"Scouting!" exclaimed Ned, springing up and reaching for his mail. "Of all things! I'm ready—I'm awfully hungry, too."
A breakfast of fresh pork broiled at the end of a stick, and nothing to go with it but water, may be prepared and eaten without much waste of time. Neither Lars nor Ned felt like making a long affair of it, but his Reverence was the first to throw away his broiling-stick.
"Come along now!" he exclaimed. "The beasts are tethered handy. I pulled them out of a drove that was gathered by the men. We have bridles but no saddles, and I've ridden that way many a time in Ireland, bless her! Not that these Mercia ponies are at all the equal of our Irish horses. The best in all the world can be found among the farms around Clontarf."
In a minute or so more they and a tall Viking who was to go with them were loosening the halters of four strong-looking but somewhat short-legged horses. They were not properly to be called ponies, being larger and heavier than the shelties of Scotland or the small horses of Wales. They belonged to a peculiar breed which was at that time very numerous in England. Not one of them objected to being mounted, and the four scouts galloped away unchallenged by any sentinel.
"No man will hinder us," remarked Father Brian. "I think that Tostig the Earl is wise. He gave out that all spies might come and go freely. He willed that the English earls should be told what's coming to them."
"I don't believe they will be scared very badly," replied Ned. "Hardrada isn't going to win in that way. Everybody knows that the English will fight."
The sun was rising now, and all the camps behind them were astir. More ships were reaching landing-places and more troops were coming on shore, but not by any means the whole of Hardrada's army was as yet in shape for a great battle. It would be well for him to advance with great prudence until his full strength should be with him, and he was doing so. The same kind of caution might have been well for the Northumberland and Mercian earls, Edwin and Morcar, but they were even now preparing to strike without waiting to gather sufficient forces. They had been unready and now they were hasty.
The country was beautiful. It did not seem to be densely peopled. There were many farms, however, which seemed to Ned to be under pretty good cultivation. Empty, desolate, abandoned were all the dwellings past which the scouts rode onward. There were no cattle to be seen in the fields.
"There hath been no burning, as yet," remarked the tall Viking. "Tostig hath forbidden fire, to the great discontent of many. Of what good indeed is war if we are not to burn and slay? It is but little better than peace."
"O thou Leif, the son of Beo," broke in Father Brian, angrily, "if thou art in the advance on the morrow, or the next day, I think the heathen Saxons will show thee war enough."