"It is my old arbalast," he said, "which Eadwulf brought with him from our ancient home. Lay it aside. I will never use it more; but it will be as a memento of what we once were, but, thanks to God and our good lords, are no longer. And now give me my breakfast, Edith; I must be at the castle, to speak of all this with Sir Yvo, ere noon; I will be back to-night, girl; but not, I trow, until the northern bear has sunk behind the hills. Till then, may He keep thee!"
And he was grave and abstracted during all the morning meal, and only kissed her in silence, and blessed her inwardly, in his own true heart, as he departed.
CHAPTER XX.
THE LADY AND HER LOVER.
Fair Ellen that was so mild
More she beheld Triamour the child,
Than all other men.
Sir Triamour.
Long before the dawn had begun to grow gray in the east, Kenric had taken his way to the castle, by a direct path across the hills to a point on the lake shore, where there always lay a small ferry-boat, for the use of the castellan, his household, and vassals. Edith, to whom he had told all that he had extorted from Eadwulf, and who, like himself, clearly foresaw difficulty and danger at hand, arising from the conduct and flight of the ill-conditioned and ill-starred brother, went about her household work, most unusual for her, with a melancholy and despondent heart.
She, who while a serf had been constantly, almost recklessly gay, as one who had no sorrow for which to care, wore a grave brow, and carried a heavy heart. For liberty, if it give independence to the body and its true expansion to the soul, brings responsibility also, and care. She carolled this morning no blythe old Saxon ballads as she kneaded her barley cakes, or worked her overflowing churn; she had this morning no merry word with which to greet the verdurer's boys, as they came and went from her ample kitchen with messes for the hounds to the kennels, or raw meat for the eyasses in the mews; and they wondered not a little, for the kindness and merry humor of their young mistress had won their hearts, and they were grieved to see her downcast. She was restless, and unable, as it seemed, to settle herself to any thing, coming and going from one place to another, without much apparent object, and every half hour or so, opening the door and gazing wistfully down the valley, toward the sea, not across the hills over which her husband had bent his way.
It must have been nearly ten o'clock, in those unsophisticated days approaching nearly to the dinner hour, when something caught her eye at a distance, which instantly brought a bright light into it, and a clear, rich color to her cheek; and she clapped her hands joyously, crying, "I am so glad! so glad!" Then, hurrying into the house, she called to the boys, giving them quick, eager orders, and set herself to work arranging the house, strewing the floor with fresh green rushes, and decking the walls with holly branches, the bright-red berries of the mountain ash, wild asters, and such late wood-flowers as yet survived, with a spirit very different from the listless mood which had possessed her.