Chapter 18

THE SLEEP OF PEACE.

The first day after the departure of the king from Æscendune passed rapidly away. The soldiers who had remained behind with Redwald were quiet and orderly in their demeanour, and even, in obedience to secret orders, attended the evensong at the minster church, as if moved thereto by devotion, although the curious spectator might easily discover the unaccustomed character of their service, by the difficulty with which they followed the prayers, and the uneasy impatience with which they listened to a lengthened exposition of a portion of the Anglo-Saxon version of the Gospels from Father Cuthbert.

The old thane and all his family were very anxious, it may be readily believed, for the earliest news from the field of battle, for battle every one agreed was impending; and, to gratify their natural curiosity. Redwald sent out quick and alert members of his troop, to act as messengers, and bear speedy news from the scene of action.

The night set in clear and bright, as we have already seen; and while poor Elfric was wandering about uneasily beneath that brilliant sky, the same stars looked down peacefully upon his home, where all slept sweetly under the fostering care, as they would have said, of their guardian angels.

The morn broke brightly, and with every promise of a fine harvest day. The labourers were speedily again in the fields; the cattle wandered under the herdsman’s care to their distant pastures; the subdued tinkling of the sheep bells met the ear, and the other subdued sounds which soothe the air on a summer’s day; and so the hours fled by, and no one would have dreamed that, not twenty miles away, man met man in the fierce and deadly struggle of war.

When the reapers assembled for their midday meal, they discussed the merits of the quarrel, and nearly all those who had been brought under the eye of “Edwy the Fair” were eager in pleading his cause, and trying to find some extenuation of his misdeeds in the matter of the illegal marriage, for such it was, from the mildest point of view; and scarcely a voice was raised on the opposite side, until Ella drew near the scene of conversation, and observed that “while God forbid they should judge the matter harshly, yet law was law, and right was right, and a beautiful face or winsome look could not change it.”

Strolling near the field, seemingly absorbed in thought, walked Redwald, and seeing the reapers, he came towards them.

“A picture of peaceful enjoyment,” he quietly said. “How often have I wished I could but lay down sword and lance to take more innocent weapons in hand, and to spend my declining days ’mid scenes like these.”

“Indeed!” said Ella. “It is generally thought that men whose trade is war love their calling.”

“Yes; sometimes the fierce din of battle seems a pastime fit for the gods, but the banquet is apt to cloy.”

“Have you followed your profession for many years?”

“Since I was a mere child; even my boyhood was passed amid the din of arms.”

There were very few professional soldiers in that day, and they were much dreaded. An Englishman was always ready to take up arms when lawfully called by his feudal superior, or when home or civil rights were in danger, but he generally laid them down and returned to his fields with joy; hence the rustics looked upon a man like Redwald with much undisguised curiosity.

“Think you we shall soon hear from the contending parties?” asked Alfred, who was, as usual, in attendance upon his father.

“Perhaps by nightfall; one of my men has just returned to tell me that the king’s progress was stopped by an entrenched camp of the rebels, and that they expected to fight at early dawn.”

The news was unexpected, and every one felt his heart beat more quickly.

“I have a messenger already on the spot, and so soon as the royal forces have gained the victory he will speed hither as fast as four legs can bring him; we shall probably hear by eventide.”

It is needless to say how every one panted for the decisive news. Ella and Alfred soon returned to the castle, and Redwald took his horse, and rode out, as he said, to meet the messenger.

The hours seemed to pass more slowly; the sun drew near the west, the shadows lengthened; and Ella, with the lady Edith, Alfred, Edgitha, and all the members of the little society, could hardly bend their minds to any occupation, mental or physical. Elfric was ever in their thoughts.

“O Ella!” said his wife, “this suspense is very hard to bear; I long to hear about our boy.”

The mother’s heart was bound up in him, as if there were no other life in danger that day; Edwy or Edgar, it was little to her in comparison with her longing for her first-born son.

“He is in God’s Hands, dearest!” returned her husband; “and in better Hands than ours.”

