CHAPTER X.HOW THE EASTDEAN MANORS AND SOMEWHAT MORE PASSED FROM OSWALD TO.
ERPWALD.
I bided at Norton with Owen until the Lententide drew near, and then I must needs go back to my place with Ina.

Maybe I should have gone before this, seeing that all was safe now, but our king had been on progress about the country, to Chippenham, and so to Reading and thence to London, and but half his guard was with him, so that I was not needed.

Now he was back at Glastonbury, and I must join him there and go back to royal Winchester with him for the Easter feast.
Owen and I also had been far westward at one time or another, in this space, though there is little worth telling beyond that we went even to the lands of Tregoz that had passed to him, and so took possession of them.

I could not see that any of the folk on those lands, whether free or thrall, seemed other than glad that Owen was their lord now.

It was said that Tregoz was little loved.
We left a new steward in the great half-stone and half-timber house, with house-carles enough to see that none harmed either him or the place, and so came back to Norton.
Now, one may say that all this time, seeing that Glastonbury was but so short a distance from Norton, I was a laggard lover not to have ridden over to see Elfrida, and maybe it would be of little use for me to deny it.