She came a step nearer, and her voice wheedled. “It was only that he was distressed for want of drink, poor fellow, and followed me into the storehouse when he saw me go in to fill the master’s flagon. It was naught but a swallow. My lord would be the last to grudge a harmless body—”
“Harmless?” the page said sternly. “Did I not hear him tell you the same as that he was an English spy?”
The girl abandoned the last shred of her dignity, to come and stand before him, nervously fingering her apron. “For the dear saints’ sake, let no one hear you say that, good Fridtjof! Alas, how you have got it twisted! He is an Englishman who bent his head for food in the evil days. And now they that bought him will not set him loose, so he has cast off their yoke and fled to the Danes to get freedom and fortune. He was on his way to join your people when he stopped to beg food. I could not be so hard of heart as to refuse, though Hildelitha’s hand would be hot about my ears did she suspect it. Say that you will hold your tongue, sweet lad, and I will make boot with anything you like.”
He was very deliberate about it, the page, pursing his rosy mouth into any number of judicial puckers; but at last he conceded, “Now, since you know for certain that he is not one of Edmund’s spies,—and you are so penitent, as is right,”—pausing, he regarded her severely,—“if I do promise, will you make a bargain to put an end to your silly behavior toward my lord? Will you undertake to deliver his dishes into my hands, and leave it for me to pass his cup?”
“Yes, in truth; by Father Ingulph’s book!” the maid cried, wringing her hands.
The page made her a magnanimous gesture. “In that case I will not be so mean as to refuse you,” he consented. And he sat smiling to himself in sly content after she had hurried away.
Emboldened by that smile, the dog suddenly laid aside his soberness of demeanor. Pouncing upon a fagot which had fallen from one of the loads, he brought it in his teeth, with shining eyes and much frantic tail-wagging, and rubbed it against his friend’s knee. He had not miscalculated. The boy’s smile deepened easily into a laugh, and he leaped to his feet to accept the challenge. Seizing the stick, he put all the strength of his lithesome body into an effort to make off with it, while the great hound braced himself, with a rapture of rumbling growls and short delighted barks. So they tussled, back and forth, this way and that, amid a merry tumult of barking and laughter,—such a tumult that neither heard the steps that both were waiting for, when at last those steps came briskly through the archway. The first they knew of it, the Lord of Ivarsdale was standing under the lintel, chatting with those who came behind him.
With lips yet parted by their breathless laughter, the lad straightened quickly from his sport, and stood shaking back his tumbling curls and mopping his hot face, in which the rich color glowed through the tanned skin like the velvety red on a golden peach. When, for one flashing instant, they encountered a keen glance from the young lord, the color deepened, and the iris-blue eyes suddenly brimmed over with mischievous sparkles; then the black lashes were lowered demurely, and the page, retreating to his place beside the step, signified only deference and decorum.
Followed by old Morcard and the fat monk, the Etheling descended from the doorway and stood on the broad step, shading his eyes from the glare of brilliant light while he looked about him with evident pleasure in the fairness of the day.
“Now is the time to lay by a store of sweet memories against the stress of winter weather,” he said. “Whither do you go to harvest the sunshine, father?”