welcome to hear every word, said Erceldoune, with a dash of decision and impatience, while he paused and pointed to a road running round a bend of grey covered sock beside a brown and rapid moor stream, which would lead them by a short cut across the fells homewards.
There they parted in the bright warm August afternoon, as the sun began to sink towards the westward; his guests soon lost to sight behind the wild woodland growth of the half savage glen, while the last of the Border lords turned backward to his solitary and ruined homestead, sweeping over the heather with the easy swinging step of the bred mountaineer, followed by his brace of staghounds and two black and tan setters.
"Salaried to keep in saddle! Paid to post up and down Europe!" he had said, with a certain disdain, for Erceldoune was nothing more or less than a Queen's messenger; a State courier, bound to serve at a State summons; holding himself in readiness for Russia or Teheran, for ice-fields or sun-scorched tropics, for the swamps of Mexico or the rose plains of Persia, at a second's notice. But he suited the life, and the life suited him; for he was a keen sportsman, and the first rider in Europe; was
