Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Æscendune:

A Tale of the Days of Saint Dunstan,

by the Rev. A. D. Crake.

Contents

PREFACE.

It has been the aim of the Author, in a series of original tales told to the senior boys of a large school, to illustrate interesting or difficult passages of Church History by the aid of fiction. Two of these tales—“Æmilius,” a tale of the Decian and Valerian persecutions; and “Evanus,” a tale of the days of Constantine—he has already published, and desires gratefully to acknowledge the kindness with which they have been received.

He is thus encouraged to submit another attempt to the public, having its scene of action in our own land, although in times very dissimilar to our own; and for its object, the illustration of the struggle between the regal and ecclesiastical powers in the days of the ill-fated and ill-advised King Edwy.

Scarcely can one find a schoolboy who has not read the touching legend of Edwy and Elgiva—for it is little more than a legend in most of its details; and which of these youthful readers has not execrated the cruelty of the Churchmen who separated those unhappy lovers? While the tragical story of the fate of the hapless Elgiva has been the theme of many a poet and even historian, who has accepted the tale as if it were of as undoubted authenticity as the Reform Bill.

The writer can well remember the impression the tale made upon his youthful imagination, and the dislike, to use a mild word, with which he ever viewed the character of the great statesman and ecclesiastic of the tenth century, Dunstan, until a wider knowledge of history and a more accurate judgment came with maturer years; and testimonies to the ability and genius of that monk, who had been the moving spirit of his age, began to force themselves upon him.

Lord Macaulay has well summed up the relative positions of Church and State in that age in the following words: “It is true that the Church had been deeply corrupted by superstition, yet she retained enough of the sublime theology and benevolent morality of her early days to elevate many intellects, and to purify many hearts. That the sacerdotal order should encroach on the functions of the chief magistrate, would in our time be a great evil. But that which in an age of good government is an evil, may in an age of grossly bad government be a blessing. It is better that men should be governed by priest craft than by brute violence; by such a prelate as Dunstan, than by such a warrior as Penda.”

The Church was indeed the salt of the earth, even if the salt had somewhat lost its savour; it was the only power which could step in between the tyrant and his victim, which could teach the irresponsible great—irresponsible to man—their responsibility to the great and awful Being whose creatures they were. And again, it was then the only home of civilisation and learning. It has been well said that for the learning of this age to vilify the monks and monasteries of the medieval period, is for the oak to revile the acorn from which it sprang.

The overwhelming realisation of these facts, the determination to set up the dominion of truth and justice which they held to be identical with that of the Church, as that was identical with the kingdom of God, supplies the key to the lives and characters of such men as Ambrose, Cyril, Dunstan, and Becket. They each came in collision with the civil power; but Ambrose against Justina or even Theodosius, Cyril against Orestes, Dunstan against Edwy, Becket against Henry Plantagenet—each represented, in a greater or less degree, the cause of religion, nay of humanity, against its worst foes, tyranny or moral corruption.

Yet not one of these great men was without his faults; this is only to say he was human; but more may be admitted—personal motives would mix themselves with nobler emotions. Self would assert her fatal claims, and great mistakes were sometimes made by those who would have forfeited their lives rather than have committed them, had they known what they were doing. Yet, on the whole, their cause was that of God and man, and they fought nobly. Shall we asperse their memories because they “had this treasure in earthen vessels”?

The tale itself is intended to depict what the writer believes to be the true relative positions of Edwy and the great ecclesiastic; therefore he will not attempt to deal with the subject here. It will be noticed however, that he has shorn the narrative of the dread catastrophe with which it terminated in all the histories of our childhood. Scarcely any writer has made such wise research into the history of this period as Mr. E. A. Freeman, and the author has adopted his conclusions upon this point. With him he has therefore admitted the marriage of Edwy with Elgiva, although it was an uncanonical marriage beyond all doubt, and has given her the title of queen, which she bore in a document preserved by Lappenburg. But, in agreement with the same authority, the writer feels most happy to be able to reject the story of Elgiva’s supposed tragical death. All sorts of stories are told by later writers, utterly contradictory and confused, of a woman killed by the Mercians in their revolt. This could not be Elgiva, for she was not divorced till the rebellion was over; and even the sad tale that she was seized by the officers of Odo, and branded to disfigure her beauty, rests on no good authority. In spite of the reluctance with which men relinquish a touching tragedy, the calumny should be banished from the pages of historians; and it is painful to see it repeated, as if of undoubted authenticity, in a recent popular history for children by one of the greatest of modern novelists.

Edwy’s character has cost the writer much thought. He has endeavoured to paint him faithfully—not so bad as all the monastic writers of the succeeding period (the only writers with few exceptions) describe him; but still such a youth as the circumstances under which he became placed would probably have made him—capable of sincere attachment, brave, and devoted to his friends, yet careless of all religious obligations; bitterly hostile to the Church, that is to Christianity, for the terms were then synonymous; and reckless of obligations, or of the sanctity of truth and justice.

His measures against St. Dunstan, as they are related in the tale, have the authority of history; although it is needless to say that the agents are in part fictitious characters. The writer’s object has been to subordinate fiction to history, and never to contradict historic fact; if he has failed in this intention, it has been his misfortune rather than his fault; for he has had recourse to all such authorities as lay in his reach.[ⁱ] Especially, he is glad to find that the character he had conceived as Edwy’s perfectly coincides with the description given by Palgrave in his valuable History of the Anglo-Saxons:

“Edwy was a youth of singular beauty, but vain, rash, petulant, profligate, and surrounded by a host of young courtiers, all bent on encouraging and emulating the vices of their master.”

Another object of the tale has been to depict the trials and temptations, the fall and the recovery, of a lad fresh from a home full of religious influences, when thrown amidst the snares which abounded then as now. The motto, “Facilis descensus Averno,” etc, epitomises the whole story.

In relating a tale of the days of St. Dunstan, the author has felt bound to give the religious colouring which actually prevailed in that day. He has found much authority and information in Johnson’s Anglo-Saxon Canons, especially those of Elfric, probably contemporaneous with the tale. He has written in no controversial spirit, but with an honest desire to set forth the truth.

It may be objected that he has made all his characters speak in very modern English, and has not affected the archaisms commonly found in tales of the time. To this he would reply, that if the genuine language were preserved, it would be utterly unintelligible to modern Englishmen, and therefore he has thought it preferable to translate into the vernacular of today. The English which men spoke then was no more stilted or formal to them than ours is to us.

Although he has followed Mr. Freeman in the use of the terms English and Welsh, as far less likely to mislead than the terms Saxons and Britons, and far truer to history, yet he has not thought proper to follow the obsolete spelling of proper names; he has not, e. g., spelt Edwy, Eadwig or Elgiva, Ælfgifu. Custom has Latinised the appellations, and as he has rejected obsolete terms in conversation, he has felt it more consistent to reject these more correct, but less familiar, orthographies.

The title, “First Chronicle of Æscendune,” has been adopted, because the tale here given is but the first of a series of tales which have been told, but not yet written, attaching themselves to the same family and locality at intervals of generations. Thus, the second illustrates the struggle between Edmund Ironside and Canute; the third, the Norman Conquest; etc. Their appearance in print must depend upon the indulgence extended to the present volume.

In conclusion, the writer dedicates this book with great respect to Mrs. Trevelyan, authoress of “Lectures upon the History of England;” whose first volume, years ago, first taught him to appreciate, in some degree, the character of St. Dunstan.

All Saints’ School, Bloxham,

Easter 1874.

CHAPTER I.
“THIS IS THE FOREST PRIMEVAL.”

IT was a lovely eventide of the sunny month of May, and the declining rays of the sun penetrated the thick foliage of an old English forest, lighting up in chequered pattern the velvet sward thick with moss, and casting uncertain rays as the wind shook the boughs. Every bush seemed instinct with life, for April showers and May sun had united to force each leaf and spray into its fairest development, and the drowsy hum of countless insects told, as it saluted the ears, the tale of approaching summer.

Two boys reclined upon the mossy bank beneath an aged oak; their dress, no less than their general demeanour, denoted them to be the sons of some substantial thane. They were clad in hunting costume: leggings of skin over boots of untanned leather protected their limbs from thorn or brier, and over their under garments they wore tunics of a dull green hue, edged at the collar and cuffs with brown fur, and fastened by richly ornamented belts: their bows lay by their sides, while quivers of arrows were suspended to their girdles, and two spears, such as were used in the chase of the wild boar, lay by them on the grass. They had the same fair hair, which, untouched by the shears, hung negligently around neck and shoulder; the same blue eyes added an indescribable softness to the features; they had the same well-knit frames and agile movements, but yet there was a difference. The elder seemed possessed of greater vivacity of expression; but although each well-strung muscle indicated physical prowess, there was an uncertain expression in his glance and in the play of his features, which suggested a yielding and somewhat vacillating character; while the younger, lacking the full physical development, and somewhat of the engaging expression of his brother, had that calm and steady bearing which indicated present and future government of the passions.

“By Thor and Woden, Alfred, we shall be here all night. At what hour did that stupid churl Oscar say that the deer trooped down to drink?”

“Not till sunset, Elfric; and it wants half an hour yet; see, the sun is still high.”

“I do think it is never going to set; here we have been hunting, hunting all the day, and got nothing for our pains.”

“You forget the hare and the rabbit here.”

“Toss them to the dogs. Here, Bran, you brute, take this hare your masters have been hunting all day, for your dinner;” and as he spoke he tossed the solitary victim of his own prowess in the chase to the huge wolfhound, which made a speedy meal upon the hare, while Alfred threw the rabbit to the other of their two canine companions.

“I would almost as soon have lost this holiday, and spent the time with Father Cuthbert, to be bored by his everlasting talk about our duties, and forced to repeat ‘hic, hæc, hoc,’ till my head ached. What a long homily [ⁱⁱ] he preached us this morning —and then that long story about the saint.”

“You are out of spirits. Father Cuthbert’s tales are not so bad, after all you seemed to like the legend he told us the other night.”

“Yes, about our ancestor Sebbald and his glorious death; there was something in that tale worth hearing; it stirred the blood—none of your moping saints, that Sebbald.”

“I once heard another legend from Father Cuthbert, about the burning of Croyland Abbey, and how the abbot stood, saying mass at the altar, without flinching or even turning his head, when the Danes, having fired the place, broke into the chapel. Do you not think it wanted more bravery to do that in cold blood than to stand firm in all the excitement of a battle?”

“You are made to be a monk, Alfred, and I daresay, if you get the chance, will be a martyr, and get put in the calendar by-and-by. I suppose they will keep your relics here in the priory church, and you will be St. Alfred of Æscendune; for me, I would sooner die as the old sea kings loved to die, surrounded by heaps of slain, with my sword broken in my hand.”

It was at this moment that their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a loud crashing of boughs in the adjacent underwood, a rush as of some wild beast, a loud cry in boyish tones—“Help! help! the wolf! the wolf!”

Elfric jumped up in an instant, and rushed forward heedless of danger, followed closely by his younger brother, who was scarcely less eager to render immediate assistance.

The cries for help became more and more piercing, as if some pressing danger menaced the utterer. Elfric, who, in spite of his flippant speech, was by no means destitute of keen sympathies and self devotion, hurried forward, fearless of danger, bounding through thicket and underwood, until, arriving upon a small clearing, the whole scene flashed upon him.

A huge grey wolf, wounded and bleeding, was about to rush for the second time upon a youth in hunting costume, whose broken spear, broken in the first encounter with the beast he had disturbed, seemed to deprive him of all chance of success in the desperate encounter evidently impending. His trembling limbs showed his extreme apprehension, and the sweat stood in huge drops on his forehead; his eyes were fixed upon the beast as if he were fascinated, while the shaft of his spear, presented feebly against the coming onslaught, showed that he had lost his self possession, for he neglected the bow and arrows which were slung at his side—if indeed there was time to use them.

The beast sprang, but as he did so another spear was stoutly presented to meet him, and he literally impaled himself in his eager spring on the weapon of Elfric.

Still, such was his weight that the boy fell backward beneath the mighty rush, and such the tenacity of life that, though desperately wounded, even to death, the beast sought the prostrate lad with teeth and claws, in frantic fury, until a blow from the hunting knife, which Elfric well knew how to use, laid the wolf lifeless at his side.

Breathless, but not severely injured, he rose from the ground covered with blood; his garments torn, his face reddened by exertion, and paused a moment, while he seemed to strive to repress the wild beatings of his heart, which bounded as if it would burst its prison.

But far more exhausted was the other combatant, yet scarcely so much by exertion as by fear, of which he still bore the evident traces. After a few moments he broke the silence, and his words seemed incoherent.

“Where is my horse? the beast threw me—I wish the wolves may get him—I fear you are hurt; not much, I hope; where can those serfs be? Fine vassals, to desert their master in peril. I’ll have them hung. But, by St. Cuthbert, you are all covered with blood.”

“’Tis that of the wolf, then, for I have scarcely a scratch: one of the beast’s claws ripped up my sleeve, and the skin with it; that was all he could do before he felt the cold steel between his ribs.”

“Not a moment too soon, or he would have killed you before we could interfere; why, as you rolled together, I could hardly see which was boy and which was wolf. But where’s my horse? Did you see a white horse rush past you?”

“We heard a rush as of some wild animal.”

“Wild enough. I was riding through the glade, and my attendants were on in front, when we stumbled on this wolf, crouched under that thicket. The horse started so violently that it threw me almost upon the monster you have killed.”

Here the speaker paused, and blew impatient blasts upon a horn which had been slung round his neck. They were soon answered, and some attendants, dressed in semi-hunting costume, made their appearance with haste and confusion, which showed their apprehensions.

“Guthred! Eadmer! Why did you get so far away from me? I might have been killed. Look at this monstrous wolf; why, its teeth are dreadful. It broke my spear, and would have had me down, but for this—this youth.

“I forgot, I haven’t asked to whom I am indebted. Aren’t you two brothers?”

“Our father is the Thane of Æscendune. His hall is not far from here. Will you not go home with us? We have plenty of room for you and yours.”

“To be sure I will. Æscendune? I have heard the name: I can’t remember where. Have you horses?”

“No; we were hunting on foot, and expecting to let fly our shafts at some deer. May I ask, in return, the name of our guest?”

Before the youth could answer, one of the attendants strode forward, and with an air of importance replied, “You are about to receive the honour of a visit from the future lord of Britain, Prince Edwy.”

“Keep your lips closed till I give you leave to open them, Guthred. You may leave me to announce myself.

“I shall be only too glad to go with you both; and these two huntsmen deserve to be left in the forest to the mercy of your wolves.”

Somewhat startled to find that they had saved the future Basileus or King of Britain—the hope of the royal line of Cerdic —the brothers led their guest through the darkening forest until the distant light of a clearing appeared in the west, and they emerged from the shadow of the trees upon the brow of a gentle hill.

Below them lay the castle (if such it should be called) of their father the Thane of Æscendune. Utterly unlike the castellated buildings which, at a later period, formed the dwellings of the proud Norman nobility, it was a low irregular building, the lower parts of which were of stone, and the upper portions, when there was a second story, of thick timber from the forest.

A river, from which the evening mist was slowly rising, lay beyond, and supplied water to a moat which surrounded the edifice, for in those troublous times few country dwellings lacked such necessary protection. The memory of the Danish invasions was too recent; the marauders of either nation still lurked in the far recesses of the forest, and plundered the Saxon inhabitant or the Danish settler indiscriminately, as occasion served.

On the inner side of the moat a strong palisade of timber completed the defence. One portal, opening upon a drawbridge, formed the sole apparent means of ingress or egress.

Passing the drawbridge unquestioned, the boys entered the courtyard, around which the chief apartments were grouped. Before them a flight of stone steps led to the great hall where all the members of the community took their meals in common, and where, around the great fire, they wiled away the slow hours of a winter evening.

On each side of the great hall stood the bowers, as the small dormitories were called, furnished very simply for the use of the higher domestics with small round tables, common stools, and beds in recesses like boxes or cupboards. Such were commonly the only sleeping chambers, but at Æscendune, as generally in the halls of the rich, a wide staircase conducted to a gallery above, from each side of which opened sleeping and sitting apartments allotted to the use of the family. It was only in the houses of the wealthy that such an upper floor was found.

On the right hand, as they entered the courtyard, stood the private chapel of the household, where mass was said by the chaplain, to whom allusion has been already made, as the first duty of the day, and where each night generally saw the household again assembled for compline or evening prayers.[ⁱⁱⁱ] On the left hand were domestic offices.

Upon the steps of his hall stood Ella, the Thane of Æscendune, the representative of a long line of warlike ancestors, who had occupied the soil since the Saxon conquest of Mercia.

He was clad in a woollen tunic reaching to the knee, over which a cloak fastened by a clasp of gold was loosely thrown; and his feet were clad in black pointed boots, while strips of painted leather were wound over red stockings from the knee to the ankle.

“You are late, my sons,” he said, “and I perceive you have brought us a visitor. He is welcome.”

“Father,” said Elfric, in a voice somewhat expressive of awe, “it is Prince Edwy!”

The thane had in his earlier days been at court, and had known the murdered Edmund, the royal father of his guest, intimately. It was not without emotion, therefore, that he welcomed the son to his home, and saluted him with that manly yet reverential homage their relative positions required of him.

“Welcome, thrice welcome, my prince,” he said, “to these humble halls.” He added, with some emotion, “I could think the royal Edmund stood before me, as I knew him while yet myself a youth.”

The domestics, who had assembled, gazed upon their visitor with country curiosity, yet were not wanting in rude but expressive courtesy; and soon he was conducted to the best chamber the house afforded, where change of raiment and every comfort within the reach of his host was provided, while the cooks were charged to make sumptuous additions to the approaching supper.

CHAPTER II.
THE HOUSE OF ÆSCENDUNE.

The earlier fortunes of the house of Æscendune must here obtrude themselves upon the notice of the reader, in order that he may more easily comprehend the subsequent pages of our veritable history.

Sebbald, the remote ancestor of the family, was amongst the earliest Saxon conquerors of Mercia. He fell in battle with the Britons, or Welshmen as our ancestors called them, leaving sons valiant as their sire, to whom were given the fertile lands lying between the river Avon and the mighty midland forests, to which they gave the name “Æscendune.”

They had held their own for three hundred years with varying fortunes; once or twice home and hearth were desolated by the fierce tide of Danish invasion, but the wars subsided, and the old family resumed its position, amidst the joy of their dependants and serfs, to whom they were endeared by a thousand memories of past benefits.

But a generation only had passed since the shadow of a great woe fell on the family of Æscendune.

Offa, who was then the thane, had two sons, Oswald the elder, and Ella the younger, with whom our readers are already acquainted.

The elder possessed few of the family virtues save brute courage. He was ever rebellious, even in boyhood, and arrived at man’s estate in the midst of unsettled times of war and tumult. Weary of the restraints of home, he joined a band of Danish marauders, and shared their victories, enriching himself with the spoils of his own countrymen. Thus he remained an outlaw, for his father disowned him in consequence of his crime, until, fighting against his own people in the great battle of Brunanburgh, [^iv] where Athelstane so gloriously conquered the allied Danes, Scots, and Welsh, he was taken prisoner.

The victor king sat in judgment upon the recreant, surrounded by his chief nobility and vassal kings. The guilt of the prisoner was evident, nay undenied, and the respect in which his sire was held alone delayed the doom of a cruel death from being pronounced upon him.

While the council yet deliberated, Offa appeared amongst them, and, like a second Brutus, took his place amongst his peers. Disclaiming all personal interest in the matter, he sternly proposed that the claims of justice should be satisfied.

Yet they hesitated to shed Oswald’s blood: the alternative they adopted was perhaps not more merciful—although a common doom in those times. They selected a crazy worm-eaten boat, and sent the criminal to sea, without sail, oar, or rudder, with a loaf of bread and cruse of water, the wind blowing freshly from off the land.

Oswald was never heard of again; but after his supposed death, information was brought to his father that the outlaw had been married to a Danish woman, and had left a son—an orphan—for the mother died in childbirth.

Offa resolved to seek the boy, and to adopt him, as if in reparation for the past. The effort he had made had cost him a bitter pang, and the father’s heart was well-nigh broken. For a time the inquiries were unsuccessful. It was discovered that the mother was dead, that she had died before the tragedy, but not a word could be learned respecting the boy, and many had begun to doubt his existence, when, after years had elapsed, one of the executioners of the cruel doom deposed on his deathbed that a boy of some ten summers had appeared on the beach, had called the victim “father,” and had so persistently entreated to share his doom, that they had allowed him to do so, but had concealed the fact, rightly fearing blame, if not punishment. The priest who had attended his dying bed, and heard his last confession, bore the tidings to Offa at the penitent’s desire.

The old thane never seemed to lift up his head again: the sacrifice his sense of duty had exacted from him had been too great for a heart naturally full of domestic affection, and he sank and died after a few months in the arms of his younger and beloved son Ella.

The foundation of the neighbouring priory and church of St. Wilfred had been the consolation of his later years, but the work was only half completed at his death. It was carried on with equal zeal by Ella, now the Thane of Æscendune.

He married Edith, the daughter of a rich thane of Wessex, and the marriage proved a most happy one.

Sincerely religious, after the fashion of their day, they honoured God with their substance, enriched the church of St. Wilfred, where the dust of the aged Offa awaited the resurrection of the just, and continued the labour of building the priory. Day after day they were constant in their attendance at mass and evensong, and strove to live as foster parents to their dependants and serfs.

The chief man in his hundred, Ella acted as reeve or magistrate, holding his court for the administration of justice each month, and giving such just judgment as became one who had the fear of God before him. No appeal was ever made from him to the ealdorman (earl) or scirgerefa (sheriff) and the wisdom and mercy of his rule were universally renowned.

His land was partly cultivated by his own theows, who were in those days slaves attached to the soil, and partly let out to free husbandmen (or ceorls) who owed their lord rent in kind or in money, and paid him, as “his men,” feudal service.

Around his hospitable board the poor of the district found sustenance, while work was made for all in draining meres, mending roads, building the priory, or in the various agricultural labours of the year.

In the first year of King Edmund the lady Edith presented her lord with his first-born son, to whom in baptism they gave the name Elfric, and a year later Alfred was born, and named after the great king. One daughter, named Edgitha, completed the fruits of their happy union, and in their simple fashion they strove to train their children in the fear of the Lord.

We will now resume the thread of our story.

