This, too, I hold for injustice, that one should be kept in ward till his trial, unknowing of all that is against him, unhelped by the counsel of any freeman, and unable to send word to those who should stand by him at his trial.

Indeed, this thing must be righted, I tell you, before England is a free land." At that there went a sound of assent round the Moot, and it seems to me, looking back, that that trial of mine, hard as it was to bear, was yet the beginning of good to all the land, by reason of those words which it taught the bishop to say, and which found an abiding place in the hearts of the honest men who heard; so that in these days of Alfred, our wise king, they have borne fruit.
Then Eanulf signed to my guards, and they led me away and over the brow of the hill, that the Moot might speak its mind on me.

There my guards bade me sit down, and I did so, resting head on hands, and thinking of nought, as it seemed to me, until suddenly rose up hate of Matelgar, and of Eanulf, and of all that great assembly, and of all the world.
There was an earthquake once when I was but a boy, and never could I forget how it was as though all things one had deemed solid and secure had suddenly become treacherous as Severn ooze.

And now it was to me as though an earthquake had shaken my thoughts of men.

For, till that day, never had I found cause to distrust anyone who was friend of mine.