the noblest ladies in the land who desired to take the veil, including
princesses and widow queens; and it continued to flourish for centuries,
down to the Dissolution.
This work completed, she returned, after nineteen years, to her old home
at Wherwell. Since she had lost sight of her maid Editha, she had been
possessed with a desire to re-visit that spot, where she had been happy
as a young bride and had repined in solitude and had had her glorious
triumph and stained her soul with crime. She craved for it again,
especially to look once more at the crystal current of the Test in which
she had been accustomed to dip her hands. The grave, saintly face of
Editha had reminded her of that stream; and Editha she might not see.
She could not seek for her, nor speak to her, nor cry to her to come
back to her, since she had said that they would meet no more on earth.
Having become possessed of the castle which she had once regarded as her
prison and cage, she ordered its demolition and used the materials in
building the abbey she founded at that spot, and it was taken for
granted by the Church that this was done in expiation of the part she
had taken in Athelwold's murder. At this spot where the stream became
associated in her mind with the thought of Editha, and was a sacred
stream, she resolved to end her days. But the time of her retirement was
not yet, there was much still waiting for her to do in her master's
fields and pleasure-grounds. For no sooner had the tidings of her work
in founding these monasteries and the lavish use she was making of her
great wealth been spread abroad, than from many religious houses all
over the land the cry was sent to her--the Macedonian cry to St. Paul to
come over and help us.
From the houses founded by Edgar the cry was particularly loud and
insistent. There were forty-seven of them, and had not Edgar died so
soon there would have been fifty, that being the number he had set his
heart on in his fervid zeal for religion. All, alas! were insufficiently
endowed; and it was for Elfrida, as they were careful to point out, to
increase their income from her great wealth, seeing that this would
enable them to associate her name with that of Edgar and keep it in
memory, and this would be good for her soul.
To all such calls she listened, and she performed many and long journeys
to the religious houses all over the country to look closely into their
conditions and needs, and to all she gave freely or in moderation, but
not always without a gesture of scorn. For in her heart of hearts she
was still Elfrida and unchanged, albeit outwardly she had attained to
humility; only once during these years of travel and toil when she was
getting rid of her wealth did she allow her secret bitterness and
hostility to her ecclesiastical guides and advisers to break out.
She was at Worcester, engaged in a conference with the bishop and
several of his clergy; they were sitting at an oak table with some
papers and plans before them, when the news was brought into the room
that Archbishop Dunstan was dead.
They all, except Elfrida, started to their feet with the looks and
exclamations of dismay, as if some frightful calamity had come to pass.
Then dropping to their knees with bowed heads and lifted hands they
prayed for the repose of his soul. They prayed silently, but the silence
was broken by a laugh from the queen. Starting to his feet the bishop
turned on her a severe countenance, and asked why she laughed at that
solemn moment.
She replied that she had laughed unthinkingly, as the linnet sings, from
pure joy of heart at the glad tidings that their holy archbishop had
been translated to paradise. For if he had done so much for England when
burdened with the flesh, how much more would he be able to do now from
the seat or throne to which he would be exalted in heaven in virtue of
the position his blessed mother now occupied in that place.
The bishop, angered at her mocking words, turned his back on her, and
the others, following his example, averted their faces, but not one word
did they utter.
They remembered that Dunstan in former years, when striving to make
himself all powerful in the kingdom, had made free use of a supernatural
machinery; that when he wanted something done and it could not be done
in any other way, he received a command from heaven, brought to him by
some saint or angel, to have it done, and the command had then to be
obeyed. They also remembered that when Dunstan, as he informed them, had
been snatched up into the seventh heaven, he did not on his return to
earth modestly, like St. Paul, that it was not lawful for him to speak
of the things which he had heard and seen, but he proclaimed them to an
astonished world in his loudest trumpet voice. Also, that when, by these
means, he had established his power and influence and knew that he could
trust his own subtle brains to maintain his position, he had dropped the
miracles and visions. And it had come to pass that when the archbishop
had seen fit to leave the supernatural element out of his policy, the
heads of the Church in England were only too pleased to have it so. The
world had gaped with astonishment at these revelations long enough, and
its credulity had come near to the breaking point, on which account the
raking up of these perilous matters by the queen was fiercely resented.
