"
Morcard gave out a dry chuckle. "By Saint Cuthbert," he muttered, "too much
has not been told concerning the sharpness of children!"
But the Etheling made no answer whatever. After he had ridden a long time
staring away across the fields, he met the old man's eyes gravely.
"It is not alone because I am sore under his tongue, Morcard. Were he what I
had thought him, I would remain quiet under harder words. But he is not worth
enduring from; there is not enough good in him to outweigh the evil."
Old Morcard said thoughtfully: "The tree of Cerdic has borne many nuts with
prickly rinds in former times, but there has been wont to be good meat inside.
Since Ethelred, I have been in fear that the tree is dying at the root."
They swung over another piece of the road in silence, when the young man
started up and shook himself impatiently. "Wel-a-way! What use to think of it?
For the present, at least, I am a lordless man. Let us speak of the defences
we must begin to raise against Edmund's coming."
While they discussed watch-towers and barriers, the horses took them along at
a swinging pace. The heath-clad upland over which they were passing sloped
into another fertile valley, through which a lily-padded stream ran between
rows of drooping willows. Suddenly the Lord of Ivarsdale broke off with an
exclamation.
"It was not in my mind that we could see the old forked elm from here.
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