ho is master." Making a disdainful gesture of dismissal,
he turned with deliberate grace and entered into conversation with the
Mercian.

At the moment, it is likely that the young noble would have preferred
arrest. The utter scorn of word and act lashed the blood to his cheeks
and the tears to his eyes. With boyish passion, he snatched the sword
from its sheath, and breaking it in pieces across his knee, flung the
fragments clinking into the dead embers.

But if he had hoped to provoke an answer, it was in vain; the King
deigned him no further notice. Resuming his seat, Edmund continued to
talk quietly with the Earl, a half-smile playing about his complacent
chin.

The old cniht bent forward and whispered in his chief's ear: "Make
haste, Lord Sebert; they will be cheering in a moment, the churls;
so pleased are they at the thought of going home. Hasten with your
retiring."

It was a clever appeal. Forgetting, for the moment, humiliation in
responsibility, the young leader whirled to his men. A gesture, a
muttered order, and they were drawing back among the trees in silent
retreat. A few steps more, and the bushes had blotted out the Ironside
and his thanes.

Chapter XI. When My Lord Comes Home From War

One's own house is best,
Small though it be;
At home is every one his own master.
Bleeding at heart is he
Who has to ask
For food at every mealtide.
Ha'vama'l.

Slowly the bleak light warmed into golden radiance and the touch of dawn
strung the scattered bird-notes into a chain of joyous song. Passing
at last from the forest shades, the men of Ivarsdale came out into the
grassy lane-like road that wound away over the Middlesex hills.

The Destroyer had not passed this way, it seemed, for the oat-fields
stretched before them in unbroken silvery sheen; and the straight
young corn dared to rustle its green ribbons boastfully. Fowls still
uncaptured crowed lustily in adjacent barnyards; and now and again,
sweet as echoes from elfin horns, came the tinkling music of cow-bells.
Here and there, the little shock-headed boys who were driving their
charges afield paused knee-deep in rosy clover to watch the band ride
by.

"Yon must be a mighty warrior," they whispered as they stared at the
sober young leader. "Take notice how his eyes gaze straight ahead,
as though he were seeking more people to overcome." And they spoke
enviously of the red-cloaked page who sat on the croup of the le