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.