[Illustration: DEAD MAN'S PLACK. ]

DEAD MAN'S PLACK

AND

AN OLD THORN

BY W. H. HUDSON

1920LONDON & TORONTOJ. M. DENT & SONS LTD. New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO. 

CONTENTS

DEAD MAN'S PLACK:

Preamble

Chapter

I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

AN OLD THORN:

Chapter

I. 

II. 

III. 

POSTSCRIPT

ILLUSTRATIONS

DEAD MAN'S PLACK

HAWTHORN AND IVY, NEAR THE GREAT RIDGE WOOD

DEAD MAN'S PLACK

PREAMBLE

"The insect tribes of human kind" is a mode of expression we arefamiliar with in the poets, moralists and other superior persons, orbeings, who viewing mankind from their own vast elevation see us allmore or less of one size and very, very small. No doubt the comparisondates back to early, probably Pliocene, times, when some one climbed tothe summit of a very tall cliff, and looking down and seeing his fellowsso diminished in size as to resemble insects, not so gross as beetlesperhaps but rather like emmets, he laughed in the way they laughed thenat the enormous difference between his stature and theirs. Hence thetime-honoured and serviceable metaphor. 

Now with me, in this particular instance, it was all the other wayabout--from insect to man--seeing that it was when occupied in watchingthe small comedies and tragedies of the insect world on its stage that Istumbled by chance upon a compelling reminder of one of the greatesttragedies in England's history--greatest, that is to say, in itsconsequences. And this is how it happened. 

One summer day, prowling in an extensive oak wood, in Hampshire, knownas Harewood Forest, I discovered that it counted among its inhabitantsno fewer than three species of insects of peculiar interest to me, andfrom that time I haunted it, going there day after day to spend longhours in pursuit of my small quarry. Not to kill and preserve theirdiminutive corpses in a cabinet, but solely to witness the comedy oftheir brilliant little lives. And as I used to take my luncheon in mypocket I fell into the habit of going to a particular spot, some openingin the dense wood with a big tree to lean against and give me shade, where after refreshing myself with food and drink I could smoke my pipein solitude and peace. Eventually I came to prefer one spot for mymidday rest in the central part of the wood, where a stone cross, slender, beautifully proportioned and about eighteen feet high, had beenerected some seventy or eighty years before by the lord of the manor. Onone side of the great stone block on which the cross stood there was aninscription which told that it was placed there to mark the spot knownfrom of old as Dead Man's Plack; that, according to tradition, handedfrom father to son, it was just here that King Edgar slew his friend andfavourite Earl Athelwold, when hunting in the forest. 

I had sat there on many occasions, and had glanced from time to time atthe inscription cut on the stone, once actually reading it, withouthaving my attention drawn away from the insect world I was living in. Itwas not the tradition of the Saxon king nor the beauty of the cross inthat green wilderness which drew me daily to the spot, but itssolitariness and the little open space where I could sit in the shadeand have my rest. 

Then something happened. Some friends from town came down to me at thehamlet I was staying at, and one of the party, the mother of most ofthem, was not only older than the rest of us in years, but also inknowledge and wisdom; and at the same time she was younger than theyoungest of us, since she had the curious mind, the undying interest ineverything on earth--the secret, in fact, of everlasting youth. Naturally, being of this temperament, she wanted to know what I wasdoing and all about what I had seen, even to the minutest detail--thesmallest insect--and in telling her of my days I spoke casually of thecross placed at a spot called Dead Man's Plack. This at once remindedher of something she had heard about it before, but long ago, in theseventies of last century; then presently it all came back to her, andit proved to me an interesting story. 

It chanced that in that far back time she was in correspondence oncertain scientific and literary subjects with a gentleman who was anative of this part of Hampshire in which we were staying, and that theygot into a discussion about Freeman, the historian, during which he toldher of an incident of his undergraduate days when Freeman was professorat Oxford. He attended a lecture by that man on the Mythical andRomantic Elements in Early English History, in which he stated for theguidance of all who study the past, that they must always bear in mindthe inevitable passion for romance in men, especially the uneducated, and that when the student comes upon a romantic incident in earlyhistory, even when it accords with the known character of the person itrelates to, he must reject it as false. Then, to rub the lesson in, hegave an account of the most flagrant of the romantic lies contained inthe history of the Saxon kings. This was the story of King Edgar, andhow his favourite, Earl Athelwold, deceived him as to the reputed beautyof Elfrida, and how Edgar in revenge slew Athelwold with his own handwhen hunting. Then--to show how false it all was!--Edgar, the chroniclesstate, was at Salisbury and rode in one day to Harewood Forest and thereslew Athelwold. Now, said Freeman, as Harewood Forest is in Yorkshire, Edgar could not have ridden there from Salisbury in one day, nor in two, nor in three, which was enough to show that the whole story was afabrication. 

The undergraduate, listening to the lecturer, thought the Professor waswrong owing to his ignorance of the fact that the Harewood Forest inwhich the deed was done was in Hampshire, within a day's ride fromSalisbury, and that local tradition points to the very spot in theforest where Athelwold was slain. Accordingly he wrote to the Professorand gave him these facts. His letter was not answered; and the pooryouth felt hurt, as he thought he was doing Professor Freeman a serviceby telling him something he didn't know. _He_ didn't know his ProfessorFreeman. 

This story about Freeman tickled me, because I dislike him, but if anyone were to ask me why I dislike him I should probably have to answerlike a woman: Because I do. Or if stretched on the rack until I couldfind or invent a better reason I should perhaps say it was because hewas so infernally cock-sure, so convinced that he and he alone had thepower of distinguishing between the true and false; also that he was soarbitrary and arrogant and ready to trample on those who doubted hisinfallibility. 

All this, I confess, would not be much to say against him, seeing thatit is nothing but the ordinary professorial or academic mind, and Isuppose that the only difference between Freeman and the ruck of theprofessors was that he was more impulsive or articulate and had agreater facility in expressing his scorn. 

Here I may mention in passing that when this lecture appeared in printin his _Historical Essays_ he had evidently been put out a little, andalso put on his mettle by that letter from an undergraduate, and hadgone more deeply into the documents relating to the incident, seeingthat he now relied mainly on the discrepancies in half a dozenchronicles he was able to point out to prove its falsity. His formermain argument now appeared as a "small matter of detail"--a "confusionof geography" in the different versions of the old historians. But onetells us, Freeman writes, that Athelwold was killed in the Forest ofWherwell on his way to York, and then he says: "Now as Wherwell is inHampshire, it could not be on the road to York;" and further on he says:"Now Harewood Forest in Yorkshire is certainly not the same as Wherwellin Hampshire, " and so on, and on, and on, but always careful not to saythat Wherwell Forest and Harewood Forest are two names for one and thesame place, although now the name of Wherwell is confined to the villageon the Test, where it is supposed Athelwold had his castle and livedwith his wife before he was killed, and where Elfrida in her decliningyears, when trying to make her peace with God, came and built a Prioryand took the habit herself and there finished her darkened life. 

This then was how he juggled with words and documents and chronicles(his thimble-rigging), making a truth a lie or a lie a truth accordingas it suited a froward and prejudicate mind, to quote the expression ofan older and simpler-minded historian--Sir Walter Raleigh. 

Finally, to wind up the whole controversy, he says you are to take it asa positive truth that Edgar married Elfrida, and a positive falsehoodthat Edgar killed Athelwold. Why--seeing there is as good authority andreason for believing the one statement as the other? A foolish question!Why?--Because I, Professor or Pope Freeman, say so!

The main thing here is the effect the Freeman anecdote had on me, whichwas that when I went back to continue my insect-watching and rested atnoon at Dead Man's Plack, the old legend would keep intruding itself onmy mind, until, wishing to have done with it, I said and I swore that itwas true--that the tradition preserved in the neighbourhood, that onthis very spot Athelwold was slain by the king, was better than anydocument or history. It was an act which had been witnessed by manypersons, and the memory of it preserved and handed down from father toson for thirty generations; for it must be borne in mind that theinhabitants of this district of Andover and the villages on the Testhave never in the last thousand years been exterminated or expelled. Andten centuries is not so long for an event of so startling a character topersist in the memory of the people when we consider that suchtraditions have come down to us even from prehistoric times and haveproved true. Our archæologists, for example, after long study of theremains, cannot tell us how long ago--centuries or thousands of years--awarrior with golden armour was buried under the great cairn at Mold inFlintshire. 

And now the curious part of all this matter comes in. Having taken myside in the controversy and made my pronouncement, I found that I wasnot yet free of it. It remained with me, but in a new way--not as an oldstory in old books, but as an event, or series of events, now beingre-enacted before my very eyes. I actually saw and heard it all, fromthe very beginning to the dreadful end; and this is what I am now goingto relate. But whether or not I shall in my relation be in close accordwith what history tells us I know not, nor does it matter in the least. For just as the religious mystic is exempt from the study of theologyand the whole body of religious doctrine, and from all the observancesnecessary to those who in fear and trembling are seeking theirsalvation, even so those who have been brought to the _Gate ofRemembrance_ are independent of written documents, chronicles andhistories, and of the weary task of separating the false from the true. They have better sources of information. For I am not so vain as toimagine for one moment that without such external aid I am able to makeshadows breathe, revive the dead, and know what silent mouths once said. 

I

When, sitting at noon in the shade of an oak tree at Dead Man's Plack, Ibeheld Edgar, I almost ceased to wonder at the miracle that had happenedin this war-mad, desolated England, where Saxon and Dane, like twoinfuriated bull-dogs, were everlastingly at grips, striving to tear eachother's throats out, and deluging the country with blood; how, ceasingfrom their strife, they had all at once agreed to live in peace andunity side by side under the young king; and this seemingly unnaturalstate of things endured even to the end of his life, on which account hewas called Edgar the Peaceful. 

He was beautiful in person and had infinite charm, and these gifts, together with his kingly qualities, which have won the admiration of allmen of all ages, endeared him to his people. He was but thirteen when hecame to be king of united England, and small for his age, but even inthese terrible times he was remarkable for his courage, both physicaland moral. Withal he had a subtle mind; indeed, I think he surpassed allour kings of the past thousand years in combining so many excellentqualities. His was the wisdom of the serpent combined with thegentleness--I will not say of the dove, but rather of the cat, ourlittle tiger on the hearthrug, the most beautiful of four-footed things, so lithe, so soft, of so affectionate a disposition, yet capable whensuddenly roused to anger of striking with lightning rapidity and rendingthe offender's flesh with its cruel, unsheathed claws. 

Consider the line he took, even as a boy! He recognised among all thosewho surrounded him, in his priestly adviser, the one man of so great amind as to be capable of assisting him effectually in ruling so divided, war-loving and revengeful a people, and he allowed him practicallyunlimited power to do as he liked. He went even further by pretending tofall in with Dunstan's ambitions of purging the Church of the order ofpriests or half-priests, or canons, who were in possession of most ofthe religious houses in England, and were priests that married wives andowned lands and had great power. Against this monstrous state of thingsEdgar rose up in his simulated wrath and cried out to Archbishop Dunstanin a speech he delivered to sweep them away and purify the Church andcountry from such a scandal!

But Edgar himself had a volcanic heart, and to witness it in fulleruption it was only necessary to convey to him the tidings of somewoman of a rare loveliness; and have her he would, in spite of all lawshuman and divine. Thus when inflamed with passion for a beautiful nun hedid not hesitate to smash the gates of a convent to drag her forth andforcibly make her his mistress. And this too was a dreadful scandal, butno great pother could be made about it, seeing that Edgar was sopowerful a friend of the Church and of pure religion. 

 * * * * *

Now all the foregoing is contained in the histories, but in what followsI have for sole light and guide the vision that came to me at Dead Man'sPlack, and have only to add to this introductory note that Edgar at theearly age of twenty-two was a widower, having already had to wifeEthelfled the Fair, who was famous for her beauty, and who died shortlyafter giving birth to a child who lived to figure later in history asone of England's many Edwards. 

II

Now although King Edgar had dearly loved his wife, who was also belovedby all his people on account of her sweet and gentle disposition as wellas of her exceeding beauty, it was not in his nature to brood long oversuch a loss. He had too keen a zest for life and the many interests andpleasures it had for him ever to become a melancholy man. It was adelight to him to be king, and to perform all kingly duties and offices. Also he was happy in his friends, especially in his favourite, the EarlAthelwold, who was like him in character, a man after his own heart. They were indeed like brothers, and some of those who surrounded theking were not too well pleased to witness this close intimacy. Both werehandsome men, witty, of a genial disposition, yet under a light carelessmanner brave and ardent, devoted to the pleasure of the chase and allother pleasures, especially to those bestowed by golden Aphrodite, theirchosen saint, albeit her name did not figure in the Calendar. 

Hence it was not strange, when certain reports of the wonderful beautyof a woman in the West Country were brought to Edgar's ears that hisheart began to burn within him, and that by and by he opened himself tohis friend on the subject. He told Athelwold that he had discovered theone woman in England fit to be Ethelfled's successor, and that he hadresolved to make her his queen although he had never seen her, since sheand her father had never been to court. That, however, would not deterhim; there was no other woman in the land whose claims were equal tohers, seeing that she was the only daughter and part heiress of one ofthe greatest men in the kingdom, Ongar, Earldoman of Devon and Somerset, a man of vast possessions and great power. Yet all that was of lessaccount to him than her fame, her personal worth, since she was reputedto be the most beautiful woman in the land. It was for her beauty thathe desired her, and being of an exceedingly impatient temper in any casein which beauty in a woman was concerned, he desired his friend toproceed at once to Earl Ongar in Devon with an offer of marriage to hisdaughter, Elfrida, from the king. 

Athelwold laughed at Edgar in this his most solemn and kingly mood, andwith a friend's privilege told him not to be so simple as to buy a pigin a poke. The lady, he said, had not been to court, consequently shehad not been seen by those best able to judge of her reputed beauty. Herfame rested wholly on the report of the people of her own country, whowere great as every one knew at blowing their own trumpets. Their redand green county was England's paradise; their men the bravest andhandsomest and their women the most beautiful in the land. For his parthe believed there were as good men and as fair women in Mercia and EastAnglia as in the West. It would certainly be an awkward business if theking found himself bound in honour to wed with a person he did not like. Awkward because of her father's fierce pride and power. A better planwould be to send some one he could trust not to make a mistake to findout the truth of the report. 

Edgar was pleased at his friend's wise caution, and praised him for hiscandour, which was that of a true friend, and as he was the only man hecould thoroughly trust in such a matter he would send him. Accordingly, Athelwold, still much amused at Edgar's sudden wish to make an offer ofmarriage to a woman he had never seen, set out on his journey in greatstate with many attendants as befitted his person and his mission, whichwas ostensibly to bear greetings and loving messages from the king tosome of his most important subjects in the West Country. 

In this way he travelled through Wilts, Somerset and Devon, and in duetime arrived at Earl Ongar's castle on the Exe. 

III

Athelwold, who thought highly of himself, had undertaken his missionwith a light heart, but now when his progress in the West had broughthim to the great earldoman's castle it was borne in on him that he hadput himself in a very responsible position. He was here to look at thiswoman with cold, critical eyes, which was easy enough; and having lookedat and measured and weighed her, he would make a true report to Edgar;that too would be easy for him, since all his power and happiness inlife depended on the king's continual favour. But Ongar stood betweenhim and the woman he had come to see and take stock of with that clearunbiassed judgment which he could safely rely on. And Ongar was a proudand stern old man, jealous of his great position, who had not hesitatedto say on Edgar's accession to the kingship, knowing well that his wordswould be reported in due time, that he refused to be one of the crowdwho came flocking from all over the land to pay homage to a boy. It thuscame about that neither then nor at any subsequent period had there beenany personal relations between the king and this English subject, whowas prouder than all the Welsh kings who had rushed at Edgar's call tomake their submission. 

But now when Ongar had been informed that the king's intimate friend andconfidant was on his way to him with greetings and loving messages fromEdgar, he was flattered, and resolved to receive him in a friendly andloyal spirit and do him all the honour in his power. For Edgar was nolonger a boy: he was king over all this hitherto turbulent realm, Eastand West from sea to sea and from the Land's End to the Tweed, and thestrange enduring peace of the times was a proof of his power. 

It thus came to pass that Athelwold's mission was made smooth to him, and when they met and conversed, the fierce old Earl was so well pleasedwith his visitor, that all trace of the sullen hostility he hadcherished towards the court passed away like the shadow of a cloud. Andlater, in the banqueting-room, Athelwold came face to face with thewoman he had come to look at with cold, critical eyes, like one whoexamines a horse in the interests of a friend who desires to become itspurchaser. 

Down to that fatal moment the one desire of his heart was to serve hisfriend faithfully in this delicate business. Now, the first sight ofher, the first touch of her hand, wrought a change in him, and allthought of Edgar and of the purpose of his visit vanished out of hismind. Even he, one of the great nobles of his time, the accomplishedcourtier and life of the court, stood silent like a person spell-boundbefore this woman who had been to no court, but had lived always withthat sullen old man in comparative seclusion in a remote province. Itwas not only the beautiful dignity and graciousness with which shereceived him, with the exquisite beauty in the lines and colour of herface, and her hair which, if unloosed, would have covered her to theknees as with a splendid mantle. That hair of a colour comparable onlyto that of the sweet gale when that sweet plant is in its golden withyor catkin stage in the month of May, and is clothed with catkins as witha foliage of a deep shining red gold, that seems not a colour of earthbut rather one distilled from the sun itself. Nor was it the colour ofher eyes, the deep pure blue of the lungwort, that blue loveliness seenin no other flower on earth. Rather it was the light from her eyes whichwas like lightning that pierced and startled him; for that light, thatexpression, was a living spirit looking through his eyes into the depthsof his soul, knowing all its strength and weakness, and in the sameinstant resolving to make it her own and have dominion over it. 

It was only when he had escaped from the power and magic of herpresence, when alone in his sleeping room, that reflection came to himand the recollection of Edgar and of his mission. And there was dismayin the thought. For the woman was his, part and parcel of his heart andsoul and life; for that was what her lightning glance had said to him, and she could not be given to another. No, not to the king! Had any man, any friend, ever been placed in so terrible a position? Honour? Loyalty?To whichever side he inclined he could not escape the crime, the basebetrayal and abandonment! But loyalty to the king would be the greatercrime. Had not Edgar himself broken every law of God and man to gratifyhis passion for a woman? Not a woman like this! Never would Edgar lookon her until he, Athelwold, had obeyed her and his own heart and madeher his for ever! And what would come then! He would not consider it--hewould perish rather than yield her to another!

