It was August, when Mother Earth had nearly completed her task of providing for her children, and the excitement of a mighty work drawing to its close was in the air; when the sun-warmed stillness was a-quiver with the pulse of growing things coming to their strength, and every cloudless day held in its golden heart a song of exultation. The grassy space around the Tower, which was wont to be thronged with joyous idlers, was to-day almost deserted. A single groom lounged in the shade of the wide-spreading trees as he kept a lazy eye on the croppings of two saddled horses, and an endless chain of fagot-laden serfs plodded joylessly across the open. On one side of the great entrance arch a half-dozen of the manor poor gabbled and basked in the sun while they waited to receive their daily dole of food; on the other, a dark-locked foreign page sat on the mossy step abiding the coming of his master. Leaning back with one arm bent carelessly behind his head and one hand caressing a shaggy hound that pressed against his knee, the boy’s far-away gaze was designed to intimate his haughty oblivion to the castle-world in general and the movements of the almsfolk in particular. Seeing which, the people on the other side of the step had laid aside any reserve they might have felt and were indulging their curiosity with cheerful freedom. “Six weeks he has been here, and this is the first good look I have had at him,” the buzzing whispers ran. “It is said that they were obliged to catch him between shields before they could take him.”... “Such hair on a Dane is more rare than a white crow.”... “I believe no good of any one with locks of that color.”... “Tibby, the weaving-woman, says he is skilful in magic.”... “It is by reason of that, that he has become my lord’s darling.”... “Why is he not in the hall, then, while the ethel-born is sitting at table?”... “Perhaps his luck is beginning to fail him.”... “Perhaps he has fallen out of favor.” The two old men who offered these last suggestions chuckled with malicious enjoyment, and two of the old women mumbled with their toothless gums as though tasting sweet morsels; but the third drew herself up with a kind of grotesque coquetry. “You can tell by the green silk of his tunic that he is of some quality,” she reproved them. “Danishmen are ever the ones to adorn themselves. It occurs to my mind how, in Edgar’s time, when I was a girl, one was quartered in my father’s house. He changed his raiment once a day and bathed every Sunday. I used to comb his yellow hair when I took in his ale, of a morning.” Long after her voice had passed into a rattle, she stood in a simpering revery, her palsied hands resting heavily upon her stick, her blinking eyes fixed on the picturesque young foreigner musing in the sunshine.