to be ashamed of myself for my fears; and he laughed at me, and let me
go my way with sword and spear and seax[4] also, which
last my father would take under his fisher's jerkin.

I caught up my father quickly, and we went along the sands northwards
until we came to the place where we must separate. The road was but a
quarter of a mile inland from this spot, for it ran near the shore, and
it was not much more than that to the place where Hodulf would be waiting.

"Creep as near as you can," my father said; "but come to help only if I
call. I do not think that I am likely to do so."

Then we went our ways, he making straight for the road, and I turning to
my left a little. It was dark, for there was no moon now, but save that
I was soundly scratched by the brambles of the fringe of brushwood that
grew all along the low hills of the coast, there was nothing to prevent
my going on quickly, for I knew the ground well enough, by reason of
yearly bird nesting. When I reached the roadway the meeting place was
yet to my left, and I could hear my father's footsteps coming steadily
in the distance. So I skirted the road for a little way, and then came
to an open bit of heath and rising land, beyond which I thought I should
find Hodulf. Up this I ran quickly, dropping into the heather at the
top; and sure enough, in a hollow just off the road I could dimly make
out the figure of a mounted man waiting.

Then my father came along the road past me, and I crawled among the tall
heather clumps until I was not more than twenty paces from the hollow,
which was a little below me.

Hodulf's horse winded me, as I think, and threw up its head snorting,