It was now the hour of eventide, and the time for “laying the board” drew near. From forest and field came in ceorl and theow, hanging up their weapons or agricultural implements around the lower end of the hall. Meanwhile the domestics brought in large tressels, and then huge heavy boards, which they arranged so as to form the dining table, shaped like the letter T, the upper portion being furnished with the richest dainties for the family and their guest, the lower with simpler fare for the dependents.

A wild boar caught in the forest formed the chief dish, and was placed at the upper end, while mutton and beef; dressed in various ways, flanked it on either side.

The thane, Ella, occupied the central seat at the high table: his chair, rudely carved, had borne the weight of his ancestors before him; on his left hand was seated the once lovely Edith. Age had deprived her of her youthful beauty, but not of the sweet expression which told of her gentleness and purity of heart; they had left their impress on each line of her speaking countenance; and few left her presence unimpressed with respect and esteem.

On his right hand sat Prince Edwy, “Edwy the fair” men called him, and right well he deserved the name. His face was one which inspired interest at a glance: his large blue eyes, his golden hair which floated over his shoulders, his sweet voice, his graceful bearing, all united to impress the beholders.

Elfric, Alfred, and their sister Edgitha, completed the company at the high table.

The hungry crowd of ceorls and serfs, who were, as we have said, fresh from field or forest, sat at the lower table, which was spread with huge joints of roasted meat, loaves of bread, wedges of cheese, piles of cabbage or other vegetables, rolls or coils of broiled eels, and huge pieces of boiled pork or bacon.

Around the table sat the hounds and other dogs, open jawed, waiting such good luck as they might hope to receive at the hands of their masters, while many “loaf eaters,” as the serfs were called who fed at their master’s table, stood with the dogs, or sat on the rush-strewn floor, for want of room at the board.

It was marvellous to see how the food disappeared, as hand after hand was stretched out to the dishes, in the absence of forks—a modern invention—and huge horns of ale helped the meat downwards.

Game, steaks of beef and venison on spits, were handed round. The choicer joints were indeed reserved for the upper board, but profusion was the rule everywhere throughout the hall, and there was probably not a serf; nay, not even a dog, whose appetite was not fully satisfied before the end of the feast.

The prince seemed thoroughly to have recovered his spirits, somewhat damped perhaps before by his adventure with the wolf; and exerted his talents to make himself agreeable. He had seen life on an extended scale, young as he was, and his anecdotes of London and the court, if a little wild, were still interesting. Elfric and Alfred listened to his somewhat random talk, with that respect boys ever pay to those who have seen more of the wide world than themselves—a respect perhaps heightened by the high rank of their princely guest, who was, however, only a month or two older than Elfric.

As they heard of the marvels of London, and of the court, home and its attractions seemed to become dim by comparison, and Elfric especially longed to share such happiness.

Their father seemed to wish to change the conversation, as he asked the prince whether he had been long in Mercia.

Edwy replied, “Nay, my host; this is almost my first day of perfect freedom, and I only left London, and my uncle the king, a few days back. Dunstan has gone down to Glastonbury, for which the Saints be thanked, and I am released for a few days from poring over the musty old manuscripts to which he dooms me.”

“It is well, my prince, that you should have a preceptor so well qualified to instruct you in the arts your great ancestor King Alfred so nobly adorned.”

“Ah yes, Alfred,” said Edwy, yawning; “but you know we can’t all be saints or heroes like him: for my part, I sometimes wish he had never lived.”

The astonished looks of the company seemed to demand further explanation.

“Because it is always, ‘Alfred did this,’ and ‘Alfred did that.’ If I am tired of ‘hic, hæc, hoc,’ I am told Alfred was never weary; if I complain of a headache, Dunstan says Alfred never complained of pain or illness, but bore all with heroic fortitude, and all the rest of it. If I want a better dinner than my respected uncle gives us on fast days in the palace, I am told Alfred never ate anything beyond a handful of parched corn on such days; if I lose my temper, I am told Alfred never lost his; and so on, till I get sick of his name; and here it greets me in the woods of Mercia.”

“I crave pardon, my liege,” said Ella, who hardly knew whether to smile or frown at the sarcastic petulance of his guest, who went on with a sly smile—“And now old Dunstan does not know where I am. He left me with a huge pile of books in musty Latin, or crabbed English, and I had to read this and to write that, as if I were no prince, but a scrivener, and had to get my living by my pen; but as soon as he was gone I had a headache, and persuaded my venerable uncle the king, through the physician, that I needed change of air.”

“But what will Dunstan say?”

“Oh, he must fight it out with Sigebert the leech, and Sigebert knows which side his bread is buttered.”

The whole tone of Edwy indicated plainly that the headache was but a pretence, but he spoke with such sly simplicity that the boys could not help joining in his contagious laughter; sympathising, doubtless, in his love of a holiday in the woods.

“Your headache is not gone yet, I trust, my prince,” said Elfric.

“Why?” said Edwy, turning his eyes upon him with a smile.

“Because we have splendid woods near here for hunting, and I must have” (he whispered these words into Edwy’s ear) “a headache, too.”

Edwy quite understood the request conveyed in these words, and turning to the old thane requested him to allow his boys to join the sport on the morrow as a kind of bodyguard, adding some very complimentary words on the subject of Elfric’s courage shown in the rescue that afternoon.

“Why, yes,” said the old thane, “I have always tried to bring up the boys so as to fear neither man nor beast, and Elfric did indifferently well in the tussle. So he has earned a holiday for himself and brother, with Father Cuthbert’s leave,” and Ella turned to the ecclesiastic.

“They are good boys,” said the priest, “only, my lord, Elfric is somewhat behind in his studies.”

Elfric’s looks expressed his contempt of the “studies,” but he dared not express the feeling before his father.

“But I trust, my prince,” said Ella, “that we shall not keep you from your duties at court. Dunstan is a severe, although a holy man.”

“Oh, he is gone to have another encounter with the Evil One at Glastonbury, and is fashioning a pair of tongs for the purpose,” said Edwy, alluding to the legend already current amongst the credulous populace; “and I wish,” he muttered, “the Evil One would get the best of it and fly away with him. But” (in a louder tone) “he cannot return for a month, which means a month’s holiday for me.”

Ella could interpose no further objection, although scarcely satisfied with the programme.

The conversation here became general. It turned upon the subject of hunting and war, and the enthusiasm of young Edwy quite captivated the thane, who seemed to see Edmund, the father of the young prince, before his eyes, as he had known him in his own impetuous youth. Dear, indeed, had that prince been to Ella, both before and after his elevation to the throne, and as he heard the sweet boyish voice of Edwy, his thoughts were guided by memory to that ill-omened feast at Pucklechurch, where the vindictive outlaw Leolf had murdered his king. The sword of Ella had been amongst those which avenged the crime on the murderer, but they could not call back the vital spark which had fled. “Edmund the Magnificent,” as they loved to call him, was dead. [^v]

So, as Ella listened, he could hardly help condoning the wild speeches of the young prince in deference to the memory of the past.

And now they removed the festive board from the hall, while kneeling serfs offered basin and towel to the thane and his guest to wash their hands. Wine began to circulate freely in goblets of wood inlaid with gold or silver; the clinking of cups, the drinking of healths and pledges opened the revel, cupbearers poured out the wine. The glee-wood (harp) was introduced, while pipes, flutes, and soft horns accompanied its strains. So they sang—

Here Athelstane king,
Of earls the lord,
To warriors the ring-giver
Glory world-long
Had won in the strife,
By edge of the sword,
At Brunanburgh.

And Ella—who had stood by his father’s side in that dread field where Danes, Scots, and Welshmen fled before the English sword—listened with enthusiasm, till he thought of his brother Oswald, when tears, unobserved, rolled down his cheeks.

Not so with the boys. They had no secret sorrow to hide, and they listened like those whose young blood boils at the thought of mighty deeds, and longed to imitate them. And when the gleeman finished his lengthy flight of music and poesy, they applauded him till the roof rang again.

Song followed song, legend legend, the revelry grew louder, while the lady Edith, with her daughter, retired to their bower, where they employed their needles on delicate embroidery. A representation in bright colours of the consecration of the church of St. Wilfred occupied the hands of the little Edgitha, while her mother wove sacred pictures to serve as hangings for the sanctuary of the priory church.

But soon the tolling of the bell announced that it was the compline hour, nine o’clock, and that hour was never allowed to pass unobserved at Æscendune, but formed the termination of the labour or the feast, after which it was customary for the whole household to retire, as well they might who rose with the early dawn.

Neither was it passed by on this occasion, although the boys looked very disappointed, for they would fain have listened to song or legend till midnight, if not later.

“Come, my children,” said the thane; “we must rise early, so let us all commit ourselves to the keeping of God and His holy angels, and seek our pillows.”

So the whole party repaired to the chapel, where the chaplain said the compline office or night song, after which Ella saluted his royal guest with reverent affection, and bestowed his paternal benediction upon his children. Then the whole party separated for the night.

The household was speedily buried in sleep, save the solitary sentinel who paced around the building. Not that danger was apprehended from any source, but precaution had become habitual in those days of turmoil. Occasionally the howl of the wolf was heard from the woods, and the sleepers half awoke, then dreamt of the chase as the night flew by.

CHAPTER III.
LEAVING HOME.

The sun arose in a bright and cloudless sky on the following morning, and his first beams aroused every sleeper in the hall of Æscendune from his couch of straw, for softer material was seldom or never used for repose. Even the chamber in which the prince slept could not be called luxurious: the bed was in a box-like recess; its coverlets, worked richly by the fair hands of the ladies, who had little other occupation, covered a mattress which even modern schoolboys would call rough and uncomfortable.

The wind played with the tapestry which represented the history of Joseph and his brethren, as it found its way in through crevices in the ill-built walls. There were two or three stools over which the thane’s care for his guest had caused coverlets to be thrown; a round table of rough construction stood like a tripod on three legs, upon which stood the unwonted luxury of ewer and basin, for most people had to perform their ablutions at the nearest convenient well or spring.

Leaving this chamber in good time, Prince Edwy acompanied his new friends to the priory church, where they heard mass before the sun was high in the heavens, after which they returned to the hall to take a light breakfast before they sought the attractions of the chase in the forest. Full of life they mounted their horses, and galloped in the wild exuberance of animal spirits with their dogs through the leafy arches of the forest, startling the red deer, the wolf, or the wild boar. Soon they roused a mighty individual of the latter tribe, who turned to bay, when the boys dismounted and finished the affair with their boar spears, not without some personal danger, and the loss of a couple of dogs.

Onward again they swept, past leafy glades of beech trees, where the swineherd drove his half-tame charges, or where the woodcutters plied their toil, and loaded their rude carts or hand barrows with fuel for the kitchen of the hall; past rookeries, where the birds made the air lively by their noise; over brook, through the half-dry marsh, until they came upon an old wolf; whom they followed and slew for want of better game, not without a desperate struggle, in which Elfric, ever the foremost, got a much worse scratch than on the preceding day.

But how enjoyable the sport was, how sweet to breathe the bright pure air of that May day; how grand to outstrip the wind over the yielding turf, and at last to carry home the trophies of their prowess; the scalp of the wolf, the tusks of the boar, leaving the serfs to bring in the succulent flesh of the latter, while the hawks and crows fed upon the former.

And then with what appetite they sat down to their “noon meat,” taken, however, at the late hour of three, after which they wandered down to the river and angled for the trout which abounded in the clear stream.

The youthful reader will not wonder that such attractions sufficed to detain Edwy several days, during which he was continually hunting in the adjacent forests, always attended by Elfric, and sometimes by Alfred. To the elder brother he seemed to have conceived a real liking, and expressed great reluctance to part with him.

“Could you not return with me to court,” he said, “and relieve the tedium of old Dunstan’s society? You cannot think what pleasures London affords; it is life there indeed—it is true there are no forests like these, but then, in the winter, when the country is so dreary, the town is the place.”

“My father will never consent to my leaving home,” returned Elfric, who inwardly felt his heart was with the prince.

“We might overcome that. I am to have a page. You might be nominally my page, really my companion; and should I ever be king, you would find you had not served me in vain.”

The idea had got such strong possession of the mind of Edwy, that he ventilated it the same night at the supper table, but met with scant encouragement. Still he did not despair; for, as he told Elfric, the influence of his royal uncle, King Edred, might be hopefully exerted on their joint behalf.

“I mean to get you to town,” he said. “I shall persuade my old uncle, who is more a monk than a king, that you are dreadfully pious, attached to monkish Latin, and all that sort of thing, so that he will long to get you to town, if it is only to set an example to me.”

“But if he does not find that I answer his expectations?”

“Oh, it will be too late to alter then; you will be comfortably installed in the palace; and, between you and me, he is but old and feeble, and has always had a disease of some kind. I expect he will soon die, and then who will be king save Edwy, and who in England shall be higher than his friend Elfric?”

It was a brilliant prospect, as it seemed to boys of fifteen, for such was the mature age of the speakers.

Shortly after the last conversation, an express came from the court to seek the young prince—the messenger had been long delayed from ignorance of the present abode of Edwy, who had carefully concealed the secret until he felt he could tarry no longer, fearing the wrath not only of the king, but of Dunstan, whom he dreaded yet more than his uncle.

So he and his attendants, who had, like him, found pleasant entertainment at Æscendune, bade farewell to the home where he had been so hospitably entertained: and so ended a visit, pregnant with the most important results, then utterly unforeseen and unintended, to the family he had honoured by his presence.

Some few weeks passed, and under the tuition of their chaplain, who was charged with their education, Elfric and Alfred had returned to their usual course of life.

It would seem somewhat a hard one to a lover of modern ease. They rose early, as we have already seen, and before breaking their fast went with their father and most of the household to the early mass at the monastery of St. Wilfred, returned to an early meal, and then worked hard, on ordinary occasions at their Latin, and such other studies as were pursued in that primitive age of England. The midday meal was succeeded by somewhat severe bodily exercise, generally hunting the boar or wolf which still abounded in the forests, an excitement not unattended by danger, which, however, their father would never permit them to shun. He knew full well the importance of personal courage at an age when the dangers of hunting were only initiatory to the stern duties of war, and no Englishman could shun the latter when his country called upon him to take up arms. Nor were martial exercises unknown to the boys; the bow, it is true, was somewhat neglected then in England, but the use of sword, shield, and battle-axe was daily inculcated.

“Si vis pacem,” Father Cuthbert said on such occasions, “para arma.”

Wearied by their exertions, whether at home or abroad, the brothers welcomed the evening social meal, and the rest which followed, when old Saxon legend or the harp of the gleeman enlivened the household fire, till compline sweetly closed the day.

Swiftly and pleasantly were passing the weeks succeeding the visit of the prince, when a royal messenger appeared, bearing a letter sealed with the king’s signet. The old thane, who had passed his youth in more troublous times, and could scarcely read the Anglo-Saxon version of the Gospels, then extant, could not construe the monkish Latin in which it was King Edred’s good pleasure to write.

So the chaplain, Cuthbert, read him the letter in which the king greeted his loyal and well-beloved subject, Ella of Æscendune, and begged of him, as a great favour, that he would send his eldest boy to court, to be the companion of the young prince, who had (the king said) conceived a great affection for Elfric.

“I hear,” added Edred, “that your boy is a boy after his father’s heart, full of love for the saints, diligent in his studies, and I trust well qualified to amend by example the somewhat giddy ways of my nephew.”

Ella felt that this latter commendation might be better bestowed upon Alfred, who, although far less full of boyish spirit and energy than his brother, was far more attached to his religious duties, as also far more attentive to the wishes of his parents; but his love for Elfric blinded him to more serious defects in the character of his son, or he might have feared their development in a congenial soil.

So the father saw his boy alone, and communicated the contents of the letter. The news was indeed welcome to Elfric, who panted for travel and adventure and the freedom he fancied he should get in Edwy’s society. But Ella hardly perceived this, and enlarged upon the dangers to which his son would be exposed, and tried to put before the boy all the “pros “ and “cons” of the question faithfully.

“He would not keep him back,” he said, “if he desired to leave home,” but as he uttered the words he felt his heart very heavy, for Æscendune would lose half its brightness in losing Elfric.

But Elfric’s choice was already made, and he only succeeded in repressing his delight with great difficulty, in deference to the serious aspect and words of his revered sire. But his decision, for it was left to him, was unchanged, and he stammered forth his desire to be a man, and to see the world, in words mingled with expressions of his deep love for his parents, which he was sure nothing could ever change.

Strange to say, now that the parental consent was gained, and no obstacle lay between him and the accomplishment of his ardent wish, he did not feel half so happy as he had expected to feel. Home affections seemed to increase as the hours rushed by which were to be his last in the bosom of his family; every familiar object became precious as the thought arose that it might be seen for the last time; favourites, both men and animals, had to be bidden farewell. There was the old forester, the gleeman, the warder, the gardener, the chamberlain, the cellarius, the cook (not an unimportant personage in Saxon households), the foster mother, his old nurse, and many a friend in the village. Then there were his favourite dogs, his pony, some pigeons he had reared; and all had some claim on his affection, home nurtured as he had been in a most kindly household.

But the appointed day came, the horse which was to bear him away stood at the door, another horse loaded with his personal effects stood near, for carriages were then unknown, neither would the roads have permitted their use, so changed were the times since the Roman period.

His father and mother, his brother and sister, stood without the drawbridge, where the last goodbye took place; tears started unbidden to his eyes—he was only fifteen—as he heard the parting blessing, and as his mother pressed him to her bosom.

Alfred and his sister Edith seemed almost broken hearted at the parting. But Elfric tried to bear up, and the end came.

The little cavalcade left the castle, two attendants, well armed and mounted, being his bodyguard.

Again and again he looked back; and when, after a journey of two miles, the envious woods closed in, and hid the dear familiar home from his sight, a strange sense of desolation rushed upon him, as if he were alone in the world.

The route taken by the cavalcade led them in the first place to Warwick, even then a flourishing Saxon town: this was the limit of Elfric’s previous wanderings, and when they left it for the south, the whole country was strange to him.

The royal messenger had business at the cathedral city of Dorchester, at the junction of the Tame and Isis, and they did not take the more direct route by the Watling Street, the most perfect Roman road remaining. The land was but thinly peopled, forests covered the greater portion, and desolate marshes much of the remainder; thus, through alternate forest and marsh, the travellers advanced along the ruinous remains of an old Roman crossroad, which had once afforded good accommodation to travellers, but had been suffered to fall into utter ruin and decay by the neglect of their successors, our own barbarous ancestors.

Originally it had been paved with stone, and causeways had been formed over marsh and mere, but the stones had been taken away, for the road formed the most accessible quarry in the neighbourhood. Here and there, however, it was still good, surviving the wear of centuries, and even the old mileposts of iron were still existing covered with rust, with the letters denoting so many Roman miles—or thousands of paces—still legible.

A few hours’ riding from Warwick brought them at the close of the day in sight of Beranbyrig (Banbury), where three centuries earlier a bloody battle had been fought, [^vi] wherein success—almost for the last time—visited the British arms, and saved the Celtic race from expulsion for twenty years.

The spot was very interesting to Elfric, for here his ancestor Sebbald had fought by the side of the invading king, Cynric, the son of Cerdic, and had fallen “gloriously” on the field.

“Look,” said Anlaf, the guide, “at that sloping ground which rises to the northwest. There the Welsh (Britons) stood, formed in nine strong battalions. In that hollow they placed their archers, and here their javelin men and cavalry were arranged after the old Roman fashion. Our Englishmen were all in one battalion, and charged them fiercely, when they were thrown into confusion by the cunning tricks of the Welsh, who made up in craft what they wanted in manly courage.

“Look at this brook which flows to the river, it was running with blood that evening, and our men lay piled in huge heaps where they tried to scale the hill which you see yonder.”

“And did the Welsh gain the day so easily?” said Elfric, sorrowfully.

“I don’t wonder; they were fighting for their lives, and even a rat will fight if you get him into a corner; besides, they had all their best men here.”

“Do you know where Sebbald fell?” said Elfric, referring to his own ancestor.

“Just under this hillock, close by King Cynric, who fought like a lion to save the body, but was unable to do so. The Welsh were then gaining the day. Still, even his foes respected his valour, and gave your forefather a fair and honourable burial.”

Leaving the battlefield, they entered the Saxon town, which was defended on one side by the Cherwell, on the other by a mound and palisade, with an outer ditch supplied by the river. Here they found hospitable entertainment, and left on the morrow for the town of Kirtlington.

They left Beranbyrig early, and reached the village of Sutthun (King’s Sutton), where they perceived a great multitude of people collected around a well at the outskirts of the village.

“What are these people doing?” asked Elfric.

“Oh, do you not know?” replied Anlaf. “This is St. Rumbald’s well,” and he crossed himself piously.

“Who was St. Rumbald?” asked Elfric innocently.

“Oh, he was son of the king of Northumbria, and of his queen, the daughter of the old king Penda of Mercia, and the strange thing is that he is a saint although he only lived three days.”

“How could that be?”

“Why it was a miracle, you see. On the day after his birth he was taken to Braceleam (Brackley), where he was baptized, and after his baptism he actually preached an eloquent sermon to the people. They brought him back to Sutthun next day, where he died, having first blessed this well, so that many precious gifts of healing are shown thereat. His relics were removed first to Braceleam, then to Buccingaham (Buckingham), where his shrine is venerated by the faithful. But come, you must drink of the holy water.”

So they approached the spot, and, after much labour to get at the well, drank of the water, which had a brackish taste, and proceeded on their journey southward through Kirtlington, then a considerable city, although now a small village. It was their intention to pass by the cathedral city of Dorchester, where Wulfstan was then bishop, where they arrived on the second night of their journey.

It was the largest city Elfric had as yet seen, possessing several churches, of which only one now remains. The hand of the ruthless Danes had not yet been laid heavily upon it, and the magnificence of the sacred fanes, built by cunning architects from abroad, amazed the Mercian boy.

There was the tomb of the great Birinus, the apostle of Mercia, who had founded the see in the year 630 A.D., and to whose shrine multitudes of pilgrims flocked each year. But the remains of Roman greatness most astonished Elfric. The ruins of the amphitheatre situate near the river Tame were grand even in their decay, and all the imaginative faculties of the boy were aroused, as one of the most learned inhabitants described the scenes of former days, of which tradition had been preserved, the gladiatorial combats, the wild beast fights.

The heir of Æscendune found hospitality at the episcopal palace, where Wulfstan,[^vii] once the turbulent Archbishop of York, held his court. The prelate seemed favourably impressed with his youthful guest, whom he dismissed with a warm commendation to Dunstan.

