Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin] - "Vindication of the Rights of Women"

J. S. Fletcher - "The Paradise Mystery"

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The Ward of King Canute

O >> Ottilie A Liljencrantz >> The Ward of King Canute




Amid a joyous tumult, they swept over the terrace-like plain and broke ranks
around the old elm. Evidently it was the disbanding place, for the
yeomen-soldiers, one and all, came crowding around their leader to press his
hand and speak a parting word.

"You have fought with the sword of your tongue, chief!" ... "as worthy a
battle as when you strove against the Danes!" ... "The spirit of the old days
is not dead while you are alive, Oswald's son." ... "None now are born thereto
save you alone!" ... "Till that time when you send for us, my chief." ... "One
eye on our ploughs and one watching for your messenger." ... "God keep you in
safety, young lord!"

In the meadows beyond the stream, little shepherd boys had heard the horn and
were swarming, spider-like, over the hedges, sending up shrill shouts. And now
women came running across the fields from the farmhouses, waving their aprons.
More children raced behind them; and then a dozen old men, limping and
hobbling on crutches and canes. A moment, and they were all over the foot-
bridge and up the slope; and the sweet clamor of greetings was added to the
tumult. Now it was a crowd of little brothers throwing themselves upon a big
one; now a blooming lass flinging her arms around her sweetheart's neck; and
again, a farmer's little daughter leaping joyously into her father's embrace.

In the midst of it, the Lord of Ivarsdale looked around and found that
Fridtjof the page was crying as though his heart would break.

"How! Tears, my Beowulf!" he said in amazement.

She was far beyond words, the girl in the page's dress; she could only bury
her face deeper in her slender hands and try to control the sobs that shook
her from head to foot.

But it was not long before the young man's kind-ness divined the source of her
pain. He spoke a quick word to those behind, and waving aside those before,
touched spur to the white horse. In a moment, the good steed had borne them
out of the crowd and down the slope, followed only by the old cnihts and the
dozen armed retainers.

As the hoofs rang hollow on the little bridge that spanned the stream, the
Etheling spoke again in his voice of careless gentleness. "It is easy to enter
into the sorrowfulness of your heart, youngling, and I think it no dishonor to
your courage that you should mourn your kin with tears; yet I pray you to lay
aside as much grief as you can. Bear in mind that no dungeon is gaping for
you."

She could not speak to him yet, but when he put his hand back to feel of a
strap, she bent and touched the brown fingers gratefully with her lips. The
answer seemed to renew his kindly impulse.

"After all, you should not feel so strange among us," he said lightly. "Do you
know that it was one of your own countrymen who built the Tower? Ivar Wide-
Fathomer he was named, whence it is still called Ivarsdale. He was of the
stock of Lodbrok, they say; and it is said, too, that one of his race is even
now with Canute. Since Alfred, my fathers have had possession of it, but it is
Danish-built, every stone. You must make believe that you are coming home." So
he spun on, carelessly good-humored, as they climbed the wind-ing hill-path.

Across the ditch and through the wide-open gate in the moss-grown palisade,
and they came into a broad grassy space that was more like a lawn than a
court. Ahead of them rose the massive three-storied tower, built of mighty
gray stones without softening wings or adorning spires, beautiful only in its
mantling ivy. From the great door in its side a crowd of serfs came running,
ducking grinning salutations; and they were followed by a half-dozen old
warriors. Seized by a boyish whim, their master rode past them with no more
than a wave of his hand.

"If we make haste, it may be that we can take Hildelitha and Father Ingulph by
surprise," he laughed, leaping down on the crumbling doorstep and pulling his
captive with him.

In the tunnel-like arch of the great entrance they met another throng, but he
shook them off with good-natured impatience and hurried through the great
guard-room to the winding stairs, that were cut out of the core of the massive
stones. Up and across another mighty hall, and then up again, and into a great
women's-room, full of looms and spinning-wheels, where a buxom English
housewife and half-a-dozen red-cheeked maids were gaping over their distaffs
at the tale a jolly old monk was telling between swallows of wine.

He choked in his cup when he saw who stood laughing in the doorway, and there
was a great screaming and scrambling among his audience. Knocking over her
spinning-wheel to get to him, the woman Hildelitha threw her arms around her
young lord's neck and gave him a hearty smack on either cheek; while the fat
monk sputtered blessings between his paroxysms of coughing, and the six
blooming girls made a screaming circle around them.

