With that he turned to his horses and began loosening the pack from that one which bore it. There was no more to be got out of him, as I knew, and so, leaving him to set the tent in order, I went my way toward the river, being minded for a good swim therein after the long, dusty way. And turning over what Erling had said of himself, I remembered that Thorleif had told me how he had come from Wales round the Land's End to Weymouth. I thought rightly that he had picked up Erling there. I had a good hour's swim in a deep pool of the river, and enjoyed it to the full. The current was swift, and it was good to battle with it, and then to turn and swing downward past the fern-covered banks and under the shade of the trees with its flow. And while I was splashing in the pool, a franklin came running from his field with his hoe, waving wildly to me. "Come out, master, I pray you!" he gasped; "the water is full forty feet deep there!" "Is that so?" I said gravely. "I will go and see." With that I dived, and stayed under as long as I could, not being able to find the bottom after all. And when I came up again the honest face of the franklin was white and his eyes stared in terror. So I laughed at him. "I believe the pool is as deep as you say; but would seven feet of water be any safer?" "Nay, master, but it would drown me. Yet come out, I do pray you. It gives me the cold terror to see you so overbold." Then came Father Selred along the bank, and the man begged him to bid me leave the water; and so we both laughed at him, until the franklin waxed cross and went his way, saying that I was a fool for not biding in the shoal water up yonder by the great tree. I could walk across there waist deep, he said, grumbling. Then I came out, and the father told me that the king would be here anon. We walked to and fro waiting for him, and presently he came with Hilda's father, Sighard, in attendance. The four of us sat down on the river bank, under the great tree of which the franklin had spoken, and watched the trout in the shallows till Ethelbert lay back with his arms under his head, and said that he was tired with the ride and would sleep. He closed his eyes, and we went on talking in low voices for an hour or so while he slept. And then the horns rang from the distant camp to tell us that the evening meal was spread in the great pavilion. But the king did not hear them, and I looked doubtfully at him, wondering if he should be waked. "Wilfrid," said Father Selred in a whisper, "surely the king dreams wondrous things. His face is as the face of a saint!"