But the queen was not yet satisfied that enough had been said by her.
Now she was in full revolt she must give out once for all the hatred of
her old enemy, which his death had not appeased.
What mean you, Fathers, she cried, by turning your backs on me and
keeping silence? Is it an insult to me you intend or to the memory of
that great and holy man who has just quitted the earth? Will you dare to
say that the reports he brought to us of the marvellous doings he
witnessed in heaven, when he was taken there, were false and the lies
and inventions of Satan, whose servant he was?
More than that she was not allowed to say, for now the bishop in a
mighty rage swung round, and dealt a blow on the table with such fury
that his arm was disabled by it, he shouted at her: Not another word!
Hold your mocking tongue, fiendish woman! Then plucking up his gown with
his left hand for fear of being tripped up by it he rushed out of the
room.
The others, still keeping their faces averted from her, followed at a
more dignified pace; and seeing them depart she cried after them: Go,
Fathers, and tell your bishop that if he had not run away so soon he
would have been rewarded for his insolence by a slap in the face.
This outburst on her part caused no lasting break in her relations with
the Church. It was to her merely an incident in her long day's toil in
her master's fields--a quarrel she had had with an overseer; while he,
on his side, even before he recovered the use of his injured arm,
thought it best for their souls, as well as for the interests of the
Church, to say no more about it. Her great works of expiation were
accordingly continued. But the time at length arrived for her to take
her long-desired rest before facing the unknown dreaded future. She was
not old in years, but remorse and a deep settled melancholy and her
frequent fierce wrestlings with her own rebellious nature as with an
untamed dangerous animal chained to her had made her old. Furthermore,
she had by now well-nigh expended all her possessions and wealth, even
to the gems she had once prized and then thrust away out of sight for
many years, and which her maid Editha had rejected with scorn, saying
they were no more to her than pebbles from the brook.
Once more at Wherwell, she entered the Abbey, and albeit she took the
veil herself she was not under the same strict rule as her sister nuns.
The Abbess herself retired to Winchester and ruled the convent from that
city, while Elfrida had the liberty she desired, to live and do as she
liked in her own rooms and attend prayers and meals only when inclined
to do so. There, as always, since Edward's death, her life was a
solitary one, and in the cold season she would have her fire of logs and
sit before it as in the old days in the castle, brooding ever on her
happy and unhappy past and on the awful future, the years and centuries
of suffering and purification.
It was chiefly this thought of the solitariness of that future state,
that companionless way, centuries long, that daunted her. Here in this
earthly state, darkened as it was, there were yet two souls she could
and constantly did hold communion with--Editha still on earth, though
not with her, and Edward in heaven; but in that dreadful desert to which
she would be banished there would be a great gulf set between her soul
and theirs.
But perhaps there would be others she had known, whose lives had been
interwoven with hers, she would be allowed to commune with in that same
place. Edgar of a certainty would be there, although Glastonbury had
built him a chapel and put him in a silver tomb and had begun to call
him Saint Edgar. Would he find her and seek to have speech with her? It
was anguish to her even to think of such an encounter. She would say, Do
not come to me, for rather would I be alone in this dreadful solitude
for a thousand years than have you, Edgar, for company. For I have not
now one thought or memory of you in my soul that is not bitter. It is
true that I once loved you: even before I saw your face I loved you, and
said in my heart that we two were destined to be one. And my love
increased when we were united, and you gave me my heart's desire--the
power I loved, and glory in the sight of the world. And although in my
heart I laughed at your pretended zeal for a pure religion while you
were gratifying your lower desires and chasing after fair women all over
the land, I admired and gloried in your nobler qualities, your activity
and vigilance in keeping the peace within your borders, and in making
England master of the seas, so that the pirate kings of the North
ventured not to approach our shores. But on your own gross appetites you
would put no restraint, but gave yourself up to wine and gluttony and
made a companion of Death, even in the flower of your age you were
playing with Death, and when you had lived but half your years you rode
away with Death and left me alone; you, Edgar, the mighty hunter and
slayer of wolves, you rode away and left me to the wolves, alone, in a
dark forest. Therefore the guilt of Edward's death is yours more than
mine, though my soul is stained red with his blood, seeing that you left
me to fight alone, and in my madness, not knowing what I did, I stained
myself with this crime.
