For if the son had any wits at all he would not hesitate to speak out in the hearing of his mother, or fear to trust himself to the fidelity of her who bore him.

The speaker, loth to seem readier to devise than to carry out the plot, zealously proffered himself as the agent of the eavesdropping.

Feng rejoiced at the scheme, and departed on pretence of a long journey.

Now he who had given this counsel repaired privily to the room where Amleth was shut up with his mother, and lay flown skulking in the straw.

But Amleth had his antidote for the treachery.