Though he endured it amiably enough, the Etheling appeared in some haste to
offer a diversion. He evaded a second embrace by turning and beckoning to his
shrinking captive.

"Save a little of your greeting for my guest, good nurse. Behold the fire-
eating Dane that I have captured with my own right arm!" As the red-cloaked
figure still hung back, he pulled it gently forward until the light of the
notched candles fell brightly on the face, pitifully white for all its
blood-stains, in the frame of tumbled black tresses.

"A Dane?" the women cried shrilly; then, with equal unanimity, burst out
laughing. Randalin drew a little nearer the Etheling's sheltering side. He
said half reprovingly, half freakishly, "It would not be well for you to anger
him. He is the page of Canute himself, a real Wandering Wolf, and recks not
whom he attacks. He came near to spitting Oslac at the battle, and even
threatened me."

"Oslac!" screamed one of the serving-maids, turning very red. "The murderous
little fiend!"

"He deserves to have his neck wrung!" two more cried out.

And Father Ingulph cleared his throat loudly. "Well-fitting is your charity
both toward my teachings and your heart, my son; and yet--Discretion is the
mother of other virtues. To bring one of those roving children of Satan into a
Christian household will lay upon me a responsibility which--which--" He
paused to take a mouthful of wine and eye the stranger over the goblet rim
with much disfavor.

While the maids whispered excitedly in one another's ears, Hildelitha began to
sniff behind her apron. "I do not see why you wanted to bring him home, Lord
Sebert. You know that Danes are odious to me since my husband, of holy memory,
fell under their axes--most detestable-- Yet I would not anger you, my
honey-sweet lord," she broke off abruptly.

For the Lord of Ivarsdale had suddenly grown very stiff and grave; there was
something curiously haughty in the quiet distinctness of his words.

"I have brought the boy home by reason of the King's command that he be held
in safety--and because it was my pleasure to succor him. And I have fetched
him up here in order that you should supply his needs, being distressed for
want of food and drink and healing salves. I am not pleased that you should
meet my wishes in so light and cold a manner. I desire your love will, as is
becoming, receive him kindly and charitably."

He raised his hand as the pertest of the maids would have answered him, and
there followed an uncomfortable pause. Then seven gowns swept the reed-strewn
floor as seven courtesies fell, and Hildelitha thrust out her palm to give the
pert maid a resounding box on the ear.

"You have heard your master, hussy! Why do you not exert yourself to bring
food? Elswitha, if you do not want the mate to that, fetch the salve out of my
chest."

In an instant all was confusion; under cover of it the fat monk returned to
his cup and the young master walked quietly to the door.

Homesick and heartsick, the waif in the page's dress was left facing the
unfriendly glances. Even in her bravest days, she had never known what it was
to be disliked, and now--! Suddenly she limped after her friend and caught at
his cloak.

"Let me go with you," she cried. "I beseech it of you! I want not their
service."

After a moment, the Etheling threw his arm protectingly around the boyish
figure.

"I do not blame you, poor youngling," he said. "I was wrong to treat you as a
child when you were bred up as a man. You shall have a bed in the closet off
my chamber, and they shall not enter except as you will it. And you shall eat
off my plate and drink from my cup. Come!"




Chapter XII

The Foreign Page



Early should rise
He who has few workers,
And go his work to see to;
Greatly is he retarded
Who sleeps the morn away;
Wealth half depends on energy.
Ha'vama'l.

It was August, when Mother Earth had nearly completed her task of providing
for her children, and the excitement of a mighty work drawing to its close was
in the air; when the sun-warmed stillness was a-quiver with the of growing
things coming to their strength, and every cloudless day held in its golden
heart a song of exultation. The grassy space around the Tower, which was wont
to be thronged with joyous idlers, was to-day almost deserted. A single groom
lounged in the shade of the wide-spreading trees as he kept a lazy eye on the
croppings of two saddled horses, and an endless chain of fagot-laden serfs
plodded joylessly across the open. On one side of the great entrance arch a
half-dozen of the manor poor gabbled and basked in the sun while they waited
to receive their daily dole of food; on the other, a dark-locked foreign page
sat on the mossy step abiding the coming of his master.

Leaning back with one arm bent carelessly behind his head and one hand
caressing a shaggy hound that pressed against his knee, the boy's far-away
gaze was designed to intimate his haughty oblivion to the castle-world in
general and the movements of the almsfolk in particular. Seeing which, the
people on the other side of the step had laid aside any reserve they might
have felt and were indulging their curiosity with cheerful freedom.