They left the city early in the morning, and passed through Bænesington (Benson), which having been originally taken from the Welsh by the Saxon chieftain Cuthulf, in the year 571, became the scene of the great victory of Offa, the Mercian king, over Cynewulf of Wessex in the year 777. One of Elfric’s ancestors had fought on the side of Offa, and the exploits of this doughty warrior had formed the subject of a ballad often sung in the winter evenings at Æscendune, so that Elfric explored the scene with great curiosity. Inferior to Dorchester, it was still a considerable town.

Late at night they reached Reading, where they slept, and started early on the morrow for London, where they arrived on the evening of the fourth day.

CHAPTER IV.
LONDON IN THE OLDEN TIME.

London, in the days of King Edred, differed widely from the stately and populous city we know in these days, and almost as widely from the elegant “Colonia Augusta,” or Londinium, of the Roman period. Narrow, crooked, and unpaved lanes wound between houses, or rather lowly cottages, built of timber, and roofed with thatch, so that it is not wonderful that a conflagration was an event to be dreaded.

Evidence met the eye on every side how utterly the first Englishmen had failed to preserve the cities they had conquered, and how far inferior they were in cultivation, or rather civilisation, to the softer race they had so ruthlessly expelled; for on every side broken pedestal and shattered column appeared clumsily imbedded in the rude domestic architecture of our forefathers.

St. Paul’s Cathedral rose on the hill once sacred to Diana but was wholly built within the ruins of the vast temple which had once occupied the site, and which, magnificent in decay, still surrounded it like an outwork. Further on were the wrecks of the citadel, where once the stern legionary had watched by day and night, and where Roman discipline and order had held sway, while the wall raised by Constantine, broken and imperfect, still rose on the banks of the river. Near the Ludgate was the palace of the Saxon king, and the ruins of an aqueduct overshadowed its humbler portal, while without the walls the river Fleet rolled, amidst vineyards and pleasant meadows dotted with houses, to join the mighty Thames.

Edred, the reigning king of England, was the brother of the murdered Edmund, and, in accordance with the custom of the day, had ascended the throne on the death of his brother, seeing that the two infant sons of the late king, Edwy and Edgar, were too young to reign, and the idea of hereditary right was not sufficiently developed in the minds of our forefathers to suggest the notion of a regency. It must also be remembered that, within certain limits, there was an elective power in the Witenagemot or Parliament, although generally limited in its scope to members of the royal family.

Edred was of very delicate constitution, and suffered from an inward disease which seldom allowed him an interval of rest and ease. Like so many sufferers he had found his consolation in religion, and the only crime ever laid to his charge (if it were a crime) was that he loved the Church too much. Still he had repeatedly proved that he was strong in purpose and will, and the insurgent Danes who had settled in Northumbria had owned his prowess. In the internal affairs of his kingdom he was chiefly governed by the advice of the great ecclesiastic and statesman, with whose name our readers will shortly become familiar.

Upon the morning after the arrival of Elfric in London, Edwy, the young prince, and his new companion, sat in a room on the upper floor of the palace, which had but two floors, and would have been considered in these days very deficient in architectural beauty.

The window of the room opened upon the river, and commanded a pleasant view of the woods and meadows on the Surrey side, then almost uninhabited, being completely unprotected in case of invasion, a contingency never long absent from the mind in the days of the sea kings.

A table covered with manuscripts, both in Latin and Anglo-Saxon, occupied the centre of the room, and there Elfric was seated, looking somewhat aimlessly at a Latin vocabulary, while Edwy was standing listlessly at the window. The “library,” if it deserved the name, was very unlike a modern library; books were few, and yet very expensive, so that perhaps there was no fuller collection in any layman’s house in the kingdom. There were Alfred’s translations into Anglo-Saxon, the “Chronicle of Orosius,” or the history of the World; the “History of the Venerable Bede,” both in his original Latin and in English; Boethius on the “Consolations of Philosophy;” narratives from ancient mythology; extracts from the works of St. Augustine and St. Gregory; and the Apologues or Fables from Æsop.[^viii]

“Oh, put those stupid books aside,” exclaimed the prince; “this is your first day in town, and I mean to take a holiday; that surly old Dunstan should have left word to that effect last night.”

“Will he not be here soon?”

“Yes, he is coming this morning, the old bear, to superintend my progress, and I wish him joy thereof.”

“What has he given you to do?” inquired Elfric.

“Why, a wretched exercise to write out. There, you see it before you; isn’t it a nuisance?”

“It is not very hard, is it?”

“Don’t you think it hard? See whether you can do it!”

Elfric smiled, and wrote out the simple Latin with ease, for he had been well instructed by Father Cuthbert at Æscendune.

He had scarcely finished when a firm step was heard upon the stairs.

“Hush,” said Edwy; “here comes Dunstan. Be sure you look solemn enough,” and he composed his own countenance into an expression of preternatural gravity.

The door opened, and an ecclesiastic in the prime of life entered the room, one whose mien impressed the beholder with an indefinable awe.

He was dressed in the Benedictine habit, just then becoming common in England, and his features were those of a man formed by nature to command, while they reconciled the beholder to the admission of the fact by the sad yet sweet smile which frequently played on the shapely countenance. He was now in the thirtieth year of his age, having been born in the first year of King Athelstane, and had been abbot of Glastonbury for several years, although his services as counsellor to King Edred had led him to spend much of his time in town, and he had therefore accepted the general direction of the education of the heir to the throne. Such was Dunstan.

He seemed but little welcome to Edwy, and the benediction with which he greeted his pupil was but coldly received.

Not appearing to notice this, he mildly said, “You must introduce your young companion to me, my prince. Am I not right in concluding that I see before me Elfric, heir to the lands of Æscendune?”

Elfric blushed as he bent the knee to the great churchman to receive the priestly benediction with which he was greeted, but remained silent.

“Father Cuthbert, whom I knew well years agone, has told me about you, and your brother Alfred; is not that his name?”

“He is so named, my father.”

“I am glad to perceive that my royal pupil has chosen so meet a companion, for Father Cuthbert speaks well of your learning. You write the Latin tongue, he tells me, with some little facility.”

Elfric feared his powers had been overrated.

“I trust you have resumed your studies after your long holiday,” continued Dunstan. “Youth is the season for sowing, age for reaping.”

“I have had a very bad headache,” said Edwy, “and have only been able to write a page of Latin. Here it is, father.”

And he extended the exercise Elfric had written to the abbot, who looked at the writing for one moment, and then glanced severely at the prince. The character was very like his own, but there was a difference.

“Is this your handwriting, Prince Edwy?” he asked.

“Of course. Elfric saw me write it, did you not?”

Elfric was not used to falsehood; he could not frame his lips to say “Yes.”

Dunstan observed his confusion, and he turned to the prince with a look in which contempt seemed to struggle with passive self-possession.

“I trust, Edwy,” he said, “you will remember that the word of a king is said to be his bond, and so should the word of a prince be if he ever hopes to reign. I shall give Father Benedict charge to superintend your studies as usual.”

He wished them a grave good morning, and left the room.

As soon as the last sound of his steps had ceased, Edwy turned sharply to Elfric—“Why did you not say yes at once? Surely you have a tongue?”

“It has never learnt to lie.”

“Pooh! What is the harm of such a white lie as that would have been? If you cannot give the credit of a Latin exercise, which you happen to have written, to your future king, you must be selfish; it is my writing, if you give it me, isn’t it?”

Elfric did not quite see the matter in that light, yet did not care to dispute the point; but his conscience was ill at ease, and he was glad to change the subject.

“When can we go out?” he said, for he was anxious to see the city.

“Oh, not till after the midday meal, and you must see the palace first; come now.”

So they descended and traversed the various courts of the building; the dormitories, the great dining hall, the audience chambers where Edred was then receiving his subjects, who waited in the anteroom, which alone the two boys ventured to enter. Finally, after traversing several courts and passages, they reached the guardroom.

Three or four of the “hus-carles” or household guards were here on duty. But in the embrasure of the window, poring over a map, sat one of very different mien from the common soldiers, and whose air and manner, no less than his dress, proclaimed the officer.

“Redwald,” said the prince, advancing to the window, “let me make you acquainted with my friend and companion, Elfric of Æscendune.”

The officer started, as if with some sudden surprise, but it passed away so quickly that the beholder might fancy the start had only existed in imagination, as perhaps it did.

“This gallant warrior,” said Edwy to Elfric, “is my friend and counsellor in many ways; and if he lives there shall not be a thane in England who shall stand above him. You will soon find out his value, Elfric.”

“My prince is pleased to flatter his humble servant,” said Redwald.

But Elfric was gazing upon the soldier with feelings he could scarcely analyse. There was something in his look and the tone of his voice which struck a hidden chord, and awoke recollections as if of a previous existence.

“Redwald,” as Edwy named him, was tall and dark, with many of the characteristics of the Danish race about him. His nose was slightly aquiline, his eyes hid beneath bushy eyebrows, while his massive jaw denoted energy of character—energy which one instinctively felt was quite as likely to be exerted for evil as for good.

He was captain of the hus-carles, and had but recently entered the royal service. Few knew his lineage. He spoke the Anglo-Saxon tongue with great fluency, and bore testimonials certifying his valour and faithfulness from the court of Normandy, where the Northmen under Rollo had some half-century earlier founded a flourishing state, then ruled over by the noble Duke “Richard the Fearless.”

Edwy seemed to be on intimate terms with this soldier of fortune; in fact, with all his proud anticipation of his future greatness, he was never haughty to his inferiors, perhaps we should say seldom, for we shall hereafter note exceptions to this rule. It would be a great mistake to suppose that the pomp and ceremony of our Norman kings was shared by their English predecessors: the manners and customs of the court of Edred were simplicity itself.

After a few moments of private conversation with Redwald, the boys returned to their chamber to prepare for dinner.

“You noted that man,” said Edwy; “well, I don’t know how I should live without him.”

Elfric’s looks expressed surprise.

“You will find out by and by; you have little idea how strictly we are kept here, and how much one is indebted to one’s servants for the gift of liberty, especially in Lent and on fast days, when one does not get half enough to eat, and must sometimes escape the gloom and starvation of the palace.”

“Starvation?”

“What else do you call it, when you get nothing but fish, fish, fish, and bread and water to help it down. My uncle is awfully religious. I can hardly stand it sometimes. He would like to spend half the day in chapel, but, happily for all the rest of us, the affairs of state are too urgent for that, so we do get a little breathing time, or else I should have to twist my mouth all of one side singing dolorous chants and tunes which are worse than a Danish war whoop, for he likes, he says, to hear the service hearty.”

“But it helps you on with your Latin.”

“Not much of that, for I sing anything that comes into my head; the singing men make such a noise, they can hear no one else, and I fancy they don’t know what a word of the Latin prayers means.”

“But isn’t it irreverent—too irreverent, I mean. Father Cuthbert made me afraid to mock God, he told such stories about judgment.”

“All fudge and nonsense—oh, I beg your pardon, it is all very godly and pious, and really I expect to be greatly edified by your piety in chapel. Pray, when shall you be canonised?”

Elfric could not bear ridicule, and blushed for the second time that morning. Just then the bell rang for dinner, or rather was struck with a mallet by the master of the ceremonies.

King Edred dined that day, as one might say, in the bosom of his family; only Dunstan was present, besides the boys Edwy, Edgar his younger brother, and Elfric. It was then that Elfric first saw the younger prince, a pale studious-looking boy of twelve, but with a very firm and intellectual expression of countenance. He was a great favourite with Dunstan, whom the boy, unlike his brother, regarded with the greatest respect and reverence.

The conversation was somewhat stiff; Edred spoke a few kind words to the young stranger, and then conversed in an undertone with Dunstan, the whole dinner time; the princes themselves were awed by the presence of their uncle and his spiritual guide.

But at last, like all other things, it was over, and with feelings of joy the boys broke forth from the restraint. The whole afternoon was spent in seeing the sights of London, and they all three, for Edgar accompanied them, returned to the evening meal, fatigued in body, but in high spirits. Compline in the royal chapel terminated the day, as mass had begun it.

CHAPTER V.
TEMPTATION.

But a few days had passed before Elfric learned the secret of Redwald’s influence over the young prince.

The household of Edred was conducted with the strictest propriety.[^ix] All rose with the lark, and the first duty was to attend at the early mass in the royal chapel. Breakfast followed, and then the king on ordinary days gave the whole forenoon to business of state, and he thought it his duty to see that each member of the royal household had some definite employment, knowing that idleness was the mother of many evils. So the young princes had their tasks assigned them by their tutor, as we have already seen, and the spare hours which were saved from their studies were given to such practice in the use of the national weapons as seemed necessary to those who might hereafter lead armies, or to gymnastic exercises which strengthened nerve and muscle for a time of need.

In the afternoon they might ride or walk abroad, but a strict interdict was placed upon certain haunts where temptation might perchance be found, and they had to return by evensong, which the king generally attended in person when at home. Then, in winter, indoor recreations till compline, for it was a strict rule of the king that his nephews should not leave the palace after sundown.

He further caused their tutor, who directed their education under the supervision of Dunstan—Father Benedict—whom we have already introduced, to see that they properly discharged all the duties of public and private devotion.

But he did not see, in the excess of his zeal, that he was really destroying the prospects which were nearest his heart, and that there can be no more fatal mistake than to compel the performance of religious duties which exceed the measure of the youthful capacity or endurance.

With Edgar, who was naturally pious, the system produced no evil result; but with Edwy the effect was most sad. He had become, as we have seen, deceitful; and a character, naturally fair, was undermined to an extent which neither the king nor Dunstan suspected.

The reader may naturally ask how could Dunstan, so astute as he was, make this mistake, or at least suffer Edred to make it?

The fact was that Dunstan understood the affairs of state better than those of the heart, and although well fitted for a guide to men of sincere piety, and capable of opposing to the wicked an iron will and inflexible resolution, he did not understand the young, and seemed to have forgotten his own youth. Sincerely truthful and straightforward, he hardly knew whether to feel more disgust or surprise at Edwy’s evident unfaithfulness. He little knew that unfaithfulness was only one of his failings, and not the worst.

A few nights after Elfric’s arrival, when the palace gates had been shut for the night, the compline service said, the household guard posted, and the boys had retired to their sleeping apartments, he heard a low knock at his door. He opened it, and Edwy entered.

“Are you disposed for a pleasant evening, Elfric?”

“Such pleasure as there is in sleep.”

“No, I do not mean that. We cannot sleep, like bears in winter, during all the hours which should be given to mirth. I am going out this evening, and I want you to go with me.”

“Going out?”

“Yes. Don’t stand staring there, as if I was talking Latin or something harder; but get your shoes on again—

“No; you had better come down without shoes; it will make less noise.”

“But how can we get out? I have not the least idea where you are going?”

“All in good time. We shall get out easily enough. Are you coming?”

Half fearful, yet not liking to resist the prince, and his curiosity pressing him to solve the secret, Elfric followed Edwy down the stairs to the lower hall, where Redwald was on guard. He seemed to await the lads, for he bowed at once to the prince and proceeded to the outer door, where, at an imperious signal from him, the warder threw the little inner portal open, and the three passed out.

“Is the boat ready?” said Edwy.

“It is; and trusty rowers await you.”

Redwald led the way to the river’s brink, and there pointed out a skiff lying at a short distance from the shore. At a signal, the men who manned it pulled in and received the two youths on board, then pulled at once out into the stream.

“How do you like an evening on the river?” said Edwy.

“It is very beautiful, and the stars are very bright tonight; but where are we going?”

“You will soon find out.”

Finding his royal companion so uncommunicative, Elfric remained silent, trusting that a few minutes would unravel the mystery.

But an hour had passed, during which the boat steadily progressed up stream, before the watermen pulled in for the shore, and a dark building loomed before them in dim shadow.

“Here is the place,” said Edwy. “Be ready, my men, to take us back about midnight, or a little later;” and he threw some pieces of money amongst them.

Passing through a large garden, they arrived at a porch before a stout door garnished with knobs of iron, which might bid defiance to thief or burglar.

“Whose house is this?” asked Elfric.

“Wait; you shall soon see.”

The loud knocking Edwy made at the door soon brought some domestics, who, opening a small wicket, discovered the identity of their principal visitor, and immediately threw open the door.

“Thanks,” said Edwy; “we were almost frozen.”

Passing through a kind of atrium—for the old Roman fashion was still sometimes followed in this particular—the domestics ushered the visitors into a room brilliantly lighted by torches stuck in cressets projecting from the walls, and by huge wax candles upon a table spread for a feast. The light revealed a small but apparently select party, who seemed to await the prince: a lady, who appeared to be the mistress of the mansion; a young girl apparently about the age of Edwy, who, calling her his fair cousin, saluted her fondly; and two or three youths, whose gaudy dress and affected manners were strongly in contrast with the stern simplicity of the times.

After saluting each person with the greatest freedom, Edwy introduced his companion.

“Here is a young novice I have brought to learn the noble art of merrymaking, of wine and wassail. We have both been literally starved at the palace—I should say monastery—of Monk Edred today. It is Friday, and we have been splendidly dining upon salt fish served up on golden salvers. My goodness! the flavour of that precious cod is yet in my mouth. Food for cats, I do assure you, and served up to kings. What did you think of it, Elfric?”

Elfric was ashamed to say that it had not been so very bad after all. Truth to say his conscience was uneasy, for he had been brought up to respect the fasts of the Church, and he saw a trial awaiting him in the luscious dishes before him.

“What does it matter?” the reader may exclaim; “it is not that which goeth into the mouth which defileth a man,” etc.

True, most wise critic, but it is that which goeth out; and if disobedience be not amongst the evils which defile, then Adam did not fall in Paradise when he ate the forbidden fruit. Elfric could not touch flesh on fast days without the instinctive feeling that he was doing wrong, and no one can sin against the conviction of the heart without danger.

The party now seated themselves, and without any grace or further preface the feast began. Servants appeared and served up the most exquisite dishes, of a delicacy almost unknown in England at that day, and poured rich wines into silver goblets. It was evident that wealth abounded in the family they were visiting, and that they had expended it freely for the gratification of Edwy.

Ethelgiva, the lady of the house, was of noble presence, which almost seemed to justify the claim of royal blood which was made for her. Tall and commanding, age had not bent her form, although her locks were already white. Her beauty, which must have been marvellous in her younger days, had attracted the attention of a younger son of the reigning house, and they were married at an early age, secretly, without the sanction of the king.

The fruit of their union was Elgiva, a name destined to fill a place in a sad and painful tragedy; but we are anticipating, and must crave the reader’s pardon.

Bright and cheerful indeed was the fair Elgiva at this moment. Her beauty was remarkable even in a land so famed for the beauty of its daughters; and the ill-advised Edwy may be pitied, if not altogether pardoned, for his infatuation, for infatuation it was in a day when the near tie of blood between them precluded the possibility of lawful matrimony, save at the expense of a dispensation never likely to be conceded, since the temperament of men like Odo, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and of Dunstan, was opposed to any relaxation of the law in the case of the great when such relaxation was unattainable by the poor and lowly.

To return to our subject:

The feast proceeded with great animation. At first Elfric hesitated when the meat was placed before him, but he withered, in his weakness, before the mocking smile of Edwy, and the sarcasm which played upon the lips of the rest of the company, who perceived his hesitation. So he yielded, and, shaking off all restraint, ate heartily.

Dish followed dish, and the wine cup circulated with great freedom. Excited as he was, Elfric could but remark the loose tone of the conversation. Subjects were freely discussed which had never found admittance either in the palace of King Edred or at Æscendune, and which, indeed, caused him to look up with surprise, remembering in whose presence he sat.

But, as is often the case in an age where opinion is severely repressed in its outward expression, and amongst those compelled against their will to observe silence on such subjects on ordinary occasions, all restraint seemed abandoned at the table of Ethelgiva. It was not that the language was coarse, but whether the conversation turned upon the restraints of the clergy, or the court, or upon the fashionable frivolities of the day—for there were frivolities and fashions even in that primitive age—there was a freedom of expression bordering upon profanity or licentiousness.

Edred was mocked as an old babbler; Dunstan was sometimes a fool, sometimes a hypocrite, sometimes even a sorcerer, although this was said sneeringly; the clergy were divided into fools and knaves; the claims of the Church—that is of Christianity—derided, and the principle freely avowed—“Enjoy life while you can, for you know not what may come after.”

Excited by the wine he had drunk, Elfric became as wild in his talk as the other young men, and as the intoxicating drink mounted to his brain, seemed to think that he had just learnt how to enjoy life.

The ladies retired at last, and Edwy followed them. Elfric was on the point of rising too, but a hint from his companions restrained him. The wine cup still circulated, the conversation, now unrestrained, initiated the boy into many an evil secret he had never known earlier; and so the hours passed on, till Edwy, himself much flushed, came in and said that it was time to depart, for midnight had long been tolled from the distant towers of London.

He smiled as he saw by Elfric’s bloodshot eyes and unsteady gait, as he rose, upsetting his seat, that his companion was something less master of himself than usual; he felt, it need hardly be said, no remorse, but rather regarded the whole thing as what might now be termed “a jolly lark.”

“Shall you require bearers, or can you walk to the boat? I do not wonder you are ill, you have eaten too much fish today; it is a shame to make the knees weak through fasting in this style.”

“I—I—am all right now.”

“You will be better in the air.”

So, bidding a farewell of somewhat doubtful character to his entertainers, Elfric was assisted to the boat. The air did not revive him, he felt wretchedly feverish and giddy, and could hardly tell how he reached the river.

Reach it, however, he did, and the strong arms of the watermen impelled the boat rapidly down the tide, until it reached the stairs near the palace.

Here Redwald was in waiting, and assisted them to land.

“You are very late, or rather early,” he said.

“Yes,” said Edwy, “but it has been a jolly evening, only poor Elfric has been ill, having of course weakened himself by fasting.”

Redwald smiled such a scornful smile, and muttered some words to himself. Yet it did not seem as if he were altogether displeased at the state in which he saw Elfric. It may be added that Edwy was but little better.

“You must keep silent,” said Redwald; “I believe the king and Dunstan are hearing matins in the chapel: it is the festival of some saint or other, who went to the gridiron in olden days.”

The outer gate of the palace was cautiously opened, and, taking off their shoes, the youths ascended the stairs which led to their apartments as lightly as possible.

“Send the leech Sigebert to us in the morning—he must report Elfric unwell—for he will hardly get up to hear Dunstan mumble mass.”

“Perhaps your royal highness had better rest also.”

“And bring suspicion upon us both? No,” said Edwy, “one will be enough to report ill at once; Dunstan is an old fox.”

