the same terrible inroad; one more mile brought them to the source of the Cholsey brook, which bubbled up from the earth amidst a thicket of trees at the foot of a spur of the downs.
Here they all stopped to drink, for the spring was famous, and had reputed medicinal properties, and, in sooth, the water was pleasant to the taste of man and beast.
A little beyond was a moated grange belonging to the Abbot of Reading, a pleasant summer residence in peaceful times; but the days were coming when men should avoid lonely country habitations; there were a few invalid monks there, they came forth and gazed upon the party, then shook their tonsured heads as the burgesses of Wallingford had done.
Another mile, and they began to ascend the downs, where, according to tradition, the battle of Æscendune had been fought, in the year of grace, 871. Arriving at the summit, they looked back at the view: Wallingford, the town and churches, dominated by the high tower of the keep, was still in full view, and, beyond, the wavy line of the Chilterns stretched into the misty distance, as described in the preface to our tale.
But most interesting to Osric was the maze of woodland which filled the country about Aston (East-tun) and Blewbery (Blidberia), for there lay the hut of his grandfather; and the tears rose to the affectionate lad's eyes at the thought of the old man's future loneliness, with none but poor old Judith to console him for the loss of his boy.
Before them rose Lowbury Hill—dominated then by a watch-tower—which they ascended and stood on the highest summit of the eastern division of the Berkshire downs; before them on the south rose the mountainous range of Highclere, and a thin line of smoke still ascended from the bale-fire on the highest point.