AT HIS WORST.
The unhappy Elfric had indeed fallen from his former self before he
reached the depth at which our readers have just seen him, joining with
Redwald in the unhallowed enterprise so happily frustrated, if indeed
it were yet frustrated, by his own brother.
But when his father had returned to Æscendune alone, Elfric felt that
home ties were shattered, and that he had nothing but the royal favour
to depend upon, so he yielded to the wishes of King Edwy in all points.
Immediately after his coronation, the reckless and ill-advised Edwy had
married Elgiva, xxiii in defiance of the ban of the Church, and then
had abandoned himself to the riotous society and foolish counsels of
young nobles vainer than those who cost Rehoboam so large a portion of
his kingdom. Amongst these Elfric was soon conspicuous and soon a
leader. His spirit and physical courage far beyond his years excited
their admiration, and in return they taught him all the mysteries of
evil which were yet unknown to him.
Under such influences both the king and his favourite threw off all
outward semblance even of religion, and only sought the means of
enjoyment. Redwald ministered without reserve or restraint to all their
pleasures, and under his evil influence Edwy even found occasion to rob
and plunder his own grandmother, a venerable Saxon princess, in order
that he might waste the ill-gotten substance in riotous living.
Yet there was a refinement in his vice: he did not care for coarse
sensual indulgence to any great extent; his wickedness was that of a
sensitive cultivated intellect, of a highly-wrought nervous
temperament. Unscrupulous—careless of truth—contemptuous of
religion—yet he had all that attraction in his person which first
endeared him to Elfric, whom he really loved. Alas! his love was deadly
as the breath of the upas tree to his friend and victim. When the first
measures of vengeance were taken against Dunstan, with the concurrence
of wicked but able ministers of state, Redwald was selected as the
agent who should bribe the thanes, and begin the course of conduct
which should eventually lead to the destruction of the enemy of the
king. He had only waited till the temper of the times seemed turned
against Dunstan (he judged it wrongly); and the king seemed secure
against every foe ere he planned the expedition we have introduced to
our readers.
We will now resume the thread of our narrative.
When the band of soldiers, headed by Redwald, had gained the gates of
the monastery, they found them, as we have seen, firmly locked and
barred.
“Blow your horns; rouse up these sleepy monks to some purpose,” said
Redwald. “Why, they have not a light about the place.”
A loud and vigorous blast of horns was blown, while the greater part of
the troop dismounted and paused impatiently for an answer from within.
“Two or three of you step forward with your axes,” exclaimed Redwald.
They did so, and thundered on the gate without any success, so stoutly
was it made.
“What can it mean?” said Redwald. “All is silent as the grave.”
“No; there is some one laughing at us,” said Elfric.
A peal of merry laughter was heard within.
Redwald was thoroughly enraged, and seizing an axe with his own hand,
he set the example of applying it to the gate, but without any result
save to split a few planks, while the iron framework, designed by
Dunstan himself, who was clever at such arts, held as firmly as ever.
Unprovided with other means of forcing it, the besiegers had recourse
to fire, and gathering fuel with some difficulty, they piled it against
the gate. Shortly the woodwork caught, and the whole gate presently
yielded to the action of the fire; the iron bars, loosened by the
destruction of the woodwork, gave way, and the besiegers rushed into
the quadrangle. Here, all was dark and silent, not a sound to be heard
or a light seen.
“What can it mean? Have they fled? You all heard the laughter!”
“There it is again.”
The boisterous and untimely mirth had begun just within the abbot’s
lodgings, and the doorway at the foot was immediately attacked. It
presently yielded, and Redwald, who had obtained a good notion of the
place, rushed with his chief villains to the chamber he knew to be
Dunstan’s; yet he began to fear failure, for the absence of all the
inmates was disheartening. No, not all, for there was the loud laughter
within the very chamber of the abbot.
The door was fastened securely, and while the axes were doing their
destructive work upon it, the mocking laughter was again heard. Redwald
had become so enraged that he mentally vowed the direst vengeance upon
the untimely jester, when the door burst open and he rushed in.
“Where is he? Surely there was some one here?”
“Who could it be? We all heard the laughter.”
But victim there was none; and searching all the place in vain, they
had to satiate their vengeance by destroying the humble furniture of
the abbot.