Well might the thoughts of the lady Edith be concentrated on the crisis before her. She had borne, with a mother’s wounded heart, the separation of three years, and now it was a question of a few short hours whether she should ever see him again or not. Now fancy painted him wounded, nay dying, on the bloodstained field; now it impelled her to sally forth towards the scene, as though her feeble strength could bear her to him. Now she sought the chapel, and found refuge in prayer. She had found refuge many many hours of that eventful day, but especially since Redwald had borne the news of the imminent battle.

At length the long suspense was ended. Redwald was seen riding at full speed towards the castle, followed by the long-expected messenger.

“Victory! victory!” he cried; “the rebels are defeated; the king shall enjoy his own.”

“But Elfric, my son! my son!”

“Is safe: and will be here in a day or two, perhaps tomorrow.”

“Thank God!” and the overcharged heart found relief in tears—happy tears of joy.

The messenger who followed Redwald brought detailed accounts of the event. According to his statements it appeared that the king had broken through the hostile entrenchment, and had scattered their forces in the first attack. The messenger particularly asserted that he had seen Elfric, and had been charged with the fondest messages for home, where the youth hoped to be in a few days at the latest, seeing there was no longer an enemy to fear.

The hearts of all present were filled with thankfulness and joy.

“Come, my beloved Edith,” said the old thane. “Let us go first to thank God;” and they went together to the chapel which had witnessed so many earnest prayers that day—now, they believed, so fully answered.

All gloom and despondency seemed removed, and Ella went forth to walk alone in the woods, to meditate in silence on the goodness of God. Nearly each evening this had been his habit. The woods, he said, were God’s first temples, and when alone he best raised his heart from nature to nature’s God.

His thoughts were happy that evening: his first-born boy would be restored to him, and, like the father in the Gospels, he longed to embrace the prodigal, and to tell him that all was forgiven. But he schooled himself to patience, and many a fervent thanksgiving did he offer as he wandered amidst the grassy glades.

But he was more weary than usual with the toil and anxiety of the day, and shortly seated himself upon a mossy bank beneath an aged oak. The trees grew thickly behind and before him, on each side of the glade, which terminated at no great distance in the heart of the pathless forest, so that no occasional wayfarer would be likely to pass that way.

There he reposed, until a gentle slumber stole over him and buried all his senses in oblivion.

The day was nearly spent, the light clouds which still reflected the sun’s ruddy glow were fast fading into a grey neutral tint, and darkness was approaching. Once a timid deer passed along the glade, and started as it beheld the sleeping form, then went on, but started yet more violently as it passed a thicket on the opposite side. The night breeze had arisen and was blowing freshly; but still the old man slept on, as though he slept that sleep from which none shall awaken until the archangel’s trump.

Meanwhile they grew uneasy at the hall over his prolonged absence, and at length Alfred started to find his father, beginning to fear that the excitement of the day had been too great for him, and that he might need assistance. He knew the favourite glade wherein the aged thane was wont to walk, and the mossy bank whereon he frequently reposed, so he lost no time, but bent his steps directly for the spot.

As he drew near, he saw his father lying on the bank beneath the oak as still in sound sleep, and marvelled that the chilly air of the evening had not awoke him. He was not wont to sleep thus soundly. He approached closely, but his steps did not arouse the sleeper. He now bent over him, and put his hand on his shoulder affectionately and lovingly.

“Father, awake,” he said; “the night is coming on; you will take cold.”

But there was no answering voice, and the sleeper stirred not. Alfred became seriously alarmed, but his alarm changed suddenly into dread certainty. The feathered shaft of an arrow met his eye, dimly seen in the darkness, as it stuck in the left side of the sleeping Ella. Sleeping, indeed. But the sleep was eternal.

Horrified at the sight, refusing to believe his eyes, the son first continued his vain attempts to awake his sire, then fell on his knees, and wrung his hands while he cried piteously, “O father, speak to me!” as if he could not accept the fact that those lips would never salute him more. The moonbeams fell on that calm face, calm as if in sleep, without a spasm of pain, without the contraction of a line of the countenance. The weapon had pierced through the heart; death had been instantaneous, and the sleeper had passed from the sleep of this earth to that which is sweetly called “sleep in the Lord,” without a struggle or a pang.