That was how the question came before him, and how it was settled, during the long sleepless hours when his blood was in a fever and hisbrain on fire; but when day dawned and his blood grew cold and his brainwas tired, the image of Edgar betrayed and in a deadly rage becameinsistent, and he rose desponding and in dread of the meeting to come. And no sooner did he meet her than she overcame him as on the previousday; and so it continued during the whole period of his visit, rackedwith passion, drawn now to this side, now to that, and when he was mostresolved to have her then most furiously assaulted by loyalty, byfriendship, by honour, and he was like a stag at bay fighting for hislife against the hounds. And every time he met her--and the passionatewords he dared not speak were like confined fire, burning him upinwardly--seeing him pale and troubled she would greet him with a smileand look which told him she knew that he was troubled in heart, that agreat conflict was raging in him, also that it was on her account andwas perhaps because he had already bound himself to some other woman, some great lady of the land; and now this new passion had come to him. And her smile and look were like the world-irradiating sun when itrises, and the black menacing cloud that brooded over his soul wouldfade and vanish, and he knew that she had again claimed him and that hewas hers. 

So it continued till the very moment of parting, and again as on theirfirst meeting he stood silent and troubled before her; then in falteringwords told her that the thought of her would travel and be with him;that in a little while, perhaps in a month or two, he would be rid of agreat matter which had been weighing heavily on his mind, and once freehe could return to Devon, if she would consent to his paying her anothervisit. 

She replied smilingly with gracious words, with no change from thatexquisite perfect dignity which was always hers; nor tremor in herspeech, but only that understanding look from her eyes, which said: Yes, you shall come back to me in good time, when you have smoothed the way, to claim me for your own. 

IV

On Athelwold's return the king embraced him warmly, and was quick toobserve a change in him--the thinner, paler face and appearancegenerally of one lately recovered from a grievous illness or who hadbeen troubled in mind. Athelwold explained that it had been a painfulvisit to him, due in the first place to the anxiety he experienced ofbeing placed in so responsible a position, and in the second place themisery it was to him to be the guest for many days of such a person asthe earldoman, a man of a rough, harsh aspect and manner, who daily madehimself drunk at table, after which he would grow intolerably garrulousand boastful. Then, when his host had been carried to bed by hisservants, his own wakeful, troubled hours would begin. For at first hehad been struck by the woman's fine, handsome presence, albeit she wasnot the peerless beauty she had been reported; but when he had seen heroften and more closely and had conversed with her he had beendisappointed. There was something lacking; she had not the softness, thecharm, desirable in a woman; she had something of her parent'sharshness, and his final judgment was that she was not a suitable personfor the king to marry. 

Edgar was a little cast down at first, but quickly recovering his genialmanner, thanked his friend for having served him so well. 

For several weeks following the king and the king's favourite wereconstantly together; and during that period Athelwold developed apeculiar sweetness and affection towards Edgar, often recalling to himtheir happy boyhood's days in East Anglia, when they were like brothers, and cemented the close friendship which was to last them for the wholeof their lives. Finally, when it seemed to his watchful, crafty mindthat Edgar had cast the whole subject of his wish to marry Elfrida intooblivion, and that the time was now ripe for carrying out his ownscheme, he reopened the subject, and said that although the lady was nota suitable person to be the king's wife it would be good policy on his, Athelwold's, part, to win her on account of her position as onlydaughter and part heiress of Ongar, who had great power and possessionsin the West. But he would not move in the matter without Edgar'sconsent. 

Edgar, ever ready to do anything to please his friend, freely gave it, and only asked him to give an assurance that the secret object of hisformer visit to Devon would remain inviolate. Accordingly Athelwold tooka solemn oath that it would never be revealed, and Edgar then slappedhim on the back and wished him Godspeed in his wooing. 

Very soon after thus smoothing the way, Athelwold returned to Devon, andwas once more in the presence of the woman who had so enchanted him, with that same meaning smile on her lips and light in her eyes which hadbeen her good-bye and her greeting, only now it said to him: You havereturned as I knew you would, and I am ready to give myself to you. 

From every point of view it was a suitable union, seeing that Athelwoldwould inherit power and great possessions from his father, Earldoman ofEast Anglia, and before long the marriage took place, and by and byAthelwold took his wife to Wessex, to the castle he had built forhimself on his estate of Wherwell, on the Test. There they livedtogether, and as they had married for love they were happy. 

But as the king's intimate friend and the companion of many of hisfrequent journeys he could not always bide with her nor be with her forany great length of time. For Edgar had a restless spirit and wasexceedingly vigilant, and liked to keep a watchful eye on the differentlately hostile nations of Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria, so thathis journeys were frequent and long to these distant parts of hiskingdom. And he also had his naval forces to inspect at frequentintervals. Thus it came about that he was often absent from her forweeks and months at a stretch. And so the time went on, and during theselong absences a change would come over Elfrida; the lovely colour, theenchanting smile, the light of her eyes--the outward sign of an intensebrilliant life--would fade, and with eyes cast down she would pace thefloors or the paths or sit brooding in silence by the hour. 

Of all this Athelwold knew nothing, since she made no complaint, andwhen he returned to her the light and life and brilliance would be hersagain, and there was no cloud or shadow on his delight. But the cloudwould come back over her when he again went away. Her only relief in hercondition was to sit before a fire or when out of doors to seat herselfon the bank of the stream and watch the current. For although it wasstill summer, the month being August, she would have a fire of logslighted in a large chamber and sit staring at the flames by the hour, and sometimes holding her outstretched hands before the flames untilthey were hot, she would then press them to her lips. Or when the daywas warm and bright she would be out of doors and spend hours by theriver gazing at the swift crystal current below as if fascinated by thesight of the running water. It is a marvellously clear water, so thatlooking down on it you can see the rounded pebbles in all their variouscolours and markings lying at the bottom, and if there should be a troutlying there facing the current and slowly waving his tail from side toside, you could count the red spots on his side, so clear is the water. Even more did the floating water-grass hold her gaze--that bright greengrass that, rooted in the bed of the stream, sends its thin blades tothe surface where they float and wave like green floating hair. Stooping, she would dip a hand in the stream and watch the bright clearwater running through the fingers of her white hand, then press the handto her lips. 

Then again when day declined she would quit the stream to sit before theblazing logs, staring at the flames. What am I doing here? she wouldmurmur. And what is this my life? When I was at home in Devon I had adream of Winchester, of Salisbury, or other great towns further away, where the men and women who are great in the land meet together, andwhere my eyes would perchance sometimes have the happiness to behold theking himself--my husband's close friend and companion. My waking hasbrought a different scene before me; this castle in the wilderness, asolitude where from an upper window I look upon leagues of forest, ahaunt of wild animals. I see great birds soaring in the sky and listento the shrill screams of kite and buzzard; and sometimes when lyingawake on a still night the distant long howl of a wolf. Also, it issaid, there are great stags, and roe-deer, and wild boars, and it isAthelwold's joy to hunt them and slay them with his spear. A joy toowhen he returns from the hunt or from a long absence to play with hisbeautiful wife--his caged bird of pretty feathers and a sweet song tosoothe him when he is tired. But of his life at court he tells melittle, and of even that little I doubt the truth. Then he leaves me andI am alone with his retainers--the crowd of serving men and women andthe armed men to safeguard me. I am alone with my two friends which Ihave found, one out of doors, the other in--the river which runs at thebottom of the ground where I take my walks, and the fire I sit before. The two friends, companions, and lovers to whom all the secrets of mysoul are confided. I love them, having no other in the world to love, and here I hold my hands before the flames until it is hot and then kissthe heat, and by the stream I kiss my wetted hands. And if I were toremain here until this life became unendurable I should consider as towhich one of these two lovers I should give myself. This one I think istoo ardent in his love--it would be terrible to be wrapped round in hisfiery arms and feel his fiery mouth on mine. I should rather go to theother one to lie down on his pebbly bed, and give myself to him to holdme in his cool, shining arms and mix his green hair with my loosenedhair. But my wish is to live and not die. Let me then wait a littlelonger; let me watch and listen, and perhaps some day, by and by, fromhis own lips, I shall capture the secret of this my caged solitary life. 

And the very next day Athelwold, having just returned with the king toSalisbury, was once more with her; and the brooding cloud had vanishedfrom her life and countenance; she was once more his passionate bride, lavishing caresses on him, listening with childish delight to every wordthat fell from his lips, and desiring no other life and no greaterhappiness than this. 

V

It was early September, and the king with some of the nobles who werewith him, after hunting the deer over against Cranbourne, returned atevening to Salisbury, and after meat with some of his intimates they satlate drinking wine and fell into a merry, boisterous mood. They spoke ofAthelwold, who was not with them, and indulged in some mocking remarksabout his frequent and prolonged absences from the king's company. Edgartook it in good part and smilingly replied that it had been reported tohim that the earl was now wedded to a woman with a will. Also he knewthat her father, the great Earldoman of Devon, had been famed for histremendous physical strength. It was related of him that he had oncebeen charged by a furious bull, that he had calmly waited the onset andhad dealt the animal a staggering blow with his fist on its head and hadthen taken it up in his arms and hurled it into the river Exe. If, heconcluded, the daughter had inherited something of this power it was notto be wondered at that she was able to detain her husband at home. 

Loud laughter followed this pleasantry of the king's, then one of thecompany remarked that not a woman's will, though it might be like steelof the finest temper, nor her muscular power, would serve to changeAthelwold's nature or keep him from his friend, but only a woman'sexceeding beauty. 

Then Edgar, seeing that he had been put upon the defence of his absentfriend, and that all of them were eager to hear his next word, repliedthat there was no possession a man was prouder of than that of abeautiful wife; that it was more to him than his own best qualities, hisgreatest actions, or than titles and lands and gold. If Athelwold hadindeed been so happy as to secure the most beautiful woman he would havebeen glad to bring her to court to exhibit her to all--friends and foesalike--for his own satisfaction and glory. 

Again they greeted his speech with laughter, and one cried out: Do youbelieve it?

Then another, bolder still, exclaimed: It's God's truth that she is thefairest woman in the land--perhaps no fairer has been in any land sinceHelen of Troy. This I can swear to, he added, smiting the board with hishand, because I have it from one who saw her at her home in Devon beforeher marriage. One who is a better judge in such matters than I am orthan any one at this table, not excepting the king, seeing that he isnot only gifted with the serpent's wisdom but with that creature's coldblood as well. 

Edgar heard him frowningly, then ended the discussion by rising, andsilence fell on the company, for all saw that he was offended. But hewas not offended with them, since they knew nothing of his andAthelwold's secret, and what they thought and felt about his friend wasnothing to him. But these fatal words about Elfrida's beauty had piercedhim with a sudden suspicion of his friend's treachery. And Athelwold wasthe man he greatly loved--the companion of all his years since theirboyhood together. Had he betrayed him in this monstrous way--woundinghim in his tenderest part? The very thought that such a thing might bewas like a madness in him. Then he reflected--then he remembered, andsaid to himself: Yes, let me follow his teaching in this matter too, asin the other, and exercise caution and look before I leap. I shall lookand look well and see and judge for myself. 

The result was that when his boon companions next met him there was noshadow of displeasure in him; he was in a peculiarly genial mood, and socontinued. And when his friend returned he embraced him and gentlyupbraided him for having kept away for so long a time. He begged him toremember that he was his one friend and confidant who was more than abrother to him, and that if wholly deprived of his company he wouldregard himself as the loneliest man in the kingdom. Then in a short timehe spoke once more in the same strain, and said he had not yetsufficiently honoured his friend before the world, and that he proposedvisiting him at his own castle to make the acquaintance of his wife andspend a day with him hunting the boar in Harewood Forest. 

Athelwold, secretly alarmed, made a suitable reply, expressing hisdelight at the prospect of receiving the king, and begging him to givehim a couple of days' notice before making his visit, so as to give himtime to make all preparation for his entertainment. 

This the king promised, and also said that this would be an informalvisit to a friend, that he would go alone with some of his servants andhuntsmen and ride there one day, hunt the next day and return toSalisbury on the third day. And a little later, when the day of hisvisit was fixed on, Athelwold returned in haste with an anxious mind tohis castle. 

Now his hard task and the most painful moment of his life had come. Alone with Elfrida in her chamber he cast himself down before her, andwith his bowed head resting on her knees, made a clean breast of thewhole damning story of the deceit he had practised towards the king inorder to win her for himself. In anguish and shedding tears he imploredher forgiveness, begging her to think of that irresistible power of loveshe had inspired in him, which would have made it worse than death tosee her the wife of another--even of Edgar himself--his friend, thebrother of his soul. Then he went on to speak of Edgar, who was of asweet and lovable nature, yet capable of a deadly fury against those whooffended him; and this was an offence he would take more to heart thanany other; he would be implacable if he once thought that he had beenwilfully deceived, and she only could now save them from certaindestruction. For now it seemed to him that Edgar had conceived asuspicion that the account he had of her was not wholly true, which wasthat she was a handsome woman but not surpassingly beautiful as had beenreputed, not graceful, not charming in manner and conversation. Shecould save them by justifying his description of her--by using a woman'sart to lessen instead of enhancing her natural beauty, by putting awayher natural charm and power to fascinate all who approached her. 

Thus he pleaded, praying for mercy, even as a captive prays to hisconqueror for life, and never once daring to lift his bowed head to lookat her face; while she sat motionless and silent, not a word, not asigh, escaping her; and she was like a woman carved in stone, with kneesof stone on which his head rested. 

Then, at length, exhausted with his passionate pleading and frightenedat her silence and deadly stillness, he raised his head and looked up ather face to behold it radiant and smiling. Then, looking down lovinglyinto his eyes, she raised her hands to her head, and loosening the greatmass of coiled tresses let them fall over him, covering his head andshoulders and back as with a splendid mantle of shining red gold. Andhe, the awful fear now gone, continued silently gazing up at her, absorbed in her wonderful loveliness. 

Bending down she put her arms round his neck and spoke: Do you not know, O Athelwold, that I love you alone and could love no other, noble orking; that without you life would not be life to me? All you have toldme endears you more to me, and all you wish me to do shall be done, though it may cause your king and friend to think meanly of you forhaving given your hand to one so little worthy of you. 

She having thus spoken, he was ready to pour forth his gratitude inburning words, but she would not have it. No more words, she said, putting her hand on his mouth. Your anxious day is over--your burdendropped. Rest here on the couch by my side, and let me think on allthere is to plan and do against to-morrow evening. 

And so they were silent, and he, reclining on the cushions, watched herface and saw her smile and wondered what was passing in her mind tocause that smile. Doubtless it was something to do with the question ofher disguising arts. 

What had caused her to smile was a happy memory of the days withAthelwold before their marriage, when one day he came in to her with aleather bag in his hand and said: Do you, who are so beautiful yourself, love all beautiful things? And do you love the beauty of gems? And whenshe replied that she loved gems above all beautiful things, he pouredout the contents of his bag in her lap--brilliants, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, opals, pearls in gold setting, in bracelets, necklets, pendants, rings and brooches. And when she gloated over this splendidgift, taking up gem after gem, exclaiming delightedly at its size andcolour and lustre, he told her that he once knew a man who maintainedthat it was a mistake for a beautiful woman to wear gems. Why? sheasked, would he have then wholly unadorned? No, he replied, he liked tosee them wearing gold, saying that gold makes the most perfect settingfor a woman's beauty, just as it does for a precious stone, and itseffect is to enhance the beauty it surrounds. But the woman's beauty hasits meeting and central point in the eyes, and the light and soul inthem illumines the whole face. And in the stone nature simulates theeye, and although without a soul its brilliant light and colour make itthe equal of the eye, and therefore when worn as an ornament it competeswith the eye, and in effect lessens the beauty it is supposed toenhance. He said that gems should be worn only by women who are notbeautiful, who must rely on something extraneous to attract attention, since it would be better to a homely woman that men should look at herto admire a diamond or sapphire than not to look at her at all. She hadlaughed and asked him who the man was who had such strange ideas, and hehad replied that he had forgotten his name. 

Now, recalling this incident after so long a time, it all at onceflashed into her mind that Edgar was the man he had spoken of; she knewnow because, always secretly watchful, she had noted that he never spokeof Edgar or heard Edgar spoken of without a slight subtle change in theexpression of his face, also, if he spoke, in the tone of his voice. Itwas the change that comes into the face, and into the tone, when oneremembers or speaks of the person most loved in all the world. And sheremembered now that he had that changed expression and tone of voice, when he had spoken of the man whose name he pretended to have forgotten. 

And while she sat thinking of this it grew dark in the room, the lightof the fire having died down. Then presently, in the profound stillnessof the room, she heard the sound of his deep, regular breathing and knewthat he slept, and that it was a sweet sleep after his anxious day. Going softly to the hearth she moved the yet still glowing logs, untilthey sent up a sudden flame and the light fell upon the sleeper's stillface. Turning, she gazed steadily at it--the face of the man who had wonher; but her own face in the firelight was white and still and wore astrange expression. Now she moved noiselessly to his side and bent downas if to whisper in his ear, but suddenly drew back again and movedtowards the door, then turning gazed once more at his face and murmured:No, no, even a word faintly whispered would bring him a dream, and it isbetter his sleep should be dreamless. For now he has had his day and itis finished, and to-morrow is mine. 

VI

On the following day Athelwold was occupied with preparations for theking's reception and for the next day's boar-hunt in the forest. At thesame time he was still somewhat anxious as to his wife's more difficultpart, and from time to time he came to see and consult with her. He thenobserved a singular change in her, both in her appearance and conduct. No longer the radiant, loving Elfrida, her beauty now had been dimmedand she was unsmiling and her manner towards him repellant. She hadnothing to say to him except that she wished him to leave her alone. Accordingly he withdrew, feeling a little hurt, and at the same timeadmiring her extraordinary skill in disguising her natural lovelinessand charm, but almost fearing that she was making too great a change inher appearance. 

Thus passed the day, and in the late afternoon Edgar duly arrived, andwhen he had rested a little, was conducted to the banqueting-room, wherethe meeting with Elfrida would take place. 

Then Elfrida came, and Athelwold hastened to the entrance to take herhand and conduct her to the king; then, seeing her, he stood still andstared in silent astonishment and dismay at the change he saw in her, for never before had he beheld her so beautiful, so queenly andmagnificent. What did it mean--did she wish to destroy him? Seeing thestate he was in she placed her hand in his, and murmured softly: I knowbest. And so, holding her hand, he conducted her to the king, who stoodwaiting to receive her. For all she had done that day to please and todeceive him had now been undone, and everything that had been possiblehad been done to enhance her loveliness. She had arrayed herself in aviolet-coloured silk gown with a network of gold thread over the bodyand wide sleeves to the elbows, and rope of gold round her waist withits long ends falling to her knee. The great mass of her coiled hair wassurmounted with a golden comb, and golden pendants dropped from her earsto her shoulders. Also she wore gold armlets coiled serpent-wise roundher white arms from elbow to wrist. Not a gem--nothing but pale yellowgold. 

