Enter, and make merry
with us, and to-morrow go your way."
But Haafager made answer:-
"I am an old man, I pray you do not take my words amiss. There is
peace between us, as you say, and we thank you for your courtesy,
but the stains are still fresh upon our swords. Let us camp here
without your walls, and a little later, when the grass has grown
upon the fields where we have striven, and our young men have had
time to forget, we will make merry together, as men should who
dwell side by side in the same land."
But the men of the town still urged Haafager, calling his people
neighbours; and the Abbot, who had hastened down, fearing there
might be strife, added his words to theirs, saying:-
"Pass in, my children. Let there indeed be peace between you, that
the blessing of God may be upon the land, and upon both Dane and
Saxon"; for the Abbot saw that the townsmen were well disposed
towards the Danes, and knew that men, when they have feasted and
drunk together, think kinder of one another.
Then answered Haafager, who knew the Abbot for a holy man:-
"Hold up your staff, my father, that the shadow of the cross your
people worship may fall upon our path, so we will pass into the
town and there shall be peace between us, for though your gods are
not our gods, faith between man and man is of all altars.
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