He knows all now: a day or two agone, when all the household had gone to hunt in the woods, I was alone with him in his chamber, and thought that at last I must discharge the painful task of telling him the truth.

"My boy," I said, "you have not lately inquired about your father."

He looked at me very sadly.

"I know all," he said, "that you would tell me. I have no father, no mother, no kinsfolk."

"Some of our people have told you then?"

"No. At first the events of that fearful night seemed all like a dream, and mingled themselves with the strange spectres which haunted me in delirium; but afterwards the real separated itself from the unreal, and I knew that my father and all his friends, my Danish uncles amongst them, had perished with the whole household a.s.sembled there that fatal day. I also remembered, but faintly, how I came here. Did not you save me from the murderers?"

I briefly explained the whole circ.u.mstances to him, adding such words of consolation as I could think of, and telling him that he must always look upon Aescendune as his home. At length he rose. He had not replied.

"Pardon me, my father," he said, "but may I retire to my chamber? I wish to say much, but I am too weak now."

"Meanwhile, you will not leave us?"

"I have no other home."

And he retired to his little chamber, from which he emerged no more today.

Feast of the Epiphany.--

This day my catechumen Alfgar was baptized in the priory church. It seemed useless to delay longer, as he was fully prepared both intellectually and spiritually, nay, has been so for some time, only the tragic event which deprived him of his Danish kinsfolk had distracted him for a time from spiritual things. Nay, had he not been surrounded by real Christians and loving friends here at Aescendune, I fear the Church would have lost him altogether. Such a commentary was the ma.s.sacre of St. Brice on the Christian doctrine of love and forgiveness! He felt it grievously at first, but he was able at length to distinguish between men that say they are of Christ, and are not, and those who really set the example of that Lord and his Saints before them. He is now one of ourselves; a sheep safe in the fold, and the dying wish of his sainted mother is fulfilled. My brother intends to adopt him as a son, and as his family is small, the proposal meets my approbation. Bertric and Ethelgiva already love him as a brother.

CHAPTER IV. THE DANES IN WESs.e.x.

Up to this period we have availed ourselves of extracts from the Diary of Father Cuthbert; but the events of the following four years, as recorded in that record, although full of interest for the antiquarian or the lover of monastic lore, would possess scant interest for the general reader, and have also little connection with the course of our tale; therefore we will convey the information they contain, which properly pertains to our subject, in few words, and those our own, returning occasionally to the Diary.

The melancholy history of the times may be compressed, from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other sources, in a few paragraphs.

Burning with revenge--for his own sister had fallen in the ma.s.sacre on St. Brice's night--Sweyn returned to England the following year (1003). He landed in Devonshire, took Exeter by storm, and returned to his ships laden with the spoil. Then he sailed eastward, landed again and ravaged Dorset and Wiltshire. Here the ealdorman Elfric met him with a large English army; but when he saw the foe he fell sick, or feigned to be so; and then the old proverb came true, "When the general fails, the army quails." So the English looked on with fear and trembling, while Sweyn burnt Wilton and Salisbury, whence he returned to the sea laden with wealth and stained with blood; yet was not his revenge satisfied.

The following year East Anglia suffered as Wess.e.x had suffered the year before. Ulfketyl, the ealdorman, gave them much money, hoping to buy peace from the merciless pagans. The result was as he might have expected. They took the money, laughing at his simplicity, and three weeks afterwards pillaged Thetford, and burnt it. Then Ulfketyl, who was a brave man, got an East Anglian army together, and fought the Danes, giving them the uncommon chastis.e.m.e.nt of a defeat, so that they escaped with difficulty to their ships.

The following year a famine so severe visited England, that even the Danes forebore to ravage so poor a land; but in 1006, the next year, they overspread Wess.e.x like locusts. Here the action of our tale is resumed.

During this interval of four years in Aescendune there had been peace. Alfgar had been domesticated as one of the family, and was reported well of in all the neighbourhood. Diligent in the discharge of his religious duties, he was equally conspicuous in all warlike sports and exercises and in the chase, while he afforded much help to Elfwyn the thane in the management of the estate. In short, he had won his way to the hearts of all the family; and perhaps the report that he was the accepted suitor of the fair daughter of Aescendune, Ethelgiva, was not without foundation.

Ethelgiva was nearly his own age, and was a perfect type of that beauty which has ever distinguished the women of the Anglo-Saxon race. Her fair hair, untouched by artificial adornment, hung like a shower of gold around her shoulders, while her eyes were of that delicate blue which seemed to reflect the deep summer sky; but the sweet pensive expression of her face was that which attracted nearly all who knew her, and made her the object of general regard.

Bertric was now about sixteen--a handsome, attractive boy, full of life and fire, yet still possessing that devotion which Father Cuthbert had remarked in him as a boy of twelve. As the heir to the lands of Aescendune, and the only son, he would have been in much danger of being spoiled had he been less genuine and manly than he was. He and Alfgar were inseparable; they seemed to revive again the traditional love of Nisus and Euryalus, or Orestes and Pylades.

