Passing at last
from the forest shades, the men of Ivarsdale came out into the grassy
lane-like road that wound away over the Middlesex hills.
The Destroyer had not passed this way, it seemed, for the oat-fields stretched
before them in unbroken silvery sheen; and the straight young corn dared to
rustle its green ribbons boastfully. Fowls still uncaptured crowed lustily in
adjacent barnyards; and now and again, sweet as echoes from elfin horns, came
the tinkling music of cow-bells. Here and there, the little shock-headed boys
who were driving their charges afield paused knee-deep in rosy clover to watch
the band ride by.
"Yon must be a mighty warrior," they whispered as they stared at the sober
young leader. "Take notice how his eyes gaze straight ahead, as though he were
seeking more people to overcome." And they spoke enviously of the red-cloaked
page who sat on the croup of the leader's white charger.
"See the sword he wears in his gay clothes. Likely he also has been in battle.
He must needs be happy who can strike out into the world like that." Envying,
they gazed after him until the horses' hoofs threw up a yellow wall between.
They would have opened their wide mouths wider had they known that the
red-cloaked page was looking wistfully at them and their kine and the nodding
clover.
"It must be very enjoyable to wander all day in the peace of the meadows and
hear nothing louder than cow-bells," she was thinking.
Pages:
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122