"Six weeks he has been here, and this is the first good look I have had at
him," the buzzing whispers ran. "It is said that they were obliged to catch
him between shields before they could take him."... "Such hair on a Dane is
more rare than a white crow."... "I believe no good of any one with locks of
that color."... "Tibby, the weaving-woman, says he is skilful in magic."...
"It is by reason of that, that he has become my lord's darling."... "Why is he
not in the hall, then, while the ethel-born is sitting at table?"... "Perhaps
his luck is beginning to fail him."... "Perhaps he has fallen out of favor."

The two old men who offered these last suggestions chuckled with malicious
enjoyment, and two of the old women mumbled with their toothless gums as
though tasting sweet morsels; but the third drew herself up with a kind of
grotesque coquetry.

"You can tell by the green silk of his tunic that he is of some quality," she
reproved them. "Danishmen are ever the ones to adorn themselves. It occurs to
my mind how, in Edgar's time, when I was a girl, one was quartered in my
father's house. He changed his raiment once a day and bathed every Sunday. I
used to comb his yellow hair when I took in his ale, of a morning." Long after
her voice had passed into a rattle, she stood in a simpering revery, her
palsied hands resting heavily upon her stick, her blinking eyes fixed on the
picturesque young foreigner musing in the sunshine.

Then the voice of the steward sounded sharply in the archway. There was an
eager catching up of bags and baskets, a shuffling forward of unsteady feet,
and the goody came out of her day-dream to throw herself into the strife over
a jar of peppered broth.

The Danish page bent to pillow a very red cheek on the soft cushion of the
dog's head, then drew back and straightened himself stiffly as a strapping
serving-lass, flagon-laden, came out of the door behind him. She saw the
motion and looked down with a teasing laugh. "Aha, young Fridtjof! How do you
like being sent to cool your heels on the doorstep while your master eats?
What! I think that the next time you thrust your foot out to trip me up as I
hand my lord his ale, you will attend to keeping it under your stool."

Young Fridtjof regarded her with a kind of righteous indignation. "And I think
that the next time you will look where you are going, even if it happen that
it is Lord Sebert's ale you are bearing. Silly jades, that cannot come nigh
him without biting your lips or sparkling your eyes! I wonder he does not clap
masks over your faces."

"And I wonder he does not clap rods to your back," the lass retorted with
sudden spite. She flounced past him down the step, on her way to the great
lead-roofed storehouse that flanked the forest side of the Tower.

The boy looked after her sternly. "It is likely that you will be less pert of
tongue after I tell what I found out in the corn-bins yesterday," he said.

The maid whirled. "What did you find out, you mischief-full brat?"

He continued to stroke the dog's head in dignified silence. "If you mean
the--the brown-cloaked beggar, let me inform you that that is naught."

Busying himself with pulling burrs from the hound's ears, the page began to
hum softly.

She came a step nearer, and her voice wheedled. "It was only that he was
distressed for want of drink, poor fellow, and followed me into the storehouse
when he saw me go in to fill the master's flagon. It was naught but a swallow.
My lord would be the last to grudge a harmless body--"

"Harmless?"the page said sternly. "Did I not hear him tell you the same as
that he was an English spy?"

The girl abandoned the last shred of her dignity, to come and stand before
him, nervously fingering her apron. "For the dear saints' sake, let no one
hear you say that, good Fridtjof! Alas, how you have got it twisted! He is an
Englishman who bent his head for food in the evil days. And now they that
bought him will not set him loose, so he has cast off their yoke and fled to
the Danes to get freedom and fortune. He was on his way to join your people
when he stopped to beg food. I could not be so hard of heart as to refuse,
though Hildelitha's hand would be hot about my ears did she suspect it. Say
that you will hold your tongue, sweet lad, and I will make boot with anything
you like."

He was very deliberate about it, the page, pursing his rosy mouth into any
number of judicial puckers; but at last he conceded, "Now, since you know for
certain that he is not one of Edmund's spies, -- and you are so penitent, as
is right,"--pausing, he regarded her severely,--" if I do promise, will you
make a bargain to put an end to your silly behavior toward my lord? Will you
undertake to deliver his dishes into my hands, and leave it for me to pass his
cup?"