What to do next they knew not, and Redwald, deeply mystified, was
reluctantly forced to own his discomfiture, and to prepare to pass the
night in the abbey. Accordingly, his men dispersed in search of food
and wine. Some found their way to the buttery; it was but poorly
supplied, all the provisions in the place having been given to the
poorer pilgrims by the departing monks. The cellar was not so easily
emptied, and such wine as had been stored up for future use was at once
appropriated.
Redwald and Elfric, having shared the common meal gloomily, were seated
in the abbot’s chamber—little did Elfric dream that his brother had so
recently been in the same room—when one of the guards entered, bringing
with him a stranger. He turned out to be a neighbouring thane, one of
those bitter enemies to Dunstan whom Edwy had planted round the
monastery, and he came to give information that he had seen Dunstan
with five companions escaping by the Foss Way.
Redwald jumped up eagerly. “How long since?” he asked.
“About two hours, and ten miles off, I was returning home from a
distant farm of mine.”
“Why did you not stop them?”
“I was too weak for that; they were six to one. I heard you had been
seen coming here by a cowherd, and came to warn you. If you ride fast
you may catch the holy fox yet before he runs to earth; but you must be
very quick.”
“What pace were they riding?”
“Slowly at that moment; it was up a hill.”
Redwald rushed from the room, crying, “To horse, to horse!” but found
only a portion of his men awake: the others were mainly drunk and
sleeping it off on the floor.
Cursing their untimely indulgence, he got about a dozen men rapidly
mounted on the fleetest horses, taking care Elfric should be one, and
dashed off in pursuit of the fugitives.
Dunstan and his party had ridden some four or five hours, when the moon
became overcast, and low peals of distant thunder were heard. The
atmosphere was so intensely hot, and the silence of nature so
oppressive, that it was evident some convulsion was at hand.
“Is there any shelter near?”
“Only a ruined city xxiv in the wood on the left hand, but it is a
dangerous place to approach after nightfall. They say evil spirits lurk
there.”
“They tell that story of every ruined place, be it city, temple, or
house; and even if it be, we have more cause to dread evil men than
evil spirits.”
The guide hesitated no longer, and struck into a bypath, which
penetrated the depth of the woody marsh through which the Foss Way then
had its course. After a minute or two it became evident, from the
footing, that they were upon the paved work of a causeway overgrown
with weeds and rank herbage; huge mounds showed where fortifications
had once existed, and shortly, broken pillars and ruined walls appeared
at irregular intervals.
They had little time to look around them, for the storm had come
rapidly up, and the glare of the lightning was incessant, while the
rain poured down in absolute torrents. Before them rose a huge ruin
covered with ivy and with the roof partly protecting the interior. It
was so large that they were able to lead their horses within its
protection and wait the cessation of the rain.
Between the flashes the sky was intensely dark, but they were almost
incessant, and revealed the city of the dead in which they had found
refuge. It was an ancient Welsh town, and in the latter years of the
deadly struggle with the English, had been taken after a protracted
resistance. Tradition had not even preserved its name, and only stated
that every living soul had perished in the massacre when the outer
walls were at length stormed and the town given to fire and sword. The
victors, as was frequently the case, had avoided the spot, preferring
to build elsewhere, and, like Silchester or Anderida, it had fallen
into desolation such as befell mighty Babylon.
And now the ignorant rustic peopled its buildings with the imaginary
forms of doleful creatures, and shunned the fatal precincts where once
family love and social affections had flourished; where hearts, long
mouldered to dust, had beaten with tender affection, where all the
little circumstances which make up life—the trivial round, the common
task—had gone on beneath the summer’s sun or winter’s storm, till the
great convulsion which ended the existence of the whole community.
Dunstan noticed that his whole party crowded closely together, and when
the lightning illuminated each face saw that fear had left its visible
mark.
The continuous roar of thunder, the hissing of the descending rain, the
wind which blew in angry gusts, prevented all conversation until nearly
an hour had elapsed, when the strife began to diminish. It was a sad
and mournful sight to gaze upon the remains of departed greatness when
thus illuminated by the electric flash, and easily might the fancy,
deceived by the transient glimpses of things, people the ruins with the
shades of their departed inhabitants.
“Father,” said Alfred, at length, “who were they who lived here? Do you
know aught about them?”
“The men whom our ancestors subdued—the Welsh, or British—an unhappy
race.”
“Were they heathen?”
“At one time, but they were converted by the missions from Rome and the
East, of which the earliest was that of St. Joseph of Arimathea to our
own Glastonbury; he may have preached to the very people who lived
here, nay, in this very basilica, which, I think, may have been
converted into a church.”