Poor Elfric could hardly get to bed, and, almost for the first time since infancy, he laid himself down without one prayer. Edwy left him in the dark, and there he lay, his head throbbing, and a burning thirst seeming to consume him.

Long before morning he was very sick, and when the bell was sounded for the early mass it need hardly be said that he was unable to rise.

Sigebert the physician, who, like Redwald, was in the confidence of the future king, Edwy, came in to see him, and asked what was the matter.

“I am very sick and ill,” gasped Elfric.

“I suppose you have taken something that disagreed with you—too much fish perhaps.” (with a smile).

“No—no—I do not—”

“I understand,” said the leech; “you will soon be better; meanwhile, I will account for your absence at chapel. Here, take this medicine; you will find it relieve you.”

And he gave Elfric a mixture which assuaged his burning thirst, and bathed his forehead with some powerful essence which refreshed him greatly, whereupon the leech departed.

Only an hour later, and Edred, hearing from the physician of Elfric’s sudden illness, came in to see the boy, whose bright cheerful face and merry disposition had greatly attracted him. This was hardest of all for Elfric to bear; he had to evade the kind questions of the king, and to hear expressions of sympathy which he felt he did not deserve.

More than once he felt inclined to tell all, but the fear of the prince restrained him, and also a sense of what he thought honour, for he would not betray his companion, and he could not confess his own guilt without implicating Edwy.

Poor boy! it would have been far better for him had he done so: he had taken his first step downward.

CHAPTER VI.
LOWER AND LOWER.

It becomes our painful duty to record that from the date of the feast, described in our last chapter, the character of poor Elfric underwent rapid deterioration. In the first place, the fact of his having yielded to the forbidden indulgence, and—as he felt—disgraced himself, gave Edwy, as the master of the secret, great power over him, and he never failed to use this power whenever he saw any inclination on the part of his vassal to throw off the servitude. It was not that he deliberately intended to injure Elfric, but he had come to regard virtue as either weakness or hypocrisy, at least such virtues as temperance, purity, or self restraint.

The great change which was creeping over Elfric became visible to others: he seemed to lose his bright smile; the look of boyish innocence faded from his countenance, and gave place to an expression of sullen reserve; he showed less ardour in all his sports and pastimes, became subject to fits of melancholy, and often seemed lost in thought, anxious thought, in the midst of his studies.

He seldom had the power, even if the will, to communicate with home. Mercia was in many respects an independent state, subject to the same king, but governed by a code of laws differing from those of Wessex; and it was only when a royal messenger or some chance traveller left court for the banks of the Midland Avon, that Elfric could use the art of writing, a knowledge he was singular in possessing, thanks to the wisdom of his sire.

So the home authorities knew little of the absent one, for whom they offered up many a fervent prayer, and of whom they constantly spoke and thought. And yet, so mysterious are the ways of Providence, it seemed as if these prayers were unanswered—seemed indeed, yet they were not forgotten before God.

Seemed forgotten; for Elfric was rapidly becoming reckless. Many subsequent scenes of indulgence had followed the first one, and other haunts, residences of licentious young nobles, or taverns, had been sought out by the youths, and always by Redwald’s connivance.

He was Edwy’s evil genius, and always seemed at hand whensoever the prince sought occasion to sin. Still, he was not at all suspected by Edred, before whom he kept up an appearance of the strictest morality—always punctual in his attendance at mass, matins, and evensong, and with a various stock of phrases of pious import ready at tongue in case of need or opportunity of using them to advantage.

To Elfric, his behaviour was always reserved, yet he seemed even more ready to lend him a helping hand downward than did the prince.

So time passed on; weeks became months; and Christmas with all its hallowed associations had passed; it had been Elfric’s first Christmas away from home, and he was sad at heart, in spite of the boisterous merriment of his companions. The spring of the year 955 came on, and Lent drew near, a season to which Edwy looked forward with great dread, for, as he said, there would be nothing in the whole palace to eat until Easter, and he could not even hope to bribe the cook.

The canons of the church required all persons to make confession, and so enter upon the fast tide, having “thus purified their minds;” [^x] it may, alas! be easily guessed how the guilty lads performed this duty, how enforced confession only led to their adding the sin of further deceit, and that of a deadly kind.

Thus they entered upon Lent: their abstinence was entirely compulsory, not voluntary; and although they made up for it in some degree when they could get away from the palace, yet even this was difficult, for it was positively unlawful for butchers to sell or for people to buy meat at the prohibited seasons, and the law was not easily evaded. But it was a prayerless Lent also to Elfric, for he had, alas! even discontinued his habit of daily prayer, a habit he had hitherto maintained from childhood, a habit first learned at his mother’s knee.

Holy Week came, and was spent with great strictness; the king seemed to divide his whole time between the business of state and the duties of religion.

Dunstan was absent at Glastonbury, but other ecclesiastics thronged the palace, and there were few, save the guilty boys and Redwald, who seemed uninfluenced by the solemn commemoration.

But it must not be supposed that Elfric was wholly uninfluenced: after the preaching of the Passion by a poor simple monk on Good Friday, he retired to his own little room, where he wept as if his heart would break. Had Dunstan been then in town, the whole story would have been told, and much misery saved, for Elfric felt he could trust him if he could trust anybody; but unhappily Dunstan was, as we have seen, keeping Passiontide at his abbey.

Still, Elfric felt he must tell all, and submit to the advice and penance which might be imposed; and as he sat weeping over his sin that Good Friday night, with the thought that he might find pardon and peace through the Great Sacrifice so touchingly pleaded that day, he felt that the first step to amendment must lie in a full and frank confession of all; he knew he should grievously offend Edwy, and that he should lose the favour of his future king, but he could not help it.

“Why, oh why did I leave Æscendune, dear Æscendune?—fool that I was—I will go back.”

And a sweet desire of home and kindred rose up before him—of his father’s loving welcome, his fond mother’s chaste kiss, and of the dear old woods and waters—the hallowed associations of his home life. He rose up to seek Father Benedict, determined to enter upon the path of peace at any cost, when Edwy entered.

He did not see in the gathering darkness the traces of emotion visible on poor Elfric’s countenance, and he began in his usual careless way—“How are you, Elfric, my boy; glad Lent is nearly over? What a dismal time that wretched monk preached this morning!”

“Edwy, I am utterly miserable: I must tell all; I cannot live like this any longer.”

“What a burst of penitence! go to confession; to be sure it looks well, and if one can only manage to get out a few tears they account him a saint; tell me the receipt.”

“But, Edwy, I must tell all!”

“Not if you are wise.”

“Why not? It is all in secrecy.”

“No it is not; you will be required as a penance to go and tell the king all that we have done; you may do so, and I will manage to represent matters so as to throw the whole blame on you; you will be sent home in disgrace.”

Poor Elfric hung down his head; the thought of his disgrace reaching home had not occurred to him.

“Come,” said Edwy, “I don’t want to be hard upon you. Cheer up, my man. What have you done amiss? Only enjoyed yourself as nature has guided you. Why should you think God meant us to pass through life like those miserable shavelings Edred delights to honour? Cheer up, Elfric; your bright face was never meant for that of a hypocrite. If you are so dreadfully bad, you are in a pretty numerous company; and I don’t think the shavelings believe their own tales about fire and torment hereafter. They are merry enough, considering.”

In short, poor Elfric’s short-lived penitence was given to the winds. Edwy went alone to be shriven on the morrow.

On Easter Day they both received the Holy Communion in the royal chapel.

From that time remorse ceased to visit the heir of Æscendune, as if he had at last quenched the Spirit, and he became so utterly wild and reckless, that at last Dunstan thought it necessary to speak to him privately on the subject. It was nearly six months after Easter.

The boy entered the study set apart for the use of the great monk and statesman with a palpitating heart, but he managed to repress its beatings, and put on a perfectly unconcerned expression of countenance. He had gained in self control if in nothing else.

“I wished to speak with you, Elfric,” said the abbot, “upon a very serious matter. When you first came here, I was delighted to have you as a companion to the prince. You were evidently well brought up, and bore an excellent character; but, I grieve to say, you have greatly changed for the worse. Are you not aware of it?”

“No, father. What have I done?”

Dunstan sighed at the tone of the reply, and continued—“It is not any particular action of which I wish to accuse you, but of the general tenor of your conduct. I do not speak harshly, my boy; but if truth be told, you are as idle as you were once diligent, as sullen and reserved as once candid and open: and, my son, your face tells a tale of even worse things, and, but that I am puzzled to know where you could obtain the means of self indulgence, I should attribute more serious vices to you.”

“Who has accused me, father?”

“Yourself—that is, your own face and manner. Did you ever contemplate yourself in a mirror when at home? There is a steel one against that wall, go and look at yourself now.”

Elfric blushed deeply.

“My face is still the same,” he said.

“It is the same, and yet not the same. Innocence once took her place at its portals, and had sealed it as her own; the expression is all changed; my boy, I am absolutely certain that all is not well with you. For your own sake, delay no longer to avoid the danger of losing your salvation, for the habits you form now will perhaps cling to you through life. Turn now to your own self; confess your sin, and be at peace.”

“I came to confession at Shrovetide; I am not required to come now, am I?”

“Required? No, my boy, it is your own sense of guilt, alone, which should draw you. The Church, since there has been no public scandal, leaves you to your own judgment at such a time as this. Have you never felt such remorse of conscience as would tell you your duty?”

“Never.”

He thought of Good Friday, and blushed.

“Your tone and words belie each other, my boy. God grant you repentance; you will not accept my help now, but the time may come when you will seek help in vain.”

Elfric bowed, without reply, and at a sign left the chamber.

A few weeks later, at the beginning of November, Edred left London for a tour in the west, and quitted his nephews with more than his usual affection, although his goodbye to Elfric was more constrained, for the good old king, not knowing the whole truth, was beginning to fear that Elfric was a dangerous companion. He little thought that he was rather sinned against than sinning.

Dunstan was to follow him in a week, and only remained behind to discharge necessary business.

The heart of the amorous Edwy beat with delight as he saw his uncle depart, and he made arrangements at once to spend the night after Dunstan’s departure in mirth and jollity at the house of Ethelgiva and her fair daughter.

He came back after an interview with Redwald on the subject, and found Elfric in their common study. There was an alcove in the room, and it was covered by a curtain.

“O Elfric,” said the prince, “is it not delightful? The two tyrants, the king and the monk, will soon be gone. I wish the Evil One would fly off with them both, and when the cat is away will not the mice play? I have made all the arrangements; we shall have such a night at the lady Ethelgiva’s.”

“How is the fair Elgiva?”

It was now Edwy’s turn to blush and look confused.

“I wish I had the power of teasing you, Elfric. But if you have a secret you keep it close. Remember old Dunstan vanishes on the fifteenth, and the same evening, oh, won’t it be joyful? But I am tired of work. Come and let us take some fresh air.”

They left the room, when the curtain parted, and the astonished countenance of Father Benedict, who had been quietly reading in the deep embrasure of the window, presently appeared. He looked like a man at whose feet a thunderbolt had fallen, and hastily left the room.

The week passed rapidly away, and at its close Dunstan took his departure. A train of horses awaited him, and he bade the young princes Edwy and Edgar farewell, with the usual charge to work diligently and obey Father Benedict.

That same night, after the clerks had sung compline in the chapel, and the chamberlain had seen to the safety of the palace, Edwy came quietly to the room of his page, and the two left as on the first occasion. Redwald attended them, and just before the boat left the bank he spoke a word of caution.

“I fear,” he said, in a low tone, “that all is not quite right. That old fox Dunstan is up to some trick; he has not really left town.”

“Perhaps he has a similar appointment tonight,” said Edwy, sarcastically. “I should keep mine though he and all his monks from Glastonbury barred the way.”

They reached the castellated mansion of Ethelgiva in due course, and the programme of the former evening was repeated, save that, if there was any change, the conversation was more licentious, and the wine cup passed more freely.

It was midnight, and one of the company was favouring them with a song of questionable propriety, when a heavy knock was heard at the door. The servants went to answer it, and all the company awaited the issue in suspense.

One of the principal domestics returned with haste, and whispered some words into the ear of Ethelgiva—which seemed to discompose her.

“What can this mean?” she said. “A guard of soldiers demand admittance in the king’s name?”

A louder knocking attested the fact.

“You must admit them, or they will batter the door down. Edwy, Elfric! here, hide yourselves behind that curtain, it veils a deep recess.”

They had scarcely concealed themselves when Dunstan entered, attended by a guard of the royal hus-carles.

“What means this insolence?” said Ethelgiva.

“No insolence is intended, royal lady, nor could be offered to the widow of the Etheling, by me,” replied Dunstan, “but I seek to discharge a sacred trust committed to me. Where are my pupils, the Prince Edwy and his companion?”

“In their beds, at the palace, I should suppose.”

“Nay, be not so perfidious; they are here, lady, and probably within hearing; they must come forth, or I must order the guard to search the house, which I should regret.”

“By whose authority?”

“By that of the king, whose signet is on my hand.”

“They are not here; they left half-an-hour ago.”

“Pardon me, madam, if I observe that we have watched the house for an hour.

“Had not this scene better terminate?” he added, with icy coldness.

At this moment a favourite dog, which Edwy had often petted, and which had entered with the guard, found him out behind the curtain, and in its vociferous joy betrayed the whole secret.

Confusion or smiles sat on every face save that of the imperturbable Dunstan.

“Your dog, madam, is more truthful than its mistress,” he said, bluntly yet quietly; and then, advancing to the recess, he drew aside the curtain and gazed upon the discovered couple.

“Will you kindly return to the palace with me?”

“How dare you, insolent monk, intrude upon the pleasures of your future king?”

“I dare by the orders of the present king, your royal uncle, who has committed the whole matter into my hands; and, Prince Edwy, in the discharge of my duty ‘dare’ is a superfluous word. Will you, as I said before, both follow me, if you are sufficiently masters of yourselves to do so?”

The import of all this was seen at a glance, but there was no course but submission, and Edwy well knew how utterly indefensible his conduct was; so, with crestfallen gait, he and Elfric followed their captor to the river, where was another large boat by the side of their own. They entered it, and returned to the palace stairs much more sober than on previous occasions.

CHAPTER VII.
“THE KING IS DEAD!—LONG LIVE THE KING!”

The unhappy Elfric passed the night in a most unenviable frame of mind. He felt distinctly how utterly he was in the power of Dunstan, and that he could only expect to return home in disgrace; yet there was no real repentance in all this: he had sinned and suffered, but although he dreaded punishment he no longer hated sin.

He scarcely slept at all, and early in the morning he rose to seek an interview with Edwy, when he found that he was a prisoner. One of the hus-carles posted at his door forbade all communication.

Early in the morning the bell sounded for the early service, still he was not released, and later his breakfast was brought to him, after which he heard a heavy step approaching, and Dunstan appeared at the door of the sleeping chamber.

He entered, and gazed at Elfric for a moment without speaking, as if he would read his very heart by his face; it was hardly comfortable.

“Elfric,” he said at last, “do you remember the warning I gave you six months ago?”

“No,” said Elfric, determined, in desperation, to deny everything.

“I fear you are hardly telling me the truth; you must remember it, unhappy boy! Why were you not warned in time? Why did you refuse the advice which might have saved you from all this?”

“Because it was my fate, I suppose.”

“Men make their own fates, and as they make their beds so must they lie upon them; however, I have not come here to reproach you, but to bid you prepare to return home.”

“Home?—so soon?” said Elfric.

“Yes, you must leave tomorrow, when a messenger will be prepared to accompany you, and to explain the cause of your dismissal from court to your father, whom I most sincerely pity; and let me hope that you will find leisure to repent of your grievous sin in the solitude of your native home.”

“Must my father be told everything?”

“I fear he must: you have left us no choice; and it is the better thing, both for him and for you; he will understand better what steps are necessary for your reformation—a reformation, I trust, which will be accomplished in good time, whereat no one will rejoice more than I.”

A pert answer rose to Elfric’s lips, but he dared not give utterance to it; the speaker was too great in his wrath to be defied with impunity.

“Farewell,” said Dunstan, “would that I could say the word with brighter hopes; but should you ever repent of your sin, as I trust you may, it will gladden me to hear of it. I fear you may have done great harm to England in the person of her future king, but God forgive you in that case.”

Elfric felt the injustice of the last accusation; he coloured, and an indignant denial had almost risen to his lips, but he repressed it for Edwy’s sake—faithful, even in his vice, to his friend.

“Am I to consider myself a prisoner? you have posted a sentinel, as if I were a criminal.”

“You must be confined to your apartment, but you may have books and anything else you desire. The prince is forbidden to see you again. Your confinement will only be for one day; tomorrow you will be free enough; let me beg you to use the occasion for calm reflection, and, I hope, penitence.”

Dunstan left the room, and Elfric heard his retreating steps go heavily down the stairs, when a sudden and almost unaccountable feeling came over him—a feeling that he had thrown himself away, and that he was committed to evil, perhaps never to be able to retrace his course, never to all eternity; the retreating steps sounded as if his sentence were passed and the door of mercy shut. He shook off the strange feeling; yet, could he have seen the future which lay undiscovered before him, and which must intervene before he should see that face again, or hear those steps, he might have been unable thus to shake off the nameless dread.

The day wore away, night drew on; he laid himself down and tried to sleep, when he heard voices conversing outside, and recognised Edwy’s tones; immediately after the prince entered.

“What a shame, Elfric,” he said, “to make you a prisoner like this, and to send you away—for they say you are to go tomorrow —you shall not be forgotten if ever I become king, and I don’t think it will be long first. The first thing I shall do will be to send for you; you will come; won’t you?”

“I will be yours for life or death.”

“I knew it, and this is the faithful friend from whom they would separate me; well, we will have this last evening together in peace; old Dunstan has gone out, and Redwald has put a man as your guard who never sees anything he is not wanted to see.”

“What a convenient thing!”

“But you seem very dull; is anything on your mind which I do not know? What did Dunstan say to you?”

“He is going to write home to my father all particulars. It will make home miserable.”

“Perhaps we may find a remedy for that,” said Edwy, and left the room hastily.

Shortly he returned in company with Redwald.

“Come with us, Elfric,” said the prince “there is no one in the palace to interfere with us. Old Dunstan received a sudden message, and has gone out hastily; we will go and see what he has written.”

Somewhat startled at the audacity of the proposal, Elfric followed the prince, and Redwald accompanied them. After passing through a few passages, they arrived at the cell, or rather study, usually occupied by Dunstan when at court, and entered it, not without a slight feeling of dread, or rather of reluctance.

“Here it is,” said Edwy, and held up a parchment, folded, sealed, and directed to “Ella, Thane of Æscendune.”

“I should like to know what he has written,” said the prince. “Redwald, you understand these things; can you open the letter without breaking the seal?”

“There is no need of that,” replied the captain of the hus-carles, “I can easily seal it again; see, there is the signet, and here the wax.”

So he broke the letter open and extended it to the prince, whose liberal education had given him the faculty of reading the monkish Latin, in which Dunstan wrote, at a glance, and he read aloud:

“TO MY BROTHER IN CHRIST,

“ELLA, THANE OF ÆSCENDUNE—

“It grieveth me much, most beloved brother, to be under the necessity of sending your son Elfric home in some little disgrace; but it is, alas a necessity that I should do so, in virtue of the authority our good lord and king, Edred, hath entrusted to me. The lad was bright, and, I think, innocent of aught like deadly sin, when he came to this huge Babel, where the devil seems to lead men even as he will, and he hath fallen here into evil company—nay, into the very company most evil of all in this wicked world, that of designing and shameless women, albeit of noble birth. It hath been made apparent to me that there is great danger to both the prince and your son in any further connection, therefore I return Elfric to your care, sincerely hoping that, by God’s help, you will be enabled to take such measures as will lead to his speedy reformation, for which I devoutly pray. The bearer will give such further information as you may desire.

“Wishing you health, and an abiding place in the favour of God and His saints—Your brother in the faith of Christ,

“DUNSTAN, O.S.B.”

Edwy read the letter aloud with many a vindictive comment, and then said to Redwald—“What can be done? Must this letter go?”

“Does your father know the Saint’s handwriting, Elfric?”

“He never heard from him before, I believe.”

“Well, then, I will venture to enclose a different message,” and he sat down at the table, and wrote—“TO MY BROTHER IN CHRIST,

“ELLA, THANE OF ÆSCENDUNE—

“It rejoiceth me much, most beloved brother, to send you good tidings of the good behaviour and growth in grace of your son, whom the king hath concluded to send home for the benefit of his health, since London hath in some degree destroyed the ruddy hue of his countenance, and he needeth a change, as his paleness sufficiently declareth.

“The king hath bidden me express his great satisfaction with the lad’s conduct, and the prince mourneth his enforced departure. Wishing you health and an abiding place in the favour of God and His saints—Your brother in the faith of Christ,

“DUNSTAN, O.S.B.”

The boys laughed aloud as they read the forgery.

“But about the messenger—will he not tell the truth?”

“Oh, I will see to him, he is not above a bribe, and knows it is his interest to serve his future king, although Dunstan thinks him so trusty.”

All at once the booming of a heavy bell smote their ears.

“It is the bell of St. Paul’s, it tolls for the death of some noble,” said Redwald; “what can it mean? has any member of the royal family been ill?”

They listened to the solemn dirge-like sound as it floated through the air, calling upon all good Christians to pray for the repose of the departed or departing soul. No prayer rose to their lips, and they soon returned to the subject in hand.

“When is the letter to be despatched?”

“Early in the morning the messenger will await you; and now, I should recommend some sleep to prepare for a fatiguing journey.”

Elfric and the prince returned to their chamber, but they did not take Redwald’s hint, and remained talking till just before daybreak, when they were aroused by the hasty step of an armed heel, and Redwald stood before them. His demeanour was very strange; he bent down on one knee, took the hand of Edwy, who resigned it passively to him, kissed it and cried aloud—“God save the king!”

“What can you mean, Redwald?” exclaimed both the youths.

“Heard you not the passing bell last night? Edred sleeps with his fathers; he died at Frome on St. Clement’s day.”

For a moment they were both silent.

“And Edwy, the great grandson of Alfred, is king of England.”

At first the young prince was deeply shocked at the sudden news of the death of his uncle, to whom, in spite of appearances, he was somewhat attached. He turned pale, and was again silent for some minutes; at last, he gulped down a cup of water, and asked—“But how did Dunstan know?”

