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 passing 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 shining 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.