But what you have done to me is of little moment, seeing that mine is
but one soul of the many thousands that were given into your keeping,
and your crime in wasting your life for the sake of base pleasures was
committed against an entire nation, and not of the living only but also
the great and glorious dead of the race of Cerdic--of the men who have
laboured these many centuries, shedding their blood on a hundred
stricken fields, to build up this kingdom of England; and when their
mighty work was completed it was given into your hands to keep and
guard. And you died and abandoned it; Death, your playmate, has taken
you away, and Edgar's peace is no more. Now your ships are scattered or
sunk in the sea, now the invaders are again on your coasts as in the old
dreadful days, burning and slaying, and want is everywhere and fear is
in all hearts throughout the land. And the king, your son, who inherited
your beautiful face and nought beside except your vices and whatever was
least worthy of a king, he too is now taking his pleasure, even as you
took yours, in a gay bejewelled dress, with some shameless woman at his
side and a wine-cup in his hand. O unhappy mother that I am, that I must
curse the day a son was born to me! O grief immitigable that it was my
deed, my dreadful deed, that raised him to the throne--the throne that
was Alfred's and Edmund's and Athelstan's!
These were the thoughts that were her only company as she sat brooding
before her winter fire, day after day, and winter following winter,
while the years deepened the lines of anguish on her face and whitened
the hair that was once red gold.
But in the summer time she was less unhappy, for then she could spend
the long hours out of doors under the sky in the large shaded gardens of
the convent with the stream for boundary on the lower side. This stream
had now become more to her than in the old days when, languishing in
solitude, she had made it a companion and confidant. For now it had
become associated in her mind with the image of the maid Editha, and
when she sat again at the old spot on the bank gazing on the swift
crystal current, then dipping her hand in it and putting the wetted hand
to her lips, the stream and Editha were one.
Then one day she was missed, and for a long time they sought for her all
through the building and in the grounds without finding her. Then the
seekers heard a loud cry, and saw one of the nuns running towards the
convent door, with her hands pressed to her face as if to shut out some
dreadful sight; and when they called to her she pointed back towards the
stream and ran on to the house. Then all the sisters who were out in the
grounds hurried down to the stream to the spot where Elfrida was
accustomed to sit, and were horrified to see her lying drowned in the
water.
It was a hot, dry summer and the stream was low, and in stooping to dip
her hand in the water she had lost her balance and fallen in, and
although the water was but three feet deep she had in her feebleness
been unable to save herself. She was lying on her back on the clearly
seen bed of many-coloured pebbles, her head pointing downstream, and the
swift fretting current had carried away her hood and pulled out her long
abundant silver-white hair, and the current played with her hair, now
pulling it straight out, then spreading it wide over the surface, mixing
its silvery threads with the hair-like green blades of the floating
water-grass. And the dead face was like marble; but the wide-open eyes
that had never wholly lost their brilliance and the beautiful lungwort
blue colour were like living eyes--living and gazing through the
crystal-clear running water at the group of nuns staring down with
horror-struck faces at her.
Thus ended Elfrida's darkened life; nor did it seem an unfit end; for it
was as if she had fallen into the arms of the maiden who had in her
thoughts become one with the stream--the saintly Editha through whose
sacrifice and intercession she had been saved from death everlasting.
