See you withal
this inlaying of runes on the steel? It is done with no tin or
copper, but with very silver; and these bands about the shaft be of
silver also. It is a fair weapon, and the owner hath a loss of it
greater than his gain in the slaying of Rusty; and he will have left
it in the wound so that he might be known hereafter, and that he
might be said not to have murdered Rusty but to have slain him. Or
how think ye?'
They all said that this seemed like to be; but that if the man who
had slain Rusty were one of the ransackers they might have a blood-
wite of him, if they could find him. Gold-mane said that so it was,
and therewithal he gave the shepherds good-speed and went on his way.
But they came to Burgstead and found the Alderman, and in due time
was a Court held, and a finding uttered, and outlawry given forth for
the manslaying and the ransacking against certain men unknown. As
for the spear, it was laid up in the House of the Face.
But Face-of-god pondered these matters in his mind, for such
ransackings there had been none of in late years; and he said to
himself that his friends of the Mountain must have other folk, of
which the Dalesmen knew nought, whose gear they could lift, or how
could they live in that place.
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