Edgar himself was amazed at her loveliness, for never had he seenanything comparable to it; and when he gazed into her eyes she did notlower hers, but returned gaze for gaze, and there was that in her eyesand their strange eloquence which kindled a sudden flame of passion inhis heart, and for a moment it appeared in his countenance. Then, quickly recovering himself, he greeted her graciously but with his usualkingly dignity of manner, and for the rest of the time he conversed withher and Athelwold in such a pleasant and friendly way that his hostbegan to recover somewhat from his apprehensions. But in his heart Edgarwas saying: And this is the woman that Athelwold, the close friend ofall my days, from boyhood until now, the one man in the world I lovedand trusted, has robbed me of!

And Athelwold at the same time was revolving in his mind the mystery ofElfrida's action. What did she mean when she whispered to him that sheknew best? And why, when she wished to appear in that magnificent waybefore the king, had she worn nothing but gold ornaments--not one of thesplendid gems of which she possessed such a store?

She had remembered something which he had forgotten. 

Now when the two friends were left alone together drinking wine, Athelwold was still troubled in his mind, although his suspicion andfear were not so acute as at first, and the longer they sattalking--until the small hours--the more relieved did he feel fromEdgar's manner towards him. Edgar in his cups opened his heart and wasmore loving and free in his speech than ever before. He loved Athelwoldas he loved no one else in the world, and to see him great and happy washis first desire; and he congratulated him from his heart on havingfound a wife who was worthy of him and would eventually bring him, through her father, such great possessions as would make him the chiefnobleman in the land. All happiness and glory to them both; and when achild was born to them he would be its godfather, and if happily by thattime there was a queen, she should be its godmother. 

Then he recalled their happy boyhood's days in East Anglia, that joyfultime when they first hunted and had many a mishap and fell from theirhorses when they pursued hare and deer and bustard in the wide openstretches of sandy country; and in the autumn and winter months whenthey were wild-fowling in the great level flooded lands where the geeseand all wild-fowl came in clouds and myriads. And now he laughed and nowhis eyes grew moist at the recollection of the irrecoverable glad days. 

Little time was left for sleep; yet they were ready early next morningfor the day's great boar-hunt in the forest, and only when the king wasabout to mount his horse did Elfrida make her appearance. She came outto him from the door, not richly dressed now, but in a simple whitelinen robe and not an ornament on her except that splendid crown of thered-gold hair on her head. And her face too was almost colourless now, and grave and still. She brought wine in a golden cup and gave it to theking, and he once more fixed his eyes on her and for some moments theycontinued silently gazing, each in that fixed gaze seeming to devour thesecrets of the other's soul. Then she wished him a happy hunting, and hesaid in reply he hoped it would be the happiest hunting he had ever had. Then, after drinking the wine, he mounted his horse and rode away. Andshe remained standing very still, the cup in her hand, gazing after himas he rode side by side with Athelwold, until in the distance the treeshid him from her sight. 

Now when they had ridden a distance of three miles or more into theheart of the forest, they came to a broad drive-like stretch of greenturf, and the king cried: This is just what I have been wishing for!Come, let us give our horses a good gallop. And when they loosened thereins, the horses, glad to have a race on such a ground, instantlysprang forward; but Edgar, keeping a tight rein, was presently lefttwenty or thirty yards behind; then, setting spurs to his horse, hedashed forward, and on coming abreast of his companion, drew his knifeand struck him in the back, dealing the blow with such a concentratedfury that the knife was buried almost to the hilt. Then violentlywrenching it out, he would have struck again had not the earl, with ascream of agony, tumbled from his seat. The horse, freed from its rider, rushed on in a sudden panic, and the king's horse side by side with it. Edgar, throwing himself back and exerting his whole strength, succeededin bringing him to a stop at a distance of fifty or sixty yards, thenturning, came riding back at a furious speed. 

Now when Athelwold fell, all those who were riding behind, the earl'sand the king's men to the number of thirty or forty, dashed forward, andsome of them, hurriedly dismounting, gathered about him as he laygroaning and writhing and pouring out his blood on the ground. But atthe king's approach they drew quickly back to make way for him, and hecame straight on and caused his horse to trample on the fallen man. Thenpointing to him with the knife he still had in his hand, he cried: Thatis how I serve a false friend and traitor! Then, wiping the stainedknife-blade on his horse's neck and sheathing it, he shouted: Back toSalisbury! and setting spurs to his horse, galloped off towards theAndover road. 

His men immediately mounted and followed, leaving the earl's men withtheir master. Lifting him up, they placed him on a horse, and with amounted man on each side to hold him up, they moved back at a walkingpace towards Wherwell. 

Messengers were sent ahead to inform Elfrida of what had happened, andthen, an hour later, yet another messenger to tell that Athelwold, whenhalf-way home, had breathed his last. Then at last the corpse wasbrought to the castle and she met it with tears and lamentations. Butafterwards in her own chamber, when she had dismissed all herattendants, as she desired to weep alone, her grief changed to joy. O, glorious Edgar, she said, the time will come when you will know what Ifeel now, when at your feet, embracing your knees and kissing theblessed hand that with one blow has given me life and liberty. One blowand your revenge was satisfied and you had won me; I know it, I saw itall in that flame of love and fury in your eyes at our first meeting, which you permitted me to see, which, if he had seen, he would haveknown that he was doomed. O perfect master of dissimulation, all themore do I love and worship you for dealing with him as he dealt with youand with me; caressing him with flattering words until the moment cameto strike and slay. And I love you all the more for making your horsetrample on him as he lay bleeding his life out on the ground. And nowyou have opened the way with your knife you shall come back or call meto you when it pleases you, and for the rest of your life it will be asatisfaction to you to know that you have taken a modest woman as wellas the fairest in the land for wife and queen, and your pride in me willbe my happiness and glory. For men's love is little to me sinceAthelwold taught me to think meanly of all men, except you that slewhim. And you shall be free to follow your own mind and be ever strenuousand vigilant and run after kingly pleasures, pursuing deer and wolf andbeautiful women all over the land. And I shall listen to the tales ofyour adventures and conquests with a smile like that of a mother whosees her child playing seriously with its dolls and toys, talking to andcaressing them. And in return you shall give me my desire, which ispower and splendour; for these I crave, to be first and greatest, toraise up and cast down, and in all our life I shall be your help andstay in ruling this realm, so that our names may be linked together andshine in the annals of England for all time. 

 * * * * *

When Edgar slew Athelwold his age was twenty-two, and before he was ayear older he had married Elfrida, to the rage of that great man andprimate and more than premier, who, under Edgar, virtually ruledEngland. And in his rage, and remembering how he had dealt with aprevious boy king, whose beautiful young wife he had hounded to herdreadful end, he charged Elfrida with having instigated her husband'smurder, and commanded the king to put that woman away. This roused theman and passionate lover, and the tiger in the man, in Edgar, and thewise and subtle-minded ecclesiastic quickly recognised that he had sethimself against one of a will more powerful and dangerous than his own. He remembered that it was Edgar, who, when he had been deprived of hisabbey and driven in disgrace from the land, had recalled and made him sogreat, and he knew that the result of a quarrel between them would be amighty upheaval in the land and the sweeping away of all his greatreforms. And so, cursing the woman in his heart and secretly vowingvengeance on her, he was compelled in the interests of the Church toacquiesce in this fresh crime of the king. 

VII

Eight years had passed since the king's marriage with Elfrida, and theone child born to them was now seven, the darling of his parents, Ethelred the angelic child, who to the end of his long life would bepraised for one thing only--his personal beauty. But Edward, hishalf-brother, now in his thirteenth year, was regarded by her with analmost equal affection, on account of his beauty and charm, his devotionto his step-mother, the only mother he had known, and, above all, forhis love of his little half-brother. He was never happy unless he waswith him, acting the part of guide and instructor as well as playfellow. 

Edgar had recently completed one of his great works, the building ofCorfe Castle, and now whenever he was in Wessex preferred it as aresidence, since he loved best that part of England with its wide moorsand hunting forests, and its neighbourhood to the sea and to Portlandand Poole water. He had been absent for many weeks on a journey toNorthumbria, and the last tidings of his movements were that he was onhis way to the south, travelling on the Welsh border, and intendedvisiting the Abbot of Glastonbury before returning to Dorset. Thisreligious house was already very great in his day; he had conferred manybenefits on it, and contemplated still others. 

It was summer time, a season of great heats, and Elfrida with the twolittle princes often went to the coast to spend a whole day in the openair by the sea. Her favourite spot was at the foot of a vast chalk downwith a slight strip of woodland between its lowest slope and the beach. She was at this spot one day about noon where the trees were few andlarge, growing wide apart, and had settled herself on a pile of cushionsplaced at the roots of a big old oak tree, where from her seat she couldlook out over the blue expanse of water. But the hamlet and church closeby on her left hand were hidden by the wood, though sounds issuing fromit could be heard occasionally--shouts and bursts of laughter, and attimes the music of a stringed instrument and a voice singing. Thesesounds came from her armed guard and other attendants who were speedingthe idle hours of waiting in their own way, in eating and drinking andin games and dancing. Only two women remained to attend to her wants, and one armed man to keep watch and guard over the two boys at theirplay. 

They were not now far off, not above fifty yards, among the big trees;but for hours past they had been away out of her sight, racing on theirponies over the great down; then bathing in the sea, Edward teaching hislittle brother to swim; then he had given him lessons in tree-climbing, and now, tired of all these exertions, and for variety's sake, they wereamusing themselves by standing on their heads. Little Ethelred had triedand failed repeatedly, then at last, with hands and head firmly plantedon the sward, he had succeeded in throwing his legs up and keeping themin a vertical position for a few seconds, this feat being loudlyapplauded by his young instructor. 

Elfrida, who had witnessed this display from her seat, burst outlaughing, then said to herself: O how I love these two beautiful boysalmost with an equal love, albeit one is not mine! But Edward must beever dear to me because of his sweetness and his love of me and, evenmore, his love and tender care of my darling. Yet am I not wholly freefrom an anxious thought of the distant future. Ah, no, let me not thinkof such a thing! This sweet child of a boy-father and girl-mother--thefrail mother that died in her teens--he can never grow to be a proud, masterful, ambitious man--never aspire to wear his father's crown!Edgar's first-born, it is true, but not mine, and he can never be king. For Edgar and I are one; is it conceivable that he should oppose me inthis--that we that are one in mind and soul shall at the last be dividedand at enmity? Have we not said it an hundred times that we are one? Onein all things except in passion. Yet this very coldness in me in which Idiffer from others is my chief strength and glory, and has made our twolives one life. And when he is tired and satiated with the common beautyand the common passions of other women he returns to me only to have hisfirst love kindled afresh, and when in love and pity I give myself tohim and am his bride afresh as when first he had my body in his arms, itis to him as if one of the immortals had stooped to a mortal, and hetells me I am the flower of womankind and of the world, that my whitebody is a perfect white flower, my hair a shining gold flower, my moutha fragrant scarlet flower, and my eyes a sacred blue flower, surpassingall others in loveliness. And when I have satisfied him, and the tempestin his blood has abated, then for the rapture he has had I have mine, when, ashamed at his violence, as if it had been an insult to me, hecovers his face with my hair and sheds tears of love and contrition onmy breasts. O nothing can ever disunite us! Even from the first, beforeI ever saw him, when he was coming to me I knew that we were destined tobe one. And he too knew it from the moment of seeing me, and knew that Iknew it; and when he sat at meat with us and looked smilingly at thefriend of his bosom and spoke merrily to him, and resolved at the sametime to take his life, he knew that by so doing he would fulfil mydesire, and as my knowledge of the betrayal was first, so the desire toshed that abhorred blood was in me first. Nevertheless, I cannot be freeof all anxious thoughts, and fear too of my implacable enemy andtraducer who from a distance watches all my movements, who reads Edgar'smind even as he would a book, and what he finds there writ by me heseeks to blot out; and thus does he ever thwart me. But though I cannotmeasure my strength against his, it will not always be so, seeing thathe is old and I am young, with Time and Death on my side, who will likegood and faithful servants bring him to the dust, so that my triumphmust come. And when he is no more I shall have time to unbuild thestructure he has raised with lies for stones and my name coupled withsome evil deed cut in every stone. For I look ever to the future, evento the end to see this Edgar, with the light of life shining so brightlyin him now, a venerable king with silver hair, his passions cool, hisstrength failing, leaning more heavily on me; until at last, persuadedby me, he will step down from the throne and resign his crown to ourson--our Ethelred. And in him and his son after him, and in his son'ssons we shall live still in their blood, and with them rule this kingdomof Edgar the Peaceful--a realm of everlasting peace. 

Thus she mused, until overcome by her swift, crowding thoughts andpassions, love and hate, with memories dreadful or beautiful, of herpast and strivings of her mind to pierce the future, she burst into aviolent storm of tears so that her frame was shaken, and covering hereyes with her hands she strove to get the better of her agitation lesther weakness should be witnessed by her attendants. But when thistempest had left her and she lifted her eyes again, it seemed to herthat the burning tears which had relieved her heart had also washed awaysome trouble that had been like a dimness on all visible nature, andearth and sea and sky were glorified as if the sunlight flooding theworld fell direct from the heavenly throne, and she sat drinking in puredelight from the sight of it and the soft, warm air she breathed. 

Then, to complete her happiness, the silence that reigned around her wasbroken by a sweet, musical sound of a little bird that sang from thetree-top high above her head. This was the redstart, and the tree underwhich she sat was its singing-tree, to which it resorted many times aday to spend half an hour or so repeating its brief song at intervals ofa few seconds--a small song that was like the song of the redbreast, subdued, refined and spiritualised, as of a spirit that lived within thetree. 

Listening to it in that happy, tender mood which had followed her tears, she gazed up and tried to catch sight of it, but could see nothing butthe deep-cut, green, translucent, clustering oak leaves showing the blueof heaven and shining like emeralds in the sunlight. O sweet, blessedlittle bird, she said, are you indeed a bird? I think you are amessenger sent to assure me that all my hopes and dreams of the distantdays to come will be fulfilled. Sing again and again and again; I couldlisten for hours to that selfsame song. 

But she heard it no more; the bird had flown away. Then, stilllistening, she caught a different sound--the loud hoof-beats of horsesbeing ridden at furious speed towards the hamlet. Listening intently tothat sound she heard, on its arrival at the hamlet, a sudden, great cryas if all the men gathered there had united their voices in one cry; andshe stood up, and her women came to her, and all together stood silentlygazing in that direction. Then the two boys who had been lying on theturf not far off came running to them and caught her by the hands, oneon each side, and Edward, looking up at her white, still face, cried, Mother, what is it you fear? But she answered no word. Then again thesound of hoofs was heard and they knew the riders were now coming at aswift gallop to them. And in a few moments they appeared among thetrees, and reining up their horses at a distance of some yards, onesprang to the ground, and advancing to the queen, made his obeisance, then told her he had been sent to inform her of Edgar's death. He hadbeen seized by a sudden violent fever in Gloucestershire, on his way toGlastonbury, and had died after two days' illness. He had beenunconscious all the time, but more than once he had cried out, On toGlastonbury! and now in obedience to that command his body was beingconveyed thither for interment at the abbey. 

VIII

She had no tears to shed, no word to say, nor was there any sense ofgrief at her loss. She had loved him--once upon a time; she had alwaysadmired him for his better qualities; even his excessive pride andostentation had been pleasing to her; finally she had been more thantolerant of his vices or weaknesses, regarding them as matters beneathher attention. Nevertheless, in their eight years of married life theyhad become increasingly repugnant to her stronger and colder nature. Hehad degenerated, bodily and mentally, and was not now like that shiningone who had come to her at Wherwell Castle, who had not hesitated tostrike the blow that had set her free. The tidings of his death had allat once sprung the truth on her mind that the old love was dead, that ithad indeed been long dead, and that she had actually come to despisehim. 

But what should she do--what be--without him! She had been his queen, loved to adoration, and he had been her shield; now she was alone, faceto face with her bitter, powerful enemy. Now it seemed to her that shehad been living in a beautiful peaceful land, a paradise of fruit andflowers and all delightful things; that in a moment, as by a miracle, ithad turned to a waste of black ashes still hot and smoking from thedesolating flames that had passed over it. But she was not one to giveherself over to despondency so long as there was anything to be done. Very quickly she roused herself to action, and despatched messengers toall those powerful friends who shared her hatred of the greatarchbishop, and would be glad of the opportunity now offered of wrestingthe rule from his hands. Until now he had triumphed because he had hadthe king to support him even in his most arbitrary and tyrannicalmeasures; now was the time to show a bold front, to proclaim her son asthe right successor, and with herself, assisted by chosen councillors todirect her boy, the power would be in her hands, and once more, as inKing Edwin's day, the great Dunstan, disgraced and denounced, would becompelled to fly from the country lest a more dreadful punishment shouldbefall him. Finally, leaving the two little princes at Corfe Castle, shetravelled to Mercia to be with and animate her powerful friends andfellow-plotters with her presence. 

All their plottings and movements were known to Dunstan, and he was tooquick for them. Whilst they, divided among themselves, were debating andarranging their plans, he had called together all the leading bishopsand councillors of the late king, and they had agreed that Edward mustbe proclaimed as the first-born; and although but a boy of thirteen, thedanger to the country would not be so great as it would to give thesuccession to a child of seven years. Accordingly Edward was proclaimedking and removed from Corfe Castle while the queen was still absent inMercia. 

For a while it looked as if this bold and prompt act on the part ofDunstan would have led to civil war; but a great majority of the noblesgave their adhesion to Edward, and Elfrida's friends soon concluded thatthey were not strong enough to set her boy up and try to overthrowEdward, or to divide England again between two boy kings as in Edwin andEdgar's early years. 

She accordingly returned discomfited to Corfe and to her child, nowalways crying for his beloved brother who had been taken from him; andthere was not in all England a more miserable woman than Elfrida thequeen. For after this defeat she could hope no more; her power was gonepast recovery--all that had made her life beautiful and glorious wasgone. Now Corfe was like that other castle at Wherwell, where EarlAthelwold had kept her like a caged bird for his pleasure when hevisited her; only worse, since she was eight years younger then, herbeauty fresher, her heart burning with secret hopes and ambitions, andthe great world where there were towns and a king, and many noble menand women gathered round him yet to be known. And all these things hadcome to her and were now lost--now nothing was left but bitterestregrets and hatred of all those who had failed her at the last. Hatredfirst of all and above all of her great triumphant enemy, and hatred ofthe boy king she had loved with a mother's love until now, and cherishedfor many years. Hatred too of herself when she recalled the part she hadrecently played in Mercia, where she had not disdained to practise allher fascinating arts on many persons she despised in order to bind themto her cause, and had thereby given cause to her monkish enemy to chargeher with immodesty. It was with something like hatred too that sheregarded her own child when he would come crying to her, begging her totake him to his beloved brother; carried away with sudden rage, shewould strike and thrust him violently from her, then order her women totake him away and keep him out of her sight. 

