Part 3 (1/2)

And then with what appet.i.te 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 Aescendune, 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 pa.s.sed, 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 ma.s.s 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, s.h.i.+eld, 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed 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 Aescendune, 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 Aescendune 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.