"And so have lost their freedom!" replied Kenric, shaking his head, as he waved his hand toward the women; "for that would have been the end of it. For the rest, I made no stipulations; I only refused freedom, if it were procurable only by leaving my aged mother and my betrothed bride in slavery. As it was, I had lost my own liberty, and not gained theirs, if it had not been for Edith, who won for us all, what I had lost for one."
"And no one thought of me, or my liberty! I was not worth thinking of, nor worthy, I trow, to be free."
"You say well, Eadwulf—you say right well," cried Edith, her fair face flushing fiery red, and her frame quivering with excitement. "You are not worthy to be free. There is no freedom, or truth, or love, or honor, in your heart. Your spirit, like your body, is a serf's, and one would do dishonor to the soul of a dog, if she likened it to yours. Had you been offered freedom, you had left all, mother, brother, and betrothed—had any maiden been so ill-advised as betroth herself to so heartless a churl—to slavery, and misery, and infamy, or death, to win your own coveted liberty. Nay! I believe, if they had been free, and you a serf, you would have betrayed them into slavery, so that you might be alone free. A man who can not feel and comprehend such a sacrifice as Kenric made for all of us, is capable of no sacrifice himself, and is not worthy to be called a man, or to be a freeman."
Thus passed away that evening, and with the morrow came full confirmation; and the bold Saxon stood upon his native soil, as free as the air he breathed; the son, too, of a free mother, and with a free, fair maiden by his side, soon to be the free wife of a free Englishman. And none envied them, not one of their fellow-serfs, who remained still condemned to toil wearily and woefully, until their life should be over—not one, save Eadwulf, the morose, selfish, slave-souled brother.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DEPARTURE.
"He mounted himself on a steed so talle,
And her on a pale palfraye,
And slung his bugle about his necke,
And roundly they rode awaye."
The Childe of Elle.