Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune Read online

rangagain.

  Song followed song, legend legend, the revelry grew louder, while thelady Edith, with her daughter, retired to their bower, where theyemployed their needles on delicate embroidery. A representation inbright colours of the consecration of the church of St. Wilfred occupiedthe hands of the little Edgitha, while her mother wove sacred picturesto serve as hangings for the sanctuary of the priory church.

  But soon the tolling of the bell announced that it was the complinehour, nine o'clock, and that hour was never allowed to pass unobservedat Aescendune, but formed the termination of the labour or the feast,after which it was customary for the whole household to retire, as wellthey might who rose with the early dawn.

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

  "Come, my children," said the thane; "we must rise early, so let us allcommit ourselves to the keeping of God and His holy angels, and seek ourpillows."

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

  The household was speedily buried in sleep, save the solitary sentinelwho paced around the building. Not that danger was apprehended from anysource, but precaution had become habitual in those days of turmoil.Occasionally the howl of the wolf was heard from the woods, and thesleepers 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 Aescendune fromhis couch of straw, for softer material was seldom or never used forrepose. Even the chamber in which the prince slept could not be calledluxurious: the bed was in a box-like recess; its coverlets, workedrichly by the fair hands of the ladies, who had little other occupation,covered a mattress which even modern schoolboys would call rough anduncomfortable.

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

  Leaving this chamber in good time, Prince Edwy acompanied his newfriends to the priory church, where they heard mass before the sun washigh in the heavens, after which they returned to the hall to take alight breakfast before they sought the attractions of the chase in theforest. Full of life they mounted their horses, and galloped in the wildexuberance of animal spirits with their dogs through the leafy arches ofthe forest, startling the red deer, the wolf, or the wild boar. Soonthey 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 theswineherd drove his half-tame charges, or where the woodcutters pliedtheir toil, and loaded their rude carts or hand barrows with fuel forthe kitchen of the hall; past rookeries, where the birds made the airlively by their noise; over brook, through the half-dry marsh, untilthey came upon an old wolf; whom they followed and slew for want ofbetter game, not without a desperate struggle, in which Elfric, ever theforemost, got a much worse scratch than on the preceding day.

  But how enjoyable the sport was, how sweet to breathe the bright pureair of that May day; how grand to outstrip the wind over the yieldingturf, and at last to carry home the trophies of their prowess; the scalpof the wolf, the tusks of the boar, leaving the serfs to bring in thesucculent flesh of the latter, while the hawks and crows fed upon theformer.

  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 tothe river and angled for the trout which abounded in the clear stream.

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

  "Could you not return with me to court," he said, "and relieve thetedium of old Dunstan's society? You cannot think what pleasures Londonaffords; it is life there indeed--it is true there are no forests likethese, but then, in the winter, when the country is so dreary, the townis the place."

  "My father will never consent to my leaving home," returned Elfric, whoinwardly felt his heart was with the prince.

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

  The idea had got such strong possession of the mind of Edwy, that heventilated it the same night at the supper table, but met with scantencouragement. Still he did not despair; for, as he told Elfric, theinfluence of his royal uncle, King Edred, might be hopefully exerted ontheir 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, attachedto monkish Latin, and all that sort of thing, so that he will long toget 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 comfortablyinstalled in the palace; and, between you and me, he is but old andfeeble, and has always had a disease of some kind. I expect he will soondie, and then who will be king save Edwy, and who in England shall behigher than his friend Elfric?"

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

  Shortly after the last conversation, an express came from the court toseek the young prince--the messenger had been long delayed fromignorance of the present abode of Edwy, who had carefully concealed thesecret until he felt he could tarry no longer, fearing the wrath notonly of the king, but of Dunstan, whom he dreaded yet more than his uncle.

  So he and his attendants, who had, like him, found pleasantentertainment at Aescendune, bade farewell to the home where he had beenso hospitably entertained: and so ended a visit, pregnant with the mostimportant results, then utterly unforeseen and unintended, to the familyhe had honoured by his presence.

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

  It would seem somewhat a hard one to a lover of modern ease. They roseearly, as we have already seen, and before breaking their fast went withtheir father and most of the household to the early mass at themonastery of St. Wilfred, returned to an early meal, and then workedhard, on ordinary occasions at their Latin, and such other studies aswere pursued in that primitive age of England. The midday meal wassucceeded by somewhat severe bodily exercise, generally hunting the boaror wolf which still abounded in the forests, an excitement notunattended by danger, which, however, their father would never permitthem to shun. He knew full well the importance of personal courage at anage when the dangers of hunting were only initiatory to the stern dutiesof war, and no Englishman could shun the latter when his country calledupon him to take up arms. Nor were martial exercises unknown to theboys; the bow, it is true, was somewhat neglected then in England, butthe 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 brotherswelcomed the evening social meal, and the rest which followed, when oldSaxon legen
d 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 ofthe prince, when a royal messenger appeared, bearing a letter sealedwith the king's signet. The old thane, who had passed his youth in moretroublous times, and could scarcely read the Anglo-Saxon version of theGospels, then extant, could not construe the monkish Latin in which itwas King Edred's good pleasure to write.

  So the chaplain, Cuthbert, read him the letter in which the king greetedhis loyal and well-beloved subject, Ella of Aescendune, and begged ofhim, as a great favour, that he would send his eldest boy to court, tobe the companion of the young prince, who had (the king said) conceiveda 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 wellqualified to