“I hope you do not think I stand in need of a rebuke for lukewarmness, Morcard,” he said gravely. “I have no more forgot that King Edmund’s father gave the order for my father’s murder than I have forgot that Edric was the tool who did the deed. May Saint Peter exterminate him with his sword! Did I not live even as a lordless man the while that Ethelred remained upon the throne? But what sense to continue at that after Ethelred was dead, and the valor of his son was to that degree exalted as if he had sprung from Alfred? Yourself counselled me to join him at Gillingham, and take the post under his banner that my fathers have always held beside his fathers.” Two of the three warriors made no other answer than to gurgle their drink noisily in their throats; but the one whom he had called Morcard answered dryly, “It is not against testing the new king that we would advise you, Lord Sebert; it is against trusting him. But we will not be troublesome.” He lifted his hand suddenly to his ear. “Horses’ feet! And stopping by the King’s fire—” What else he said, Randalin did not hear. Her wits had crawled heavily after the sound of the hoofs. Now the beat changed to a champing and stamping among dry leaves not many rods to her right. She wondered indifferently if there was any likelihood of their running over her; then forgot the query before she had answered it. The Etheling was speaking again, with all the earnestness of hero-worship. “—the battles he has fought, the abundance of warriors he has gathered together, the land he has won back since his father’s death! Only take to-day—” “Ay, take to-day!” the old man snapped him up with unexpected vehemence. “And the Devil take me if I ever heard of such witless folly! What! To go plunging off into the thick of the enemy, endangering in his person the hope of the whole English nation—” The young noble relaxed from his earnestness to laugh. “Now has habit outrid your manners, Morcard. So long have you been wont to use your tongue on my heedlessness, that it begins mechanically to perform the same office for Edmund. In a king, such courage inspires—” “Courage!” Morcard’s fingers snapped loudly. “Did not the henchman who followed you have courage? Yet do we think of crowning him? I tell you that a king needs to have something besides courage. He needs to have judgment. Then will he know better than to leave his men like sheep without a leader. The old proverb has it right, ‘When the chief fails, the host quails.’ It was when they had become frightened about him that they began to give way, and after that it was easy for any oaf to jump out of the bushes and put them to flight.” This time the Etheling’s smile was rather unwilling. “Oh! If you think fit to set at naught a brave deed because nothing arose from it! After his father’s cowardice, such energy and dauntlessness alone—”