She saw the
motion and looked down with a teasing laugh. "Aha, young Fridtjof! How do you
like being sent to cool your heels on the doorstep while your master eats?
What! I think that the next time you thrust your foot out to trip me up as I
hand my lord his ale, you will attend to keeping it under your stool."
Young Fridtjof regarded her with a kind of righteous indignation. "And I think
that the next time you will look where you are going, even if it happen that
it is Lord Sebert's ale you are bearing. Silly jades, that cannot come nigh
him without biting your lips or sparkling your eyes! I wonder he does not clap
masks over your faces."
"And I wonder he does not clap rods to your back," the lass retorted with
sudden spite. She flounced past him down the step, on her way to the great
lead-roofed storehouse that flanked the forest side of the Tower.
The boy looked after her sternly. "It is likely that you will be less pert of
tongue after I tell what I found out in the corn-bins yesterday," he said.
The maid whirled. "What did you find out, you mischief-full brat?"
He continued to stroke the dog's head in dignified silence. "If you mean
the--the brown-cloaked beggar, let me inform you that that is naught."
Busying himself with pulling burrs from the hound's ears, the page began to
hum softly.
She came a step nearer, and her voice wheedled.
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