I have made friends with some peasants at Helmsley. I shall stay with them
till the army marches south. If I were at York I should never keep quiet;
and the monks tell me the quieter I am the sooner my wounds will heal. They
are poor creatures, these monks; they wanted to make out that it might be
two or three months before I was fit for service again. I told them it
would be a shame to my manhood if in a fortnight I could not wield an axe
again. It is not as if I had been brought up softly. I have burnt myself
with hot irons many a time, and know that a few days suffices to heal a
sore."
"It is not the sore, Osgod; it is the veins that might burst out bleeding
again."
"That is what they said, master; but at present there is not much blood
left in me, I think, and by the time it comes again my veins ought to have
healed themselves. This plaguey bowstring hurts me well-nigh as much as the
smart of the irons; but the monks say I must bear it for a couple of days,
when they will put on some tight bandages in its place, but if I can bear
the pain it were better that it should be kept there for a week or two."
Five days passed. The king laboured incessantly at making a settlement of
the affairs of the North. The thanes came in from all Northumbria. They
were full of thankfulness at the deliverance that had been wrought for
them, and the victor of Stamford Bridge was far more to them than the King
of England had ever been.
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