business, and on a certain day went out to sea to net fish with two of
my serving men. I was then a young man of about three and twenty years
of age and not uncomely. My hair, which I wore long, was fair in colour
and curled. My eyes, set wide apart, were and still are large and blue,
although they have darkened somewhat and sunk into the head in this land
of heat and sunshine. My nose was wide-nostrilled and large, my mouth
also was over-large, although my mother and some others used to think
it well-shaped. In truth, I was large all over though not so tall, being
burly, with a great breadth of chest and uncommon thickness through the
body, and very strong; so strong that there were few who could throw me
when I was young.

For the rest, like King David, I, who am now so tanned and weather worn
that at a little distance were my hair and beard hidden I might almost
be taken for one of the Indian chiefs about me, was of a ruddy and a
pleasant countenance, perhaps because of my wonderful health, who had
never known a day of sickness, and of an easy nature that often goes
with health. I will add this, for why should I not--that I was no fool,
but one of those who succeed in that upon which they set their minds.
Had I been a fool I should not to-day be the king of a great people and
the husband of their queen; indeed, I should not be alive.

But enough of myself and my appearance in those years that seem as far
off as though they had never been save in the land of dreams.

Now I and my two serving men, sailors both of them like myself and most
of the folk of Hastings set out upon a summer eve, purposing to fish all
night and return at dawn. We came to our chosen ground and cast out the
net, meeting with wonderful fortune since by three in the morning the
big boat was full of every kind of fish. Never before, indeed, had we