“Would that I had! Ah,” went on Hereward, apostrophizing the unconscious Atheling,—“ah, that I had broken that white neck once and for all! To have sent thee feet foremost to Winchester, to lie by thy grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and then to tell Norman William that he must fight it out henceforth, not with a straw malkin like thee, which the very crows are not afraid to perch on, but with a cock of a very different hackle,—Sweyn Ulfsson, King of Denmark.”
And Hereward drew Brain-biter.
“For mercy’s sake! you will not harm the lad?”
“If I were a wise man now, and hard-hearted as wise men should be, I should—I should—” and he played the point of the sword backwards and forwards, nearer and nearer to the lad’s throat.
“Master! master!” cried Leofric, clinging to his knees; “by all the saints! What would the Blessed Virgin say to such a deed!”
“Well, I suppose you are right. And I fear what my lady at home might say; and we must not do anything to vex her, you know. Well, let us do it handsomely, if we must do it. Get water somewhere, in his helmet. No, you need not linger. I will not cut his throat before you come back.”
Leofric went off in search of water, and Hereward knelt with the Atheling’s head on his knee, and on his lip a sneer at all things in heaven and earth. To have that lad stand between him and all his projects, and to be forced, for honor’s sake, to let him stand!
But soon his men returned, seemingly in high glee, and other knights with them.
“Hey, lads!” said he, “I aimed at the falcon and shot the goose. Here is Edgar Atheling prisoner. Shall we put him to ransom?”
“He has no money, and Malcolm of Scotland is much too wise to lend him any,” said some one. And some more rough jokes passed.