“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.”... “God 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 aprons. 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 lass 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.