Before the last word was out, the boy had reached the door; but the impulse was not quite strong enough to carry him through it. Digging his boot-toe into the straw, he hesitated, squirming in evident anguish of mind.
“Are you going to stay here and be their prisoner instead of me?” he faltered.
A light that was not starlight made the Songsmith’s white face bright as he turned it towards him. “You show in this that you have a good heart, little comrade; but you need not trouble yourself. I do not intend that any one shall know that I have been here. As soon as you have had time to get clear of the court-yard, I shall go back and lie down under a tree, and pretend that I have been swooning there all night.”
Again the boy laid a hand on the door; then again he turned,—and this time he came all the way back and threw his arms about his foster-brother’s neck in a strangling hug. From somewhere under the curly mop came the broken whisper:
“Say that you think as much of me as ever.”
Tousling the yellow head in the old familiar caress, his foster-brother gave him the desired assurance and tried to disengage himself; but Eric clung burrlike.
“Never did I love Olaf one-half as well as you,—may the Giant take me if I did! When are you coming back to the Tower? Olaf says that the Jarl behaves so badly towards you that one of you will surely kill the other, if you do not run away.”
“If I were not unwilling to pay compliments to Olaf, I should say that truth came out of his mouth,” the song-maker muttered; then he put the boy from him firmly. “Do you want to linger so long that the thralls will be waking up and coming out to catch you?”
Eric made one dash at his foster-brother’s cheek, flattening his face against it, and was gone through the narrowest opening of the door.
Like the patter of spring rain, the tap of his feet on the steps came back to the Songsmith. Smiling faintly he followed him with his fancy, pictured him holding himself down to creep across the court, then letting himself out as he reached the sheltered lane, snuffing in freedom until he broke and ran—ran—ran like a homeward-turned horse.