ath blessed our arms, and
young Edgar has his right. God shield him in it! And now, nurse,
here is a poor youth who needs thy care, after one of Red William's
rough jests."

III. KING AT HOME

Weary, faint, and feverish as Bertram de Maisonforte was, he was
past caring for anything but the relief of rest, cool drink, and the
dressing of his wound; nor did he even ask where he was until he
awoke in broad daylight the next morning, to the sound of church
bells, to the sight of a low but spacious chamber, with stone walls,
deerskins laid on the floor, and the old nurse standing by him with
a cup of refreshing drink, and ready to attend to his wound.

It was then that, feeling greatly refreshed, he ventured upon asking
her in whose house he was, and who was the good lord who had taken
pity on him.

"Who should it be save him who should be the good lord of every
Englishman," she replied, "mine own dear foster-son, the princely
Atheling--he who takes up the cause of every injured man save his
own?"

Bertram was amazed, for he had only heard Normans speak of Edgar
Atheling, the heir of the ancient race, as a poor, tame-spirited,
wretched creature, unable to assert himself, and therefore left
unmolested by the conquerors out of contempt. He proceeded to ask
what the journey was from which the Atheling was returning, and the
nurse, nothing loth, beguiled the tendance on his arm by explaining
how she had long ago travelled from Hungary with her charges, Edgar,
Margaret, and Christina; how it had come about that the crown, which
should have been her darling's, had been seized by the fierce duke
from beyond the sea; how Edgar, then a mere child, had been forced
to swear oaths of fealty by which he held himself still bound; how
her sweetest pearl of ladies, her jewel Margaret, had been wedded to
the rude wild King of Scots, and how her gentle sweetness and
holiness had tamed and softened him, so that she had been the
blessing of his kingdom till he and his eldest son had fallen at
Alnwick while she lay a-dying; how the fierce savage Scots had risen
and driven forth her young children; and how their uncle the
Atheling had ridden forth, taken them to his home, bred them in all
holiness and uprightness and good and knightly courage, and when
Edgar and Alexander, the two eldest, were full grown, had gone
northward with them once more, and had won back, in fair field, the
throne of their father Malcolm.

Truly there mig