His heart full of joy and thanksgiving, he had gone to carry his tribute of praise to the very throne of God.

When the first paroxysm of pain and grief was over, the necessity of summoning some further aid, of bearing the sad news to his home, pressed itself upon the mind of Alfred, and he took his homeward road alone, as if he hardly knew what he was doing, but simply obeyed instinct. Arrived there, he could not tell his mother or sister; he only sought the chamberlain and the steward, and begged them to come forth with him, and said something had happened to his father. They went forth.

“We must carry something to bear him home,” he said, and they took a framework of wood upon which they threw some bearskins.

Alfred did not speak during the whole way, save that in answer to the anxious inquiries of his companions he replied, “You will see!” and they could but infer the worst from his manner, without giving him the pain of telling the fatal truth.

At length they reached the glade where the dead body lay. The moon was bright, and in her light they saw the fatal truth at once.

“Alas, my master! alas, my dear lord! Who has done this? Who could have done it?” was their cry. “Was there one who did not love and revere him?”

More demonstrative than Alfred had been were they in their lamentations, for the deepest grief is often the most silent.

At length they raised the body, the temple of so pure and holy a spirit, which had now returned to the God Who gave it, reverently as men would have handled the relics of some martyr saint, and placed it on the bier which they had prepared. Then they began their homeward route, and ere a long time had passed they stood before the great gate of the castle with their burden.

It now became a necessity for Alfred to announce the sad news to his widowed mother; and here the power of language fails us—the shock was so sudden, so unexpected. The half of her life was so suddenly torn from the bereaved one, that the pang was well-nigh insupportable. But God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and has promised that the strength of His beloved ones shall be even as their day. So He strengthened the sensitive frame to bear a shock which otherwise might have slain it.

The sounds of lamentation and woe were heard all over the castle as they slowly bore the body to the domestic chapel, while some drew near, impelled by an irresistible desire to gaze upon it, and then cried aloud in excess of woe. Amongst the others, Redwald approached, and gazed fixedly upon the corpse; and Eric the steward often declared, in later days, that he saw the wound bleed afresh under the glance of the ruthless warrior, but perhaps this was an afterthought.

Father Cuthbert, who had now been elected prior of the monastic house below, on the banks of the river, soon heard the sad news, and hastened up to tender the sweet consolations of religion—the only solace at such a time, for it is in seasons of suffering that we best comprehend the Cross.

When he entered he saw the corpse in the chapel, where they had placed it before the altar, and he could only say, “Alas, my lord! alas, my dear friend!” until he knelt down to pray, and rose up somewhat calmed.

Then he sought the chamber where the lady Edith hid her woe, and there he showed her that God was love, hard though it was sometimes for the frail flesh to see it; and he bade her look to the Divine Sufferer of Whom it is said, “In all their afflictions He was afflicted;” and so by his gentle ministrations he brought calm to the troubled breast, and it seemed as if one had said to the waves of grief, “Peace, be still.”

And then he gathered the household to prayer, and while they prayed many a “_Requiescat_” for the faithful soul, as they said the dirge commending to the Fathers Hands a sheep of His fold, so they also prayed for strength to see the love which was hidden behind all this sad, sad visitation, and to know the meaning of the words “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”

And then he bade them rest—those, at least, who were able to do so—while he watched by the body, as was then the custom, all through the deep night.

And so the stars which had looked down from heaven so peacefully upon the house of Æscendune the night before, of which we wrote, now looked down as coldly bright as if no change had occurred, shining alike upon weal or woe, upon crime or holy deed of saint. Yet as the kneeling friar saw them through the chapel window, he thought they were but the golden lights which lay about the confines of that happy region where the faithful live in unspeakable felicity for ever with their Lord, and he found consolation in the thought of the Eternal and the Infinite.