"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.