His feelings were not those of natural regret at the continuance of his own unfortunate condition, so much as of unnatural spite at the alteration in the circumstances of his mother, his brother, and that brother's beautiful betrothed; and it was but too clear that, whether he should himself remain free or no, he had been better satisfied that they should continue in their original condition, rather than that they should be elevated above himself by any better fortune. Kenric had in vain striven to soothe his morose and selfish mood, to cheer his desponding and angry, rather than sorrowful, anticipations--he had pointed out to him that his own liberation from slavery, and elevation to the rank and position of a freeman and military tenant of a fief of land, did not merely render it probable, but actually make it certain, that Eadwulf also would be a freeman, and at liberty to join his kindred in a short time in their new home; "for it must be little, indeed, that you know of my heart," said the brave and manly peasant, "or of that of Edith, either, if you believe that either of us could enjoy our own liberty, or feel our own happiness other than unfinished and incomplete, so long as you, our own and only brother, remain in slavery and sorrow. Your price is not rated so high, brother Eadwulf, but that we may easily save enough from our earnings, when once free to labor for ourselves, within two years at the farthest, to purchase your freedom too from Sir Philip; and think how easy will be the labor, and how grateful the earnings, when every day's toil finished, and every zecchin saved, will bring us a day nearer to a brother's happy manumission." "Words!" he replied, doggedly--"mighty fine words, in truth. I marvel how eloquent we have become, all on the sudden. Your labor _will_ be free, as you say, and your earnings your own; and wondrous little shall I profit by them. I should think now, since you are so mighty and powerful with the pretty Lady Guendolen, all for a mere chance which might have befallen me, or any one, all as well as yourself, you might have stipulated for my freedom--I had done so I am sure, though I do not pretend to your fine sympathies and heaven-reaching notions----" "And so have lost _their_ freedom!" replied Kenric, shaking his head, as he waved his hand toward the women; "for that would have been the end of it. For the rest, I made no stipulations; I only refused freedom, if it were procurable only by leaving my aged mother and my betrothed bride in slavery. As it was, I had lost my own liberty, and not gained theirs, if it had not been for Edith, who won for us all, what I had lost for one." "And no one thought of me, or my liberty! I was not worth thinking of, nor worthy, I trow, to be free."