AN OLD THORN
[Illustration: HAWTHORN AND IVY NEAR THE GREAT RIDGE WOOD.]
I
The little village of Ingden lies in a hollow of the South Wiltshire
Downs, the most isolated of the villages in that lonely district. Its
one short street is crossed at right angles in the middle part by the
Salisbury road, and standing just at that point, the church on one hand,
the old inn on the other, you can follow it with the eye for a distance
of nearly three miles. First it goes winding up the low down under which
the village stands, then vanishes over the brow to reappear again a mile
and a half further away as a white band on the vast green slope of the
succeeding down, which rises to a height of over 600 feet. On the summit
it vanishes once more, but those who use it know it for a laborious road
crossing several high ridges before dropping down into the valley road
leading to Salisbury.
When, standing in the village street, your eye travels up that white
band, you can distinctly make out even at that distance a small,
solitary tree standing near the summit--an old thorn with an ivy growing
on it. My walks were often that way, and invariably on coming to that
point I would turn twenty yards aside from the road to spend half an
hour seated on the turf near or under the old tree. These half-hours
were always grateful; and conscious that the tree drew me to it I
questioned myself as to the reason. It was, I told myself, nothing but
mental curiosity: my interest was a purely scientific one. For how comes
it, I asked, that a thorn can grow to a tree and live to a great age in
such a situation, on a vast, naked down, where for many centuries,
perhaps for thousands of years, the herbage has been so closely fed by
sheep as to have the appearance of a carpet, or newly mown lawn? The
seed is carried and scattered everywhere by the birds, but no sooner
does it germinate and send up a shoot than it is eaten down to the
roots; for there is no scent that attracts a sheep more, no flavour it
has greater taste for, than that of any forest seedling springing up
amidst the minute herbaceous plants which carpet the downs. The thorn,
like other organisms, has its own unconscious intelligence and cunning,
by means of which it endeavours to save itself and fulfil its life. It
opens its first tender leaves under the herbage, and at the same time
thrusts up a vertical spine to wound the nibbling mouth; and no sooner
has it got a leaf or two and a spine than it spreads its roots all
round, and from each of them springs a fresh shoot, leaves and
protecting spine, to increase the chances of preservation. In vain! the
cunning animal finds a way to defeat all this strategy, and after the
leaves have been bitten off again and again, the infant plant gives up
the struggle and dies in the ground. Yet we see that from time to time
one survives--one perhaps in a million; but how--whether by a quicker
growth or a harder or more poisonous thorn, an unpalatable leaf, or some
other secret agency--we cannot guess. First as a diminutive scrubby
shrub, with numerous iron-hard stems, with few and small leaves but many
thorns, it keeps its poor flowerless frustrate life for perhaps half a
century or longer, without growing more than a couple of feet high; and
then, as by a miracle, it will spring up until its top shoots are out of
reach of the browsing sheep, and in the end it becomes a tree with
spreading branches and fully developed leaves, and flowers and fruit in
their season.
One day I was visited by an artist from a distance who, when shown the
thorn, pronounced it a fine subject for his pencil, and while he made
his picture we talked about the hawthorn generally as compared with
other trees, and agreed that, except in its blossoming time when it is
merely pretty, it is the most engaging and perhaps the most beautiful of
our native trees. We said that it was the most _individual_ of trees,
that its variety was infinite, for you never find two alike, whether
growing in a forest, in groups, or masses, or alone. We were almost
lyrical in its praises. But the solitary thorn was always best, he said,
and this one was perhaps the best of all he had seen: strange and at the
same time decorative in its form, beautiful too in its appearance of
great age with unimpaired vigour and something more in its
expression--that elusive something which we find in some trees and don't
know how to explain.
Ah, yes, thought I, it was this appeal to the æsthetic faculty which
attracted me from the first, and not, as I had imagined, the mere
curiosity of the naturalist interested mainly and always in the _habits_
of living things, plant or animal.
