fety, young lord!"

In the meadows beyond the stream, little shepherd boys had heard the
horn and were swarming, spider-like, over the hedges, sending up
shrill shouts. And now women came running across the fields from the
farmhouses, waving their aprons. More children raced behind them; and
then a dozen old men, limping and hobbling on crutches and canes. A
moment, and they were all over the foot-bridge and up the slope; and the
sweet clamor of greetings was added to the tumult. Now it was a crowd of
little brothers throwing themselves upon a big one; now a blooming lass
flinging her arms around her sweetheart's neck; and again, a farmer's
little daughter leaping joyously into her father's embrace.

In the midst of it, the Lord of Ivarsdale looked around and found that
Fridtjof the page was crying as though his heart would break.

"How! Tears, my Beowulf!" he said in amazement.

She was far beyond words, the girl in the page's dress; she could only
bury her face deeper in her slender hands and try to control the sobs
that shook her from head to foot.

But it was not long before the young man's kind-ness divined the source
of her pain. He spoke a quick word to those behind, and waving aside
those before, touched spur to the white horse. In a moment, the good
steed had borne them out of the crowd and down the slope, followed only
by the old cnihts and the dozen armed retainers.

As the hoofs rang hollow on the little bridge that spanned the stream,
the Etheling spoke again in his voice of careless gentleness. "It is
easy to enter into the sorrowfulness of your heart, youngling, and I
think it no dishonor to your courage that you should mourn your kin with
tears; yet I pray you to lay aside as much grief as you can. Bear in
mind that no dungeon is gaping for you."

She could not speak to him yet, but when he put his hand back to feel
of a strap, she bent and touched the brown fingers gratefully with her
lips. The answer seemed to renew his kindly impulse.

"After all, you should not feel so strange among us," he said lightly.
"Do you know that it was one of your own countrymen who built the Tower?
Ivar Wide-Fathomer he was named, whence it is still called Ivarsdale. He
was of the stock of Lodbrok, they say; and it is said, too, that one
of his race is even now with Canute. Since Alfred, my fathers have had
possession of it, but it is Danish-built, every stone. You must
make believe that you are coming home." So he