Three years had gone by, during which she had continued living alone atCorfe, still under a cloud and nursing her bitter revengeful feeling inher heart, until that fatal afternoon on the eighteenth day of March, 978. 

The young king, now in his seventeenth year, had come to these favouritehunting-grounds of his late father, and was out hunting on that day. Hehad lost sight of his companions in a wood or thicket of thorn andfurze, and galloping in search of them he came out from the wood on thefurther side; and there before him, not a mile away, was Corfe Castle, his old beloved home, and the home still of the two beings he loved bestin the world--his step-mother and his little half-brother. And althoughhe had been sternly warned that they were his secret enemies, that itwould be dangerous to hold any intercourse with them, the sight of thecastle and his craving to look again on their dear faces overcame hisscruples. There would be no harm, no danger to him and no greatdisobedience on his part to ride to the gates and see and greet themwithout dismounting. 

When Elfrida was told that Edward himself was at the gates calling toher and Ethelred to come out to him she became violently excited, andcried out that God himself was on her side, and had delivered the boyinto her hands. She ordered her servants to go out and persuade him tocome in to her, to take away his horse as soon as he had dismounted, andnot to allow him to leave the castle. Then, when they returned to saythe king refused to dismount and again begged them to go to him, shewent to the gates, but without the boy, and greeted him joyfully, whilehe, glad at the meeting, bent down and embraced her and kissed her face. But when she refused to send for Ethelred, and urged him persistently todismount and come in to see his little brother who was crying for him, he began to notice the extreme excitement which burned in her eyes andmade her voice tremble, and beginning to fear some design against him, he refused again more firmly to obey her wish; then she, to gain time, sent for wine for him to drink before parting from her. And during allthis time while his departure was being delayed, her people, men andwomen, had been coming out until, sitting on his horse, he was in themidst of a crowd, and these too all looked on him with excited faces, which increased his apprehension, so that when he had drunk the wine heall at once set spurs to his horse to break away from among them. Thenshe, looking at her men, cried out: Is this the way you serve me? And nosooner had the words fallen from her lips than one man bounded forward, like a hound on its quarry, and coming abreast of the horse, dealt theking a blow with his knife in the side. The next moment the horse andrider were free of the crowd and rushing away over the moor. A cry ofhorror had burst from the women gathered there when the blow was struck;now all were silent, watching with white, scared faces as he rodeswiftly away. Then presently they saw him swerve on his horse, thenfall, with his right foot still remaining caught in the stirrup, andthat the panic-stricken horse was dragging him at furious speed over therough moor. 

Only then the queen spoke, and in an agitated voice told them to mountand follow; and charged them that if they overtook the horse and foundthat the king had been killed, to bury the body where it would not befound, so that the manner of his death should not be known. 

When the men returned they reported that they had found the dead body ofthe king a mile away, where the horse had got free of it, and they hadburied it in a thicket where it would never be discovered. 

IX

When Edward in sudden terror set spurs to his horse: when at the samemoment a knife flashed out and the fatal blow was delivered, Elfridatoo, like the other women witnesses in the crowd, had uttered a cry ofhorror. But once the deed was accomplished and the assurance receivedthat the body had been hidden where it would never be found, the feelingexperienced at the spectacle was changed to one of exultation. For nowat last, after three miserable years of brooding on her defeat, she hadunexpectedly triumphed, and it was as if she already had her foot set onher enemies' necks. For now her boy would be king--happily there was noother candidate in the field; now her great friends from all over theland would fly to her aid, and with them for her councillors she wouldpractically be the ruler during the king's long minority. 

Thus she exulted; then, when that first tempest of passionate excitementhad abated, came a revulsion of feeling when the vivid recollections ofthat pitiful scene returned and would not be thrust away; when she sawagain the change from affection and delight at beholding her tosuspicion and fear, then terror, come into the face of the boy she hadloved; when she witnessed the dreadful blow and watched him when heswerved and fell from the saddle and the frightened horse gallopedwildly away dragging him over the rough moor. For now she knew that inher heart she had never hated him: the animosity had been only on thesurface and was an overflow of her consuming hatred of the primate. Shehad always loved the boy, and now that he no longer stood in her way topower she loved him again. And she had slain him! O no, she was thankfulto think she had not! His death had come about by chance. Her commandsto her people had been that he was not to be allowed to leave thecastle; she had resolved to detain him, to hide and hold him a captive, to persuade or in some way compel him to abdicate in his brother'sfavour. She could not now say just how she had intended to deal withhim, but it was never her intention to murder him. Her commands had beenmisunderstood, and she could not be blamed for his death, however muchshe was to benefit by it. God would not hold her accountable. 

Could she then believe that she was guiltless in God's sight? Alas! onsecond thoughts she dared not affirm it. She was guiltless only in theway that she had been guiltless of Athelwold's murder; had she notrejoiced at the part she had had in that act? Athelwold had deserved hisfate, and she had never repented that deed, nor had Edgar. She had notdealt the fatal blow then nor now, but she had wished for Edward's deatheven as she had wished for Athelwold's, and it was for her the blow wasstruck. It was a difficult and dreadful question. She was not equal toit. Let it be put off, the pressing question now was, what would man'sjudgment be--how would she now stand before the world?

And now the hope came that the secret of the king's disappearance wouldnever be known; that after a time it would be assumed that he was dead, and that his death would never be traced to her door. 

A vain hope, as she quickly found! There had been too many witnesses ofthe deed both of the castle people and those who lived outside thegates. The news spread fast and far as if carried by winged messengers, so that it was soon known throughout the kingdom, and everywhere it wastold and believed that the queen herself had dealt the fatal blow. 

Not Elfrida nor any one living at that time could have foretold theeffect on the people generally of this deed, described as the foulestwhich had been done in Saxon times. There had in fact been a thousandblacker deeds in the England of that dreadful period, but never one thattouched the heart and imagination of the whole people in the same way. Furthermore, it came after a long pause, a serene interval of many yearsin the everlasting turmoil--the years of the reign of Edgar thePeaceful, whose early death had up till then been its one great sorrow. A time too of recovery from a state of insensibility to evil deeds; ofincreasing civilisation and the softening of hearts. For Edward was thechild of Edgar and his child-wife, who was beautiful and beloved anddied young; and he had inherited the beauty, charm, and all engagingqualities of his parents. It is true that these qualities were known atfirst-hand only by those who were about him; but from these the feelinginspired had been communicated to those outside in ever-widening circlesuntil it was spread over all the land, so that there was no habitation, from the castle to the hovel, in which the name of Edward was not asmusic on man's lips. And we of the present generation can perhapsunderstand this better than those of any other in the past centuries, for having a prince and heir to the English throne of this same name sogreat in our annals, one as universally loved as was Edward the Second, afterwards called the Martyr, in his day. 

One result of this general outburst of feeling was that all those whohad been, openly or secretly, in alliance with Elfrida now hastened todissociate themselves from her. She was told that by her own rash act inkilling the king before the world she had ruined her own cause for ever. 

And Dunstan was not defeated after all. He made haste to proclaim theson, the boy of ten years, king of England, and at the same time todenounce the mother as a murderess. Nor did she dare to resist him whenhe removed the little prince from Corfe Castle and placed him with someof his own creatures, with monks for schoolmasters and guardians, whosefirst lesson to him would be detestation of his mother. This lesson toohad to be impressed on the public mind; and at once, in obedience tothis command, every preaching monk in every chapel in the land ragedagainst the queen, the enemy of the archbishop and of religion, thetigress in human shape, and author of the greatest crime known in theland since Cerdic's landing. No fortitude could stand against such astorm of execration. It overwhelmed her. It was, she believed, apreparation for the dreadful doom about to fall on her. This was hergreat enemy's day, and he would no longer be baulked of his revenge. Sheremembered that Edwin had died by the assassin's hand, and the awfulfate of his queen Elgitha, whose too beautiful face was branded with hotirons, and who was hamstrung and left to perish in unimaginable agony. She was like the hunted roe deer hiding in a close thicket andlistening, trembling, to the hunters shouting and blowing on their hornsand to the baying of their dogs, seeking for her in the wood. 

Could she defend herself against them in her castle? She consulted herguard as to this, with the result that most of the men secretly lefther. There was nothing for her to do but wait in dreadful suspense, andthereafter she would spend many hours every day in a tower commanding awide view of the surrounding level country to watch the road withanxious eyes. But the feared hunters came not; the sound of the cry forvengeance grew fainter and fainter until it died into silence. It was atlength borne in on her that she was not to be punished--at all events, not here and by man. It came as a surprise to every one, herselfincluded. But it had been remembered that she was Edgar's widow and theking's mother, and that her power and influence were dead. Never againwould she lift her head in England. Furthermore, Dunstan was growingold; and albeit his zeal for religion, pure and undefiled as heunderstood it, was not abated, the cruel, ruthless instincts and temper, which had accompanied and made it effective in the great day of conflictwhen he was engaged in sweeping from England the sin and scandal of amarried clergy, had by now burnt themselves out. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay, and he was satisfied to have no more to dowith her. Let the abhorred woman answer to God for her crimes. 

But now that all fear of punishment by man was over, this dreadfulthought that she was answerable to God weighed more and more heavily onher. Nor could she escape by day or night from the persistent image ofthe murdered boy. It haunted her like a ghost in every room, and whenshe climbed to a tower to look out it was to see his horse rushing madlyaway dragging his bleeding body over the moor. Or when she went out tothe gate it was still to find him there, sitting on his horse, his facelighting up with love and joy at beholding her again; then thechange--the surprise, the fear, the wine-cup, the attempt to break away, her cry--the unconsidered words she had uttered--and the fatal blow! Thecry that rose from all England calling on God to destroy her! would thatbe her torment--would it sound in her ears through all eternity?

Corfe became unendurable to her, and eventually she moved to Bere, inDorset, where the lands were her property and she possessed a house ofher own, and there for upwards of a year she resided in the strictestseclusion. 

It then came out and was quickly noised abroad that the king's body hadbeen discovered long ago--miraculously it was said--in that brake nearCorfe where it had been hidden; that it had been removed to and secretlyburied at Wareham, and it was also said that miracles were occurring atthat spot. This caused a fresh outburst of excitement in the country;the cry of miracles roused the religious houses all over Wessex, andthere was a clamour for possession of the remains. This was a questionfor the heads of the Church to decide, and it was eventually decreedthat the monastery of Shaftesbury, founded by King Alfred, Edward'sgreat-great-grandfather, should have the body. Shaftesbury then, inorder to advertise so important an acquisition to the world, resolved tomake the removal of the remains the occasion of a great ceremony, amagnificent procession bearing the sacred remains from Wareham to thedistant little city on the hill, attended by representatives fromreligious houses all over the country and by the pious generally. 

Elfrida, sitting alone in her house, brooding on her desolation, heardof all these happenings and doings with increasing excitement; then allat once resolved to take part herself in the procession. This wasseemingly a strange, almost incredible departure for one of herindomitable character and so embittered against the primate, even as hewas against her. But her fight with him was now ended; she was defeated, broken, deprived of everything that she valued in life; it was time tothink about the life to come. Furthermore, it now came to her that thiswas not her own thought, but that it had been whispered to her soul bysome compassionate being of a higher order, and it was suggested to herthat here was an opportunity for a first step towards a reconciliationwith God and man. She dared not disregard it. Once more she would appearbefore the world, not as the beautiful, magnificent Elfrida, the proudand powerful woman of other days, but as a humble penitent doing herbitter penance in public, one of a thousand or ten thousand humblepilgrims, clad in mean garments, riding only when overcome with fatigue, and at the last stage of that long twenty-five-mile journey casting offher shoes to climb the steep stony road on naked, bleeding feet. 

This resolution, in which she was strongly supported by the localpriesthood, had a mollifying effect on the people, and something likecompassion began to mingle with their feelings of hatred towards her. But when it was reported to Dunstan, he fell into a rage, and imaginedor pretended to believe that some sinister design was hidden under it. She was the same woman, he said, who had instigated the murder of herfirst husband by means of a trick of this kind. She must not be allowedto show her face again. He then despatched a stern and threateningmessage forbidding her to take any part in or show herself at theprocession. 

This came at the last moment when all her preparations had been made;but she dared not disobey. The effect was to increase her misery. It wasas if the gates of mercy and deliverance, which had been opened, miraculously as she believed, had now been once more closed against her;and it was also as if her enemy had said: I have spared you the brandingwith hot irons and slashing of sinews with sharp knives, not out ofcompassion, but in order to subject you to a more terrible punishment. 

Despair possessed her, which turned to sullen rage when she found thatthe feeling of the people around her had again become hostile, owing tothe report that her non-appearance at the procession was due to thediscovery by Dunstan in good time of a secret plot against the State onher part. Her house at Bere became unendurable to her; she resolved toquit it, and made choice of Salisbury as her next place of residence. Itwas not far to go, and she had a good house there which had not beenused since Edgar's death, but was always kept ready for her occupation. 

X

It was about the middle of the afternoon when Elfrida on horseback andattended by her mounted guard of twenty or more men, followed by aconvoy of carts with her servants and luggage, arrived at Salisbury, andwas surprised and disturbed at the sight of a vast concourse of peoplestanding without the gates. 

It had got abroad that she was coming to Salisbury on that day, and itwas also now known throughout Wessex that she had not been allowed toattend the procession to Shaftesbury. This had excited the people, and alarge part of the inhabitants of the town and the adjacent hamlets hadcongregated to witness her arrival. 

On her approach the crowd opened out on either side to make way for herand her men, and glancing to this side and that she saw that every pairof eyes in all that vast silent crowd were fixed intently on her face. 

Then came a fresh surprise when she found a mounted guard standing withdrawn swords before the gates. The captain of the guard, lifting hishand, cried out to her to halt, then in a loud voice he informed her hehad been ordered to turn her back from the gates. Was it then to witnessthis fresh insult that the people had now been brought together? Angerand apprehension struggled for mastery in her breast and choked herutterance when she attempted to speak. She could only turn to her men, and in instant response to her look they drew their swords and pressedforward as if about to force their way in. This movement on their partwas greeted with a loud burst of derisive laughter from the town guard. Then from out of the middle of the crowd of lookers-on came a cry ofMurderess! quickly followed by another shout of Go back, murderess, youare not wanted here! This was a signal for all the unruly spirits in thethrong--all those whose delight is to trample upon the fallen--and fromall sides there arose a storm of jeers and execrations, and it was as ifshe was in the midst of a frantic bellowing herd eager to gore andtrample her to death. And these were the same people that a few shortyears ago would rush out from their houses to gaze with pride anddelight at her, their beautiful queen, and applaud her to the echowhenever she appeared at their gates! Now, better than ever before, sherealised the change of feeling towards her from affectionate loyalty toabhorrence, and drained to the last bitterest dregs the cup of shame andhumiliation. 

With trembling hand she turned her horse round, and bending her ashenwhite face low rode slowly out of the crowd, her men close to her oneither side, threatening with their swords those that pressed nearestand followed in their retreat by shouts and jeers. But when well out ofsight and sound of the people she dismounted and sat down on the turf torest and consider what was to be done. By and by a mounted man was seencoming from Salisbury at a fast gallop. He came with a letter andmessage to the queen from an aged nobleman, one she had known in formeryears at court. He informed her that he owned a large house at or nearAmesbury which he could not now use on account of his age andinfirmities, which compelled him to remain in Salisbury. This house shemight occupy for as long as she wished to remain in the neighbourhood. He had received permission from the governor of the town to offer it toher, and the only condition was that she must not return to Salisbury. 

There was thus one friend left to the reviled and outcast queen--thisaged dying man!

Once more she set forth with the messenger as guide, and about set ofsun arrived at the house, which was to be her home for the next two tothree years, in this darkest period of her life. Yet she could not havefound a habitation and surroundings more perfectly suited to her wantsand the mood she was in. The house, which was large enough toaccommodate all her people, was on the west side of the Avon, a quarterof a mile below Amesbury and two to three hundred yards distant from theriver bank, and was surrounded by enclosed land with gardens andorchards, the river itself forming the boundary on one side. Here wasthe perfect seclusion she desired: here she could spend her hours anddays as she ever loved to do in the open air without sight of any humancountenance excepting those of her own people, since now strange faceshad become hateful to her. Then, again, she loved riding, and justoutside of her gates was the great green expanse of the Downs, where shecould spend hours on horseback without meeting or seeing a human figureexcept occasionally a solitary shepherd guarding his flock. So great wasthe attraction the Downs had for her she herself marvelled at it. It wasnot merely the sense of power and freedom the rider feels on a horsewith the exhilarating effect of swift motion and a wide horizon. Hereshe had got out of the old and into a new world better suited to herchanged spirit. For in that world of men and women in which she hadlived until now all nature had become interfused with her own and otherpeople's lives--passions and hopes and fears and dreams and ambitions. Now it was as if an obscuring purple mist had been blown away, leavingthe prospect sharp and clear to her sight as it had never appearedbefore. A wide prospect, whose grateful silence was only broken by thecry or song of some wild bird. Great thickets of dwarf thorn tree andbrambles and gorse, aflame with yellow flowers or dark to blackness bycontrast with the pale verdure of the earth. And open reaches of elasticturf, its green suffused or sprinkled with red or blue or yellow, according to the kind of flowers proper to the season and place. Thesight, too, of wild creatures: fallow deer, looking yellow in thedistance when seen amid the black gorse; a flock of bustards taking toflight on her approach would rush away, their spread wings flashingsilver-white in the brilliant sunshine. She was like them on her horse, borne swiftly as on wings above the earth, but always near it. Then, casting her eyes up, she would watch the soarers, the buzzards, orharriers and others, circling up from earth on broad motionless wings, bird above bird, ever rising and diminishing to fade away at last intothe universal blue. Then, as if aspiring too, she would seek the highestpoint on some high down, and sitting on her horse survey the prospectbefore her--the sea of rounded hills, hills beyond hills, stretchingaway to the dim horizon, and over it all the vast blue dome of heaven. Sky and earth, with thorny brakes and grass and flowers and wildcreatures, with birds that flew low and others soaring up intoheaven--what was the secret meaning it had for her? She was like onegroping for a key in a dark place. Not a human figure visible, not asign of human occupancy on that expanse! Was this then the secret of herelation? The all-powerful, dreadful God she was at enmity with, whom shefeared and fled from, was not here. He, or his spirit, was where maninhabited, in cities and other centres of population, where there werechurches and monasteries. 