"Yes, in truth; by Father Ingulph's book!" the maid cried, wringing her hands.

The page made her a magnanimous gesture. "In that case I will not be so mean
as to refuse you," he consented. And he sat smiling to himself in sly content
after she had hurried away.

Emboldened by that smile, the dog suddenly laid aside his soberness of
demeanor. Pouncing upon a fagot which had fallen from one of the loads, he
brought it in his teeth, with shining eyes and much frantic tail-wagging, and
rubbed it against his friend's knee. He had not miscalculated. The boy's smile
deepened easily into a laugh, and he leaped to his feet to accept the
challenge. Seizing the stick, he put all the strength of his lithesome body
into an effort to make off with it, while the great hound braced himself, with
a rapture of rumbling growls and short delighted barks. So they tussled, back
and forth, this way and that, amid a merry tumult of barking and laughter,--
such a tumult that neither heard the steps that both were waiting for, when at
last those steps came briskly through the archway. The first they knew of it,
the Lord of Ivarsdale was standing under the lintel, chatting with those who
came behind him.

With lips yet parted by their breathless laughter, the lad straightened
quickly from his sport, and stood shaking back his tumbling curls and mopping
his hot face, in which the rich color glowed through the tanned skin like the
velvety red on a golden peach. When, for one flashing instant, they
encountered a keen glance from the young lord, the color deepened, and the
iris-blue eyes suddenly brimmed over with mischievous sparkles; then the black
lashes were lowered demurely, and the page, retreating to his place beside the
step, signified only deference and decorum.

Followed by old Morcard and the fat monk, the Etheling descended from the
doorway and stood on the broad step, shading his eyes from the glare of
brilliant light while he looked about him with evident pleasure in the
fairness of the day.

"Now is the time to lay by a store of sweet memories against the stress of
winter weather," he said. "Whither do you go to harvest the sunshine, father?"

The monk pulled his round red face to a devout length. "Why, there is a good
woman at the other end of the dale, my son, that labors under a weakness of
her limbs; and I have bethought me that it would be a Christian act to fetch
her this holy relique I wear about my neck, that she may lay it upon the
afflicted members and perhaps, aided by my exhortations, experience some
relief."

"If the question may be permitted me, whither do you betake yourself, my
lord?" the old cniht asked.

With the light wand he carried, the young man made a gesture quite around the
horizon. "Everywhere and nowhere. After I have been to see what they are doing
with that portion of the palisade which I bade them repair as soon as they had
finished the barrier, I am--"

"That is something that had clean fallen out of my mind to tell you, Lord
Sebert," Morcard spoke up hastily. "Yesterday, before you had got in from
hunting, Kendred of Hazelford came, as spokesman for the rest, to say that
inasmuch as the Barn Month is well begun, it will not be possible for them to
labor more upon the building; and, by your leave, they will put off this,
which is not pressing, until after the time of the harvest."

It was several moments before the Etheling spoke, and then his voice was
noticeably deliberate. "Oh!" he said, "so they ask my leave, but stop at their
pleasure?"

"My lord!"--the old man looked at him in surprise--"they act only according to
custom. Surely you would not have them neglect the harvest, which waits no
man's leisure, to put to their hands as laborers when there is no present
need, now that they have completed the barriers by the stream? What present
harm because the drain off the hill has rotted the palisade? All of that part
is toward the forest. How? Do you expect some Grendel of the March to fall
upon us from that direction?"

The Etheling smiled against his will. "Our foe would needs be a Grendel to
reach us from that side." He struck the wand sharply against his riding-boots.
"Oh, it is not that I think the work so pressing."

"In the Fiend's name, what then is the cause of your distemper?" Father
Ingulph inquired impatiently, as he finished the girding-up of his robes and
picked up his staff preparatory to setting forth.

After a moment, the young noble began to laugh. "Why, to tell it frankly,
methinks it is more temper than distemper. That they should take it upon them
to decide how much of my order is necessary--" He let a pause finish for him,
and suddenly he turned with a flourish of gay defiance: "I will tell you how I
am going to spend my morning, Morcard. I am going to ride over every acre that
is under my hand and see how much I can spare for loan-land. And when I have
found out, I will rent every furlong to boors who shall be bound to pay me
service, not when it best pleases them, but whensoever I stand in need of it."

Rubbing his chin, the monk heard him in silence; but the old warrior grew
momentarily grave. "Take care that you seem not over proud, young lord. It is
in such a mood that Edmund creates thanes."

