So he laughed and let me kiss his hand, patting me on the shoulder
as I rose, and then bade me sit down again. He had yet more to say.

"With Erpwald who is dead, men would hold that you had a blood
feud. That is done with; but his son yet lives. I do not think it
is your way, or Owen's, to hold that a feud must be carried on in
the old heathen way of our forefathers."

"Most truly not," I said. "What ill has a son of Erpwald done to me
or mine?"

"None! Nay, rather has he done well, for I know that he has
honoured the grave of your father, and even now is ready to do what
he can to make amends for the old wrong. He brought me this."

He took up the parchment that he had shewn me before. It was a
grant of the manors of Eastdean to Erpwald, gained by those means
of utmost craft whereby the king thought that indeed the last of
our line had perished by other hands than those of the heathen
thane.

"Honest and straightforward and Christian-like is this young
Erpwald," the king said. "Well brought up by his Christian mother,
if not very ready or brilliant in his ways. Now he has learned how
his father came into the lands, and though he might well have held
them after his uncle on this grant, he has come hither to set the
matter in my hands. 'It is not fair,' quoth he, 'that I should hold
them if one is left of the line of Ella. I should not sleep easily
in my bed. Nevertheless, I will buy them if so be that one is left