"Open the gate, and you shall know."
"Not so, Thane," cried one of our men, who was peering through the timbers of the stockade. "Now that I can see, I have counted full fifty men, and they are waiting as if to rush in."
Then said my father:
"Maybe we will open the gate when we are sure you are friends. One may be forgiven for doubting that when you come thus at midnight to a peaceful house."
"We are friends or not, as you choose, Aldred," the voice answered. "I am Erpwald, Woden's priest, and I am here to stay wrong to the Asir of which I have heard."
"I will not pretend not to know what you mean, Erpwald," answered my father. "But this, as it seems to me, is a matter that concerns me most of all."
"If it concerns not Woden's priest, whom shall it concern?" answered Erpwald. "It is true, then, that you have left the Asir to follow the way of the thralls, led aside by that Welshman you have with you?"
"It is true enough that I am a Christian," said my father steadily. "As for leaving the Asir, that is not to be said of one whose line goes back to Woden, his forefather. But I cannot worship him any longer. Forefather of mine he may be, but not a god."
"Ho! that is all I needed to hear. Now, I will not mince matters with you, Aldred. Either you give up this foolishness, or I am here to make you do so."
Now, my father looked round at the men and saw that all the house-carles and one or two from the village were in the courtyard, fifteen of them altogether, besides himself and Owen. They were all Christian men, and they stood in a sort of line behind him across the closed gate with their faces set, listening.