“Why, it is a strange tale. Three days ago, at the very hour the king must have died, he says that he saw a bright light, and beheld a vision of angels, who said, ‘Edred hath died in the Lord,’ but he treated it as a dream, and last night a messenger came with the news of the sudden illness of the king, bidding Dunstan hasten to his side. He left everything, and started immediately, but in a few miles met another messenger, bearing the news of the death. He has gone on, but sent the messenger forward to the Bishop of London, who caused the great bell to be tolled.

“We must all die some day,” said Edwy, musingly; “but it is very very sudden.”

“And I trust he has obtained a better kingdom,” added Redwald; “he must, you know, if the monks tell the truth, so why should we weep for him?”

“At least,” said Edwy, looking up, “Elfric need not go home now.”

“No, certainly not, but he had better disappear from court for a time. The lady Ethelgiva might afford him hospitality, or he might stay at the royal palace at Kingston. I will tell the messenger to keep out of the way, and Dunstan may suppose that his orders have been obeyed to the letter.”

“Why should we trouble what he may think or say?”

“Because the Witan has not yet met, and until it has gone through the form, the mere form, of recognising your title, you are not actually king. Dunstan has some influence. Suppose he should use it for Edgar?”

“Edgar, the pale-faced little priestling!”

“All the better for that in Dunstan’s eyes. Nay, be advised, my king; keep all things quiet until the coronation is over, then let Dunstan know who you are and who he is.”

“Indeed I will. He shall have cause to rue his insolent behaviour the other night.”

“Bide your time, my liege; and now the great officers of state require your presence below.”

A few days later a sorrowful procession entered the old city of Winchester, the capital of Wessex, and once a favourite residence of Edred, now to be his last earthly resting place. Much had the citizens loved him; and as the long train defiled into the open space around the old minster—old, even then—the vast assemblage, grouped beneath the trees around the sacred precincts, lifted up their voices and joined in the funeral hymn, while many wept tears of genuine sorrow. It was awe inspiring, that burst of tuneful wailing, as the monks entered the sacred pile, and it made men’s hearts thrill with the sense of the unseen world into which their king had entered, and where, as they believed, their supplications might yet follow him.

There were the chief mourners—Edwy and Edgar—and they followed the royal corpse, the latter greatly afflicted, and shedding genuine tears of sorrow—and the royal household. All the nobility of Wessex, and many of the nobles from Mercia and other provinces, were gathered together, and amidst the solemn silence of the vast crowd, Dunstan performed the last sad and solemn rites with a broken voice; while the archbishop—Odo the Good, as he was frequently called—assisted in the dread solemnity.

It was over; the coffin was lowered to the royal vaults to repose in peace, the incenses had ceased to float dreamily beneath the lofty roof,[^xi] the various lights which had borne part in the ceremony were extinguished, the choral anthem had ceased, for Edred slept with his fathers.

And outside, the future king was welcomed with loud cries of “God save King Edwy, and make him just as Alfred, pious as Edred, and warlike as Athelstane!”

“Long live the heir of Cerdic’s ancient line!”

Thus their cries anticipated the decision of the Witan, and without all was noise and clamour; while within the sacred fane the ashes of him who had so lately ruled England rested in peace by the side of his royal father Edward, the son of Alfred, three of whose sons—Athelstane, Edmund, Edred—had now reigned in succession.

It must not be supposed that Edwy was as yet king by the law of the land. The early English writers all speak of their kings as elected; it was not until the Witan had recognised them, that they were crowned and assumed the royal prerogatives.

Edwy had followed Redwald’s advice: he had kept Elfric out of the way, and meant to do so until his coronation day. And meanwhile he condescended to disguise his real feelings, and to affect sorrow for his past failings when in the presence of Dunstan.

Yet he took advantage of the greater liberty he now enjoyed to renew his visits to the mansion up the Thames, and to spend whole days in the society of Elgiva. In their simplicity and deep love they thought all the obstacles to their happy union now removed. Alas! ill-fated pair!

CHAPTER VIII.
THE CORONATION.

Nothing could exceed in solemnity the “hallowing of the king,” as the coronation ceremony was termed in Anglo-Saxon times. It was looked upon as an event of both civil and ecclesiastical importance, and therefore nothing was omitted which could lend dignity to the occasion.

The Witan, or parliament, had already met and given its consent to the coronation of Edwy. It was not, as we have already remarked, a mere matter of course that the direct heir should occupy the throne. Edred had already ascended, while Edwy, the son of his elder brother, was an infant, not as regent, but as king; and in any case of unfitness on the part of the heir apparent, it was in the power of the Witan to pass him over, and to choose for the public good some other member of the royal house. The same Witan conferred upon Edgar the title of sub-king of Mercia under his brother.

Solemn and imposing was the meeting of the Witenagemot, or “assembly of the wise.” It was divided into three estates. The first consisted of the only class who, as a rule, had any learning in those days—the clergy, represented by the bishop, abbot, and their principal officials: the second consisted of the vassal kings of Scotland, Cumbria, Wales, Mona, the Hebrides, and other dependent states, the great earls, as of Mercia or East Anglia, and other mighty magnates: the third, of the lesser thanes, who were the especial vassals of the king, or the great landholders, for the possession of land was an essential part of a title to nobility.

Amongst these sat Ella of Æscendune, who, in spite of his age, had come to the metropolis to testify his loyalty and fealty to the son of the murdered Edmund, his old friend and companion in arms, and to behold his own eldest son once more.

It was the morning of a beautiful day in early spring, one of those days of which the poet has written—

“Sweet day, so calm, so pure, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky”

—when winter seems to have loosed its stern hold upon the frozen earth, and the songs of countless birds welcome the bright sunlight, the harbinger of approaching summer.

The roads leading to Kingston-on-Thames were thronged with travellers of every degree—the ealdorman or earl with his numerous attendants, the bishop with rude ecclesiastical pomp, the peasant in his rough jerkin—all hastening to the approaching ceremony, which, as it had been definitely fixed, was to take place at that royal city.

There Athelstane had been crowned with great pomp and splendour, for it was peculiarly “Cynges tun” or the King’s Town, and after the coronation it was customary for the newly-crowned monarch to take formal possession of his kingdom by standing on a great stone in the churchyard.

The previous night, Archbishop Odo had arrived from Canterbury, and his bosom friend and brother, Dunstan, from Glastonbury, as also Cynesige, Bishop of Lichfield, a man in every way like-minded with them; while nearly all the other prelates, abbots, and nobles, arrived in the early morn of the eventful day.

The solemn service of the coronation mass was about to commence, and the people were assembling in the great church of St. Mary, filling every inch of available room. Every figure was bent forward in earnest gaze, and every heart seemed to beat more quickly, as the faint and distant sound of deep solemn music, the monastic choirs chanting the processional psalms, drew near.

Suddenly the jubilant strains filled the whole church, as the white-robed train entered the sacred building while they sang:

“Quoniam prævenisti eum in benedictionibus dulcedinis, posuisti in capiti ejus coronam de lapide pretioso.” [^xii]

Incense ascended in clouds to the lofty roof; torches were uplifted, banners floated in the air, every eye was now strained to catch a glimpse of the youthful monarch.

He came at last. Oh, how lovely the ill-fated boy looked that day! His beauty was of a somewhat fragile character, his complexion almost too fair, his hair shone around his shoulders in waves of gold, for men then wore their hair long, his eyes blue as the azure vault on that sweet spring morning: alas, that his spiritual being should not have been equally fair!

Elfric stood by his father, amidst the crowd of thanes, near the rood screen, for he had spent the last few days at Kingston, and there his father had found him, and had embraced him with joy, little dreaming of the change which had come over his darling boy.

“Look, father, is he not every inch a king?” Elfric could not help exclaiming, forgetting the place and the occasion in his pride in his king and his friend.

He would have been one of the four boys who bore the royal train, but it had not seemed advisable on such a day to offend Dunstan too seriously.

The mass proceeded after the royal party had all taken their places, and the coronation service was incorporated into the rite, following the Nicene Creed and preceding the canon.

Kneeling before the altar, the young prince might well tremble with emotion. Before him stood the archbishop, clad in full pontifical vestments; around were the most noted prelates and wisest abbots of England; behind him the nobility, gentry, and commonalty of the whole country—all gazing upon him, as the archbishop dictated the solemn words of the oath, which Edwy repeated with trembling voice after him.

“In the name of the ever-blessed Trinity, I promise three things to the Christian people, my subjects:

“First, that the Church of God within my realm shall enjoy peace, free from any molestation.”

“Second, that I will prevent, to the utmost of my power, theft and every fraud in all ranks of men.”

“Thirdly, that I will preserve and maintain justice and mercy in all judicial proceedings, so that the good and merciful God may, according to His mercy, forgive us all our sins, Who liveth and reigneth for ever and ever. Amen.”

Then followed a most solemn charge from “Odo the Good,” setting forth all the deep responsibilities of the oath Edwy had taken, and of the awful account to be rendered to God of the flock committed to his youthful charge, at the great and awful day of judgment.

Then the holy oil was solemnly poured upon the head of the kneeling boy, after which he made the usual offertory of “gold, frankincense, and myrrh,” at the altar, emblematical of the visit of the three kings of old, who from Sheba bore their gold and incense to the Lord.

Then was the sacred bracelet put upon his arm, the crown on his head, the sceptre in his hand, after which the mass proceeded.

It is touching to recall the worship of those far-off days, when all the surrounding circumstances differed so widely from those of the present hour; yet the Church, in her holy conservatism, has kept intact and almost changeless all that is hers; that day the “Nicene Creed,” “Sanctus,” “Agnus Dei,” “Gloria in Excelsis,” rolled as now in strains of melody towards heaven, and the “Te Deum” which concluded the jubilant service is our Te Deum still, albeit in the vulgar tongue.

The sacred rites concluded, the royal procession left the church and proceeded to the churchyard, when Edwy took formal possession of Wessex, by the ceremony of standing upon a large rock called the King’s Stone, whence the town derived its name.

The feast was spread in the palace hard by, and all the nobles and thanes (if the words are not synonymous) flocked thither, while the multitude had their liberal feast spread at various tables throughout the town, at the royal expense.

Elfric followed his father to the palace, and was about to take his place at the board, when a page appeared and summoned him to the presence of Edwy.

“I shall keep a vacant place for you by my side,” said Ella, “so that we may feast together, my son, when the king releases you; it is a great honour that he should think of you now.”

Elfric followed the messenger, who led him into the interior of the palace, where he found Edwy impatiently awaiting him in the royal dressing chamber.

Elfric had expected to find the newly-crowned king deeply impressed, but if such had been the case, at the moment it had passed away.

“Thanks to all the saints, including St. George, and especially the dragon, that I can look into your jolly face again, Elfric, it is a relief after all the grim-beards who have surrounded me today. I shudder when I think of them.”

Elfric had been about to kneel and kiss the royal hand, in token of homage, but Edwy saw the intention and prohibited him.

“No more of that an thou lovest me, Elfric; my poor hand is almost worn out already.”

“The day must have tired you, the scene was so exciting.”

Edwy yawned as he replied, “Thank God it is over; I thought Odo was going to preach to me all day, and the incense almost stifled me; the one good thing is that it is done now, and all England—Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia —have all acknowledged me as their liege lord, the Basileus of Britain. What is done can’t be undone, and Dunstan may eat his leek now, and go to fight Satan again.”

Elfric looked up in some surprise.

“What do you think, my friend; who do you suppose is here in the palace, in the royal apartments?”

“Who?”

“Elgiva, the fair Elgiva, the lovely Elgiva, dear Elgiva, and her mother. Oh, but I shall love to look upon her face when the feast is done, and the grim-beards have gone!”

“But Dunstan?”

“Dunstan may go and hang himself; he can’t scrape off the consecrated oil, or carry away crown, bracelet, and sceptre, to hide with the other royal treasures at Glastonbury; but the feast is beginning, and you must come and sit on my right hand.”

“No, no,” said Elfric, who saw at once what an impropriety this would be, “not yet; besides, my old father is here, and has kept a seat beside himself for me.”

“Well, goodbye for the present; I shall expect you after the feast. Elgiva will be glad to see you.”

Elfric returned to his father, but a feeling of sadness had taken possession of him, an apprehension of coming evil.

The feast began; the clergy and the nobility of the land were assembled in the great hail of the palace, and there was that profusion of good cheer which befitted the day, for the English were, like their German ancestors, in the habit of considering the feast an essential part of any solemnity.

How much was eaten and drunk upon the occasion it would be dangerous to say, for it would probably exceed all modern experience, but it seemed to the impatient Edwy that the feast and the subsequent drinking of pledges and healths would never end, and he was impatient the whole time to get away and be in the company of the charmer.

An opportunity seemed at last to offer itself to his immature judgment. Gleemen had sung, harpers had harped, but the excitement culminated when Siward, a Northumbrian noble, who was a great musician, and skilful in improvisation, did not disdain, like the royal Alfred, to take the harp and pour forth an extemporary ode of great beauty, whereupon the whole multitude rose to their feet and waved their wine cups in the air, in ardent appreciation of the patriotic sentiments he had uttered, and the beauty of the music and poetry.

During the full din of their heated applause, when all eyes were fixed upon the accomplished musician, Edwy rose softly from his chair; a door was just behind him, and he took advantage of it to leave the hail and thread the passages quickly, till he came to the room where he had left Elgiva, when he threw aside his royal mantle and all his restraint at the same time.

It was not for a few moments that the company in the hall discovered the absence of their king, but when they did there was a sudden hush, and men looked at each other in mute astonishment; it appeared to all, with scarce an exception, a gross insult to the assembled majesty of the nation. [^xiii]

Poor Edwy, in his thoughtlessness and want of proper feeling, little knew the deep anger such a proceeding would cause; in his lack of a reverential spirit he was constantly, as we have seen, offending against the respect due to the Church, the State, or himself—first as heir presumptive, then as king.

Men stood mute, as we have said, then murmurs of indignation at the slight arose, and all looked at Dunstan.

He beckoned to Cynesige of Lichfield, who came to his side.

“We must bring this thoughtless boy back,” he said, “or great harm will be done.”

“But how?”

“By persuasion, if possible. Follow me.”

The two prelates entered the interior of the palace, and sought the king’s private chamber.

As they drew near they heard the sound of merry laughter, and each of them frowned as men might do who were little accustomed to condone the weakness of human flesh. Entering the chamber very unceremoniously, they paused, as if aghast, when they beheld the king in the company of Elgiva, his royal diadem cast upon the ground.

He started in surprise, and for a moment in fear; then, remembering who he was, he exclaimed, angrily—“How dare you, sir monk, intrude upon the privacy of your king, unbidden?”

“We do so as the ambassadors of the King of kings.”

It is out of our power to describe the scene which followed, the fiery words of Edwy, the stern yet quiet rejoinders of the churchmen, the tears of the mother and daughter; but it is well known how the scene ended. Edwy absolutely refused to return to the assembled guests, saying he would forfeit his kingdom first; and Dunstan replied that for his (Edwy’s) own sake he should then be compelled to use force, and suiting the action to the word, he and Cynesige took each an arm of the youthful king, and led him back by compulsion to the assembled nobles and clergy.

Before condemning Dunstan, we must remember that Elgiva could not stand in the relation of the affianced bride of the king; that Edwy really seemed to set the laws of both Church and State at defiance, those very laws which but that day he had sworn solemnly to maintain; and that but recently he had stood in the relation of pupil to Dunstan, so that in his zeal for Church and State, the abbot forgot the respect due to the king. He saw only the boy, and forgot the sovereign.

The guests assembled in the banqueting hall had seen the desertion of their royal master with murmurs both loud and deep; but when they saw him return escorted by Dunstan and Cynesige, their unanimous approval showed that in their eyes the churchmen had taken a proper step.

Yet, although Edwy tried to make a show of having returned of his own free will, an innocent device at which his captors connived when they entered the hall with him, the bitterest passions were rankling in his heart, and he determined to take a terrible revenge, should it ever be in his power, upon Dunstan.

There was comparatively little show of merriment during the rest of the feast, and the noble company separated earlier than was usual on such occasions.

“If this be the way King Edwy treats his guests,” said the Earl of Mercia, “he will find scant loyalty north of the Thames.”

“Nor in East Anglia,” said another.

“There is another of the line of Cerdic living.”

“Yes, Edgar, his brother.”

“Dunstan and Cynesige brought him back with some difficulty, I’ll be bound.”

“Yes; although he tried to smile, I saw the black frown hidden beneath.”

“He will take revenge for all this.”

“Upon whom?”

“Why, upon Dunstan to be sure.”

“But how can he? Dunstan is too powerful for that.”

“Wait and see.”

Such was the general tone of the conversation, from which the sentiments of the community might be inferred.

Elfric went, as he had been bidden to do, at the conclusion of the feast, to seek Edwy, and found him, it is needless to state, in a towering rage.

“Elfric,” he said, “am I a king? or did I dream I was crowned today?”

“You certainly were.”

“And yet these insolent monks have dared to force me from the company of Elgiva to return to that sottish feast, and what is worse, I find they have dared to send her and her mother home under an escort, so that I cannot even apologise to them. As I live, if I am a king I will have revenge.”

“I trust so, indeed,” said Elfric, “they deserve death.”

“I would it were in my power to inflict it; but this accursed monk—I go mad when I mention his name—is all too powerful. I believe Satan helps him.”

“Still there may be ways, if you only wait till you can look around you.”

“There may indeed.”

“Only have patience; all will be in your hands some day.”

“And if it be in my power I will restore the worship of Woden and Thor, and burn every monk’s nest in the land.”

“They were at least the gods of warriors.”

“Elfric, you will stand by me, will you not?”

“With my life.”

“Come to the window, now; see the old sots departing. There a priest, there a thane, there an earl—all drunk, I do believe; don’t you think so?”

“Yes, yes,” said Elfric, disregarding the testimony of both his eyes that they were all perfectly sober.

Just then his eye caught a very disagreeable object, and he turned somewhat pale.

“What are you looking at?” said Edwy.

“There is that old fox, Dunstan, talking with my father; he will learn that I am here.”

“What does it matter?”

“Only that he will easily persuade my father to take me home.”

“Then the commands of a king must outweigh those of a father. I have heard Dunstan say a king is the father of all his people, and I command you to stay.”

“I want to stay with all my heart.”

“Then you shall, even if I have to make a pretence of detaining you by force.”

The anticipations of Elfric were not far wrong. Dunstan had found out the truth. He had sought out the old thane to condole with him upon the pain he supposed he must recently have inflicted by his letter.

“I cannot express to you, my old friend and brother,” he said, “the great pain with which I sent your poor boy Elfric home, but it was a necessity.”

“Sent him home?” said Ella.

“Yes, at the time our lamented Edred died.”

“Sent him home!” repeated Ella, in such undisguised amazement that Dunstan soon perceived something was amiss, and in a few short minutes became possessed of the whole facts, while Ella learnt his son’s disgrace.

They conferred long and earnestly. The father’s heart was sorely wounded, but he could not think that Elfric would resist his commands, and he promised to take him back at once to Æscendune, where he hoped all would soon be well—“soon, very soon,” he said falteringly.

So the old thane went to his lodgings, hard by the palace, where he awaited his son.

Late in the evening Elfric arrived, his countenance flushed with wine: he had been seeking courage for the part he had to play in the wine cup.

Long and painful, most painful, was the interview that followed. Hardened in his rebellion, the unhappy Elfric defied his father’s authority and justified his sin, flatly refusing to return home, in which he pretended to be justified by “the duty a subject owed to his sovereign.”

Thus roused to energy, Ella solemnly adjured his boy to remember the story of his uncle Oswald, and the sad fate he had met with. It was very seldom indeed that Ella alluded to his unhappy brother, the story was too painful; but now that Elfric seemed to be commencing a similar course of disobedience, the example of the miserable outlaw came too forcibly to his mind to be altogether suppressed.

“Beware, my son,” added Ella, “lest the curse which fell upon Oswald fall upon you, and your younger brother succeed to your inheritance.”

“It is not a large one,” said Elfric, “and in that case, the king whom I serve will find me a better one.”

“Is it not written, ‘Put not your trust in princes?’ O my son, my son; you will bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave!”

It was of no avail. The old thane arose in the morning with the intention of taking Elfric home even by force, such force as Dunstan had used, if necessary, but found that the youth had disappeared in the night; neither could he learn what had become of him, but he shrewdly guessed that the young king could have told him.

Broken-hearted by his son’s cruel desertion, the thane of Æscendune returned home alone.

CHAPTER IX.
GLASTONBURY ABBEY.

Rich in historical associations and reputed sanctity, the abbey of Glastonbury was the ecclesiastical centre of western England. Here grew the holy thorn which Joseph of Arimathea had planted when, fatigued with travel, he had struck his staff into the ground, and lo! a goodly tree; here was the holy well of which he had drunk, and where he baptized his converts, so that its waters became possessed of miraculous power to heal diseases.

Here again were memorials, dear to the vanquished Welsh; for did not Arthur, the great King Arthur, the hero of a thousand fights, the subject of gleeman’s melody and of the minstrel’s praise, lie buried here? if indeed he were dead, and not spirited away by magic power.

A Welsh population still existed around the abbey, for it was near the borders of West Wales, as a large portion of Devon and Cornwall was then called, and Exeter had not long become an English town.[^xiv] The legends of Glastonbury were nearly all of that distant day when the Saxons and Angles had not yet discovered Britain, and she reposed safe under the protection of mighty Rome; hence, it was the object of pilgrimage and of deep veneration to all those of Celtic blood, while the English were unwilling to be behind in their veneration.

Here, in the first year of the great English king Athelstane, Dunstan was born, the son of Herstan and Kynedred, both persons of rank—a man destined to influence the Anglo-Saxon race first in person and then in spirit for generations—the greatest man of his time, whether, as his contemporaries thought, mighty for good, or, as men of narrower minds have thought, mighty for evil.

In his early youth, Glastonbury lay, as it lies now, in ruin and decay; the Danes had ravaged it, and its holy walls were no longer eloquent with prayer and praise. Yet the old inhabitants still talked with regret of the departed glories of the fane; the pilgrim and the stranger still visited the consecrated well, hoping to gain strength from its healing wave, for the soil had been hallowed by the blood of martyrs and the holy lives of saints; here kings and nobles, laying aside their greatness, had retired to prepare for the long and endless home, and in the calm seclusion of the cloister had found peace.

Here the mind of the young Dunstan was moulded for his future work; here, weak in body, but precocious in intellect, he drew in, as if with his vital breath, legend and tradition; here, from a body of Scottish missionaries, or, as we should now call them, Irish,[^xv] he learned with rapidity all that a boy could acquire of civil or ecclesiastical lore, and both in Latin and in theology his progress amazed his tutors.

