The Ward of King Canute Part 11

Be thou growing, by goodness of G.o.d, Filled with fodder, the folk to feed."

Like the unbinding of a spell, the words fell upon the farmer-soldiers.

Dropping every other topic, they began to argue over the crops; and after that they could not pa.s.s a harmless calf tethered to a crab-tree that they did not quarrel over the breed, nor start a drove of grunting swine out of the mast but they must lay wagers on the weight.

Running wild in the animation, it was not long before the clamor caught up with the Etheling where he rode before them in sober reflection. He smiled faintly as he caught the burden of the disjointed phrases.

"...Twelve stone; I will peril my head upon it!"... "Yorks.h.i.+re, I tell you, Yorks.h.i.+re."... "A fortnight? It will be ready in a week, or I have never grown barley corn!"

"I do not believe that a tree-toad can change color more easily," he observed to the old cniht who rode at his side. "That Englishmen are not stout fighters, no man can say, but the love of it is not in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s; while with Northmen--"

"With Northmen," Morcard added, "to fight is to eat."

Another faint smile touched Sebert's mouth as he glanced over his shoulder at the red-cloaked boy. "After seeing this sprout, that is easy to believe. Except that time alone when a two-year-old colt kicked me on the head, I have never had my life threatened by so young a thing."

He grew grave again as his glance rested on his captive. "I want you to tell me something," he said presently. "You were Canute's page; I saw that you accompanied him in battle. I want you to tell me what he is like in his temper."

"It would be more easy to tell you what he is unlike," Randalin answered slowly; "for in no way whatever is he like your King Edmund." She sat awhile in silence, her eyes absently following the course of the wind over a slope of bending grain. At the foot, it caught a clump of willow-trees so that they flashed with hidden silver and tossed their slender arms like dancers. "I think this is the difference, to tell it shortly," she said at last; "while it sometimes happens that Canute is driven by necessity or evil counsels to act deceitfully toward others, he is always honest in his own mind; while your Edmund,--I think he lies to himself also."

Morcard gave out a dry chuckle. "By Saint Cuthbert," he muttered, "too much has not been told concerning the sharpness of children!"

But the Etheling made no answer whatever. After he had ridden a long time staring away across the fields, he met the old man's eyes gravely.

"It is not alone because I am sore under his tongue, Morcard. Were he what I had thought him, I would remain quiet under harder words. But he is not worth enduring from; there is not enough good in him to outweigh the evil."

Old Morcard said thoughtfully: "The tree of Cerdic has borne many nuts with p.r.i.c.kly rinds in former times, but there has been wont to be good meat inside. Since Ethelred, I have been in fear that the tree is dying at the root."

They swung over another piece of the road in silence, when the young man started up and shook himself impatiently. "Wel-a-way! What use to think of it? For the present, at least, I am a lordless man. Let us speak of the defences we must begin to raise against Edmund's coming."

While they discussed watch-towers and barriers, the horses took them along at a swinging pace. The heath-clad upland over which they were pa.s.sing sloped into another fertile valley, through which a lily-padded stream ran between rows of drooping willows. Suddenly the Lord of Ivarsdale broke off with an exclamation.

"It was not in my mind that we could see the old forked elm from here.

Hey, comrades!" he called over his shoulder. "Yonder--to the left--the old land-mark! Do you see?" His glance, as it came back, took in his captive. "The first bar of your cage, my hawk. Yonder is the first boundary of Ivarsdale."

Every man started up in his saddle, and the cheers they had held back upon leaving camp burst forth now with added zest. Peering over her captor's shoulder, Randalin looked forward anxiously.

Below the plain in whose centre the old elm held up its blasted top to be silvered by the sun, the land dipped abruptly toward the river, to rise beyond in a long low hill. Rolling green meadows lay at its foot, and warm brown fields dotted with thatched farm-houses; and its sides were checkered with patches of woodland and stretches of golden barley.

Just below the crest, the tower of the Lords of Ivarsdale reared its gray walls above the surrounding greenery. Far away, a speck through the dark foliage, the great London road gleamed white; but wooded hills made a sheltering hedge between, and all around spread the great beech forest that fostered the markmen's herds. It was a kingdom to itself, with the light slanting warmly upon its fertile slopes and the forest standing like a strong army at its back.

Because it was so peacefully lovely, and because of her utter weariness, tears welled up under the girl's heavy lids as she looked. She said unsteadily, "Saw I never a fairer cage, lord."

But the Etheling's eager glance had travelled on; for the first time the sun was s.h.i.+ning out brightly in his face.

"The sight has more cheer than has wine," he said. "I cannot comprehend my folly in wanting to leave it. To live one's own master on one's own land, that is the only life!" He looked back at the yeomen with a sudden smile. "Noise!" he ordered. "Cheer again! it expresses the state of my feelings. And let your horn sound merrily, Kendred, that they may know we are coming."

Amid a joyous tumult, they swept over the terrace-like plain and broke ranks around the old elm. Evidently it was the disbanding place, for the yeomen-soldiers, one and all, came crowding around their leader to press his hand and speak a parting word.

"You have fought with the sword of your tongue, chief!"... "as worthy a battle as when you strove against the Danes!"... "The spirit of the old days is not dead while you are alive, Oswald's son."... "None now are born thereto save you alone!"... "Till that time when you send for us, my chief."... "One eye on our ploughs and one watching for your messenger."... "G.o.d keep you in safety, young lord!"

In the meadows beyond the stream, little shepherd boys had heard the horn and were swarming, spider-like, over the hedges, sending up shrill shouts. And now women came running across the fields from the farmhouses, waving their ap.r.o.ns. More children raced behind them; and then a dozen old men, limping and hobbling on crutches and canes. A moment, and they were all over the foot-bridge and up the slope; and the sweet clamor of greetings was added to the tumult. Now it was a crowd of little brothers throwing themselves upon a big one; now a blooming la.s.s flinging her arms around her sweetheart's neck; and again, a farmer's little daughter leaping joyously into her father's embrace.

