“But I will make him squirm for that!” the Etheling vowed. “I will tell him that your paganism has made spells over me so that I cannot tell a holy relique from an ale-skin; and a bedridden woman looks to me like two strapping yeomen. I will, I swear it!” “And I shall be able to hold it against him as a shield, the next time he is desirous to fret me about taking a new belief,” the boy rejoiced. But presently Sebert’s remarks began to take a new tone. “They have the appearance of relishing what they have in that skin,” he observed first. And then, “I should not mind putting my own teeth into that bread-and-cheese.” And at last, “By Saint Swithin, lad, I think they have more sense than we, that linger a half-hour’s ride from food with a noonday sun standing in the sky! It is borne in upon me that I am starving.” Backing his horse out of the brush, he was putting him about in great haste, when the boy leaped in his stirrups and clapped his hands. “Lord, we need not be a half-hour from food! Yonder, across the stubble, is a farmhouse. If you would consent that I might use your name, then would I ride thither and get their best, and serve it to you here in the elves’ own feast-hall.” The answer was a slap on the green shoulders that nearly tumbled their owner from the saddle. “Now, I was right to call you elf, for you have more than human cleverness!” the Etheling cried gayly. “Do so, by all means, dear lad; and I promise in return that I will tell every puffed-up dolt at home that you are the blithest comrade who ever fitted himself to man’s moods. There, if that contents you, give wings to your heels!” CHAPTER XIII. When Might Made Right Now may we understand That men’s wisdom And their devices And their councils Are like naught ‘Gainst God’s resolve. Saxon Chronicle. What difference that, somewhere beyond the hills, men were fighting and castles were burning? At Ivarsdale in the shelter and cheer of the lord’s great hall, the feast of the barley beer was at its height. While one set of serfs bore away the remnants of roast and loaf and sweetmeat, another carried around the brimming horns; and to the sound of cheers and hand-clapping, the gleeman moved forward toward the harp that awaited him by the fireside. Where the glow lay rosiest, the young lord sat in the great raised chair, jesting with his Danish page who knelt on the step at his side. Now the boy’s answering provoked him to laughter, and he put out a hand and tousled the thick curls in his favorite caress. One of the tresses caught in his jewelled ring; and as he bent to unfasten it, he stared at the wavy mass in lazy surprise. It was as soft and rich as the breast of a blackbird, and the fire had laid over it a sheen of rainbow lights. “Never did I think there could be any black hair so alluring,” he said involuntarily.