questions, and, moreover, my pride forbade me to ask in that way. Then,
again, for a man so subsisting it might be hard to win a way to a great
man's favour, though, indeed, a stout warrior was always sure to find
welcome with him who had lands to protect, but not so certainly with the
other housecarles among whom he would come.

So I began to see that my plight was worse than I thought, and sat
there, with my back to an ash tree, while the birds sang round me, and
was downcast for a while.

Then suddenly, as I traced the course that I had laid out in my mind,
going over the hunts of the old days, when I rode beside my father and
since, I bethought me of one day when the stag, a great one of twelve
points, took to the sea just this side of Watchet town, swimming out
bravely into Severn tide, so that we might hardly see him from the
strand. There went out three men in a little skiff to take him, having
with them the young son of the owner of the boat. And in some way the
boat was overturned, as they came back towing the stag after them, when
some hundred or more yards from shore, and in deep water where a swift
current ran. Two men clung to the upturned boat; but the other must
swim, holding up his son, who, though a big boy of fourteen, was
helpless in the water. And I saw that it was like to go hard with both
of them, for the current bore them away from shore and boat alike.

So I rode in, and my horse swam well, and we reached them in time, so
that I took the boy by his long hair and raised him above the water,
while the man, his father, swam beside us, and we got safely back to the
beach, they exhausted enough but safe, and I pleased that my good horse
did so well.