Up to this time the world had held possession of his heart, and, balancing the advantages of a religious and a secular life, he chose, as most young people would choose, the attractions of court, to which his parents’ rank entitled him, and leaving Glastonbury he repaired to the court of Edmund.

There his extraordinary talents excited envy, and he was accused of magical arts: his harp had been heard to pour forth strains of ravishing beauty when no human hand was near, and other like prodigies, savouring of the black art, were said to attend him, so that he fled the court, and took refuge with his uncle, Elphege, the Bishop of Winchester.

A long illness followed, during which the youth, disgusted with the world, and startled by his narrow escape from death, reversed the choice he had previously made, and renounced the world and its pleasures.

Ordained priest at Winchester, he was sent back with a monk’s attire to Glastonbury, where he gave himself up to austerities, such as, in a greater or less degree, always accompanied a conversion in those days; here miracles were reported to attend him, and stories of his personal conflicts with the Evil One were handed from mouth to mouth, until his fame had filled the country round.[^xvi]

The influence he rapidly acquired enabled him to commence the great work of rebuilding Glastonbury, in which he was only interrupted by the frequent calls which he had to court, to become the adviser of King Edmund; where indeed he was often in the discharge of the office of prime minister of the kingdom, and showed as much aptitude in civil as in ecclesiastical affairs.

Glastonbury being rebuilt, the Benedictine rule [^xvii] was introduced, and Dunstan himself became abbot. It was far the noblest and best monastic code of the day, being peculiarly adapted to prevent the cloister from becoming the abode of either idleness or profligacy.

But this was not done without much opposition; the secular priests—as the married clergy and those who lived amongst their flocks (as English clergy do now) were called—opposed the introduction of the Benedictine rule with all their might, and were always thorns in Dunstan’s side.

The unfortunate Edmund, after the sad event at Pucklechurch, on the feast of St. Augustine, was buried at Glastonbury by the abbot, and his two sons, Edwy and Edgar, were put under Dunstan’s especial care by the new king Edred. The rest of the story is tolerably well known to our readers.

The first steps of Edwy’s reign were all taken with a view to one great end—to revenge himself and to destroy Dunstan, who, aware of the royal enmity, and of his inability to restrain the sovereign, withdrew himself quietly to Glastonbury, and confined himself to the discharge of his duties as its abbot.

But this did not satisfy Edwy, who, panting for the ruin of the monk he hated, sought occasion for a quarrel, and soon found it. Dunstan had been the royal almoner, and had had the disposal of large sums of money, for purposes connected with the Church, on which they had been strictly expended. Now Edwy required a strict account of all these disbursements, which Dunstan refused to give, saying it had already been given to Edred, and that no person had any right to investigate the charities of the departed king.

His stout resistance gained the day in the first instance, but Edwy never felt at rest while Dunstan lived at peace in the land, and Ethelgiva and her fair daughter were ever inciting him to fresh acts of hostility, little as he needed such incitement.

The first measures were of a very dishonourable kind. Evil reports were spread abroad to destroy the character of the great abbot, and prepare people’s minds for his disgrace: then disaffection was stirred up amongst the secular clergy surrounding Glastonbury—a very easy thing; and attempts were made in vain to create a faction against him in his own abbey; then at last the neighbouring thanes, many of Danish extraction and scarcely Christian, were stirred up to invade the territory of the abbey, and were promised immunity and secure possession of their plunder. They liked the pleasant excitement of galloping over Dunstan’s ecclesiastical patrimony, of plundering the farms and driving away the cattle, and there was scarcely a night in which some fresh outrage was not committed. At this point the action of our tale recommences.

It will be remembered that the father of Ella had found relief from his grief, after the death of his unhappy son Oswald, in building and endowing the monastery of St. Wilfred, situate on the river’s bank, at a short distance from the hall.

The completion of the work had, however, been reserved for his son, and, everything being now done, it became the earnest desire of Ella, with the consent of the brethren who had been gathered into the incomplete building, to place it under the Benedictine rule.

For this end he determined to send a messenger to negotiate with Dunstan at Glastonbury, and, yielding to Alfred’s most earnest request, he consented to send him, in company with Father Cuthbert, who was to be the future prior, upon the mission.

Since the desertion of Elfric, his brother Alfred had been as a ministering angel to his father, so tender had been his affection, yet so manly and pure. He was by nature gifted with great talents, and his progress in ecclesiastical lore, almost the only lore of the day, would have well fitted him for the Church; but if this idea had ever been in the mind of the thane, he put it aside after the departure of Elfric.

But it must not be supposed that the only literature of the period was in Latin. Alfred, the great King Alfred, skillful in learning as in war, had translated into English (as we have mentioned earlier in our tale) the History of the World, by Orosius, and other works, which formed a part of the royal library in the palace of Edred. All these works were known to his young namesake, Alfred, far better than they had been either to Edwy or Elfric, in their idleness, and he was well informed beyond the average scope of his time. But his imagination had long been fired by the accounts he had received of Glastonbury and its sanctuary, so that he eagerly besought his father to allow him to go thither.

But the poor old thane felt much like Jacob when he was begged to send Benjamin into Egypt. Elfric was not, so far as home ties were concerned, they had never heard of him since the coronation day, and now they would take Alfred from him.

It may seem strange to our readers that Ella should regard a journey from the Midlands to Glastonbury in so serious a light; but Wessex and Mercia had long been independent states, communication infrequent, and it would certainly be many weeks before Alfred could return; while inexperience magnified the actual dangers of the way.

Coaches and carriages were not in use, neither would the state of the roads have rendered such use practicable. All travellers were forced to journey on horseback, and, like Elfric when he departed from home, to carry all their baggage in a similar manner.

The navigation of the Avon, which would have opened the readiest road to the southwest, was impeded by sandbanks and rapids; there were as yet no locks, no canals.

Once the Romans had made matchless roads, as in other parts of their empire, but not a stone had been laid thereon since the days of Hengist and Horsa, and many a stone had been taken away for building purposes, or to pave the courtyards of Saxon homes.[^xviii]

Still the ancient Foss Way, which once extended from Lincolnshire to Devonshire, formed the best route, and it was decided to travel by it, making a brief detour, so as to enable the party to pass the first night at the residence of an old friend of the family who dwelt on the high borderland which separates the counties of Oxford and Warwick, in old times the frontier between the two Celtic tribes, the Dobuni and the Carnabii.

So Father Cuthbert and Alfred, with three attendant serfs, left Æscendune early on a fine summer morning, and followed a byroad through the forest, until, after a few difficulties, arising from entanglement in copse or swamp, they reached the Foss Way. Wide and spacious, this grand old road ran through the dense forest in an almost unbroken line; huge trees overshadowed it on either side, and the growth of underwood was so dense that no one could penetrate it without difficulty. Sometimes the scene changed, and a dense swamp, amidst which the timber of former generations rotted away, succeeded, but the grand old road still offered, even in its decay, a firm and sure footing. Built with consummate skill, the lower strata of which it was composed remained so firm and unyielding, that, could the Romans but have returned for a few years, they might have restored it to its ancient perfection, when the traveller might post rapidly upon it from Lincoln even to Totness in Devonshire.

Little, however, did our travellers think of the grand men of old who had built this mighty causeway six or seven centuries earlier. Their chief feeling, when they reached it, was one of relief; the change was so acceptable from the tangled and miry bypath through the forest.

“Holy St. Wilfred,” exclaimed Father Cuthbert, “but my steed hath wallowed like a hog. I have sunk in the deep mire where was no footing.”

“A little grooming will soon make him clean again, father.”

“But verily we have passed through a slough and a wilderness, and my inner man needeth refreshment; let us even partake of the savoury pies wherewith the provident care of thy father hath provided us.”

The suggestion was by no means a bad one, and the party sat down on a green and sloping bank, overshadowed by a mighty oak which grew by the wayside. It was noontide, and the shelter from the heat was not at all unpleasant. Their wallets were overhauled, and choice provision found against famine by the road. There were few, very few inns where travellers could obtain decent accommodation, and every preparation had been made for a camp out when necessary.

So they ate their midday meal with thankfulness of heart, and reclined awhile ere courting more fatigue. The day was lovely, and the silence of the woods almost oppressive; nought save the hum of insects broke its tranquillity.

Fatigued by the exertions of the morning, the whole party fell asleep; the gentle breeze, the quiet rustling of the leaves, all combined to lull the senses. While they thus slept, the day wore on, and the sun was declining when they awoke and wondered that they had wasted their time for so long a period.

Starting again with renewed energy, they travelled onward through the mighty forest till sunset, when they approached the high ground which now runs along the northern boundary of Oxfordshire and of which Edgehill forms a portion. Though progress had been slow, for the road, although secure, was yet in so neglected a state as to form an obstacle to rapid travelling, and they had met no fellow travellers. Leaving the Foss Way, which followed the valley, and slowly ascending the hill by a well-marked track, they looked back from its summit upon a glorious view. Far as the eye could reach stretched the forest to the northward, one huge unbroken expanse save where the thin wreaths of smoke showed some village or homestead, where English farmers already wrestled with the obstacles nature had formed. But westward the view was more home-like; the setting sun was sinking behind the huge heights now known as the Malvern Hills, which reared their forms proudly in the distant horizon.

The western sky was rich in the hues of the departing sun, which cast its declining beams upon village and homestead, thinly scattered in the fertile vale through which the Foss Way pursued its course.

But our travellers did not stay long to contemplate the beauty of the scene; they were yet ten miles from the hospitable roof where they had purposed spending the night, and they had overslept themselves so long at their noontide halt, that they found darkness growing apace, while their weary animals could scarcely advance farther.

“Is there no inn, no Christian dwelling near, where we may repose? Verily my limbs bend beneath me with fatigue,” said Father Cuthbert.

“There is no dwelling of Christian men nearer than the halls of the Thane of Rollrich, and we shall scarcely reach them for a couple of hours,” said Oswy, the serf.

“Thou art a Job’s comforter. What sayest thou, Anlac?”

“There are the remains of an old temple of heathen times not far from here, a little on the right hand of the road, but they say the place is haunted.”

“Has it a roof to shelter us?”

“Part of the ruins are well covered.”

“Then thither we will go. Peradventure it will prove a safe abiding place against wolves or evil men, and if there be demons we must even exorcise them.”

When they had emerged from the forest, they had, as we have seen, ascended the high tableland which formed the northern frontier of the territory of the Dobuni—passing over the very ground where, seven hundred years later, the troops of the King and the Parliament were arrayed against each other in deadly combat for the first time.

But at this remote period the country where the Celts had once lived, and whence their civilised descendants had been driven by the English, had become a barren moorland. Scarce a tree grew on the heights, but a wild common, with valley and hill alternating, much as on Dartmoor at the present day, stretched before the travellers, and was traversed by the old Roman trackway. Dreary indeed it looked in the darkening twilight; here and there some huge crag overtopped the road, and then the track lay along a flat surface. It was after passing some huge misshapen stones, which spoke of early Celtic worship, that suddenly, in the distance on the right, the ruined temple lay before them.

Pillars of beautiful workmanship, evidently reared by Roman skill, surrounded a paved quadrangle raised upon a terrace approached on all sides by steps. These steps and the pavement were alike of stone, but where weeds could grow they had grown, and the footing was damp and slippery with rank vegetation and fungus growth.

At the extremity of the quadrangle the roof still partly covered the adytum or shrine from the sky, the platform reared itself upon its flight of massive steps where early British Christianity had demolished the idol, and beneath were chambers once appropriated to the use of the priests, which, by the aid of fire, could shortly be made habitable.

There was plenty of brushwood and underwood near, and our travellers speedily made a large fire, which expelled the damp from the place, albeit, as the smoke could only escape by an aperture in the roof, which, it is needless to say, was not embraced in the original design of the architect, it was not till the blaze had subsided and the glowing embers alone warmed the chamber, that mortal lungs could bear the stifling atmosphere, so charged had it been with smoke.

Still it was very acceptable shelter to the travellers, who must otherwise have camped out on the exposed moorland, and they made a hearty and comfortable meal, which being concluded, Father Cuthbert made a very brief address.

“My brethren,” he said, “we have travelled, like Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees, not ‘sine numine,’ that is not without God’s protection; and as we are about to sleep in a place where devils once deluded Christian people, it will not be amiss to say the night song, and commend ourselves ‘in manus Altissimi,’ that is to say, to God’s care.”

The compline service was familiar to each one present, and Father Cuthbert intoned it in a stentorian voice, particularly those portions of the 91st Psalm which seemed to defy the Evil One, and he recited just as if he were sure Satan was listening:

“Thou shalt go upon the lion and the adder; the young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet.”

All the company seemed to feel comfort in the words, and, first posting a sentinel, to be relieved every three hours, they commended themselves to sleep.

Alfred found his couch very pleasant at first, but before he had been long asleep his rest became disturbed by singular dreams. He thought he was standing within a grassy glade in a deep forest; it was darkening twilight, and he felt anxious to find his way from the spot, when his guardian angel appeared to him, and pointed out a narrow track between two huge rocks. He followed until he heard many voices, and saw a strange light reflected on the tree tops, as if from beneath, when amidst the din of voices he recognised Elfric’s tones.

“Wouldst thou save thy brother, then proceed,” his guardian angel seemed to whisper.

He strove, in his dream, to proceed, when he awoke so vividly impressed that he felt convinced coming events were casting their shadows before. He could not drive the thought of Elfric from his mind; he slept, but again in wild dreams his brother seemed to appear; once he seemed to oppose Elfric’s passage over a plank which crossed a roaring torrent; then he seemed as if he were falling, falling, amidst rushing waters, when he awoke.

“I can sleep no longer. I will look out at the night,” he said.

A faint moon had arisen, and lent an uncertain light to the outlines of hill, crag, and moorland, while it gilded the cornice above, where the wind seemed to linger and moan over departed greatness. The Druidical worship of olden days, the deluded worshippers now turned into dust, and the cruel rites of their bloodstained worship, older even than those of the ruined temple, rose before his imagination, until fancy seemed to people the silent wastes before him with those who had once crowded round that circle of misshapen stones which stood out vividly on the verge of the plain.

He felt that nameless fear which such thoughts excite so strongly, that he sought the company of the sentinel whom they had posted to guard their slumbers, and found not one but two at the post.

“Oswy and Anlac! both watching?”

“It was too lonesome for one,” said Oswy.

“Have you seen or heard aught amiss?”

“Yes. About an hour ago, there were cries such as men make when they die in torture, smothered by other sounds like the beating of drums, blowing of horns, and I know not what.”

“You were surely dreaming?”

“No; it came from yonder circle of stones, and a light like that of a great fire seemed to shine around.”

Alfred made no reply; but he remembered that they had talked of the Druidical rites the night before, and thought that the idea had taken such hold upon the minds of his followers as to suggest the sounds to their fancy. Still he watched with them till the first red streak of day appeared in the east.

CHAPTER X.
ELFRIC AND ALFRED.

Early in the morning our travellers arose and took their way through an open country which abounded with British and Roman remains; no fewer than three entrenched camps, once fortifying the frontier of the Dobuni, lying within sight or hard by the road, which, skirting the summit of the watershed between the Thames and the Avon, afforded magnificent views.

About an hour after starting they came upon a singular monument of Druidical times, consisting of sixty huge stones arranged in a circular form, with an entrance at the northeast, while a single rock or large stone, the largest of all, stood apart from the circle, as if looking down into the valley beneath.[^xix]

“What can be the origin of this circle?” said Alfred.

“It belongs to the old days of heathenesse; before the Welsh were conquered by the Romans, perhaps before our Blessed Lord came into the world, these stones were placed as you now see them,” replied Father Cuthbert.

“What purpose could they serve?”

“For their devil worship, I suppose; you see those five stones which stand at some little distance?”

“They are the Five Whispering Knights,” said Oswy.

“They are the remains of a cromlech or altar whereon they offered their sons and daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, wherefore the Lord brought the Romans upon them.”

“But the Romans were idolatrous, too.”

“Yet their religion was milder than the one it superseded. Jupiter required no human sacrifices; and even otherwise, God has said that the wicked man is often His sword to avenge Him of His adversaries.”

“Oswy looks as if he had a tale to tell.”

“Speak out, Oswy, and let us all hear,” said the good father.

“Well, then,” said Oswy, “these were not once stones at all, but living men—a king, five knights, and sixty soldiers—who came to take Long Compton, the town down there, in the valley; but it so happened that a great enchanter dwelt there, and being out that morning he saw them coming, muttered his spells, and while the king —that stone yonder—was in front looking down on his prey, the five knights all whispering together, and the sixty soldiers behind in a circle, they were all suddenly changed into stone.”

They all laughed heartily at this, and leaving the Rholdrwyg Stones, turned aside to the hospitable hall where they ought to have spent the previous night. So delighted was the Thane of Rholdrwyg or Rollrich to receive his guests that he detained them almost by force all that day, and it was only on the morrow that he permitted them to continue their journey.

They joined the Foss Way again after a few miles at Stow on the Wold; the road was so good that they succeeded in reaching Cirencester, the ancient Corinium, that night, a distance of nearly thirty miles. Here they found a considerable population, for the town had been one of great importance, and was still one of the chief cities of southern Mercia, full of the remains of her departed Roman greatness, with shattered column and shapely arch yet diversifying the thatched hovels of the Mercians.

Two more days brought them to Bath, but the old Roman city had been utterly destroyed, and long subsequently the English town had been founded upon its site, so that there seemed no identity between Bath and Aqua Solis, such as prevailed between Cirencester and Corinium.

One day’s journey from Bath brought them at eventide within an easy day of Glastonbury, so that they paused in their journey for the last time at a well-known hostelry, chiefly occupied by pilgrims bound for Glastonbury, for the morrow was a high festival, or rather the commencement of one, and Dunstan was expected to conduct the ceremonies in person.

So crowded was the hostelry that Alfred and his revered tutor could only obtain a small chamber for their private accommodation, while their servants were forced to content themselves with such share of the straw of the outbuildings as they could obtain, in company with many others.

It was still early when they stopped at the inn, for one of their horses, which they had purchased by the way, had broken down so completely that they could not well proceed, and they were about to enter a dark and dangerous forest, full of ravenous bears and wolves, which had already cast its shade upon their path.

But this was not an uncommon feature in English travelling of that century, when there were no horses to be hired at the inns, and travellers could only purchase the animals they needed (if there were any to be sold); the forest, too, was reported to be the haunt of freebooters, and men dared to affirm that they were encouraged by the king to prey upon the fraternity at Glastonbury.

Still the dangers of the forest did not deter Alfred, who dearly loved woodland scenery and sport, from strolling therein when their hasty meal had been despatched, weary of the continuous objurgations and smalltalk of the crowded inn.

He had wandered some distance, lost in thought, when all at once he started in some surprise, for the spot on which he was seemed familiar to him, although he had never been in Wessex before.

Yes, he certainly knew the glade, with the fine beech trees surrounding it: where could he have seen it before? All at once he remembered his dream in the ruined temple, and started to discover the secret foreknowledge he had thus possessed.

He wandered up and down the glade till it became dusk, and then shook off the thoughts to which he had been a prey, and started to return to the inn, when, to his dismay, he found he had forgotten in which direction it lay.

While seeking to find the path by which he had entered the glade, he suddenly noticed a beaten track between two huge rocks, which seemed to point in the direction he had come, and yet which he recognised as the path he had been bidden to follow in his dream. He hesitated not, but committed himself to it, while darkness seemed to increase each moment.

He was beginning to fear the dangers of a night in the woods, when he was startled by a sound as of many low voices, and at the same moment became conscious that a light was tinging with red the upper branches of the trees at no little distance, as if proceeding from some fire, hidden by the formation of the ground.

At first he thought that he was in the neighbourhood of outlaws, and tried to retire, but, as in his dream, he felt so strong an impulse to discover the party whom the woods concealed that he persevered.

Suddenly he stopped short, for he had come to the edge of a kind of natural amphitheatre, a deep hollow in the earth, the sides of which were covered with bushes and trees, while the area at the bottom might perhaps have covered a hundred square yards, and was clothed with verdant turf. Not one, but several fires were burning, and around them were reclining small groups of armed men, while some were walking about chatting with each other.

Alfred gazed in much surprise, for the party did not at all realise his conception of a body of freebooters or robbers; they all seemed to wear the same uniform, and to resemble each other in their accoutrements and characteristics; they rather resembled, in short, a detachment of regular forces than a body of men whom chance might have thrown together, or the fortune of predatory war.

While he gazed upon them, two of their number, whose attire was rich and costly, and who seemed to be of higher rank than the rest, perhaps their officers, attracted his attention as they walked near the spot where, clinging to a tree, he overlooked the encampment from above.

One of them was a tall, dark warrior, whose whole demeanour was that of the professional soldier, whose dress was plain yet rich, and who might easily be guessed to be the commander of the party. He was talking earnestly, but in a subdued tone, to his younger companion, whom he seemed to be labouring to convince of the propriety of some course of action.

Alfred watched them eagerly; the form of the younger—for so he appeared by his slender frame—seemed familiar to him, and when at last they turned their faces and walked towards him, the light of a neighbouring fire showed him the face of his brother Elfric.

“My dream!” he mentally exclaimed.

They were evidently talking about some very important subject, and it was also evident that the objections of the younger, whatever they might be, were becoming rapidly overruled, when, as chance, if it were chance, would have it, they paused in their circuit of the little camp just beneath the tree where Alfred was posted.

“You see,” said the elder, “that our course is clear, so definitely clear that we have but to do our duty to the king, while we avenge a thousand little insults we have ourselves received from this insolent monk—such insults as warriors wash out with blood.”

“Yet he is a churchman, and it would be called utter sacrilege.”

“Sacrilege! is a churchman’s blood redder than that of layman, and is he not doomed as a traitor by a judgment as righteous as ever English law pronounced! did he not keep Edwy from his throne during the lifetime of the usurper Edred!”

“That was the sentence of the Witan, and you served Edred.”

“I did not owe the allegiance of an Englishman to either, being of foreign birth, and so was no traitor; as for the Witan, it is well known Dunstan influenced their decision at the death of the royal Edmund.”

“I never heard the assertion before.”

“You have many things still to learn; you are but young as yet. But let it pass. Does not his conduct to Queen Elgiva merit death!”

“I think it does. But still not without sentence of law.”

“That sentence has been in fact pronounced, for in such cases as these, where the subject is too powerful for the direct action of the law to reach him, the decision of the king and council must pass for law, and they have decided that Dunstan must die, and have left the execution of the sentence—to us.”

