“Hast fed well, boy?”
“Aye, famously,” answered Alric, wiping his mouth and tightening his belt.
“Take the war-token, my son, and see that thou speed it well. Let it not fail for want of a messenger. If need be, go all the round thyself, and rest not as long as wind and limb hold out. Thy fighting days have begun early,” he added in a softer tone, as he passed his large hand gently over the fair head of the boy, “perchance they will end early. But, whatever betide, Alric, quit thee like a man—as thou art truly in heart if not in limb.”
Such words from one who was not at any time lavish of praise might, a short time before, have caused the boy to hold up his head proudly, but the last year of his life had been fraught with many lessons. He listened with a heaving breast and beating heart indeed, but with his head bent modestly down, while on his flushed countenance there was a bright expression, and on his lips a glad smile which spoke volumes. His father felt assured, as he looked at him, that he would never bring discredit on his name.
“Ye know the course,” said Haldor; “away!”
In another minute Alric was running at full speed up the glen with the war-token in his hand. His path was rugged, his race was wild, and its results were striking. He merely shouted as he passed the windows of the cottages low down in the dale, knowing that the men there would be roused by others near at hand; but farther on, where the cottages were more scattered, he opened the door of each and showed the token, uttering a word or two of explanation during the brief moment he stayed to swallow a mouthful of water or to tighten his belt.
At first his course lay along the banks of the river, every rock and shrub of which he knew. Farther on he left the stream on the right, and struck into the mountains just as the sun went down.
High up on the fells a little cottage stood perched on a cliff. It was one of the “saeters” or mountain dairies where the cattle were pastured in summer long ago—just as they are at the present day. Alric ran up the steep face of the hill, doubled swiftly round the corner of the enclosure, burst open the door, and, springing in, held up the token, while he wiped the streaming perspiration from his face.
A man and his wife, with three stout sons and a comely daughter, were seated on a low bench eating their supper of thickened milk.
“The war-token!” exclaimed the men, springing up, and, without a moment’s delay, taking down and girding on the armour which hung round the walls.