Nor had any of them seen him that day.
So I waited for a little while and watched the work, wondering if I should live now to do all that I would in making new the place.

And then as I walked to look across the bridge I passed a heap of earth that the men had thrown out for the place of a post, and I saw somewhat glittering in it, and stooped and took it up.
It was a silver penny, and when I rubbed the earth from it, I knew that it was one of Eadmund's, mint new and fresh as on the day when he stood in his robes and crown, even where I stood in the place of the old porch, while the people shouted and scrambled and fought in glee for the largess he threw among them.

Doubtless this had been so thrown and had been trodden under foot and lost.
Now it came into my hands even when my thoughts were most troubled, and to me it seemed as a sign that I should surely return to the place that the saint had loved.

I was greatly cheered thereat, for as I waited for Olaf to return I saw as it were the long hope of home and peace dashed from me, and the pain of the coming war grew plainer than I had known it in Ethelred's court.

The old love of home had waked in me as I wandered in the places of my boyhood, and for the first time I learned the aching of the hearts of those who had known more of home than I, and would lose it.
But I was young, and it needed but a little thing to turn my thoughts, so this token as I say helped me to banish them.