Certainly the thorn had strangeness. Its appearance as to height was
deceptive; one would have guessed it eighteen feet; measuring it I was
surprised to find it only ten. It has four separate boles, springing
from one root, leaning a little away from each other, the thickest just
a foot in circumference. The branches are few, beginning at about five
feet from the ground, the foliage thin, the leaves throughout the summer
stained with grey, rust-red, and purple colour. Though so small and
exposed to the full fury of every wind that blows over that vast naked
down, it has yet an ivy growing on it--the strangest of the many strange
ivy-plants I have seen. It comes out of the ground as two ivy trunks on
opposite sides of the stoutest bole, but at a height of four feet from
the surface the two join and ascend the tree as one round iron-coloured
and iron-hard stem, which goes curving and winding snakewise among the
branches as if with the object of roping them to save them from being
torn off by the winds. Finally, rising to the top, the long serpent stem
opens out in a flat disc-shaped mass of close-packed branchlets and
twigs densely set with small round leaves, dark dull green and tough as
parchment. One could only suppose that thorn and ivy had been partners
from the beginning of life, and that the union was equally advantageous
to both.
The small ivy disc or platform on top of the tree was a favourite stand
and look-out for the downland birds. I seldom visited the spot without
disturbing some of them, now a little company of missel-thrushes, now a
crowd of starlings, then perhaps a dozen rooks, crowded together,
looking very big and conspicuous on their little platform.
Being curious to find out something about the age of the tree, I
determined to put the question to my old friend Malachi, aged
eighty-nine, who was born and had always lived in the parish and had
known the downs and probably every tree growing on them for miles around
from his earliest years. It was my custom to drop in of an evening and
sit with him, listening to his endless reminiscences of his young days.
That evening I spoke of the thorn, describing its position and
appearance, thinking that perhaps he had forgotten it. How long, I asked
him, had the thorn been there?
He was one of those men, usually of the labouring class, to be met with
in such lonely, out-of-the-world places as the Wiltshire Downs, whose
eyes never look old however many their years may be, and are more like
the eyes of a bird or animal than a human being, for they gaze at you
and through you when you speak without appearing to know what you say.
So it was on this occasion; he looked straight at me with no sign of
understanding, no change in his clear grey eyes, and answered nothing.
But I would not be put off, and when, raising my voice, I repeated the
question, he replied, after another interval of silence, that the thorn
"was never any different." 'Twas just the same, ivy and all, when he
were a small boy. It looked just so old; why, he remembered his old
father saying the same thing--'twas the same when he were a boy, and
'twas the same in his father's time. Then anxious to escape from the
subject he began talking of something else.
It struck me that after all the most interesting thing about the thorn
was its appearance of great age, and this aspect I had now been told had
continued for at least a century, probably for a much longer time. It
produced a reverent feeling in me such as we experience at the sight of
some ancient stone monument. But the tree was alive, and because of its
life the feeling was perhaps stronger than in the case of a granite
cross or cromlech or other memorial of antiquity.
Sitting by the thorn one day it occurred to me that, growing at this
spot close to the road and near the summit of that vast down, numberless
persons travelling to and from Salisbury must have turned aside to rest
on the turf in the shade after that laborious ascent or before beginning
the long descent to the valley below. Travellers of all conditions, on
foot or horseback, in carts and carriages, merchants, bagmen, farmers,
drovers, gipsies, tramps and vagrants of all descriptions, and from time
to time troops of soldiers. Yet never one of them had injured the tree
in any way! I could not remember ever finding a tree growing alone by
the roadside in a lonely place which had not the marks of many old and
new wounds inflicted on its trunk with knives, hatchets, and other
implements. Here not a mark, not a scratch had been made on any one of
its four trunks or on the ivy stem by any thoughtless or mischievous
person, nor had any branch been cut or broken off. Why had they one and
all respected this tree?
It was another subject to talk to Malachi about, and to him I went after
tea and found him with three of his neighbours sitting by the fire and
talking; for though it was summer the old man always had a fire in the
evening.