To think this was a veritable relief to her. God was where menworshipped him, and not here! She hugged the new belief and it made herbold and defiant. Doubtless, if he is here, she would say, and can readmy thoughts, my horse in his very next gallop will put his foot in amole-run, and bring me down and break my neck. Or when yon black cloudcomes over me, if it is a thunder-cloud, the lightning out of it willstrike me dead. If he will but listen to his servant Dunstan this willsurely happen. Was it God or the head shepherd of his sheep, here inEngland, who, when I tried to enter the fold, beat me off with his staffand set his dogs on me so that I was driven away, torn and bleeding, tohide myself in a solitary place? Would it then be better for me to gowith my cries for mercy to his seat? O no, I could not come to himthere; his doorkeepers would bar the way, and perhaps bring together acrowd of their people to howl at me--Go away, Murderess, you are notwanted here!

Now in spite of those moments, or even hours, of elation, during whichher mind would recover its old independence until the sense of freedomwas like an intoxication; when she cried out against God that he wascruel and unjust in his dealings with his creatures, that he had raisedup and given power to the man who held the rod over her, one who inGod's holy name had committed crimes infinitely greater than hers, andshe refused to submit to him--in spite of it all she could never shakeoff the terrible thought that in the end, at God's judgment seat, shewould have to answer for her own dark deeds. She could not be free ofher religion. She was like one who tears a written paper to pieces andscatters the pieces in anger to see them blown away like snow-flakes onthe wind; who by and by discovers one small fragment clinging to hisgarments, and looking at the half a dozen words and half words appearingon it, adds others from memory or of his own invention. So she with whatwas left when she thrust her religion away built for herself a differentone which was yet like the old; and even here in this solitude she wasable to find a house and sacred place for meditation and prayer, inwhich she prayed indirectly to the God she was at enmity with. For nowinvariably on returning from her ride to her house at Amesbury she wouldpay a visit to the Great Stones, the ancient temple of Stonehenge. Dismounting, she would order her attendants to take her horse away andwait for her at a distance, so as not to be disturbed by the sound oftheir talking. Going in she would seat herself on the central or altarstone and give a little time to meditation--to the tuning of her mind. That circle of rough-hewn stones, rough with grey lichen, were thepillars of her cathedral, with the infinite blue sky for roof, and forincense the smell of flowers and aromatic herbs, and for music thefar-off faintly heard sounds that came to her from the surroundingwilderness--the tremulous bleating of sheep and the sudden wild cry ofhawk or stone curlew. Closing her eyes she would summon the familiarimage and vision of the murdered boy, always coming so quickly, sovividly, that she had brought herself to believe that it was not a merecreation of her own mind and of remorse, a memory, but that he wasactually there with her. Moving her hand over the rough stone she wouldby and by let it rest, pressing it on the stone, and would say, Now Ihave your hand in mine, and am looking with my soul's eyes into yours, listen again to the words I have spoken so many times. You would not behere if you did not remember me and pity and even love me still. Knowthen that I am now alone in the world, that I am hated by the worldbecause of your bitter death. And there is not now one living being inthe world that I love, for I have ceased to love even my own boy, yourold beloved playmate, seeing that he has long been taken from me andtaught with all others to despise and hate me. And of all those whoinhabit the regions above, in all that innumerable multitude of angelsand saints, and of all who have died on earth and been forgiven, youalone have any feeling of compassion for me and can intercede for me. Plead for me--plead for me, O my son; for who is there in heaven orearth that can plead so powerfully for me that am stained with yourblood!

Then, having finished her prayer, and wiped away all trace of tears andpainful emotions, she would summon her attendants and ride home, inappearance and bearing still the Elfrida of her great days--the calm, proud-faced, beautiful woman who was once Edgar's queen. 

XI

The time had arrived when Elfrida was deprived of this her one reliefand consolation--her rides on the Downs and the exercise of her religionat the temple of the Great Stones--when in the second winter of herresidence at Amesbury there fell a greater darkness than that of winteron England, when the pirate kings of the north began once more tofrequent our shores, and the daily dreadful tale of battles andmassacres and burning of villages and monasteries was heard throughoutthe kingdom. These invasions were at first confined to the easterncounties, but the agitation, with movements of men and outbreaks oflawlessness, were everywhere in the country, and the queen was warnedthat it was no longer safe for her to go out on Salisbury Plain. 

The close seclusion in which she had now to live, confined to house andenclosed land, affected her spirits, and this was her darkest period, and it was also the turning-point in her life. For I now come to thestrange story of her maid Editha, who, despite her humble position inthe house, and albeit she was but a young girl in years, one, moreover, of a meek, timid disposition, was yet destined to play an exceedinglyimportant part in the queen's history. 

It happened that by chance or design the queen's maid, who was herclosest attendant, who dressed and undressed her, was suddenly calledaway on some urgent matter, and this girl Editha, a stranger to all, wasput in her place. The queen, who was in a moody and irritable state, presently discovered that the sight and presence of this girl produced asoothing effect on her darkened mind. She began to notice her when themaid combed her hair, when sitting with half-closed eyes in profounddejection she first looked attentively at that face behind her head inthe mirror and marvelled at its fairness, the perfection of its linesand its delicate colouring, the pale gold hair and strangely seriousgrey eyes that were never lifted to meet her own. 

What was it in this face, she asked herself, that held her and gave somerest to her tormented spirit? It reminded her of that crystal stream ofsweet and bitter memories, at Wherwell, on which she used to gaze and inwhich she used to dip her hands, then to press the wetted hands to herlips. It also reminded her of an early morning sky, seen beyond andabove the green dew-wet earth, so infinitely far away, so peaceful witha peace that was not of this earth. 

It was not then merely its beauty that made this face so much to her, but something greater behind it, some inner grace, the peace of God inher soul. 

One day there came for the queen as a gift from some distant town avolume of parables and fables for her entertainment. It was beautiful tothe sight, being richly bound in silk and gold embroidery; but onopening it she soon found that there was little pleasure to be got fromit on account of the difficulty she found in reading the crabbedhandwriting. After spending some minutes in trying to decipher aparagraph or two she threw the book in disgust on the floor. 

The maid picked it up, and after a glance at the first page said it waseasy to her, and she asked if the queen would allow her to read it toher. 

Elfrida, surprised, asked how it came about that her maid was able toread a difficult script with ease, or was able to read at all; and thiswas the first question she had condescended to put to the girl. Edithareplied that she had been taught as a child by a great-uncle, a learnedman; that she had been made to read volumes in a great variety ofscripts to him, until reading had come easy to her, both Saxon andLatin. 

Then, having received permission, she read the first fable aloud, andElfrida listening, albeit without interest in the tale itself, foundthat the voice increased the girl's attraction for her. From that timethe queen made her read to her every day. She would make her sit alittle distance from her, and reclining on her couch, her head restingon her hand, she would let her eyes dwell on that sweet saint-like faceuntil the reading was finished. 

One day she read from the same book a tale of a great noble, anearldoman who was ruler under the king of that part of the country wherehis possessions were, whose power was practically unlimited and his wordlaw. But he was a wise and just man, regardful of the rights of others, even of the meanest of men, so that he was greatly reverenced and lovedby the people. Nevertheless, he too, like all men in authority, bothgood and bad, had his enemies, and the chief of these was a noble of aproud and froward temper who had quarrelled with him about theirrespective rights in certain properties where their lands adjoined. Again and again it was shown to him that his contention was wrong; thejudgments against him only served to increase his bitterness andhostility until it seemed that there would never be an end to thatstrife. This at length so incensed his powerful overlord that he wasforcibly deprived of his possessions and driven out beggared from hishome. But no punishment, however severe, could change his nature; itonly roused him to greater fury, a more fixed determination to have hisrevenge, so that outcast as he was his enmity was still to be feared andhe was a danger to the ruler and the community in general. Then, atlast, the great earl said he would suffer this state of things nolonger, and he ordered his men to go out and seek and take him captiveand bring him up for a final judgment. This was done, and the ruler thensaid he would not have him put to death as he was advised to do, so asto be rid of him once for all, but would inflict a greater punishment onhim. He then made them put heavy irons on his ankles, riveted so thatthey should never be removed, and condemned him to slavery and to labourevery day in his fields and pleasure-grounds for the rest of his life. To see his hated enemy reduced to that condition would, he said, be asatisfaction to him whenever he walked in his gardens. 

These stern commands were obeyed, and when the miserable man refused todo his task and cried out in a rage that he would rather die, he wasscourged until the blood ran from the wounds made by the lash; and atlast, to escape from this torture, he was compelled to obey, and frommorning to night he laboured on the land, planting and digging and doingwhatever there was to do, always watched by his overseer, his foodthrown to him as to a dog; laughed and jeered at by the meanest of theservants. 

After a certain time, when his body grew hardened so that he couldlabour all day without pain, and, being fatigued, sleep all nightwithout waking, though he had nothing but straw on a stone floor to lieupon; and when he was no longer mocked or punished or threatened withthe lash, he began to reflect more and more on his condition, and tothink that it would be possible to him to make it more endurable. Whenbrooding on it, when he repined and cursed, it then seemed to him worsethan death; but when, occupied with his task, he forgot that he was theslave of his enemy, who had overcome and broken him, then it no longerseemed so heavy. The sun still shone for him as for others; the earthwas as green, the sky as blue, the flowers as fragrant. This reflectionmade his misery less; and by and by it came into his mind that it wouldbe lessened more and more if he could forget that his master was hisenemy and cruel persecutor, who took delight in the thought of hissufferings; if he could imagine that he had a different master, a greatand good man who had ever been kind to him and whom his sole desire wasto please. This thought working in his mind began to give him asatisfaction in his toil, and this change in him was noticed by histaskmaster, who began to see that he did his work with an understandingso much above that of his fellows that all those who laboured with himwere influenced by his example, and whatsoever the toil was in which hehad a part the work was better done. From the taskmaster this changebecame known to the chief head of all the lands, who thereupon had himset to other more important tasks, so that at last he was not only atoiler with pick and spade and pruning knife, but his counsel was soughtin everything that concerned the larger works on the land; in formingplantations, in the draining of wet grounds and building of houses andbridges and the making of new roads. And in all these works he acquittedhimself well. 

Thus he laboured for years, and it all became known to the ruler, who atlength ordered the man to be brought before him to receive yet anotherfinal judgment. And when he stood before him, hairy, dirty and unkempt, in his ragged raiment, with toil-hardened hands and heavy irons on hislegs, he first ordered the irons to be removed. 

The smiths came with their files and hammers, and with much labour tookthem off. 

Then the ruler, his powerful old enemy, spoke these words to him: I donot know what your motives were in doing what you have done in all theseyears of your slavery; nor do I ask to be told. It is sufficient for meto know you have done these things, which are for my benefit and are adebt which must now be paid. You are henceforth free, and thepossessions you were deprived of shall be restored to you, and as to thepast and all the evil thoughts you had of me and all you did against me, it is forgiven and from this day will be forgotten. Go now in peace. 

When this last word had been spoken by his enemy, all that remained ofthe old hatred and bitterness went out of him, and it was as if his soulas well as his feet had been burdened with heavy irons and that they hadnow been removed, and that he was free with a freedom he had never knownbefore. 

When the reading was finished, the queen with eyes cast down remainedfor some time immersed in thought; then with a keen glance at the maid'sface she asked for the book, and opening it began slowly turning theleaves. By and by her face darkened, and in a stern tone of voice shesaid: Come here and show me in this book the parable you have just read, and then you shall also show me two or three other parables you haveread to me on former occasions, which I cannot find. 

The maid, pale and trembling, came and dropped on her knees and beggedforgiveness for having recited these three or four tales, which she hadheard or read elsewhere and committed to memory, and had pretended toread them out of the book. 

Then the queen in a sudden rage said: Go from me and let me not see youagain if you do not wish to be stripped and scourged and thrust nakedout of the gates! And you only escape this punishment because the deceityou have been practising on me is, to my thinking, not of your owninvention, but that of some crafty monk who is making you hisinstrument. 

Editha, terrified and weeping, hurriedly quitted the room. 

By and by, when that sudden tempest of rage had subsided, thedespondence, which had been somewhat lightened by the maid's presence, came back on her so heavily that it was almost past endurance. She roseand went to her sleeping-room, and knelt before a table on which stood acrucifix with an image of the Saviour on it--the emblem of the religionshe had so great a quarrel with. But not to pray. Folding her arms onthe table and dropping her face on them she said: What have I done? Andagain and again she repeated: What have I done? Was it indeed a monk whotaught her this deceit, or some higher being who put it in her mind towhisper a hope to my soul? To show me a way of escape from everlastingdeath--to labour in his fields and pleasure-grounds, a wretched slavewith irons on her feet, to be scourged and mocked at, and in this stateto cast out hatred and bitterness from my own soul and all remembranceof the injuries he had inflicted on me--to teach myself through longmiserable years that this powerful enemy and persecutor is a kind andloving master? This is the parable, and now my soul tells me it would bea light punishment when I look at the red stains on these hands, andwhen the image of the boy I loved and murdered comes back to me. Thisthen was the message, and I drove the messenger from me with cruelthreats and insult. 

Suddenly she rose, and going hurriedly out, called to her maids to bringEditha to her. They told her the maid had departed instantly on beingdismissed, and had gone upwards of an hour. Then she ordered them to goand search for her in all the neighbourhood, at every house, and whenthey had found her to bring her back by persuasion or by force. 

They returned after a time only to say they had sought for hereverywhere and had failed to find or hear any report of her, but thatsome of the mounted men who had gone to look for her on the roads hadnot yet returned. 

Left alone once more she turned to a window which looked towardsSalisbury, and saw the westering sun hanging low in a sky of brokenclouds over the valley of the Avon and the green downs on either side. And, still communing with herself, she said: I know that I shall notendure it long--this great fear of God--I know that it will madden me. And for the unforgiven who die mad there can be no hope. Only the sightof my maid's face with God's peace in it could save me from madness. No, I shall not go mad! I shall take it as a sign that I cannot be forgivenif the sun goes down without my seeing her again. I shall kill myselfbefore madness comes and rest oblivious of life and all things, even ofGod's wrath, until the dreadful waking. 

For some time longer she continued standing motionless, watching thesun, now sinking behind a dark cloud, then emerging and lighting up thedim interior of her room and her stone-white, desolate face. 

Then once more her servants came back, and with them Editha, who hadbeen found on the road to Salisbury, half-way there. 

Left alone together, the queen took the maid by the hand and led her toa seat, then fell on her knees before her and clasped her legs andbegged her forgiveness. When the maid replied that she had forgiven her, and tried to raise her up, she resisted, and cried: No, I cannot risefrom my knees nor loose my hold on you until I have confessed to you andyou have promised to save me. Now I see in you not my maid who combs myhair and ties my shoe-strings, but one that God loves, whom he exaltsabove the queens and nobles of the earth, and while I cling to you hewill not strike. Look into this heart that has hated him, look at itsfrightful passions, its blood-guiltiness, and have compassion on me! Andif you, O Editha, should reply to me that it is his will, for he hassaid it, that every soul shall save itself, show me the way. How shall Iapproach him? Teach me humility!

Thus she pleaded and abased herself. Nevertheless it was a hard task sheimposed upon her helper, seeing that humility, of all virtues, was themost contrary to her nature. And when she was told that the first stepto be taken was to be reconciled to the church, and to the head of thechurch, her chief enemy and persecutor, whose monks, obedient to hiscommand, had blackened her name in all the land, her soul was in fiercerevolt. Nevertheless she had to submit, seeing that God himself throughhis Son when on earth and his Son's disciples had established thechurch, and by that door only could any soul approach him. So there wasan end to that conflict, and Elfrida, beaten and broken, although eversecretly hating the tonsured keepers of her soul, set forth under theirguidance on her weary pilgrimage--the long last years of her bitterexpiation. 

Yet there was to be one more conflict between the two women--theimperious mistress and the humble-minded maid. This was when Edithaannounced to the other that the time had now come for her to depart. Butthe queen wished to keep her, and tried by all means to do so, bypleading with her and by threatening to detain her by force. Thenrepenting her anger and remembering the great debt of gratitude owing tothe girl, she resolved to reward her generously, to bestow wealth onher, but in such a form that it would appear to the girl as a beautifulparting gift from one who had loved her: only afterwards, when they werefar apart, would she discover its real value. 

A memory of the past had come to her--of that day, sixteen years ago, when her lover came to her and using sweet flattering words poured outfrom a bag a great quantity of priceless jewels into her lap, and of thejoy she had in the gift. Also how from the day of Athelwold's death shehad kept those treasures put away in the same bag out of her sight. Norin all the days of her life with Edgar had she ever worn a gem, thoughshe had always loved to array herself magnificently, but her ornamentshad been gold only, the work of the best artists in Europe. Now, inimitation of Athelwold, when his manner of bestowing the jewels had socharmed her, she would bestow them on the girl. 

Accordingly when the moment of separation came and Editha was made toseat herself, the queen standing over her with the bag in her hand said:Do you, Editha, love all beautiful things? And when the maid had repliedthat she did, the other said: Then take these gems, which are beautiful, as a parting gift from me. And with that she poured out the mass ofglittering jewels into the girl's lap. 

But the maid without touching or even looking at them, and with a cry, Iwant no jewels! started to her feet so that they were all scattered uponthe floor. 

The queen stared astonished at the face before her with its new look ofpride and excitement, then with rising anger she said: Is my maid tooproud then to accept a gift from me? Does she not know that a single oneof those gems thrown on the floor would be more than a fortune to her?

The girl replied in the same proud way: I am not your maid, and gems areno more to me than pebbles from the brook!

Then all at once recovering her meek, gentle manner she cried in a voicethat pierced the queen's heart: O, not your maid, only yourfellow-worker in our Master's fields and pleasure-grounds! Before I everbeheld your face, and since we have been together, my heart has bled foryou, and my daily cry to God has been: Forgive her! Forgive her, for hissake who died for our sins! And this shall I continue to cry though Ishall see you no more on earth. But we shall meet again. Not, O unhappyqueen, at life's end, but long afterwards--long, long years! long ages!

Dropping on her knees she caught and kissed the queen's hand, sheddingabundant tears on it, then rose and was quickly gone. 

Elfrida, left to herself, scarcely recovered from the shock of surpriseat that sudden change in the girl's manner, began to wonder at her ownblindness in not having seen through her disguise from the first. Therevelation had come to her only at the last moment in that proud gestureand speech when her gift was rejected, not without scorn. A child ofnobles great as any in the land, what had made her do this thing? Whatindeed but the heavenly spirit that was in her, the spirit that was inChrist--the divine passion to save!

Now she began to ponder on those last words the maid had spoken, and themore she thought of them the greater became her sadness until it waslike the approach of death. O terrible words! Yet it was what she hadfeared, even when she had dared to hope for forgiveness. Now she knewwhat her life after death was to be since the word had been spoken bythose inspired lips. O dreadful destiny! To dwell alone, to tread alonethat desert desolate, that illimitable waste of burning sand stretchingfrom star to star through infinite space, where was no rock nor tree togive her shade, no fountain to quench her fiery thirst! For that was howshe imaged the future life, as a desert to be dwelt in until in the end, when in God's good time--the time of One to whom a thousand years are asone day--she would receive the final pardon and be admitted to rest in agreen and shaded place. 