The famine, which had made Wess.e.x too poor even to serve as a bait for the Danes, had also afflicted Mercia, but not nearly so severely, and the generosity of the family of Aescendune had been exerted to the utmost on behalf of the sufferers.

But the spring of the year 1006 bade fair to atone for the past. It was bright and balmy. May was just such a month as the poets love to sing, and June, rich in its promise of fruit, had pa.s.sed when the events we are about to relate occurred. At this time there was some hope amongst the people that G.o.d had at length heard the pet.i.tion breathed so often in the penitential wail of the Litany-- "From the cruelty of our pagan enemies, good Lord, deliver us"-- and they forgot that the ma.s.sacre on St. Brice's night yet cried for vengeance.

It was a fine summer's evening towards the end of the month of July, and the sun was slowly setting behind the wood-crowned range of hills in the west, where the forest terminated the pastures of Aescendune; the cattle were returning to their stalls; the last load of hay was being transferred from the wain to the rick, and all things spoke of the calm and rest of a sweet night, fragrant with the breath of honeysuckle and wild brier, when nature herself seems to court luxurious repose.

The priory bell was tolling for compline, and thither many of the people, released from their labour, were wending their way. The Thane and his children, accompanied by Alfgar, paused on their homeward road, and when the drowsy tinkling ceased, deep silence seemed to fall over the landscape, while the night darkened--if darkness it could be called when the moonbeams succeeded to the fiercer light of the glowing orb of day.

The Lady Hilda was at the window of her bower, slightly indisposed; she had not gone down to the priory, but sat inhaling the rich fragrance of the night as the gentle breeze wafted it from a thousand flowers. Star after star peeped out; one sweet-voiced nightingale began her song, trilling through the air; another enviously took up the strain. Hilda thought the earth had never seemed so much like heaven, and she imagined the tuneful birds sang their vesper song in union with the monks, whose solemn and plaintive chant awoke the echoes of the priory church. Her heart was full of solemn yet not sad thoughts; peace, sweet peace, was the subject of her meditations, and she thought with grat.i.tude of Him who had hitherto preserved Mercia from the foe, who had indeed for nearly two years ceased to molest England.

But as she gazed, her attention was attracted to a light on the opposite hills. It was a fire of some kind, and rose up more and more fiercely each moment. It was but a bonfire in appearance, yet it marred both the landscape and the meditative rest of the gazer.

The party from the hall were returning home from the church.

"Father," said Bertric, "look at that light! Is it not singular? I never saw one there before."

But even while they looked another fire appeared in an opposite direction, and Bertric saw his father turn grave.

"It is the beacon fire," said he seriously.

"Yes it is, and see it is answered from the hills to the north," said Alfgar.

Then they were silent, and Bertric felt his spirits sink with a vague kind of apprehension. They said no more till they reached home, and the whole family met, much later than usual, at the evening meal.

"You are late," said Hilda to her lord.

"We were returning home from the meadows on the water, whence the last load of hay has been carried, and we tarried for the compline at the priory. The bell sounded as we were pa.s.sing."

"Did you see the bonfire on the hills? It must be a large one."

"I did; and it made me uneasy."

"Why so, my Elfwyn?"

"You forget that when the last invasion of our pagan foes was over, it was agreed in the Witan that a set of beacons should be prepared, in readiness to fire, on the tops of the hills, and that if the Danes appeared again, they should be fired everywhere, in which case Mercia was to hold herself in readiness to come to the aid of Wess.e.x or East Anglia, whichever the foe might be harrying."

"But then that was eighteen months agone."

"Still the beacon piles remain or did remain. I saw one at the summit of the hills which the trackway crosses between our county and Oxfordshire, when I last returned form Beranbyrig {v}, and I think that one gives the present alarm. It means the Danes are again in the land."

"Now, G.o.d forbid!" said Hilda, with clasped hands.

"Amen say we all; but I fear me such will be the case, unless some poor fool has set the pile blazing for amus.e.m.e.nt. I fancied I saw it answered away north and west. We will go and see anon."

Supper being ended, Elfwyn rose to go out, and his example was followed by Alfgar and Bertric, and several of the serfs, who from the lower end of the ample board had heard with much alarm the previous conversation.

Ascending the hill, they directed their steps towards the highest point, where an old watchtower had once been reared, composed of timber, and overlooking the forest.

From the summit the party gazed over three or four counties lying dimly beneath them in the still moonlight.

The mist, slowly rising from the river and forest, partially obscured the immediate view, and hid the valley beneath in smoke-like wreaths; but the distant hills rose above. There three large fires immediately caught the eye, and confirmed the apprehensions. One was on the summit of the range culminating on the spot now known as Edgehill, lying about ten miles south; but on the west Malvern Heights had caught the flame, and on the far north the Leicestershire hills sent forth their reddening fire in more than one spot.

"The country has taken the alarm," said the Thane.