It was indeed the ruin of a basilica wherein they stood, but no trace
survived to show whether Dunstan’s conjecture was correct.
“It seems strange that God should have permitted them to fall before
the sword of our heathen ancestors.”
“Their own historian Gildas, who lies buried at Glastonbury, explains
it. He tells us that such was the corruption of faith and of morals
towards the close of their brief day, that had not the Saxon sword
interposed; plague, pestilence, or famine, or some similar calamity,
must have done the fatal work. God grant that we, now that in turn we
have received the message of the Gospel, may be more faithful servants,
or similar ruin may, at no distant period, await the Englishman also,
as it did the Welshman.”
He sighed deeply, and Alfred echoed the sigh in his heart; he read the
abbot’s thoughts.
“Do you believe,” said he, after a pause, “that their spirits ever
revisit the earth?”
“I know not; many wise men have thought it possible, and that they may
haunt the places where they sinned, ever bearing their condemnation
within them, even while they clothe themselves in semblance of the
mortal flesh they once wore.”
The whole party shuddered, and Father Guthlac said, deprecatingly:
“My father, let us not talk of this now. We are too weak to bear it,
and the place is so awful!”
By this time the wind had made a huge rent in the black clouds
overhead, and the moon came suddenly in sight, sailing tranquilly in
the azure void above, and casting her beams on the ruins, as she had
once cast them on the beauteous city; its basilicas, palaces, and
temples yet standing.
At this moment their guide came hastily to them.
“We are in some danger, father. Horsemen, twelve of them, are galloping
along the Foss Way in spite of the storm.”
Dunstan left the shelter, which was no longer needed, the rain having
ceased, and followed the guide to the summit of the huge mound which
marked the fall of some giant bastion of early days. From that position
they could see the Foss Way, now about half-a-mile distant in the
bright moonlight, and Dunstan’s eye at once caught twelve
figures—horsemen—sweeping down it like the wind, which brought the
sound of their passage faintly to the ear.
“Wait,” he said, “and see whether they pass the bypath; in that case we
are safe.”
The whole party was now on the mound, their persons carefully concealed
from the view of the horsemen, while they watched their passage with
intense anxiety. The enemy reached the bypath; eleven of them passed
over it, but the twelfth reined his horse suddenly, almost upon its
haunches, and pointed to the ground. He had evidently seen the tracks
of the fugitives upon the soft turf.
The next moment they all turned their horses into the bypath.
“Follow,” said the guide; and they all rushed eagerly down the mound
and mounted at once.
“Follow me closely; I think I can save you from them; only lose not a
moment.”
The guide led them by a wandering path amongst the ruins, where their
tracks would leave the least trace, until he passed through a gap in
the external fortifications on the opposite side. Then he rode rapidly
along a descending path in the woods, until the sound of rushing water
greeted their ears, and they arrived on the brink of a small river
which was swollen by the violent rain, and which dashed along an
irregular and stony bed with fearful impetuosity.
There was but one mode of crossing it: a bridge constructed of planks
was thrown over, which one horseman might pass at a time. The whole
party rode over in safety, although the crazy old bridge bent terribly
beneath the weight of each rider.
But when all were over, the guide motioned to Alfred and Oswy to remain
behind for one moment, while the monks proceeded. He threw himself from
his horse, and taking the axe which he had slung behind him, commenced
hacking away at the bridge. But although the bridge was old, yet it was
tough; and although Alfred, and Oswy who was armed with a small
battle-axe, assisted with all their might, the work seemed long.
Before it was completed, they heard the voices of their pursuers
calling to each other amongst the ruins. They had evidently lost the
track, and were separating to find it.
Crash went one huge plank into the raging torrent, then a second, and
but one beam remained, when a horseman emerged from the trees opposite,
and by the light of the moon Alfred recognised his brother.
Desperate in the excitement of the chase, Elfric leapt from his horse,
and drawing his sword rushed upon the bridge.
Alfred, who felt it tremble, cried:
“Back, Elfric! Back if you value your life!” while at the same moment,
true to his duty, without raising his axe or any other attempt at
offence, he opposed his own body in passive resistance to Elfric’s
passage over the beam.
Elfric knew the voice, and drew back in utter amazement. He had already
stepped from the half-severed beam, when he saw it bend, break, and
roll, with Alfred, who had advanced to the middle of the bridge, into
the torrent beneath, which swept both beam and man away with resistless
force.