Overcome with the agonising thought she sank down on her couch and fellinto a faint. In that state she was found by her women, reclining, stillas death, with eyes closed, the whiteness of death in her face; andthinking her dead they rushed out terrified, crying aloud and lamentingthat the queen was dead. 

XII

She was not dead. She recovered from that swoon, but never from thedeep, unbroken sadness caused by those last words of the maid Editha, which had overcome and nearly slain her. She now abandoned herseclusion, but the world she returned to was not the old one. Thethought that every person she met was saying in his or her heart: Thisis Elfrida; this is the queen who murdered Edward the Martyr, herstep-son, made that world impossible. The men and women she nowconsorted with were the religious and ecclesiastics of all degrees, andabbots and abbesses. These were the people she loved least, yet now intotheir hands she deliberately gave herself; and to those who questionedher, to her spiritual guides, she revealed all her life and thoughts andpassions, opening her soul to their eyes like a manuscript for them toread and consider; and when they told her that in God's sight she wasguilty of the murder both of Edward and Athelwold, she replied that theydoubtless knew best what was in God's mind, and whatever they commandedher to do that should be done, and if in her own mind it was not as theysaid this could be taken as a defect in her understanding. For in herheart she was not changed, and had not yet and never would learn thebitter lesson of humility. Furthermore, she knew better than they whatlife and death had in store for her, since it had been revealed to herby holier lips than those of any priest. Lips on which had been laid acoal from the heavenly altar, and what they had foretold would come topass--that unearthly pilgrimage and purification--that destiny, dreadful, ineluctable, that made her soul faint to think of it. Here, onthis earth, it was for her to toil, a slave with heavy irons on herfeet, in her master's fields and pleasure-grounds, and these gowned menwith shaven heads, wearing ropes of beads and crucifixes as emblems oftheir authority--these were the taskmasters set over her, and to these, she, Elfrida, one time queen in England, would bend in submission andhumbly confess her sins, and uncomplainingly take whatever austeritiesor other punishments they decreed. 

Here, then, at Amesbury itself, she began her works of expiation, andfound that she, too, like the unhappy man in the parable, couldexperience some relief and satisfaction in her solitary embitteredexistence in the work itself. 

Having been told that at this village where she was living a monasteryhad existed and had been destroyed in the dreadful wars of two to threecenturies ago, she conceived the idea of founding a new one, a nunnery, and endowing it richly, and accordingly the Abbey of Amesbury was builtand generously endowed by her. 

This religious house became famous in after days, and was resorted to bythe noblest ladies in the land who desired to take the veil, includingprincesses 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 homeat Wherwell. Since she had lost sight of her maid Editha, she had beenpossessed with a desire to re-visit that spot, where she had been happyas a young bride and had repined in solitude and had had her glorioustriumph and stained her soul with crime. She craved for it again, especially to look once more at the crystal current of the Test in whichshe had been accustomed to dip her hands. The grave, saintly face ofEditha 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 comeback 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 herprison and cage, she ordered its demolition and used the materials inbuilding the abbey she founded at that spot, and it was taken forgranted by the Church that this was done in expiation of the part shehad taken in Athelwold's murder. At this spot where the stream becameassociated in her mind with the thought of Editha, and was a sacredstream, she resolved to end her days. But the time of her retirement wasnot yet, there was much still waiting for her to do in her master'sfields and pleasure-grounds. For no sooner had the tidings of her workin founding these monasteries and the lavish use she was making of hergreat wealth been spread abroad, than from many religious houses allover the land the cry was sent to her--the Macedonian cry to St. Paul tocome over and help us. 

From the houses founded by Edgar the cry was particularly loud andinsistent. There were forty-seven of them, and had not Edgar died sosoon there would have been fifty, that being the number he had set hisheart on in his fervid zeal for religion. All, alas! were insufficientlyendowed; and it was for Elfrida, as they were careful to point out, toincrease their income from her great wealth, seeing that this wouldenable them to associate her name with that of Edgar and keep it inmemory, and this would be good for her soul. 

To all such calls she listened, and she performed many and long journeysto the religious houses all over the country to look closely into theirconditions and needs, and to all she gave freely or in moderation, butnot always without a gesture of scorn. For in her heart of hearts shewas still Elfrida and unchanged, albeit outwardly she had attained tohumility; only once during these years of travel and toil when she wasgetting rid of her wealth did she allow her secret bitterness andhostility to her ecclesiastical guides and advisers to break out. 

She was at Worcester, engaged in a conference with the bishop andseveral of his clergy; they were sitting at an oak table with somepapers and plans before them, when the news was brought into the roomthat Archbishop Dunstan was dead. 

They all, except Elfrida, started to their feet with the looks andexclamations of dismay, as if some frightful calamity had come to pass. Then dropping to their knees with bowed heads and lifted hands theyprayed for the repose of his soul. They prayed silently, but the silencewas broken by a laugh from the queen. Starting to his feet the bishopturned on her a severe countenance, and asked why she laughed at thatsolemn moment. 

She replied that she had laughed unthinkingly, as the linnet sings, frompure joy of heart at the glad tidings that their holy archbishop hadbeen translated to paradise. For if he had done so much for England whenburdened with the flesh, how much more would he be able to do now fromthe seat or throne to which he would be exalted in heaven in virtue ofthe position his blessed mother now occupied in that place. 

The bishop, angered at her mocking words, turned his back on her, andthe others, following his example, averted their faces, but not one worddid they utter. 

They remembered that Dunstan in former years, when striving to makehimself all powerful in the kingdom, had made free use of a supernaturalmachinery; that when he wanted something done and it could not be donein any other way, he received a command from heaven, brought to him bysome saint or angel, to have it done, and the command had then to beobeyed. They also remembered that when Dunstan, as he informed them, hadbeen snatched up into the seventh heaven, he did not on his return toearth modestly, like St. Paul, that it was not lawful for him to speakof the things which he had heard and seen, but he proclaimed them to anastonished world in his loudest trumpet voice. Also, that when, by thesemeans, he had established his power and influence and knew that he couldtrust his own subtle brains to maintain his position, he had dropped themiracles and visions. And it had come to pass that when the archbishophad seen fit to leave the supernatural element out of his policy, theheads of the Church in England were only too pleased to have it so. Theworld had gaped with astonishment at these revelations long enough, andits credulity had come near to the breaking point, on which account theraking 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 ofher old enemy, which his death had not appeased. 

What mean you, Fathers, she cried, by turning your backs on me andkeeping silence? Is it an insult to me you intend or to the memory ofthat great and holy man who has just quitted the earth? Will you dare tosay that the reports he brought to us of the marvellous doings hewitnessed in heaven, when he was taken there, were false and the liesand inventions of Satan, whose servant he was?

More than that she was not allowed to say, for now the bishop in amighty rage swung round, and dealt a blow on the table with such furythat his arm was disabled by it, he shouted at her: Not another word!Hold your mocking tongue, fiendish woman! Then plucking up his gown withhis left hand for fear of being tripped up by it he rushed out of theroom. 

The others, still keeping their faces averted from her, followed at amore 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 hewould have been rewarded for his insolence by a slap in the face. 

This outburst on her part caused no lasting break in her relations withthe Church. It was to her merely an incident in her long day's toil inher 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 theChurch, to say no more about it. Her great works of expiation wereaccordingly continued. But the time at length arrived for her to takeher long-desired rest before facing the unknown dreaded future. She wasnot old in years, but remorse and a deep settled melancholy and herfrequent fierce wrestlings with her own rebellious nature as with anuntamed dangerous animal chained to her had made her old. Furthermore, she had by now well-nigh expended all her possessions and wealth, evento the gems she had once prized and then thrust away out of sight formany years, and which her maid Editha had rejected with scorn, sayingthey were no more to her than pebbles from the brook. 

Once more at Wherwell, she entered the Abbey, and albeit she took theveil herself she was not under the same strict rule as her sister nuns. The Abbess herself retired to Winchester and ruled the convent from thatcity, while Elfrida had the liberty she desired, to live and do as sheliked in her own rooms and attend prayers and meals only when inclinedto do so. There, as always, since Edward's death, her life was asolitary one, and in the cold season she would have her fire of logs andsit before it as in the old days in the castle, brooding ever on herhappy and unhappy past and on the awful future, the years and centuriesof 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 thisearthly state, darkened as it was, there were yet two souls she couldand constantly did hold communion with--Editha still on earth, thoughnot with her, and Edward in heaven; but in that dreadful desert to whichshe would be banished there would be a great gulf set between her souland theirs. 

But perhaps there would be others she had known, whose lives had beeninterwoven with hers, she would be allowed to commune with in that sameplace. Edgar of a certainty would be there, although Glastonbury hadbuilt him a chapel and put him in a silver tomb and had begun to callhim Saint Edgar. Would he find her and seek to have speech with her? Itwas anguish to her even to think of such an encounter. She would say, Donot come to me, for rather would I be alone in this dreadful solitudefor a thousand years than have you, Edgar, for company. For I have notnow one thought or memory of you in my soul that is not bitter. It istrue that I once loved you: even before I saw your face I loved you, andsaid in my heart that we two were destined to be one. And my loveincreased when we were united, and you gave me my heart's desire--thepower I loved, and glory in the sight of the world. And although in myheart I laughed at your pretended zeal for a pure religion while youwere gratifying your lower desires and chasing after fair women all overthe land, I admired and gloried in your nobler qualities, your activityand vigilance in keeping the peace within your borders, and in makingEngland master of the seas, so that the pirate kings of the Northventured not to approach our shores. But on your own gross appetites youwould put no restraint, but gave yourself up to wine and gluttony andmade a companion of Death, even in the flower of your age you wereplaying with Death, and when you had lived but half your years you rodeaway with Death and left me alone; you, Edgar, the mighty hunter andslayer of wolves, you rode away and left me to the wolves, alone, in adark forest. Therefore the guilt of Edward's death is yours more thanmine, though my soul is stained red with his blood, seeing that you leftme to fight alone, and in my madness, not knowing what I did, I stainedmyself with this crime. 

But what you have done to me is of little moment, seeing that mine isbut 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 wascommitted against an entire nation, and not of the living only but alsothe great and glorious dead of the race of Cerdic--of the men who havelaboured these many centuries, shedding their blood on a hundredstricken fields, to build up this kingdom of England; and when theirmighty work was completed it was given into your hands to keep andguard. And you died and abandoned it; Death, your playmate, has takenyou away, and Edgar's peace is no more. Now your ships are scattered orsunk in the sea, now the invaders are again on your coasts as in the olddreadful days, burning and slaying, and want is everywhere and fear isin all hearts throughout the land. And the king, your son, who inheritedyour beautiful face and nought beside except your vices and whatever wasleast worthy of a king, he too is now taking his pleasure, even as youtook yours, in a gay bejewelled dress, with some shameless woman at hisside and a wine-cup in his hand. O unhappy mother that I am, that I mustcurse the day a son was born to me! O grief immitigable that it was mydeed, my dreadful deed, that raised him to the throne--the throne thatwas Alfred's and Edmund's and Athelstan's!

These were the thoughts that were her only company as she sat broodingbefore her winter fire, day after day, and winter following winter, while the years deepened the lines of anguish on her face and whitenedthe hair that was once red gold. 

But in the summer time she was less unhappy, for then she could spendthe long hours out of doors under the sky in the large shaded gardens ofthe convent with the stream for boundary on the lower side. This streamhad now become more to her than in the old days when, languishing insolitude, she had made it a companion and confidant. For now it hadbecome associated in her mind with the image of the maid Editha, andwhen she sat again at the old spot on the bank gazing on the swiftcrystal current, then dipping her hand in it and putting the wetted handto her lips, the stream and Editha were one. 

Then one day she was missed, and for a long time they sought for her allthrough the building and in the grounds without finding her. Then theseekers heard a loud cry, and saw one of the nuns running towards theconvent door, with her hands pressed to her face as if to shut out somedreadful sight; and when they called to her she pointed back towards thestream and ran on to the house. Then all the sisters who were out in thegrounds hurried down to the stream to the spot where Elfrida wasaccustomed to sit, and were horrified to see her lying drowned in thewater. 

It was a hot, dry summer and the stream was low, and in stooping to dipher hand in the water she had lost her balance and fallen in, andalthough the water was but three feet deep she had in her feeblenessbeen unable to save herself. She was lying on her back on the clearlyseen bed of many-coloured pebbles, her head pointing downstream, and theswift fretting current had carried away her hood and pulled out her longabundant silver-white hair, and the current played with her hair, nowpulling it straight out, then spreading it wide over the surface, mixingits silvery threads with the hair-like green blades of the floatingwater-grass. And the dead face was like marble; but the wide-open eyesthat had never wholly lost their brilliance and the beautiful lungwortblue colour were like living eyes--living and gazing through thecrystal-clear running water at the group of nuns staring down withhorror-struck faces at her. 

Thus ended Elfrida's darkened life; nor did it seem an unfit end; for itwas as if she had fallen into the arms of the maiden who had in herthoughts become one with the stream--the saintly Editha through whosesacrifice 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 WiltshireDowns, the most isolated of the villages in that lonely district. Itsone short street is crossed at right angles in the middle part by theSalisbury 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 distanceof nearly three miles. First it goes winding up the low down under whichthe village stands, then vanishes over the brow to reappear again a mileand a half further away as a white band on the vast green slope of thesucceeding down, which rises to a height of over 600 feet. On the summitit vanishes once more, but those who use it know it for a laborious roadcrossing several high ridges before dropping down into the valley roadleading to Salisbury. 

When, standing in the village street, your eye travels up that whiteband, you can distinctly make out even at that distance a small, solitary tree standing near the summit--an old thorn with an ivy growingon it. My walks were often that way, and invariably on coming to thatpoint I would turn twenty yards aside from the road to spend half anhour seated on the turf near or under the old tree. These half-hourswere always grateful; and conscious that the tree drew me to it Iquestioned myself as to the reason. It was, I told myself, nothing butmental curiosity: my interest was a purely scientific one. For how comesit, I asked, that a thorn can grow to a tree and live to a great age insuch a situation, on a vast, naked down, where for many centuries, perhaps for thousands of years, the herbage has been so closely fed bysheep as to have the appearance of a carpet, or newly mown lawn? Theseed is carried and scattered everywhere by the birds, but no soonerdoes it germinate and send up a shoot than it is eaten down to theroots; for there is no scent that attracts a sheep more, no flavour ithas greater taste for, than that of any forest seedling springing upamidst 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. Itopens its first tender leaves under the herbage, and at the same timethrusts up a vertical spine to wound the nibbling mouth; and no soonerhas it got a leaf or two and a spine than it spreads its roots allround, and from each of them springs a fresh shoot, leaves andprotecting spine, to increase the chances of preservation. In vain! thecunning animal finds a way to defeat all this strategy, and after theleaves have been bitten off again and again, the infant plant gives upthe struggle and dies in the ground. Yet we see that from time to timeone survives--one perhaps in a million; but how--whether by a quickergrowth or a harder or more poisonous thorn, an unpalatable leaf, or someother secret agency--we cannot guess. First as a diminutive scrubbyshrub, with numerous iron-hard stems, with few and small leaves but manythorns, it keeps its poor flowerless frustrate life for perhaps half acentury or longer, without growing more than a couple of feet high; andthen, as by a miracle, it will spring up until its top shoots are out ofreach of the browsing sheep, and in the end it becomes a tree withspreading branches and fully developed leaves, and flowers and fruit intheir season. 

One day I was visited by an artist from a distance who, when shown thethorn, pronounced it a fine subject for his pencil, and while he madehis picture we talked about the hawthorn generally as compared withother trees, and agreed that, except in its blossoming time when it ismerely pretty, it is the most engaging and perhaps the most beautiful ofour native trees. We said that it was the most _individual_ of trees, that its variety was infinite, for you never find two alike, whethergrowing in a forest, in groups, or masses, or alone. We were almostlyrical 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 thesame time decorative in its form, beautiful too in its appearance ofgreat age with unimpaired vigour and something more in itsexpression--that elusive something which we find in some trees and don'tknow how to explain. 

Ah, yes, thought I, it was this appeal to the æsthetic faculty whichattracted me from the first, and not, as I had imagined, the merecuriosity 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 wasdeceptive; one would have guessed it eighteen feet; measuring it I wassurprised to find it only ten. It has four separate boles, springingfrom one root, leaning a little away from each other, the thickest justa foot in circumference. The branches are few, beginning at about fivefeet from the ground, the foliage thin, the leaves throughout the summerstained with grey, rust-red, and purple colour. Though so small andexposed to the full fury of every wind that blows over that vast nakeddown, it has yet an ivy growing on it--the strangest of the many strangeivy-plants I have seen. It comes out of the ground as two ivy trunks onopposite sides of the stoutest bole, but at a height of four feet fromthe surface the two join and ascend the tree as one round iron-colouredand iron-hard stem, which goes curving and winding snakewise among thebranches as if with the object of roping them to save them from beingtorn off by the winds. Finally, rising to the top, the long serpent stemopens out in a flat disc-shaped mass of close-packed branchlets andtwigs densely set with small round leaves, dark dull green and tough asparchment. One could only suppose that thorn and ivy had been partnersfrom the beginning of life, and that the union was equally advantageousto both. 

The small ivy disc or platform on top of the tree was a favourite standand look-out for the downland birds. I seldom visited the spot withoutdisturbing some of them, now a little company of missel-thrushes, now acrowd 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, Idetermined to put the question to my old friend Malachi, agedeighty-nine, who was born and had always lived in the parish and hadknown the downs and probably every tree growing on them for miles aroundfrom his earliest years. It was my custom to drop in of an evening andsit with him, listening to his endless reminiscences of his young days. That evening I spoke of the thorn, describing its position andappearance, thinking that perhaps he had forgotten it. How long, I askedhim, had the thorn been there?

He was one of those men, usually of the labouring class, to be met within such lonely, out-of-the-world places as the Wiltshire Downs, whoseeyes never look old however many their years may be, and are more likethe eyes of a bird or animal than a human being, for they gaze at youand 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 ofunderstanding, no change in his clear grey eyes, and answered nothing. But I would not be put off, and when, raising my voice, I repeated thequestion, he replied, after another interval of silence, that the thorn"was never any different. " 'Twas just the same, ivy and all, when hewere a small boy. It looked just so old; why, he remembered his oldfather 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 thesubject he began talking of something else. 

