The day was closing on an evening of November 1006, and the sun was sinking across the level country beyond the walls, when the people of Dorchester might have been seen crowding the roads which led from the eastern gate towards Bensington and Wallingford; the wooden bridge by which the road crossed the Tame was covered with human beings, and every eye was eagerly directed along the great high road. The huge cathedral church towered above the masses, rude in architecture, yet still impressive in its proportions, while another church, scarcely smaller in its dimensions, rose from the banks lower down the stream, below the bridge, and the wooden steeple of a third was visible above the roofs of the houses in the western part of the city. But, as in every other city which had once been Roman, the relics of departed greatness contrasted painfully (at least we should think so) with the humbler architecture around. The majesty of the churches was indeed (as a contemporary wrote) great, but thatched roofs consorted ill with the remains of shattered column and pedestal, and with the fragmentary ruins of the grand amphitheatre, which were yet partly visible, although the stones which had been brought from Bath to build it had been employed largely in church architecture. The light of day was rapidly fading; a light breeze brought down the remaining leaves from the trees, or whirled them about in all directions; winter was plainly about to assume the mastery of the scene, as was evident from the clothing the people wore, the thick fur and warm woollen cloaks which covered their light tunics. At length the sound of approaching cavalry was heard, and the cry "The King! the King!" was raised, and cheers were given by the multitude. It was observable, almost at a glance, that they proceeded from the young and giddy, and that their elders refrained from joining in the cry. About a hundred horsemen, gaily caparisoned, appeared, and in the midst, with equal numbers of his guard preceding and following, rode Ethelred the king. He was of middle stature and not uncomely, but there was a look of vacillation about his face, which would have struck even an indifferent physiognomist, while his thin lips, which he was constantly biting (when he was not biting his nails), seemed to indicate a tendency towards cruelty. But by his side rode one, whose restless eyes seemed to wander to each individual of the crowd in turn, while power and malice seemed equally conspicuous in his glance. Little changed since we last beheld him rode the traitor, for so all but the king accounted him, Edric Streorn.