But we will not be troublesome." He lifted
his hand suddenly to his ear. "Horses' feet! And stopping by the King's
fire--"
What else he said, Randalin did not hear. Her wits had crawled heavily after
the sound of the hoofs. Now the beat changed to a champing and stamping among
dry leaves not many rods to her right. She wondered indifferently if there was
any likelihood of their running over her; then forgot the query before she had
answered it.
The Etheling was speaking again, with all the earnestness of hero-worship.
"--the battles he has fought, the abundance of warriors he has gathered
together, the land he has won back since his father's death! Only take
to-day--"
"Ay, take to-day!" the old man snapped him up with unexpected vehemence. "And
the Devil take me if I ever heard of such witless folly! What! To go plunging
off into the thick of the enemy, endangering in his person the hope of the
whole English nation--"
The young noble relaxed from his earnestness to laugh. "Now has habit outrid
your manners, Morcard. So long have you been wont to use your tongue on my
heedlessness, that it begins mechanically to perform the same office for
Edmund. In a king, such courage inspires--"
"Courage!" Morcard's fingers snapped loudly. "Did not the henchman who
followed you have courage? Yet do we think of crowning him? I tell you that a
king needs to have something besides courage.
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