Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune Part 12

"He will take revenge for all this."

"Upon whom?"

"Why, upon Dunstan to be sure."

"But how can he? Dunstan is too powerful for that."

"Wait and see."

Such was the general tone of the conversation, from which the sentiments of the community might be inferred.

Elfric went, as he had been bidden to do, at the conclusion of the feast, to seek Edwy, and found him, it is needless to state, in a towering rage.

"Elfric," he said, "am I a king? or did I dream I was crowned today?"

"You certainly were."

"And yet these insolent monks have dared to force me from the company of Elgiva to return to that sottish feast, and what is worse, I find they have dared to send her and her mother home under an escort, so that I cannot even apologise to them. As I live, if I am a king I will have revenge."

"I trust so, indeed," said Elfric, "they deserve death."

"I would it were in my power to inflict it; but this accursed monk--I go mad when I mention his name--is all too powerful. I believe Satan helps him."

"Still there may be ways, if you only wait till you can look around you."

"There may indeed."

"Only have patience; all will be in your hands some day."

"And if it be in my power I will restore the worship of Woden and Thor, and burn every monk's nest in the land."

"They were at least the G.o.ds of warriors."

"Elfric, you will stand by me, will you not?"

"With my life."

"Come to the window, now; see the old sots departing. There a priest, there a thane, there an earl--all drunk, I do believe; don't you think so?"

"Yes, yes," said Elfric, disregarding the testimony of both his eyes that they were all perfectly sober.

Just then his eye caught a very disagreeable object, and he turned somewhat pale.

"What are you looking at?" said Edwy.

"There is that old fox, Dunstan, talking with my father; he will learn that I am here."

"What does it matter?"

"Only that he will easily persuade my father to take me home."

"Then the commands of a king must outweigh those of a father. I have heard Dunstan say a king is the father of all his people, and I command you to stay."

"I want to stay with all my heart."

"Then you shall, even if I have to make a pretence of detaining you by force."

The antic.i.p.ations of Elfric were not far wrong. Dunstan had found out the truth. He had sought out the old thane to condole with him upon the pain he supposed he must recently have inflicted by his letter.

"I cannot express to you, my old friend and brother," he said, "the great pain with which I sent your poor boy Elfric home, but it was a necessity."

"Sent him home?" said Ella.

"Yes, at the time our lamented Edred died."

"Sent him home!" repeated Ella, in such undisguised amazement that Dunstan soon perceived something was amiss, and in a few short minutes became possessed of the whole facts, while Ella learnt his son's disgrace.

They conferred long and earnestly. The father's heart was sorely wounded, but he could not think that Elfric would resist his commands, and he promised to take him back at once to Aescendune, where he hoped all would soon be well--"soon, very soon," he said falteringly.

So the old thane went to his lodgings, hard by the palace, where he awaited his son.

Late in the evening Elfric arrived, his countenance flushed with wine: he had been seeking courage for the part he had to play in the wine cup.

Long and painful, most painful, was the interview that followed.

Hardened in his rebellion, the unhappy Elfric defied his father's authority and justified his sin, flatly refusing to return home, in which he pretended to be justified by "the duty a subject owed to his sovereign."

Thus roused to energy, Ella solemnly adjured his boy to remember the story of his uncle Oswald, and the sad fate he had met with. It was very seldom indeed that Ella alluded to his unhappy brother, the story was too painful; but now that Elfric seemed to be commencing a similar course of disobedience, the example of the miserable outlaw came too forcibly to his mind to be altogether suppressed.

"Beware, my son," added Ella, "lest the curse which fell upon Oswald fall upon you, and your younger brother succeed to your inheritance."

"It is not a large one," said Elfric, "and in that case, the king whom I serve will find me a better one."

"Is it not written, 'Put not your trust in princes?' O my son, my son; you will bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave!"

It was of no avail. The old thane arose in the morning with the intention of taking Elfric home even by force, such force as Dunstan had used, if necessary, but found that the youth had disappeared in the night; neither could he learn what had become of him, but he shrewdly guessed that the young king could have told him.

Broken-hearted by his son's cruel desertion, the thane of Aescendune returned home alone.

CHAPTER IX. GLAs...o...b..RY ABBEY.

Rich in historical a.s.sociations and reputed sanct.i.ty, the abbey of Glas...o...b..ry was the ecclesiastical centre of western England. Here grew the holy thorn which Joseph of Arimathea had planted when, fatigued with travel, he had struck his staff into the ground, and lo! a goodly tree; here was the holy well of which he had drunk, and where he baptized his converts, so that its waters became possessed of miraculous power to heal diseases.

Here again were memorials, dear to the vanquished Welsh; for did not Arthur, the great King Arthur, the hero of a thousand fights, the subject of gleeman's melody and of the minstrel's praise, lie buried here? if indeed he were dead, and not spirited away by magic power.

A Welsh population still existed around the abbey, for it was near the borders of West Wales, as a large portion of Devon and Cornwall was then called, and Exeter had not long become an English town. [xiv] The legends of Glas...o...b..ry were nearly all of that distant day when the Saxons and Angles had not yet discovered Britain, and she reposed safe under the protection of mighty Rome; hence, it was the object of pilgrimage and of deep veneration to all those of Celtic blood, while the English were unwilling to be behind in their veneration.

Here, in the first year of the great English king Athelstane, Dunstan was born, the son of Herstan and Kynedred, both persons of rank--a man destined to influence the Anglo-Saxon race first in person and then in spirit for generations--the greatest man of his time, whether, as his contemporaries thought, mighty for good, or, as men of narrower minds have thought, mighty for evil.