Danes, giving them the uncommon chastisement of a defeat, so that they
escaped with difficulty to their ships.

The following year a famine so severe visited England, that even the
Danes forebore to ravage so poor a land; but in 1006, the next year,
they overspread Wessex like locusts. Here the action of our tale is
resumed.

During this interval of four years in Aescendune there had been peace.
Alfgar had been domesticated as one of the family, and was reported
well of in all the neighbourhood. Diligent in the discharge of his
religious duties, he was equally conspicuous in all warlike sports and
exercises and in the chase, while he afforded much help to Elfwyn the
thane in the management of the estate. In short, he had won his way to
the hearts of all the family; and perhaps the report that he was the
accepted suitor of the fair daughter of Aescendune, Ethelgiva, was not
without foundation.

Ethelgiva was nearly his own age, and was a perfect type of that
beauty which has ever distinguished the women of the Anglo-Saxon race.
Her fair hair, untouched by artificial adornment, hung like a shower
of gold around her shoulders, while her eyes were of that delicate
blue which seemed to reflect the deep summer sky; but the sweet
pensive expression of her face was that which attracted nearly all who
knew her, and made her the object of general regard.

Bertric was now about sixteen--a handsome, attractive boy, full of
life and fire, yet still possessing that devotion which Father
Cuthbert had remarked in him as a boy of twelve. As the heir to the
lands of Aescendune, and the only son, he would have been in much