Part 20 (1/2)
”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 Aescendune, 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 pa.s.sed Glas...o...b..ry, 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 Aescendune: 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.
”G.o.d 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 a.s.sembled to do honour to their hospitality. Yet the company was very different from that which had a.s.sembled 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 pa.s.sed round in silver cups and gold-mounted horns; for gla.s.s 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 G.o.ds; 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--”