And then the thought of leaving Ina, who had cared for me since I was a child, was almost as terrible.
"I would not leave you, my King," I said at last.
Ina looked up at me with a smile, but was silent, stroking his beard as was his way when thinking, looking past me out of the narrow window to the great Tor that towered beyond the new abbey buildings.
"Think!" he said at last--"partings must come, and lands are not to be had lightly.

Erpwald's brother, who held Eastdean, is dead." "I need no lands," I answered.

"The ways of a captain of your house-carles are good to me, and I need no more.

If I took those lands from your hand, my King, needs must that I gave up all the life with you.

Sooner would I let the land go and bide with you.
Yet if I must needs take them, be it as you will." "It is a great thing that you speak so lightly of giving up," he answered gravely; "Erpwald, the heathen, was willing to risk his life for those lands, and he held them dear.