"The good Lord shield us from all such wizardry," cried one robber; and Wulnoth stared at that. "The good Lord!" Then these robbers held that the White Christ was greater than the wizards and night-hags and the ghost smith of Wieland's forge!
"Where tarries the King himself?" he asked. "Surely 't is he whom we should seek, and not the Atheling."
"The King is gone to his house at Winchester, I hear, there to take counsel with his thanes and ealdormen in the Witenagemot. For, mark you this, Wanderer—if these black strangers come into our good Wessex, they will find us fiercer fighters than were those of East Anglia."
"Ay, that is your fault," said Wulnoth. And the robbers looked surprised.
"Our fault? What—that we fight well?"
"Now, nay," answered Wulnoth, with a smile, "for that is no fault, but that ye are so divided amongst yourselves into East and West Saxons, and men of Mercia and Northumbria. These Danes come as one, and they come like clouds of flies, and they will eat up one place at a time, when, if ye were all bound together, they could not stand before you. There will be hard work before us before we drive them out, and there will be hero deeds and death-songs for many a one."
"And what could man want better?" laughed the robbers. "Come, let us march, and—the best song for the best man."
So Wulnoth, instead of being alone, now found himself with fifty good fighters, and though he was not their captain, they were going at his advice, and that was something.
For six days they marched on, mostly by night, and through the wild lands; for, as the robbers said, they were nameless men, and if any ealdorman or thane heard of their presence near his hold, he might sally out and make an end of them for being robbers, and hang their leaders on the nearest trees, without waiting to hear of what they were thinking of doing.
"Not but what they make us what we are, ofttimes," growled the captain. "For, look you, I am a Sethcundman. For four generations, father and son, we held our five hydes, and each hyde of a hundred good acres; and if that does not make us Sethcundmen and gentle, then what does? Yet down on our land came Seward, son of Beorn,[6] son of the bear, and he seized our holdings and drove us out. What wonder that we reply by robbing, since we have been robbed? Look at Sigwad yonder—he could not pay the tax when the King's house-carls called for it; and lo, they sold all he had, and his wife died on the wayside. Thus do we, who are of the people, grow discontented, and meet violence with violence, giving blow for blow."