He did not add that the council in question consisted of the giddy young nobles who had surrounded Edwy from the first, aided by a few hoary sinners whose lives of plunder and rapine had given them a personal hatred of the Church.

Elfric heaved a sigh, and said:

“If so, I suppose I must obey; but I wish I had not been sent on the expedition.”

“It is to test your loyalty.”

“Then it shall be proved. I have no personal motives of gratitude towards Dunstan.”

“Rather the contrary.”

“Rather the contrary, as you say. But what sound was that? Surely something stirred the bush!”

“A rabbit or a hare. You are becoming fanciful and timid. Well, you will remember that tomorrow there must be no timidity, no yielding to what some would call conscience, but wise men the scruples of superstition. We shall not reach the monastery till dark, most of the visitors will then have quitted it, and we shall take the old fox in a trap.”

“You will not slay him in cold blood!”

“No. I shall bid him follow me to the king, and if he and his resist, as probably they will, then their blood be on their own heads. But surely—”

At that moment a large stone, which Alfred had most inopportunely dislodged, rolled down the bank, and made Elfric, who was in its path, leap aside. Alfred, whose foot had rested upon it, slipped, and for a moment seemed in danger of following the stone, but he had happily time to grasp the tree securely, and by its aid he drew himself back and darted into the wood.

Luckily there was moonlight enough to guide him by the track he had hitherto followed, and he ran forward, dreading nothing so much as to fall into the hands of the friends of his brother, and trusting that he might prevent the execution of the foul deed he had heard meditated. He ran for a long distance before he paused, when he became aware that pursuers were on his track. Luckily his life had been spent so much in the open air that he was capable of great exertion, and could run well. So he resumed his course, although he knew not where it would lead him, and soon had the pleasure of feeling that he was distancing his pursuers. Yet every time he ran over a piece of smooth turf he fancied he could hear them in his rear, and it was with the greatest feeling of relief that he suddenly emerged from the wood upon the Foss Way, and saw the lights of the hostelry at no great distance below him.

His pursuers did not follow him farther, probably unwilling to betray their presence to the neighbourhood, and perhaps utterly unconscious that the intruder upon their peace was possessed of any dangerous secrets, or other than some rustic woodman belated on his homeward way, who would be unable in any degree to interfere with them or to guess their designs.

But it was not till the ardour of his flight had abated, that Alfred could fully realise that his unhappy brother was committed to a deed of scandalous atrocity, and the discovery was hard for him to bear. The strong impression which his dream had made upon him—an impression that he was to be the means of saving his brother from some great sin—came upon him now with greater force than ever, and was of great comfort. The identity of the scenery he had seen in dreamland with the actual scenery he had gone through, made him feel that he was under the special guidance of Providence.

Returning to the inn he sought Father Cuthbert, and found him somewhat uneasy at his long absence, and to him he communicated all that he had seen and heard.

The good father was a man of sound sense but of much affection, and at first he could not credit that the boy he had loved so well, Elfric of Æscendune, should have grown to be the associate of murderers, for such only could either he or Alfred style the agents of Edwy’s wrath.

But, once fully convinced, he was equal to the emergency.

“We will not start at once, we should but break down on the road, and defeat our own object. We must rest quietly, and sleep soundly if possible, and start with the earliest dawn. We shall reach Glastonbury by midday, and be able to warn the holy abbot of his danger in good time.”

So Alfred was forced to curb his impatience and to try to sleep soundly. Father Cuthbert soon gave good assurance that he was asleep; but the noisy manner in which the assurance was given banished sleep from the eyelids of his anxious pupil. At length he yielded to weariness both of mind and body, and the overwrought brain was still.

He was but little refreshed when he heard Father Cuthbert’s morning salutation, “Benedicamus Domino,” and could hardly stammer out the customary reply, “Deo gratias.”

Every one rose early in those days, and the timely departure of the party from Æscendune excited no special comment. Hundreds of pilgrims were on the road, and Alfred expressed his conviction that there would be force enough at Glastonbury to protect Dunstan, to which Father Cuthbert replied—“If he would accept such protection.”

On former days their journey had been frequently impeded by broken bridges and dangerous fords; but as they drew near Glastonbury the presence of a mighty civilising power became manifest. The fields were well tilled, for the possessions for miles around the abbey were let to tenant farmers by the monks, who had first reclaimed them from the wilderness. The farm houses and the abodes of the poor were better constructed, and the streams were all bridged over, while the old Roman road was kept in tolerable repair.

A short distance before they reached the city, the pilgrims, who were a space in advance of the party, came in sight of the towers of the monastery, whereupon they all paused for one moment, and raised the solemn strain then but recently composed—

I.
Founded on the Rock of Ages,
Salem, city of the blest,
Built of living stones most precious,
Vision of eternal rest,
Angel hands, in love attending,
Thee in bridal robes invest.
II.
Down from God all new descending
Thee our joyful eyes behold,
Like a bride adorned for spousals,
Decked with radiant wealth untold;
All thy streets and walls are fashioned,
All are bright with purest gold!
III.
Gates of pearl, for ever open,
Welcome there the loved, the lost;
Ransomed by their Saviour’s merits;
This the price their freedom cost:
City of eternal refuge,
Haven of the tempest-tost.
IV.
Fierce the blow, and firm the pressure,
Which hath polished thus each stone:
Well the Mastermind hath fitted
To his chosen place each one.
When the Architect takes reck’ning,
He will count the work His Own.
V.
Glory be to God, the Father;
Glory to th’ Eternal Son;
Glory to the Blessed Spirit:
One in Three, and Three in One.
Glory, honour, might, dominion,
While eternal ages run.
Amen. [xx]

The grand strains seemed to bring assurance of Divine aid to Alfred, and he could but imitate Father Cuthbert, who lifted up his stentorian voice and thundered out in chorus, as they drew near the pilgrims.

Here they left the Foss Way for the side road leading to the monastery, now only a short distance from them.

CHAPTER XI.
THE FLIGHT OF DUNSTAN.

It was the day of St. Alban, the protomartyr of England, and the saint was greatly honoured at Glastonbury, where, as we have seen, Dunstan was in residence, and, as a natural consequence, every department of the monastic life was quickened by his presence. The abbey was full of monks who had professed the Benedictine rule, and having but recently been rebuilt, it possessed many improvements hardly yet introduced into English architecture in general. The greater part of the building was of stone, and it was not, in its general features, unlike some of the older colleges at Oxford or Cambridge, although the order of the architecture was, of course, exclusively that of the Saxon period, characterised by the heavy and massive, yet imposing, circular arch.

But upon the church or abbey chapel all the skill of the architect had been concentrated, and it seemed worthy alike of its founder and of its object. Seen upon the morning in question, when the bright summer sun filled every corner with gladsome light, just as the long procession of white-robed priests, and monks in their sombre garb, with their hoods thrown back, were entering for high mass, and the choral psalm arose, it was peculiarly imposing.

The procession had not long entered the church, when the party of pilgrims we have described, closely followed by our friends from Æscendune, entered the quadrangle, and crossed it to the great porch of the church. It was with the greatest difficulty they could enter, for the whole floor of the huge building was crowded with kneeling worshippers. The portion of Scripture appointed for the epistle was being chanted, and the words struck Alfred’s ears as he entered—“He pleased God, and was beloved of Him, so that, living among sinners, he was translated.”

The words seemed to come upon him with special application to the danger the great abbot was in, and the thought that the martyr’s day might be stained by a deed of blood, or, as some might say, hallowed by another martyrdom, added to his agitation.

And now he had gained a position where the high altar was in full view, illuminated by its countless tapers, and fragrant with aromatic odours. There, in the centre of the altar, his face turned to the people as the sequence was ended, and the chanting of the gospel from the rood loft began, stood the celebrant, and Alfred gazed for the first time upon the face of Dunstan, brought out in strong relief by the glare of the artificial light.

He strove earnestly to concentrate his thoughts upon the sacred words. They were from the sixteenth of St. Matthew, beginning at the words:

“Then said Jesus unto His disciples, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.

“For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for My sake, shall find it.”

He could not but feel the strange coincidence that words such as these should come to strengthen him, when he felt he had most need to shelter himself under the shadow of the Cross. The service proceeded, the creed, sanctus, and other choral portions being sung by the whole monastic body in sonorous strains; and for a time Alfred was able to make a virtue of necessity, and to give himself wholly to the solemnity; but when it was over and the procession left the church, he sought an immediate interview with the abbot, in company with Father Cuthbert.

Dunstan had removed his sacerdotal garments, and had returned to his own cell, which only differed in size from the cells of his brethren. The furniture was studiously plain: hard wooden chairs; an unvarnished table; a wooden bedstead, with no bed, and only a loose coverlet of sackcloth; the walls uncovered by tapestry; the floor unfurnished with rushes;—such was the chamber of the man who had ruled England, and still exercised the most unbounded spiritual influence in the land.

There was no ostentation in this; every monk in the monastery lived in similar simplicity. Precious books and manuscripts, deeply laden with gold and colours, were deposited on coarse wooden shelves, while the Benedictine Breviary lay on the table, written by some learned and painstaking scribe, skilful in illumination.

The appearance of the abbot was little changed since we last beheld him; perhaps care had traced a few more lines in his countenance, and his general manner was more prompt and decided, now that danger menaced him, for menace him he knew it did, although he hardly knew from what quarter the bolt would fall.

A lay brother brought him some slight refreshment, the first he had taken during the day.

The humility inculcated by each precept of the order forbade the brother in question to speak until his superior gave him leave to do so; but Dunstan read at once the desire of his subordinate, and said:

“What hast thou to tell me, Brother Osgood?”

“Many people are without, seeking speech of thee.”

“This is the case each day; are there any whose business appears pressing?”

“A company has arrived from Æscendune, or some such place in Mercia, and two of the party—a priest and a young layman—seek an immediate interview, saying their business is of life and death.”

“Æscendune!—admit them first.”

The brother left the cell at once, and soon returned, ushering in Father Cuthbert and Alfred, who saluted the great churchman with all due humility, and waited for him to speak, not without much evident uneasiness; perhaps some little impatience was also manifest.

“Are you of the house of Æscendune, my son?” enquired Dunstan of Alfred. “Methinks I know you by your likeness to your brother Elfric.”

“I am the son of Ella, father; we have been sent on pressing business, which is notified by this parchment” (presenting the formal request on the part of the brethren of Æscendune, which was the original cause of their journey) “but we have yet a more pressing matter to bring before you: wicked men seek your life, my father.”

“I am well aware of that; surely you do not dream, my son, that my eyes are closed to a fact known throughout unhappy England.”

“But, my father, I speak of immediate danger, which God in His great mercy enabled me to discover but last night; this very night the abbey will be attacked, and your life or liberty in danger.”

“This night!” said Dunstan, in surprise; “and how have you discovered this? Do not hesitate, my son tell me all.”

Thus adjured, Alfred repeated the whole story of his discovery of the concealed expedition.

“You saw the leaders closely then?” said Dunstan, when he had finished; “describe the elder one to me.”

“A tall dark man, like a foreign soldier, in plain but rich apparel, a scar on the right cheek.”

“Stay, my son, I know him; his name is Redwald, and he is the captain of the king’s bodyguard. Now describe the other with whom he held converse.”

“Father, I cannot.”

“My son—” but Dunstan paused, for he saw that poor Alfred had covered his face with his hands, and he at once divined the truth, with full conviction, at the same time, of the truth and earnestness of Alfred’s statement.

“My son, God can dispose and turn the hearts of all men as seemeth best to His wisdom; and I doubt not, in answer to our fervent prayers, He will turn the heart of your poor brother. Meanwhile, we ourselves will take such precautions as shall spare him the guilt of sacrilege.

“Brother Osgood, summon the prior to my presence, and cause the brethren to assemble, one and all, in the chapter house: we have need of instant deliberation.”

The lay brother departed, and Dunstan, whose cheerfulness did not desert him for one moment, chatted familiarly with Father Cuthbert, or perused the parchment the good father had just presented through Alfred.

“It is a great and pleasing thing,” he said, “to behold how our Order is spreading through this benighted land, and how spiritual children arise everywhere to our holy father Benedict; surely the time is near at hand when the wilderness shall blossom as the rose.”

The prior, Father Guthlac, entered at this moment, and Dunstan talked apart with him for some moments with extreme earnestness, but only the last words which passed between them were audible.

“Yes, my brother, you have the words of Scripture,” said Dunstan, “to support your proposal: ‘When they persecute you in one city, flee ye unto another.’”

“Yet it is hard to leave a spot one has reared with such tender care.”

“There was One Who left more for us; and I do not think they will destroy the place, or even attempt to destroy it: they will fill it with those ‘slow bellies, those evil beasts,’ the secular clergy, with their wives.”

“Fitter it should be a stye for hogs.” [^xxi]

“Nay, they are men after all; yet there is some reason to fear that, like hogs, they wallow in the mire of sensuality; but their day will be but a short one.”

“My father!”

“But a short one; it hath been foreshown me in visions of the night that the Evil One will triumph indeed, but that his triumph will be very short; and, alas a green tree which standeth in the pride of its youth and might must, ere the close of that triumph, be hewn down.”

“By our hands, father?”

“God forbid! by the Hand of God, I speak but as it has been revealed to me.”

It was a well-known fact that Dunstan either was subject to marvellous hallucinations, and was a monomaniac on that one point, while so wise in all other matters, or that he was the object of special revelations, and was favoured with spiritual visions, as well as temptations, which do not ordinarily fall within the observation or experience of men.

So Father Guthlac and the rest of the company listened with the greatest reverence to his declaration, as to the words of an inspired oracle.

“But let us go to our brethren; they await us,” said Dunstan, speaking to the prior. “Brother Osgood, take these our guests to the refectorarius, and ask him to see that they and all their company taste our bounty at least this day; tomorrow we may have nought to offer them.”

In the famous chapter of the whole house of Glastonbury which followed, and which became historical, prompt resolution was taken on Dunstan’s report, which did honour to the brotherhood, as evincing both their resignation and their trust in God, Who they believed would, to use the touching phrase of the Psalmist, “turn their captivity as the rivers in the south;” so that they “who went forth weeping, bearing good seed, should come again with joy, and bring their sheaves with them.”

So it was at once agreed that the whole community should break up immediately; that within the next hour all the monks should depart for the various monasteries of the Benedictine order; and that Dunstan himself, with but two companions, should take refuge across the sea, sailing from the nearest port on the Somersetshire coast.

A dozen of the brethren were to return with Father Cuthbert and Alfred to Æscendune at once, and to bear with them all the necessary powers for the accomplishment of the good thane’s wishes in regard to the monastery of St. Wilfred, while Father Cuthbert was then and there admitted by Dunstan to the order of St. Benedict —the necessity of the case justifying some departure from the customary formalities.

All being completely ordered and arranged, the chapter broke up, and within an hour the monks were leaving as rapidly as boys leave school when breaking-up day comes, but not quite so joyously. They strove to attract as little attention as possible, and, in most cases, travelled in the ordinary dress of the country.

Father Cuthbert and the Benedictines who were to accompany him on his return—- so much more speedy than had been anticipated —were already prepared to start, when, to their surprise, Alfred could not be found.

Alfred was at that moment in the cell of Dunstan, with whom he had obtained, not without great trouble, another brief interview.

“God bless you, my son,” said Dunstan, “and render unto you according to all you have done for His glory this day, and restore you your brother safe in body and soul!”

But it was not merely for a blessing that Alfred had sought the abbot.

“Father,” he said, “if I have happily been of service to you, I ask but one favour in return; one brother has sought your life, let the other remain with you as a bodyguard.”

“But your father?”

“I am satisfied that I am but speaking as he would have me speak.”

“But you will become an exile.”

“Gladly, if I can but serve you, father.”

“But, my child, I have no means of support for you abroad; as monks we shall find hospitality in every Benedictine house, but you are only a layman.”

“Then, father, I but ask you to allow me to accompany you to the coast.”

“I grant it, my son, for I believe God inspires the wish. Be it as you desire, but one of your serfs must accompany you; it would not be safe to travel home alone.”

So Father Cuthbert and the Benedictines started back to Æscendune without Alfred, bearing Dunstan’s explanation of the matter to the half-bereaved father whose faith, they feared, would be sorely tried, and leaving Oswy to be his companion.

It was now drawing near nightfall, and the abbey was almost deserted; all the pilgrims had left with the monks, although many of them would willingly have put their trust in the arm of flesh and remained to fight for Dunstan against his temporal foes, even as he—so they piously believed—routed their spiritual enemies. In that vast abbey there were now but six persons—Dunstan, Guthlac, Alfred, the lay brother Osgood, Oswy, and a guide who knew all the bypaths of the country.

Desolate and solitary indeed seemed the huge pile of untenanted buildings as the evening breeze swept through them. The last straggler had gone; Dunstan was still in his cell arranging or destroying certain papers, the guide and lay brothers held six strong and serviceable horses in the courtyard below, near the open gate, impatient to start, and blaming secretly the dilatoriness of their great chieftain. They watched the sun as he sank lower and lower in the western sky, and thought of the woods and forests they must traverse, frequented by wolves, and sometimes by outlaws whom they dreaded far more. Still Dunstan did not appear.

Alfred and Guthlac, on a watchtower above, gazed on the plain stretched before them. Mile after mile it extended towards that forest where the enemy was now known to lurk, and they watched each road, nay, each copse and field, with jealous eye, lest it should conceal an enemy. Ofttimes the shadow of some passing cloud, as it swept over moor or mere, was taken for an armed host; ofttimes the wind, as it sighed amongst the trees and blew the dried leaves hither and thither, seemed to carry the warning “An enemy is near.”

At length danger seemed to show itself plainly: just as the sun set, a dark shadow moved from a distant angle of the forest on the plain beneath, and the words “The enemy!” escaped simultaneously from Alfred and Guthlac as the setting sun seemed reflected upon spear and sword, flashing in a hundred points as they caught the reflection of the departing luminary.

Alfred, at the prior’s desire, hurried to the chamber of Dunstan.

“Father,” he said, “the enemy are near. They have left the forest.”

“That is four miles in distance: there will be time for me to finish this letter to my brother of Abingdon.”

“But, father, their horses may be fleeter than ours.”

“We are under God’s protection: I am sure we shall not be overtaken: be at peace, my son.”

Poor Alfred felt as if his faith were very sorely tried indeed, but he strove to acquiesce.

It was now quite dark, and the ears of the would-be fugitives were strained to catch the sounds which should warn them of approaching danger.

At length they fancied they heard sounds arise from the plain before them: suppressed noises, such as must unavoidably be made by a force on its passage; and Alfred again sought the cell of Dunstan, yet dared not enter, urgent though the emergency seemed.

At this moment he was startled by a demoniacal burst of laughter, which seemed to fill the corridor in which he waited with exultant joy.

What could it be? he felt as if he had never heard such laughter before—so terrible, yet so boisterous.

A moment of dread silence, and then it began again, and filled each corridor and chamber.

At that moment Dunstan came forth, and saw the pale face of Alfred.

“It is only the devil,” he said “we are not ignorant of his devices.

“O Satan! thou that wert once an angel in heaven, art thou reduced to bray like a jackass?” [^xxii]

Again the exultant peal resounded.

“Be at peace,” said the abbot; “thou rejoicest at my departure; I shall soon return to defy thee and thy allies.”

And the laughter ceased.

“We must lose no time,” he said; “the moment is at hand.”

Locking each door behind him, he reached the party in the courtyard, and each person mounted in a moment; then they passed under the great archway. Oswy had remained behind one moment to lock the great gates, and then they all rode forth boldly into the darkness.

They passed rapidly in a direction at right angles to that in which their pursuers were approaching, and at the distance of a mile they halted for one moment to ascertain the cause of a great uproar which suddenly arose.

It was not difficult to divine its cause: it was the beating of axes and hammers on the great outer door of the monastery.

“It will occupy them nearly an hour,” said Dunstan, “and we shall be far far away before they have succeeded in effecting an entrance.”

So they rode on rapidly into the night. Before them lay the Foss Way, the road was good and well known to them, the moon was shining brightly, and their spirits rose with the excitement and the exertion. Onward! Onward!

CHAPTER XII.
AT HIS WORST.

The unhappy Elfric had indeed fallen from his former self before he reached the depth at which our readers have just seen him, joining with Redwald in the unhallowed enterprise so happily frustrated, if indeed it were yet frustrated, by his own brother.

But when his father had returned to Æscendune alone, Elfric felt that home ties were shattered, and that he had nothing but the royal favour to depend upon, so he yielded to the wishes of King Edwy in all points.

Immediately after his coronation, the reckless and ill-advised Edwy had married Elgiva, [^xxiii] in defiance of the ban of the Church, and then had abandoned himself to the riotous society and foolish counsels of young nobles vainer than those who cost Rehoboam so large a portion of his kingdom. Amongst these Elfric was soon conspicuous and soon a leader. His spirit and physical courage far beyond his years excited their admiration, and in return they taught him all the mysteries of evil which were yet unknown to him.

Under such influences both the king and his favourite threw off all outward semblance even of religion, and only sought the means of enjoyment. Redwald ministered without reserve or restraint to all their pleasures, and under his evil influence Edwy even found occasion to rob and plunder his own grandmother, a venerable Saxon princess, in order that he might waste the ill-gotten substance in riotous living.

Yet there was a refinement in his vice: he did not care for coarse sensual indulgence to any great extent; his wickedness was that of a sensitive cultivated intellect, of a highly-wrought nervous temperament. Unscrupulous—careless of truth—contemptuous of religion—yet he had all that attraction in his person which first endeared him to Elfric, whom he really loved. Alas! his love was deadly as the breath of the upas tree to his friend and victim. When the first measures of vengeance were taken against Dunstan, with the concurrence of wicked but able ministers of state, Redwald was selected as the agent who should bribe the thanes, and begin the course of conduct which should eventually lead to the destruction of the enemy of the king. He had only waited till the temper of the times seemed turned against Dunstan (he judged it wrongly); and the king seemed secure against every foe ere he planned the expedition we have introduced to our readers.

We will now resume the thread of our narrative.

When the band of soldiers, headed by Redwald, had gained the gates of the monastery, they found them, as we have seen, firmly locked and barred.

“Blow your horns; rouse up these sleepy monks to some purpose,” said Redwald. “Why, they have not a light about the place.”

A loud and vigorous blast of horns was blown, while the greater part of the troop dismounted and paused impatiently for an answer from within.

“Two or three of you step forward with your axes,” exclaimed Redwald.

