Part 15 (1/2)

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 p.r.o.nounced! 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 a.s.sertion before.”

”You have many things still to learn; you are but young as yet. But let it pa.s.s. 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 p.r.o.nounced, 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 pa.s.s 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 n.o.bles who had surrounded Edwy from the first, aided by a few h.o.a.ry 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 grat.i.tude towards Dunstan.”

”Rather the contrary.”

”Rather the contrary, as you say. But what sound was that? Surely something stirred the bus.h.!.+”

”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 superst.i.tion.

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 ident.i.ty 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.