In the midst of it, the Lord of Ivarsdale looked around and found that Fridtjof the page was crying as though his heart would break.

"How! Tears, my Beowulf!" he said in amazement.

She was far beyond words, the girl in the page's dress; she could only bury her face deeper in her slender hands and try to control the sobs that shook her from head to foot.

But it was not long before the young man's kind-ness divined the source of her pain. He spoke a quick word to those behind, and waving aside those before, touched spur to the white horse. In a moment, the good steed had borne them out of the crowd and down the slope, followed only by the old cnihts and the dozen armed retainers.

As the hoofs rang hollow on the little bridge that spanned the stream, the Etheling spoke again in his voice of careless gentleness. "It is easy to enter into the sorrowfulness of your heart, youngling, and I think it no dishonor to your courage that you should mourn your kin with tears; yet I pray you to lay aside as much grief as you can. Bear in mind that no dungeon is gaping for you."

She could not speak to him yet, but when he put his hand back to feel of a strap, she bent and touched the brown fingers gratefully with her lips. The answer seemed to renew his kindly impulse.

"After all, you should not feel so strange among us," he said lightly.

"Do you know that it was one of your own countrymen who built the Tower?

Ivar Wide-Fathomer he was named, whence it is still called Ivarsdale. He was of the stock of Lodbrok, they say; and it is said, too, that one of his race is even now with Canute. Since Alfred, my fathers have had possession of it, but it is Danish-built, every stone. You must make believe that you are coming home." So he spun on, carelessly good-humored, as they climbed the wind-ing hill-path.

Across the ditch and through the wide-open gate in the moss-grown palisade, and they came into a broad gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce that was more like a lawn than a court. Ahead of them rose the ma.s.sive three-storied tower, built of mighty gray stones without softening wings or adorning spires, beautiful only in its mantling ivy. From the great door in its side a crowd of serfs came running, ducking grinning salutations; and they were followed by a half-dozen old warriors. Seized by a boyish whim, their master rode past them with no more than a wave of his hand.

"If we make haste, it may be that we can take Hildelitha and Father Ingulph by surprise," he laughed, leaping down on the crumbling doorstep and pulling his captive with him.

In the tunnel-like arch of the great entrance they met another throng, but he shook them off with good-natured impatience and hurried through the great guard-room to the winding stairs, that were cut out of the core of the ma.s.sive stones. Up and across another mighty hall, and then up again, and into a great women's-room, full of looms and spinning-wheels, where a buxom English housewife and half-a-dozen red-cheeked maids were gaping over their distaffs at the tale a jolly old monk was telling between swallows of wine.

He choked in his cup when he saw who stood laughing in the doorway, and there was a great screaming and scrambling among his audience. Knocking over her spinning-wheel to get to him, the woman Hildelitha threw her arms around her young lord's neck and gave him a hearty smack on either cheek; while the fat monk sputtered blessings between his paroxysms of coughing, and the six blooming girls made a screaming circle around them.

Though he endured it amiably enough, the Etheling appeared in some haste to offer a diversion. He evaded a second embrace by turning and beckoning to his shrinking captive.

"Save a little of your greeting for my guest, good nurse. Behold the fire-eating Dane that I have captured with my own right arm!" As the red-cloaked figure still hung back, he pulled it gently forward until the light of the notched candles fell brightly on the face, pitifully white for all its blood-stains, in the frame of tumbled black tresses.

"A Dane?" the women cried shrilly; then, with equal unanimity, burst out laughing. Randalin drew a little nearer the Etheling's sheltering side.

He said half reprovingly, half freakishly, "It would not be well for you to anger him. He is the page of Canute himself, a real Wandering Wolf, and recks not whom he attacks. He came near to spitting Oslac at the battle, and even threatened me."

"Oslac!" screamed one of the serving-maids, turning very red. "The murderous little fiend!"

"He deserves to have his neck wrung!" two more cried out.

And Father Ingulph cleared his throat loudly. "Well-fitting is your charity both toward my teachings and your heart, my son; and yet--Discretion is the mother of other virtues. To bring one of those roving children of Satan into a Christian household will lay upon me a responsibility which--which--" He paused to take a mouthful of wine and eye the stranger over the goblet rim with much disfavor.

While the maids whispered excitedly in one another's ears, Hildelitha began to sniff behind her ap.r.o.n. "I do not see why you wanted to bring him home, Lord Sebert. You know that Danes are odious to me since my husband, of holy memory, fell under their axes--most detestable--Yet I would not anger you, my honey-sweet lord," she broke off abruptly.

For the Lord of Ivarsdale had suddenly grown very stiff and grave; there was something curiously haughty in the quiet distinctness of his words.

"I have brought the boy home by reason of the King's command that he be held in safety--and because it was my pleasure to succor him. And I have fetched him up here in order that you should supply his needs, being distressed for want of food and drink and healing salves. I am not pleased that you should meet my wishes in so light and cold a manner.

I desire your love will, as is becoming, receive him kindly and charitably."

He raised his hand as the pertest of the maids would have answered him, and there followed an uncomfortable pause. Then seven gowns swept the reed-strewn floor as seven courtesies fell, and Hildelitha thrust out her palm to give the pert maid a resounding box on the ear.

"You have heard your master, hussy! Why do you not exert yourself to bring food? Elswitha, if you do not want the mate to that, fetch the salve out of my chest."

In an instant all was confusion; under cover of it the fat monk returned to his cup and the young master walked quietly to the door.