They did so, and thundered on the gate without any success, so stoutly was it made.

“What can it mean?” said Redwald. “All is silent as the grave.”

“No; there is some one laughing at us,” said Elfric.

A peal of merry laughter was heard within.

Redwald was thoroughly enraged, and seizing an axe with his own hand, he set the example of applying it to the gate, but without any result save to split a few planks, while the iron framework, designed by Dunstan himself, who was clever at such arts, held as firmly as ever.

Unprovided with other means of forcing it, the besiegers had recourse to fire, and gathering fuel with some difficulty, they piled it against the gate. Shortly the woodwork caught, and the whole gate presently yielded to the action of the fire; the iron bars, loosened by the destruction of the woodwork, gave way, and the besiegers rushed into the quadrangle. Here, all was dark and silent, not a sound to be heard or a light seen.

“What can it mean? Have they fled? You all heard the laughter!”

“There it is again.”

The boisterous and untimely mirth had begun just within the abbot’s lodgings, and the doorway at the foot was immediately attacked. It presently yielded, and Redwald, who had obtained a good notion of the place, rushed with his chief villains to the chamber he knew to be Dunstan’s; yet he began to fear failure, for the absence of all the inmates was disheartening. No, not all, for there was the loud laughter within the very chamber of the abbot.

The door was fastened securely, and while the axes were doing their destructive work upon it, the mocking laughter was again heard. Redwald had become so enraged that he mentally vowed the direst vengeance upon the untimely jester, when the door burst open and he rushed in.

“Where is he? Surely there was some one here?”

“Who could it be? We all heard the laughter.”

But victim there was none; and searching all the place in vain, they had to satiate their vengeance by destroying the humble furniture of the abbot.

What to do next they knew not, and Redwald, deeply mystified, was reluctantly forced to own his discomfiture, and to prepare to pass the night in the abbey. Accordingly, his men dispersed in search of food and wine. Some found their way to the buttery; it was but poorly supplied, all the provisions in the place having been given to the poorer pilgrims by the departing monks. The cellar was not so easily emptied, and such wine as had been stored up for future use was at once appropriated.

Redwald and Elfric, having shared the common meal gloomily, were seated in the abbot’s chamber—little did Elfric dream that his brother had so recently been in the same room—when one of the guards entered, bringing with him a stranger. He turned out to be a neighbouring thane, one of those bitter enemies to Dunstan whom Edwy had planted round the monastery, and he came to give information that he had seen Dunstan with five companions escaping by the Foss Way.

Redwald jumped up eagerly. “How long since?” he asked.

“About two hours, and ten miles off, I was returning home from a distant farm of mine.”

“Why did you not stop them?”

“I was too weak for that; they were six to one. I heard you had been seen coming here by a cowherd, and came to warn you. If you ride fast you may catch the holy fox yet before he runs to earth; but you must be very quick.”

“What pace were they riding?”

“Slowly at that moment; it was up a hill.”

Redwald rushed from the room, crying, “To horse, to horse!” but found only a portion of his men awake: the others were mainly drunk and sleeping it off on the floor.

Cursing their untimely indulgence, he got about a dozen men rapidly mounted on the fleetest horses, taking care Elfric should be one, and dashed off in pursuit of the fugitives.

Dunstan and his party had ridden some four or five hours, when the moon became overcast, and low peals of distant thunder were heard. The atmosphere was so intensely hot, and the silence of nature so oppressive, that it was evident some convulsion was at hand.

“Is there any shelter near?”

“Only a ruined city [^xxiv] in the wood on the left hand, but it is a dangerous place to approach after nightfall. They say evil spirits lurk there.”

“They tell that story of every ruined place, be it city, temple, or house; and even if it be, we have more cause to dread evil men than evil spirits.”

The guide hesitated no longer, and struck into a bypath, which penetrated the depth of the woody marsh through which the Foss Way then had its course. After a minute or two it became evident, from the footing, that they were upon the paved work of a causeway overgrown with weeds and rank herbage; huge mounds showed where fortifications had once existed, and shortly, broken pillars and ruined walls appeared at irregular intervals.

They had little time to look around them, for the storm had come rapidly up, and the glare of the lightning was incessant, while the rain poured down in absolute torrents. Before them rose a huge ruin covered with ivy and with the roof partly protecting the interior. It was so large that they were able to lead their horses within its protection and wait the cessation of the rain.

Between the flashes the sky was intensely dark, but they were almost incessant, and revealed the city of the dead in which they had found refuge. It was an ancient Welsh town, and in the latter years of the deadly struggle with the English, had been taken after a protracted resistance. Tradition had not even preserved its name, and only stated that every living soul had perished in the massacre when the outer walls were at length stormed and the town given to fire and sword. The victors, as was frequently the case, had avoided the spot, preferring to build elsewhere, and, like Silchester or Anderida, it had fallen into desolation such as befell mighty Babylon.

And now the ignorant rustic peopled its buildings with the imaginary forms of doleful creatures, and shunned the fatal precincts where once family love and social affections had flourished; where hearts, long mouldered to dust, had beaten with tender affection, where all the little circumstances which make up life—the trivial round, the common task—had gone on beneath the summer’s sun or winter’s storm, till the great convulsion which ended the existence of the whole community.

Dunstan noticed that his whole party crowded closely together, and when the lightning illuminated each face saw that fear had left its visible mark.

The continuous roar of thunder, the hissing of the descending rain, the wind which blew in angry gusts, prevented all conversation until nearly an hour had elapsed, when the strife began to diminish. It was a sad and mournful sight to gaze upon the remains of departed greatness when thus illuminated by the electric flash, and easily might the fancy, deceived by the transient glimpses of things, people the ruins with the shades of their departed inhabitants.

“Father,” said Alfred, at length, “who were they who lived here? Do you know aught about them?”

“The men whom our ancestors subdued—the Welsh, or British—an unhappy race.”

“Were they heathen?”

“At one time, but they were converted by the missions from Rome and the East, of which the earliest was that of St. Joseph of Arimathea to our own Glastonbury; he may have preached to the very people who lived here, nay, in this very basilica, which, I think, may have been converted into a church.”

It was indeed the ruin of a basilica wherein they stood, but no trace survived to show whether Dunstan’s conjecture was correct.

“It seems strange that God should have permitted them to fall before the sword of our heathen ancestors.”

“Their own historian Gildas, who lies buried at Glastonbury, explains it. He tells us that such was the corruption of faith and of morals towards the close of their brief day, that had not the Saxon sword interposed; plague, pestilence, or famine, or some similar calamity, must have done the fatal work. God grant that we, now that in turn we have received the message of the Gospel, may be more faithful servants, or similar ruin may, at no distant period, await the Englishman also, as it did the Welshman.”

He sighed deeply, and Alfred echoed the sigh in his heart; he read the abbot’s thoughts.

“Do you believe,” said he, after a pause, “that their spirits ever revisit the earth?”

“I know not; many wise men have thought it possible, and that they may haunt the places where they sinned, ever bearing their condemnation within them, even while they clothe themselves in semblance of the mortal flesh they once wore.”

The whole party shuddered, and Father Guthlac said, deprecatingly:

“My father, let us not talk of this now. We are too weak to bear it, and the place is so awful!”

By this time the wind had made a huge rent in the black clouds overhead, and the moon came suddenly in sight, sailing tranquilly in the azure void above, and casting her beams on the ruins, as she had once cast them on the beauteous city; its basilicas, palaces, and temples yet standing.

At this moment their guide came hastily to them.

“We are in some danger, father. Horsemen, twelve of them, are galloping along the Foss Way in spite of the storm.”

Dunstan left the shelter, which was no longer needed, the rain having ceased, and followed the guide to the summit of the huge mound which marked the fall of some giant bastion of early days. From that position they could see the Foss Way, now about half-a-mile distant in the bright moonlight, and Dunstan’s eye at once caught twelve figures—horsemen—sweeping down it like the wind, which brought the sound of their passage faintly to the ear.

“Wait,” he said, “and see whether they pass the bypath; in that case we are safe.”

The whole party was now on the mound, their persons carefully concealed from the view of the horsemen, while they watched their passage with intense anxiety. The enemy reached the bypath; eleven of them passed over it, but the twelfth reined his horse suddenly, almost upon its haunches, and pointed to the ground. He had evidently seen the tracks of the fugitives upon the soft turf.

The next moment they all turned their horses into the bypath.

“Follow,” said the guide; and they all rushed eagerly down the mound and mounted at once.

“Follow me closely; I think I can save you from them; only lose not a moment.”

The guide led them by a wandering path amongst the ruins, where their tracks would leave the least trace, until he passed through a gap in the external fortifications on the opposite side. Then he rode rapidly along a descending path in the woods, until the sound of rushing water greeted their ears, and they arrived on the brink of a small river which was swollen by the violent rain, and which dashed along an irregular and stony bed with fearful impetuosity.

There was but one mode of crossing it: a bridge constructed of planks was thrown over, which one horseman might pass at a time. The whole party rode over in safety, although the crazy old bridge bent terribly beneath the weight of each rider.

But when all were over, the guide motioned to Alfred and Oswy to remain behind for one moment, while the monks proceeded. He threw himself from his horse, and taking the axe which he had slung behind him, commenced hacking away at the bridge. But although the bridge was old, yet it was tough; and although Alfred, and Oswy who was armed with a small battle-axe, assisted with all their might, the work seemed long.

Before it was completed, they heard the voices of their pursuers calling to each other amongst the ruins. They had evidently lost the track, and were separating to find it.

Crash went one huge plank into the raging torrent, then a second, and but one beam remained, when a horseman emerged from the trees opposite, and by the light of the moon Alfred recognised his brother.

Desperate in the excitement of the chase, Elfric leapt from his horse, and drawing his sword rushed upon the bridge.

Alfred, who felt it tremble, cried:

“Back, Elfric! Back if you value your life!” while at the same moment, true to his duty, without raising his axe or any other attempt at offence, he opposed his own body in passive resistance to Elfric’s passage over the beam.

Elfric knew the voice, and drew back in utter amazement. He had already stepped from the half-severed beam, when he saw it bend, break, and roll, with Alfred, who had advanced to the middle of the bridge, into the torrent beneath, which swept both beam and man away with resistless force.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE RETURN OF ALFRED.

The reader is, we trust, somewhat impatient to learn the fate of Alfred of Æscendune, whom we left in so critical a position.

The fall of the bridge was so sudden and unexpected, that he scarcely knew where he was, till he found himself sucked rapidly down stream by the raging waters, when he struck out like a man, and battled for dear life. But the only result seemed to be that he was bruised and battered against the rocks and stones, until, exhausted, he was on the point of succumbing to his fate, as the current bore him into a calm deep pool, where he sank helplessly, his strength gone. But the guide and his companion Oswy had succeeded in reaching the spot, which was inaccessible from the other side, and plunging at once into the waters, the latter succeeded in bringing the dying youth to land. Dunstan and the other members of the party were soon on the spot; the lay brother was skilled in the art of restoring suspended animation, and they soon had the happiness of beholding Alfred return to consciousness; he raised his head, and gazed about him like one in a dream, not able to realise his position.

“Where am I? What have I been doing?” he exclaimed.

“You are safe, my dear son, and in the hands of friends,” replied Dunstan, “although you have had a narrow, narrow escape; we are secure for the present from our foes.”

They consulted together in low tones as to their future movements, and the abbot inquired particularly of the guide concerning the fords and bridges.

“There is a ford only a mile or two away, but I expect they will find they cannot cross it.”

“Is there no place of refuge near? He is unable to sit his horse.”

“There is a cottage close by, kept by a cowherd, who is a good and true man.”

“Then lead us to it at once,” replied Dunstan.

Alfred had by this time recognised his position, and he implored Dunstan not to endanger his own safety for his sake; but the abbot paid no attention. They reached the cottage just as the day was dawning, and the east was bright with rosy light. It was such a place as the great king, after whom Alfred was named, had found refuge in when pressed by the Danes. It was poor, but neat and clean beyond the usual degree; and when the wants of their early visitors were known, and Dunstan was recognised, the utmost zeal was displayed in his cause.

All that could be done for Alfred was done at once, but he was manifestly too shaken and bruised to be able to travel; and, giving him his fatherly blessing, Dunstan was compelled by the guide to hurry on, leaving him in the care of Oswy.

They had not, however, great fear of their pursuers, for their own horses were comparatively fresh after the rest in the ruined city, and those of their foes would be necessarily fatigued, after the rapid ride along the Foss Way, and their exertions to pass the stream.

So it was not with great uneasiness, well mounted as they were, that, gaining the road, they beheld their pursuers in the distance, who, on their part, beholding their intended victims afar off, hastened to spur their horses on.

It was useless: the pursued had the advantage, and after the gallop of a mile or two, it became evident they were in no especial danger, although it must be remembered that a false step or slip, or any accident, would have been fatal.

“I should not mind racing them down the Foss to the Sea Town,” [^xxv] said the guide; “but if the abbot has no objection, I should prefer leaving them to pursue the road, while we take a cross-country route, which I have often travelled; it is a very good one.”

“By all means,” said Dunstan, “and then we may slacken this furious pace.”

They were quite out of sight of their pursuers when, coming upon a track of dry stony ground, they suddenly left the road, and crossing a wild heath, put a copse between them and the enemy, who did not this time discover for miles the absence of the footprints, for the soil was very dry and hard, the storm not having passed that way, and the foe were intent upon hard riding.

So they gained a long start, and eventually reached a hill, from which they obtained their first view of the sea. It was eventide, and the western sun, sinking towards the promontories beyond the distant Exe, reddened the waters with his glowing light. Dunstan and his brethren thanked God.

“We have come to the setting sun,” said they, “and at eventide have seen light; let us thank Him Who hath preserved us.”

But the guide, who knew what relentless pursuers were yet behind, would allow them no rest. In another hour they reached a small fishing village on the coast, where a solitary bark was kept. The owner was just about to put out for an evening’s fishing, but at the earnest request of his visitors, backed by much gold, he consented to take them over to the opposite coast.

“The weather promises to be very clear and fine,” he said; “and we may sail across without any danger.”

It was indeed a lovely night; they stepped on board, the anchor was loosed, the sail set, and with the wind behind, they stood rapidly out to sea. They were quite silent, each immersed in his own thoughts. At last they heard the sound of horsemen galloping on the fast-receding shore, and looking back, they saw twelve riders reach the beach, and pause, looking wistfully out to sea.

“Our soul is escaped, even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler; the snare is broken, and we are delivered,” said Dunstan.

“Our help standeth in the name of the Lord, Who hath made heaven and earth,” replied Father Guthlac.

Meanwhile, Alfred rapidly gained strength. Happily no bones were broken, he was only sadly bruised. The next day he expressed his earnest wish to return home, but his host would not permit him, saying he should have to answer to Dunstan some day for his guest.

The time passed monotonously enough that second day, yet not unpleasantly: there were a thousand things to observe in the woods and marshes around, full of animal life.

Early in the morning, a sweet fresh morning, the cowherd drove his cattle forth to graze, where he knew the pastures were sweetest, and Alfred would willingly have gone, too, but they told him he must rest. So he took his breakfast of hot milk and bread, with oat cakes baked on the hearth, and waited patiently till the warmth of the day tempted him out, under the care of Oswy, to watch the distant herd, to drink of the clear spring or recline under some huge spreading beech, while the breeze made sweet melodies in his ears, and lulled him pleasantly to sleep.

At midday they returned to the customary dinner, which was not of such inferior quality as one would now expect to find in such a place, contrasting strongly with the fare on the tables of the rich: then there was far more equality in the food of rich and poor, and Alfred had no cause to complain of the cowherd’s table.

Then he sauntered forth again with Oswy, and strove to amuse himself with the book of nature; till just at eventide, as he was longing earnestly that he could know the fate of his fugitive friends, they heard the sound of a horse at full trot, and soon the guide appeared in sight.

Alfred rose up eagerly.

“Are they safe?” he cried.

“Yes, quite safe; they had got a mile out to sea when their pursuers got to the beach; I saw it all, hidden in a woody hill above.”

“Did they try to follow?”

“They could not, there was no boat: I never saw men in such a rage.”

Alfred felt as if a weight were removed from his heart, then he looked up in the face of the guide.

“Will you guide us home?” he said.

“Yes,” was the reply; “the holy abbot particularly desired me to return to his son Alfred, and to take care of him on his journey home; and if you will have me as your guide, I will warrant you a safe journey to Æscendune, for we are not worth following.”

“Then let us start tomorrow morning,” said Alfred, longing to be once more in his old father’s presence, and to cheer his mother’s heart.

They returned together to the cowherd’s cottage, and slept peacefully that night. Early in the morning they retook the path to the Foss Way, crossing the stream at a ford higher up. Their horses being well rested and full of spirit for the journey, they passed Glastonbury, still empty and desolate, in the middle of the day, and retraced by easy stages the whole of Alfred’s previous route from home.

After a week’s easy travelling, by the blessing of Providence, they reached the neighbourhood of Æscendune: it had never looked so lovely, so home-like to Alfred as then. He felt as if every spot were full of joy, and as he was recognised by person after person, by his favourite dogs as they bounded forth, and finally fell into his mother’s arms at the gate of the hall, he experienced feelings which in these days, when we are all so familiar with the thought of travel, can seldom be realised.

Then he had to recount his adventures that night, after supper, to an admiring audience, who listened enraptured to his account of the holiness of Dunstan and the cruelty of his foes. But it will easily be imagined that he made no allusion to his rencontre with Elfric; and Oswy, instructed by his young master, was equally silent.

He had quite made up his mind to persevere in this course: it could do no good to tell father or mother how grievously Elfric had fallen, and how nearly he had been the involuntary instrument of his brother’s death.

“God can change his heart,” said Alfred to himself, “and bring him home like the prodigal son about whom Father Cuthbert talks so often.”

So he prayed earnestly every day for his brother, and many a supplication on his behalf arose from the altar of St. Wilfred. Time will show whether they were lost.

CHAPTER XIV.
EDWY AND ELGIVA.

Edwy, King of England, and Elgiva, his queen, gave a great feast at their royal palace in London, a month after the events recorded in our last chapter; and a numerous company had assembled to do honour to their hospitality. Yet the company was very different from that which had assembled round the same hospitable board in the days of King Edred. First, the Churchmen were conspicuous by their absence; and secondly, all the old grey-headed counsellors, who had been the pride and ornament of the reigns of Edmund and Edred, were not seen; for, after the rumour of their marriage had reached Odo, he had pronounced the sentence of the lesser excommunication upon them, severing them from the sacraments; and this was felt by the old counsellors of Edred to be a most serious stigma, yet one which they could not call undeserved: hence they deserted the court.

In their place were the young and giddy, the headstrong sons of wiser fathers, the spendthrifts, the young fops of the period, those who went in for a fast life, to use a modern phrase—who spent the night, if not the day, over the wine cup, and consumed their substance in riotous living—such were they who gathered around Edwy the Fair and the yet fairer Elgiva.

And truly king and queen more beautiful in person had never sat upon a throne; and it was difficult to look upon them and feel aught but admiration, save when one knew all their history, and then pity and sorrow might supply the place of admiration, at least with the sober minded.

Fish, flesh, and fowl; nought was wanting. The earth the air, and the water, all yielded their tribute; for was it not the anniversary of the marriage—the uncanonical marriage, alas!—of the royal pair, if marriage it had truly been?

Eels of enormous size, fine as the Roman lamprey, pike roasted with puddings in their bellies, tench and carp stewed; while the sea yielded its skate, its sturgeon, and its porpoise, which the skill of the cook had so curiously dressed with fragrant spices that it won him great renown. The very smell, said a young gourmand, was a dinner in itself; and the wild buck supplied its haunch, and the boar its head, while fowl of all kinds were handed round on spits.

The drinking was of like sumptuous character, and Rhenish wine contended with the wines of sunny France for precedence, as they were passed round in silver cups and gold-mounted horns; for glass was seldom, if ever, used for such purposes then.

The floor was strewed with the sweetest summer flowers, and exhaled an odour balmy as the breath of eastern climes, where the breeze plays with the orange blossoms. The tapestry was beautifully woven by foreign artists, and represented the loves of the gods; while there was nothing in keeping with the olden style throughout the whole apartment.

But one seat was vacant near the king’s throne, and every now and then Edwy seemed to cast a wistful eye upon it, as if he would fain see its ordinary occupant there.

The gleemen rose and sang, the harpers harped, but something was wanting; they brought tears to the eyes of the fair queen by their plaintive songs of hapless lovers, which had superseded alike the war songs of Athelstane and the monkish odes of Edred.

“Where is Elfric? He promised to be back by our wedding day; why does he delay, my Edwy?” asked Elgiva.

“It is little less than treason to the queen of youth and beauty to be thus absent, my Elgiva, but remember he has been unwell, and Redwald told me that for prudential reasons they delayed his return to court.”

“And your brother Edgar—”

“Is somewhere in Mercia: the churlish boy has declined our invitation to honour our feast with his presence. We do not want his serious face at the board. I am sure he would preach on the duty of fasting.”

“He has but seldom been our visitor.”

“No; he is afraid, perhaps, to trust his cold heart within the magic of my Elgiva’s sunshine, lest the ice should be melted.”

These had been asides, while all the company were listening to the gleeman; but now Edwy threw himself heart and soul into the current conversation, and all went merry as a marriage peal, until the ceremoniarius—for Edwy loved formality in some things—threw open the folding doors and announced the captain of the hus-carles, and Elfric of Æscendune.

The whole company rose to receive them, and Elfric in particular received a warm welcome; but it was at once seen that there was a marked constraint upon him: his eye was restless and uneasy, and he seemed like one carrying a load at his breast.

In truth, since that fatal night when, as he believed, he had witnessed the death of his brother, he had striven in vain to drown care and to banish remorse: the thought of his aged father deprived of both his sons—the one by death, the other by desertion—would force its way unbidden to his mind. Still, he had determined to throw aside reserve in honour of the occasion, and he made heroic efforts to appear happy and gay.

Redwald was at his ease, as usual in all company, and seemed to cause prodigious laughter as he told his adventures to the younger folk at the bottom of the board. Dark and malign as his demeanour usually was, yet he could affect a light and airy character at times.

“Redwald, my trusty champion,” said Edwy, “this is the first campaign thou hast ever returned from unsuccessful. Tell us, how did Dunstan outwit you?”

“By the aid of the devil, my liege.”

“Doubtless; but we had all hoped for a different result, and that thou wouldst either have left the traitor no eyes in his head, or no head on his shoulders.