It struck me that after all the most interesting thing about the thornwas its appearance of great age, and this aspect I had now been told hadcontinued for at least a century, probably for a much longer time. Itproduced a reverent feeling in me such as we experience at the sight ofsome ancient stone monument. But the tree was alive, and because of itslife the feeling was perhaps stronger than in the case of a granitecross or cromlech or other memorial of antiquity. 

Sitting by the thorn one day it occurred to me that, growing at thisspot close to the road and near the summit of that vast down, numberlesspersons travelling to and from Salisbury must have turned aside to reston the turf in the shade after that laborious ascent or before beginningthe long descent to the valley below. Travellers of all conditions, onfoot or horseback, in carts and carriages, merchants, bagmen, farmers, drovers, gipsies, tramps and vagrants of all descriptions, and from timeto time troops of soldiers. Yet never one of them had injured the treein any way! I could not remember ever finding a tree growing alone bythe roadside in a lonely place which had not the marks of many old andnew wounds inflicted on its trunk with knives, hatchets, and otherimplements. Here not a mark, not a scratch had been made on any one ofits four trunks or on the ivy stem by any thoughtless or mischievousperson, nor had any branch been cut or broken off. Why had they one andall respected this tree?

It was another subject to talk to Malachi about, and to him I went aftertea and found him with three of his neighbours sitting by the fire andtalking; for though it was summer the old man always had a fire in theevening. 

They welcomed and made room for me, but I had no sooner broached thesubject in my mind than they all fell into silence, then after a briefinterval the three callers began to discuss some little village matter. I was not going to be put off in that way, and, leaving them out, wenton talking to Malachi about the tree. Presently one by one the threevisitors got up and, remarking that it was time to be going, they tooktheir departure. 

The old man could not escape nor avoid listening, and in the end had tosay something. He said he didn't know nothing about all them tramps andgipsies and other sorts of men who had sat by the tree; all he knowedwas that the old thorn had been a good thorn to him--first and last. Heremembered once when he was a young man, not yet twenty, he went to dosome work at a village five miles away, and being winter time he leftearly, about four o'clock, to walk home over the downs. He had just gotmarried, and had promised his wife to be home for tea at six o'clock. But a thick fog came up over the downs, and soon as it got dark he losthimself. 'Twas the darkest, thickest night he had ever been out in; andwhenever he came against a bank or other obstruction he would get downon his hands and knees and feel it up and down to get its shape and findout what it was, for he knew all the marks on his native downs; 'twasall in vain--nothing could he recognise. In this way he wandered aboutfor hours, and was in despair of getting home that night, when all atonce there came a sense of relief, a feeling that it was all right, thatsomething was guiding him. 

I remarked that I knew what that meant: he had lost his sense ofdirection and had now all at once recovered it; such a thing had oftenhappened; I once had such an experience myself. 

No, it was not that, he returned. He had not gone a dozen steps from themoment that sense of confidence came to him, before he ran into a tree, and feeling the trunk with his hands he recognised it as the old thornand knew where he was. In a couple of minutes he was on the road, and inless than an hour, just about midnight, he was safe at home. 

No more could I get out of him, at all events on that occasion; nor didI ever succeed in extracting any further personal experience in spite ofhis having let out that the thorn had been a good thorn to him, firstand last. I had, however, heard enough to satisfy me that I had atlength discovered the real secret of the tree's fascination. I recalledother trees which had similarly affected me, and how, long years ago, when a good deal of my time was spent on horseback, whenever I foundmyself in a certain district I would go miles out of my way just to lookat a solitary old tree growing in a lonely place, and to sit for an hourto refresh myself, body and soul, in its shade. I had indeed all alongsuspected the thorn of being one of this order of mysterious trees; andfrom other experiences I had met with, one some years ago in a villagein this same county of Wilts, I had formed the opinion that in manypersons the sense of a strange intelligence and possibility of power insuch trees is not a mere transitory state but an enduring influencewhich profoundly affects their whole lives. 

Determined to find out something more, I went to other villagers, mostlywomen, who are more easily disarmed and made to believe that you tooknow and are of the same mind with them, being under the same mysteriouspower and spell. In this way, laying many a subtle snare, I succeeded ineliciting a good deal of information. It was, however, mostly of a kindwhich could not profitably be used in any inquiry into the subject; itsimply went to show that the feeling existed and was strong in many ofthe villagers. During this inquiry I picked up several anecdotes about aperson who lived in Ingden close upon three generations ago, and wasable to piece them together so as to make a consistent narrative of hislife. This was Johnnie Budd, a farm labourer, who came to his end in1821, a year or so before my old friend Malachi was born. It is goingvery far back, but there were circumstances in his life which made adeep impression on the mind of that little community, and the story hadlived on through all these years. 

II

Johnnie had fallen on hard times when in an exceptionally severe winterseason he with others had been thrown out of employment at the farmwhere he worked; then with a wife and three small children to keep hehad in his desperation procured food for them one dark night in anadjacent field. But alas! one of the little ones playing in the roadwith some of her companions, who were all very hungry, let it out thatshe wasn't hungry, that for three days she had had as much nice meat asshe wanted to eat! Play over, the hungry little ones flew home to telltheir parents the wonderful news--why didn't they have nice meat likeTilly Budd, instead of a piece of rye bread without even dripping on it, when they were so hungry? Much talk followed, and spread from cottage tocottage until it reached the constable's ears, and he, already informedof the loss of a wether taken from its fold close by, went straight toJohnnie and charged him with the offence. Johnnie lost his head, anddropping on his knees confessed his guilt and begged his old friendLampard to have mercy on him and to overlook it for the sake of his wifeand children. 

It was his first offence, but when he was taken from the lock-up at thetop of the village street to be conveyed to Salisbury, his friends andneighbours who had gathered at the spot to witness his removal shooktheir heads and doubted that Ingden would ever see him again. Theconfession had made the case so simple a one that he had at once beencommitted to take his trial at the Salisbury Assizes, and as the timewas near the constable had been ordered to convey the prisoner to thetown himself. Accordingly he engaged old Joe Blaskett, called Daddy inthe village, to take them in his pony cart. Daddy did not want the job, but was talked or bullied into it, and there he now sat in his cart, waiting in glum silence for his passengers; a bent old man of eighty, with a lean, grey, bitter face, in his rusty cloak, his old rabbit-skincap drawn down over his ears, his white disorderly beard scattered overhis chest. The constable Lampard was a big, powerful man, with a greatround, good-natured face, but just now he had a strong sense ofresponsibility, and to make sure of not losing his prisoner hehandcuffed him before bringing him out and helping him to take his seaton the bottom of the cart. Then he got up himself to his seat by thedriver's side; the last good-bye was spoken, the weeping wife beinggently led away by her friends, and the cart rattled away down thestreet. Turning into the Salisbury road it was soon out of sight overthe near down, but half an hour later it emerged once more into sightbeyond the great dip, and the villagers who had remained standing aboutat the same spot watched it crawling like a beetle up the long whiteroad on the slope of the vast down beyond. 

Johnnie was now lying coiled up on his rug, his face hidden between hisarms, abandoned to grief, sobbing aloud. Lampard, sitting athwart theseat so as to keep an eye on him, burst out at last: "Be a man, Johnnie, and stop your crying! 'Tis making things no better by taking on likethat. What do you say, Daddy?"

"I say nought, " snapped the old man, and for a while they proceeded insilence except for those heartrending sobs. As they approached the oldthorn tree, near the top of the long slope, Johnnie grew more and moreagitated, his whole frame shaking with his sobbing. Again the constablerebuked him, telling him that 'twas a shame for a man to go on likethat. Then with an effort he restrained his sobs, and lifting a red, swollen, tear-stained face he stammered out: "Master Lampard, did I everask 'ee a favour in my life?"

"What be after now?" said the other suspiciously. "Well, no, Johnnie, not as I remember. "

"An' do 'ee think I'll ever come back home again, Master Lampard?"

"Maybe no, maybe yes; 'tis not for me to say. "

"But 'ee knows 'tis a hanging matter?"

"'Tis that for sure. But you be a young man with a wife and childer, andhave never done no wrong before--not that I ever heard say. Maybe thejudge'll recommend you to mercy. What do you say, Daddy?"

The old man only made some inarticulate sounds in his beard, withoutturning his head. 

"But, Master Lampard, suppose I don't swing, they'll send I over thewater and I'll never see the wife and children no more. "

"Maybe so; I'm thinking that's how 'twill be. "

"Then will 'ee do me a kindness? 'Tis the only one I ever asked 'ee, andthere'll be no chance to ask 'ee another. "

"I can't say, Johnnie, not till I know what 'tis you want. "

"'Tis only this, Master Lampard. When we git to th' old thorn let me outo' the cart and let me stand under it one minnit and no more. "

"Be you wanting to hang yourself before the trial then?" said theconstable, trying to make a joke of it. 

"I couldn't do that, " said Johnnie, simply, "seeing my hands be fast andyou'd be standing by. "

"No, no, Johnnie, 'tis nought but just foolishness. What do you say, Daddy?"

The old man turned round with a look of sudden rage in his grey facewhich startled Lampard; but he said nothing, he only opened and shut hismouth two or three times without a sound. 

Meanwhile the pony had been going slower and slower for the last thirtyor forty yards, and now when they were abreast of the tree stood still. 

"What be stopping for?" cried Lampard. "Get on--get on, or we'll neverget to Salisbury this day. "

Then at length old Blaskett found a voice. 

"Does thee know what thee's saying, Master Lampard, or be thee astranger in this parish?"

"What d'ye mean, Daddy? I be no stranger; I've a-known this parish andknown 'ee these nine years. "

"Thee asked why I stopped when 'twas the pony stopped, knowing wherewe'd got to. But thee's not born here or thee'd a-known what a hossknows. An' since 'ee asks what I says, I say this, 'twill not hurt 'eeto let Johnnie Budd stand one minute by the tree. "

Feeling insulted and puzzled the constable was about to assert hisauthority when he was arrested by Johnnie's cry, "Oh, Master Lampard, 'tis my last hope!" and by the sight of the agony of suspense on hisswollen face. After a short hesitation he swung himself out over theside of the cart, and letting down the tailboard laid rough hands onJohnnie and half helped, half dragged him out. 

They were quickly by the tree, where Johnnie stood silent with downcasteyes a few moments; then dropping upon his knees leant his face againstthe bark, his eyes closed, his lips murmuring. 

"Time's up!" cried Lampard presently, and taking him by the collarpulled him to his feet; in a couple of minutes more they were in thecart and on their way. 

It was grey weather, very cold, with an east wind blowing, but for therest of that dreary thirteen-miles journey Johnnie was very quiet andsubmissive and shed no more tears. 

III

What had been his motive in wishing to stand by the tree? What did heexpect when he said it was his last hope? During the way up the long, laborious slope, an incident of his early years in connection with thetree had been in his mind, and had wrought on him until it culminated inthat passionate outburst and his strange request. It was when he was aboy, not quite ten years old, that, one afternoon in the summer time, hewent with other children to look for wild raspberries on the summit ofthe great down. Johnnie, being the eldest, was the leader of the littleband. On the way back from the brambly place where the fruit grew, onapproaching the thorn, they spied a number of rooks sitting on it, andit came into Johnnie's mind that it would be great fun to play at crowsby sitting on the branches as near the top as they could get. Runningon, with cries that sent the rooks cawing away, they began swarming upthe trunks, but in the midst of their frolic, when they were allstruggling for the best places on the branches, they were startled by ashout, and looking up to the top of the down, saw a man on horsebackcoming towards them at a gallop, shaking a whip in anger as he rode. Instantly they began scrambling down, falling over each other in theirhaste, then, picking themselves up, set off down the slope as fast asthey could run. Johnnie was foremost, while close behind him came Marty, who was nearly the same age and, though a girl, almost as swift-footed, but before going fifty yards she struck her foot against an ant-hill andwas thrown violently, face down, on the turf. Johnnie turned at her cryand flew back to help her up, but the shock of the fall, and her extremeterror, had deprived her for the moment of all strength, and while hestruggled to raise her, the smaller children, one by one, overtook andpassed them, and in another moment the man was off his horse, standingover them. 

"Do you want a good thrashing?" he said, grasping Johnnie by the collar. 

"Oh, sir; please don't hit me!" answered Johnnie; then looking up he wasastonished to see that his captor was not the stern old farmer, thetenant of the down, he had taken him for, but a stranger and astrange-looking man, in a dark grey cloak with a red collar. He had apointed beard and long black hair and dark eyes that were not evil yetfrightened Johnnie, when he caught them gazing down on him. 

"No, I'll not thrash you, " said he, "because you stayed to help thelittle maiden, but I'll tell you something for your good about the treeyou and your little mates have been climbing, bruising the bark withyour heels and breaking off leaves and twigs. Do you know, boy, that ifyou hurt it, it will hurt you? It stands fast here with its roots in theground and you--you can go away from it, you think. 'Tis not so;something will come out of it and follow you wherever you go and hurtand break you at last. But if you make it a friend and care for it, itwill care for you and give you happiness and deliver you from evil. "

Then touching Johnnie's cheeks with his gloved hand he got on his horseand rode away, and no sooner was he gone than Marty started up, and handin hand the two children set off at a run down the long slope. 

Johnnie's playtime was nearly over then, for by and by he was taken asfarmer's boy at one of the village farms. When he was nineteen yearsold, one Sunday evening, when standing in the road with other youngpeople of the village, youths and girls, it was powerfully borne on hismind that his old playmate Marty was not only the prettiest and bestgirl in the place, but that she had something which set her apart andfar, far above all other women. For now, after having known herintimately from his first years, he had suddenly fallen in love withher, a feeling which caused him to shiver in a kind of ecstasy, yet madehim miserable, since it had purged his sight and made him see, too, howfar apart they were and how hopeless his case. It was true they had beencomrades from childhood, fond of each other, but she had grown anddeveloped until she had become that most bright and lovely being, whilehe had remained the same slow-witted, awkward, almost inarticulateJohnnie he had always been. This feeling preyed on his poor mind, andwhen he joined the evening gathering in the village street he notedbitterly how contemptuously he was left out of the conversation by theothers, how incapable he was of keeping pace with them in their laughingtalk and banter. And, worst of all, how Marty was the leading spirit, bandying words and bestowing smiles and pleasantries all round, butnever a word or a smile for him. He could not endure it, and so insteadof smartening himself up after work and going for company to the villagestreet, he would walk down the secluded lane near the farm to spend thehour before supper and bedtime sitting on a gate, brooding on hismisery; and if by chance he met Marty in the village he would try toavoid her, and was silent and uncomfortable in her presence. 

After work, one hot summer evening, Johnnie was walking along the roadnear the farm in his working clothes, clay-coloured boots, and old dustyhat, when who should he see but Marty coming towards him, looking verysweet and fresh in her light-coloured print gown. He looked to this sideand that for some friendly gap or opening in the hedge so as to takehimself out of the road, but there was no way of escape at that spot, and he had to pass her, and so casting down his eyes he walked on, wishing he could sink into the earth out of her sight. But she would notallow him to pass; she put herself directly in his way and spoke. 

"What's the matter with 'ee, Johnnie, that 'ee don't want to meet me andhardly say a word when I speak to 'ee?"

He could not find a word in reply; he stood still, his face crimson, hiseyes on the ground. 

"Johnnie, dear, what is it?" she asked, coming closer and putting herhand on his arm. 

Then he looked up, and seeing the sweet compassion in her eyes, he couldno longer keep the secret of his pain from her. 

"'Tis 'ee, Marty, " he said. "Thee'll never want I--there's others 'ee'lllike better. 'Tisn't for I to say a word about that, I'm thinking, for Ibe--just nothing. An'--an'--I be going away from the village, Marty, andI'll never come back no more. "

"Oh, Johnnie, don't 'ee say it! Would 'ee go and break my heart? Don't'ee know I've always loved 'ee since we were little mites together?"

And thus it came about that Johnnie, most miserable of men, was all atonce made happy beyond his wildest dreams. And he proved himself worthyof her; from that time there was not a more diligent and sober younglabourer in the village, nor one of a more cheerful disposition, normore careful of his personal appearance when, the day's work done, theyoung people had their hour of social intercourse and courting. Yet hewas able to put by a portion of his weekly wages of six shillings to buysticks, so that when spring came round again he was able to marry andtake Marty to live with him in his own cottage. 

One Sunday afternoon, shortly after this happy event, they went out fora walk on the high down. 

"Oh, Johnnie, 'tis a long time since we were here together, not since weused to come and play and look for cowslips when we were little. "

Johnnie laughed with pure joy and said they would just be children andplay again, now they were alone and out of sight of the village; andwhen she smiled up at him he rejoiced to think that his union with thisperfect girl was producing a happy effect on his poor brains, making himas bright and ready with a good reply as any one. And in their happinessthey played at being children just as in the old days they had played atbeing grown-ups. Casting themselves down on the green, elastic, flower-sprinkled turf, they rolled one after the other down the smoothslopes of the terrace, the old "shepherd's steps, " and by and byJohnnie, coming upon a patch of creeping thyme, rubbed his hands in thepale purple flowers, then rubbed her face to make it fragrant. 

"Oh, 'tis sweet!" she cried. "Did 'ee ever see so many little flowers onthe down?--'tis as if they came out just for us. " Then, indicating thetiny milkwort faintly sprinkling the turf all about them, "Oh, thelittle blue darlings! Did 'ee ever see such a dear blue?"

"Oh, aye, a prettier blue nor that, " said Johnnie. "'Tis just here, Marty, " and pressing her down he kissed her on the eyelids a dozentimes. 

"You silly Johnnie!"

"Be I silly, Marty? but I love the red too, " and with that he kissed heron the mouth. "And, Marty, I do love the red on the breasties too--won't'ee let me have just one kiss there?"

And she, to please him, opened her dress a little way, but blushingly, though she was his wife and nobody was there to see, but it seemedstrange to her out of doors with the sun overhead. Oh, 'twas alldelicious! Never was earth so heavenly sweet as on that wide green down, sprinkled with innumerable little flowers, under the wide blue sky andthe all-illuminating sun that shone into their hearts!

At length, rising to her knees and looking up the green slope, she criedout: "Oh, Johnnie, there's the old thorn tree! Do 'ee remember when weplayed at crows on it and had such a fright? 'Twas the last time we camehere together. Come, let's go to the old tree and see how it looks now. "

Johnnie all at once became grave, and said No, he wouldn't go to it foranything. She was curious and made him tell her the reason. He had neverforgotten that day and the fear that came into his mind on account ofthe words the strange man had spoken. She didn't know what the wordswere; she had been too frightened to listen, and so he had to tell her. 

"Then, 'tis a wishing-tree for sure, " Marty exclaimed. When he asked herwhat a wishing-tree was, she could only say that her old grandmother, now dead, had told her. 'Tis a tree that knows us and can do us good andharm, but will do good only to some; but they must go to it and ask forits protection, and they must offer it something as well as pray to it. It must be something bright--a little jewel or coloured bead is best, and if you haven't got such a thing, a bright-coloured ribbon, or stripof scarlet cloth or silk thread--which you must tie to one of the twigs. 

