"Save a little of your greeting for my guest, good nurse. Behold the fire-
eating Dane that I have captured with my own right arm!" As the red-cloaked
figure still hung back, he pulled it gently forward until the light of the
notched candles fell brightly on the face, pitifully white for all its
blood-stains, in the frame of tumbled black tresses.
"A Dane?" the women cried shrilly; then, with equal unanimity, burst out
laughing. Randalin drew a little nearer the Etheling's sheltering side. He
said half reprovingly, half freakishly, "It would not be well for you to anger
him. He is the page of Canute himself, a real Wandering Wolf, and recks not
whom he attacks. He came near to spitting Oslac at the battle, and even
threatened me."
"Oslac!" screamed one of the serving-maids, turning very red. "The murderous
little fiend!"
"He deserves to have his neck wrung!" two more cried out.
And Father Ingulph cleared his throat loudly. "Well-fitting is your charity
both toward my teachings and your heart, my son; and yet--Discretion is the
mother of other virtues. To bring one of those roving children of Satan into a
Christian household will lay upon me a responsibility which--which--" He
paused to take a mouthful of wine and eye the stranger over the goblet rim
with much disfavor.
While the maids whispered excitedly in one another's ears, Hildelitha began to
sniff behind her apron.
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