It may be that the Etheling's eyes widened for an instant, but directly after
he laughed with gay perverseness. "Is it?" he said. "Then, for the first time
in six weeks, I see that the Ironside is cunning in thought."

Shaking his head, Father Ingulph moved down the step. "Nay, if you are in that
humor, my son, I waste no breath. Speed you well, and may you wax in wisdom!"
With a gesture, half paternal, half respectful, he betook himself across the
grass to the gate.

Old Morcard turned and stepped up into the doorway, from which he looked down
indulgently upon his laughing master. "It happened formerly, Lord Sebert, that
I knew how to command your earnestness, and that speedily; but that time has
long gone by. Methinks I can accomplish more among the watchmen upon the
platform. By your leave, my lord!" Bowing, he disappeared in the dark tunnel
of the archway, and the Etheling was left alone save for the graceful figure
awaiting him beside the step. The instant he moved, it sprang forward.

"Lord, is it your wish that I get the horses?"

As the old man had looked down upon the young one, so now the young man stood
looking down upon the boy, regarding him with tolerant severity. "You most
mischief-full elf!" he said. "It would be treating you deservedly were I to
leave you at home."

It did not appear that the lad was seriously cast down; a betraying dimple
came out and played in his cheek, though his mouth struggled for gravity.
"That is unjustly spoken, lord," he protested. "Did I not bear my punishment
with befitting penitence?"

"Penitence!" the Etheling gave one of the small ears a menacing pull as he
descended to the grass. "What! Do you think I did not see your antics with the
dog? You made a jest of the matter, you pixie!"

The page sobered. "I think it great luck that I could, Lord Sebert! Your
servants were eager in making a jest of me when they got the courage from your
displeasure."

But Lord Sebert reached out the wand and gave him a gentle stroke across the
shoulders.

"Take that for your foolishness," he said lightly. "What matters their babble
when you know how safe you sit in my favor?"

Through lowered lashes the boy stole him a glance, half mischievous, half
coaxing. "How safe, lord?" he murmured.

But the Etheling only laughed at him, as he drew up his long riding-boots and
readjusted his belt. "Safe enough so that I forgive you some dozen floggings a
day, you imp; and choose you for my comrade when I should be profiting by the
companionship of your betters. Waste no more golden moments on whims,
youngling, but go bid them fetch the horses, and we will have another day of
blithe wandering."

Blithe they were, in truth, as they cantered through shaded lanes and daisied
meadows, nothing too small to be of interest or too slight to give them
pleasure. An orchard of pears, whose ripening they were watching with eager
mouths, a group of colts almost ready for the saddle,--for the young master
the fascination of ownership gave them all a value; while another fascination
made his companion hang on his least word, respond to his lightest mood.

By grassy commons and rolling meadows sweet with clustering haycocks, they
came at last to the crest of the hill that guarded the eastern end of the
dale. The whole round sweep of the horizon lay about them in an unbroken chain
of ripening vineyards and rich timber-land, of grain-fields and laden
orchards; not one spot that did not make glorious pledges to the harvest time.
Drinking its fairness with his eyes, the lord of the manor sighed in full
content. "When I see how fine a thing it is to cause wealth to be where before
was nothing, I cannot understand how I once thought to find my pleasure only
in destroying," he said. "Next month, when the barley beer is brewed, we will
have a harvest feast plentiful enough to flesh even your bones, you bodkin!"

The Danish page laughed as he dodged the plaguing wand. "It is true that you
owe something to my race, lord. He had great good sense, the Wide-Fathomer, to
stretch his strips of oxhide around this dale and turn it into an odal."

"Nay now, it was Alfred who had sense to take it away from him," the Etheling
teased.

But the boy shook back his long tresses in airy defiance. "Then will Canute be
foremost in wisdom, for soon he will get it back, together with all England.
Remember who got the victory last week at Brentford, lord."

In the midst of his exulting, a cloud came over the young Englishman's smile.
"I would I knew the truth concerning that," he said slowly. "The man who
passes to-day says one thing; whoso comes to-morrow tells another story. Yet
since Canute is once more free to beset London--" He did not finish, and for a
while it appeared as though he did not see the sunlit fields his eyes were
resting on.

But suddenly the boy broke in upon him with a burst of stifled laughter.
"Look, lord! In yonder field, behind the third haycock!"

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