"But we hurted the tree, Marty, and 'twill do no good to we. "

They were both grave now; then a hopeful thought came to her aid. Theyhad not hurt the tree intentionally; the tree knew that--it knew morethan any human being. They might go and stand side by side under itsbranches and ask it to forgive them, and grant them all their desires. But they must not go empty-handed, they must have some bright thing withthem when making their prayer. Then she had a fresh inspiration. Shewould take a lock of her own bright hair, and braid it with some of his, and tie it with a piece of scarlet thread. 

Johnnie was pleased with this idea, and they agreed to take anotherSunday afternoon walk and carry out their plan. 

The projected walk was never taken, for by and by Marty's mother fellill, and Marty had to be with her, nursing her night and day. And monthswent by, and at length, when her mother died, she was not in a fitcondition to go long walks and climb those long, steep slopes. After thechild was born, it was harder than ever to leave the house, and Johnnie, too, had so much work at the farm that he had little inclination to goout on Sundays. They ceased to speak of the tree, and theirlong-projected pilgrimage was impracticable until they could see betterdays. But the wished time never came, for, after the first child, Martywas never strong. Then a second child came, then a third; and so fiveyears went by, of toil and suffering and love, and the tree, with alltheir hopes and fears and intentions regarding it, was less and less intheir minds, and was all but forgotten. Only Johnnie, when at longintervals his master sent him to Salisbury with the cart, remembered itall only too well when, coming to the top of the down, he saw the oldthorn directly before him. Passing it, he would turn his face away notto see it too closely, or, perhaps, to avoid being recognised by it. Then came the time of their extreme poverty, when there was no work atthe farm and no one of their own people to help tide them over a seasonof scarcity, for the old people were dead or in the workhouse or so pooras to want help themselves. It was then that, in his misery at the sightof his ailing anxious wife--the dear Marty of the beautiful vanisheddays--and his three little hungry children, that he went out into thefield one dark night to get them food. 

The whole sad history was in his mind as they slowly crawled up thehill, until it came to him that perhaps all their sufferings and thisgreat disaster had been caused by the tree--by that something from thetree which had followed him, never resting in its mysterious enmityuntil it broke him. Was it too late to repair that terrible mistake? Agleam of hope shone on his darkened mind, and he made his passionateappeal to the constable. He had no offering--his hands were powerlessnow; but at least he could stand by it and touch it with his body andface and pray for its forgiveness, and for deliverance from the doomwhich threatened him. The constable had compassionately, or from somesecret motive, granted his request; but alas! if in very truth the powerhe had come to believe in resided in the tree, he was too late inseeking it. 

The trial was soon over; by pleading guilty Johnnie had made it a verysimple matter for the court. The main thing was to sentence him. By anunhappy chance the judge was in one of his occasional bad moods; he hadbeen entertained too well by one of the local magnates on the previousevening and had sat late, drinking too much wine, with the result thathe had a bad liver, with a mind to match it. He was only too ready toseize the first opportunity that offered--and poor Johnnie's case wasthe first that morning--of exercising the awful power a barbarous lawhad put into his hands. When the prisoner's defender declared that thiswas a case which called loudly for mercy, the judge interrupted him tosay that he was taking too much upon himself, that he was, in fact, instructing the judge in his duties, which was a piece of presumption onhis part. The other was quick to make a humble apology and to bring hisperfunctory address to a conclusion. The judge, in addressing theprisoner, said he had been unable to discover any extenuatingcircumstances in the case. The fact that he had a wife and familydependent on him only added to his turpitude, since it proved that noconsideration could serve to deter him from a criminal act. Furthermore, in dealing with this case, he must take into account the prevalence ofthis particular form of crime; he would venture to say that it had beenencouraged by an extreme leniency in many cases on the part of thosewhose sacred duty it was to administer the law of the land. A sternerand healthier spirit was called for at the present juncture. The timehad come to make an example, and a more suitable case than the one nowbefore him could not have been found for such a purpose. He wouldaccordingly hold out no hope of a reprieve, but would counsel prisonerto make the best use of the short time remaining to him. 

Johnnie standing in the dock appeared to the spectators to be in ahalf-dazed condition--as dull and spiritless a clodhopper as they hadever beheld. The judge and barristers, in their wigs and robes andgowns, were unlike any human beings he had ever looked on. He might havebeen transported to some other world, so strange did the whole sceneappear to him. He only knew, or surmised, that all these importantpeople were occupied in doing him to death, but the process, the meaningof their fine phrases, he could not follow. He looked at them, hisglazed eyes travelling from face to face, to be fixed finally on thejudge, in a vacant stare; but he scarcely saw them, he was all the timegazing on, and his mind occupied with, other forms and scenes invisibleto the court. His village, his Marty, his dear little playmate of longago, the sweet girl he had won, the wife and mother of his children, with her white, terrified face, clinging to him and crying in anguish:"Oh, Johnnie, what will they do to 'ee?" And all the time, with it all, he saw the vast green slope of the down, with the Salisbury road lyinglike a narrow white band across it, and close to it, near the summit, the solitary old tree. 

During the delivery of the sentence, and when he was led from the dockand conveyed back to the prison, that image or vision was still present. He sat staring at the wall of his cell as he had stared at the judge, the fatal tree still before him. Never before had he seen it in thatvivid way in which it appeared to him now, standing alone on the vastgreen down, under the wide sky, its four separate boles leaning a littleway from each other, like the middle ribs of an open fan, holding up thewidespread branches, the thin, open foliage, the green leaves stainedwith rusty brown and purple; and the ivy, rising like a slender blackserpent of immense length, springing from the roots, winding upwards, and in and out, among the grey branches, binding them together, andresting its round, dark cluster of massed leaves on the topmost boughs. That green disc was the ivy-serpent's flat head and was the head of thewhole tree, and there it had its eyes, which gazed for ever over thewide downs, watching all living things, cattle and sheep and birds andmen in their comings and goings; and although fast-rooted in the earth, following them, too, in all their ways, even as it had followed him, tobreak him at last. 

POSTSCRIPT

I

DEAD MAN'S PLACK

One of my literary friends, who has looked at the Dead Man's Plack inmanuscript, has said by way of criticism that Elfrida's character isveiled. I am not to blame for that; for have I not already said, byimplication at all events, in the Preamble, that my knowledge of hercomes from outside. Something, or, more likely, _Somebody_, gave me herhistory, and it has occurred to me that this same Somebody was no suchobscurity as, let us say, the Monk John of Glastonbury, who told theexcavators just where to look for the buried chapel of Edgar, king and_saint_. I suspect that my informant was some one who knew more aboutElfrida than any mere looker-on, monk or nun, and gossip-gatherer of herown distant day; and this suspicion or surmise was suggested by thefollowing incident:

After haunting Dead Man's Plack, where I had my vision, I rambled in andabout Wherwell on account of its association, and in one of the cottagesin the village I became acquainted with an elderly widow, a woman infeeble health, but singularly attractive in her person and manner. Indeed, before making her acquaintance I had been informed by some ofher relations and others in the place that she was not only the bestperson to seek information from, but was also the sweetest person in thevillage. She was a native born; her family had lived there forgenerations, and she was of that best South Hampshire type with an ovalface, olive-brown skin, black eyes and hair, and that soft melancholyexpression in the eyes common in Spanish women and not uncommon in thedark-skinned Hampshire women. She had been taught at the village school, and having attracted the attention and interest of the great lady of theplace on account of her intelligence and pleasing manners, she was takenwhen quite young as lady's-maid, and in this employment continued formany years until her marriage to a villager. 

One day, conversing with her, I said I had heard that the village washaunted by the ghost of a woman: was that true?

Yes, it was true, she returned. 

Did she _know_ that it was true? Had she actually seen the ghost?

Yes, she had seen it once. One day, when she was lady's-maid, she was inher bedroom, dressing or doing something, with another maid. The doorwas closed, and they were in a merry mood, talking and laughing, whensuddenly they both at the same moment saw a woman with a still, whiteface walking through the room. She was in the middle of the room whenthey caught sight of her, and they both screamed and covered their faceswith their hands. So great was her terror that she almost fainted; thenin a few moments when they looked the apparition had vanished. As to thehabit she was wearing, neither of them could say afterwards what it waslike: only the white, still face remained fixed in their memory, but thefigure was a dark one, like a dark shadow moving rapidly through theroom. 

If Elfrida then, albeit still in purgatory, is able to re-visit thisscene of her early life and the site of that tragedy in the forest, itdoes not seem to me altogether improbable that she herself made therevelation I have written. And if this be so, it would account for the_veiled_ character conveyed in the narrative. For even after tencenturies it may well be that all the coverings have not yet beenremoved, that although she has been dropping them one by one for ages, she has not yet come to the end of them. Until the very last covering, or veil, or mist is removed, it would be impossible for her to beabsolutely sincere, to reveal her inmost soul with all that is mostdreadful in it. But when that time comes, from the very moment of itscoming she would cease automatically to be an exiled and tormentedspirit. 

If, then, Elfrida is herself responsible for the narrative, it is onlynatural that she does not appear in it quite as black as she has beenpainted. For the monkish chronicler was, we know, the Father of Lies, and so indeed in a measure are all historians and biographers, sincethey cannot see into hearts and motives or know all the circumstances ofthe case. And in this case they were painting the picture of their hatedenemy and no doubt were not sparing in the use of the black pigment. 

To know all is to forgive all, is a good saying, and enables us to seewhy even the worst among us can always find it possible to forgivehimself. 

II

AN OLD THORN

I was pleased at this opportunity of rescuing this story from a far-backnumber of the _English Review_, in which it first appeared, and puttingit in a book. It may be a shock to the reader to be brought down from astory of a great king and queen of England in the tenth century to theobscure annals of a yokel and his wife who lived in a Wiltshire villageonly a century ago; or even less, since my poor yokel was hanged forsheep-stealing in 1821. But it is, I think, worth preserving, since itis the only narrative I know of dealing with that rare and curioussubject, the survival of tree-worship in our own country. That, however, was not the reason of my being pleased. 

It was just when I had finished writing the story of Elfrida that Ihappened to see in my morning paper a highly eulogistical paragraphabout one of our long-dead and, I imagine, forgotten worthies. Theoccasion of the paragraph doesn't matter. The man eulogised was Mr. Justice Park--Sir James Allan Park, a highly successful barrister, whowas judge from 1816 to his death in 1838. "As judge, though not eminent, he was sound, fair and sensible, a little irascible, but highlyesteemed. " He was also the author of a religious work. And that is allthe particular Liar who wrote his biography in the D. N. B. Can tell usabout him. 

It was the newspaper paragraph which reminded me that I had writtenabout this same judge, giving my estimate of his character in my book, _A Shepherd's Life_, also that I was _thinking_ about Park, the soundand fair and sensible judge, when I wrote "An Old Thorn. " Here then, with apologies to the reader for quoting from my own book, I reproducewhat I wrote in 1905. 

"From these memories of the old villagers I turn to the newspapers ofthe day to make a few citations. 

"The law as it was did not distinguish between a case of the kind justrelated, of the starving, sorely-tempted Shergold, and that of thesystematic thief: sheep-stealing was a capital offence and the man mustbe hanged, unless recommended to mercy, and we know what was meant by'mercy' in those days. That so barbarous a law existed within memory ofpeople to be found living in most villages appears almost incredible tous; but despite the recommendations to 'mercy' usual in a large majorityof cases, the law of that time was not more horrible than the temper ofthe men who administered it. There are good and bad among all, and inall professions, but there is also a black spot in most, possibly allhearts, which may be developed to almost any extent, to change thejustest, wisest, most moral men into 'human devils. ' In reading the oldreports and the expressions used by the judges in their summings-up andsentences, it is impossible not to believe that the awful power theypossessed, and its constant exercise, had not only produced theinevitable hardening effect, but had made them cruel in the true senseof the word. Their pleasure in passing dreadful sentences was verythinly disguised by certain lofty conventional phrases as to thenecessity of upholding the law, morality, and religion; they were, indeed, as familiar with the name of the Deity as any ranter in aconventicle, and the 'enormity of the crime' was an expression asconstantly used in the case of the theft of a loaf of bread, or of anold coat left hanging on a hedge, by some ill-clad, half-starved wretch, as in cases of burglary, arson, rape, and murder. 

"It is surprising to find how very few the real crimes were in thosedays, despite the misery of the people; that nearly all the 'crimes' forwhich men were sentenced to the gallows and to transportation for life, or for long terms, were offences which would now be sufficientlypunished by a few weeks', or even a few days', imprisonment. Thus inApril, 1825, I note that Mr. Justice Park commented on the heavyappearance of the calendar. It was not so much the number (170) of theoffenders that excited his concern as it was the nature of the crimeswith which they were charged. The worst crime in this instance wassheep-stealing!

"Again, this same Mr. Justice Park, at the Spring Assizes at Salisbury, 1827, said that though the calendar was a heavy one, he was happy tofind, on looking at the depositions of the principal cases, that theywere not of a very serious character. Nevertheless he passed sentence ofdeath on twenty-eight persons, among them being one for stealing half acrown!

"Of the twenty-eight all but three were eventually reprieved, one of thefated three being a youth of 19, who was charged with stealing a mareand pleaded guilty in spite of a warning from the judge not to do so. This irritated the great man who had the power of life and death in hishand. In passing sentence the judge 'expatiated on the prevalence of thecrime of horse-stealing and the necessity of making an example. Theenormity of Read's crime rendered him a proper example, and he wouldtherefore hold out no hope of mercy towards him. ' As to the plea ofguilty, he remarked that nowadays too many persons pleaded guilty, deluded with the hope that it would be taken into consideration and theywould escape the severer penalty. He was determined to put a stop tothat sort of thing; if Read had not pleaded guilty no doubt someextenuating circumstance would have come up during the trial and hewould have saved his life. 

"There, if ever, spoke the 'human devil' in a black cap!

"I find another case of a sentence of transportation for life on a youthof 18, named Edward Baker, for stealing a pocket-handkerchief. Had hepleaded guilty it might have been worse for him. 

"At the Salisbury Spring Assizes, 1830, Mr. Justice Gazalee, addressingthe grand jury, said that none of the crimes appeared to be marked withcircumstances of great moral turpitude. The prisoners numbered 130; hepassed sentences of death on twenty-nine, life transportations on five, fourteen years on five, seven years on eleven, and various terms of hardlabour on the others. " (_A Shepherd's Life_, pp. 241-4. )

Johnnie Budd was done to death before my principal informants, one 89years old, the other 93, were born; but in their early years they knewthe widow and her three children, and had known them and their childrenall their lives; thus the whole story of Johnnie and Marty was familiarto them. Now, when I thought of Johnnie's case and how he was treated atthe trial, as it was told me by these old people, it struck me as solike that of the poor young man Read, who was hanged because he pleadedguilty, that I at once came to the belief that it was Mr. Justice Parkwho had tried him. I have accordingly searched the newspapers of thatday, but have failed to find Johnnie's case. I can only suppose thatthis particular case was probably considered too unimportant to bereported at large in the newspapers of 1821. He was just one of a numberconvicted and sentenced to capital punishment. 

When Johnnie was hanged his poor wife travelled to Salisbury andsucceeded in getting permission to take the body back to the village forburial. How she in her poverty, with her three little children to keep, managed it I don't know. Probably some of the other poor villagers whopitied and perhaps loved her helped her to do it. She did even more: shehad a grave-stone set above him with his name and the dates of his birthand death cut on it. And there it is now, within a dozen yards of thechurch door in the small old churchyard--the smallest village churchyardknown to me; and Johnnie's and Marty's children's children are stillliving in the village. 

FINIS

 * * * * *

THE WORKS OF W. H. HUDSON

BIRDS OF LA PLATA

With 22 Coloured Plates by H. Gronvold, specially drawn underthe Author's supervision. 

This book contains articles on some 200 birds of La Plata actually knownto the Author, arranged under species, and characterised by thatintimate personal touch which constitutes the chief charm of hiswriting. Originally published in 1888 under the title _ArgentineOrnithology_, in collaboration with Philip Lutley Sclater, it has nowbeen thoroughly revised by Mr. Hudson, who has deleted all except hisown work, and has written a new Introduction of considerable length. 

The coloured plates of this new book have been done by Mr. H. Gronvold, under the most careful supervision of the Author, whose intimateknowledge of the birds in their life and true environment has helped theartist to give a vivid and faithful presentment of the differentspecies. 

The illustrations constitute an integral part of the book itself, andare not mere decorative additions. This book now forms a companionvolume to another work of Mr. Hudson's, _The Naturalist in La Plata_. 

A COMPANION VOLUME

THE NATURALIST IN LA PLATA

_The Naturalist in La Plata_ can now be obtained in a new and cheaperedition than the original, which was first published in 1892. Theletterpress and the drawings in the text by J. Smit have been left asthey were; the only change is in the form of the book and in thesubstitution of new plates for the old ones. This book forms a companionvolume to _Birds of La Plata_. 

FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO

An Autobiographical Sketch of the Writer's Boyhood

"To read his book is to read another chapter in that enormous book whichis written from time to time by Rousseau and George Sand and Aksakoffamong other people--a book which we can never read enough of; andtherefore we must beg Mr. Hudson not to stop here, but to carry thestory on to the farthest possible limits. "--_Times Literary Supplement. _

"A low-pitched narrative, but once listened to it is as enthralling asMr. Hudson found the voice of the golden plover. "--_Athenæum. _

"He who does not know the work of W. H. Hudson is missing one of thefinest pleasures of contemporary literature. "--_Daily News. _

"Regarding the author hitherto primarily as a naturalist we rediscoverhim as an acute psychologist. .. . For many readers the chief interest ofthe book will lie in the charming reflective presentment of the thoughtsof a boy's mind. "--_Bookman. _

BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE

With 8 Coloured Plates after E. J. Detmold

Head and Tail Pieces by Herbert Cole

"Mr. Hudson loves all birds; they are his work, his recreation, hislife; he writes about them as no one else can: he sees what othersmiss. "--_Manchester Guardian. _

"This book is full of his unsurpassed perception and uniquecharm. .. . Some of his best passages about birds are equally delightfuland vivid sketches of human life. "--_Times Literary Supplement. _

"Mr. Hudson is more than a naturalist. He is a man of genius whotransmutes lead into gold--the lead of knowledge into the gold offeeling. .. . As you hear the music of his prose . .. You recapturethe delicious tenderness of childhood with its wistful wonder andvision. .. . Mr. Hudson is a nightingale naturalist with a voice thatthrobs in waves of magical melody. "

--James Douglas in _The Star_.