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 pass 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!”... “Yorkshire, I tell you, Yorkshire.”... “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 breasts; 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 prickly 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.”