Part 16

The sun was going down behind the copse, through which his beams came aslant, chequered and mellow. The stream ran dimpling down, sleepily swaying the masses of weed, under the surface and on the surface; and the trout rose under the banks, as some moth or gnat or gleaming beetle fell into the stream; here and there one more frolicsome than his brethren would throw himself joyously into the air. The swifts rushed close by, in companies of five or six, and wheeled, and screamed, and dashed away again, skimming along the water, baffling the eye as one tried to follow their flight. Two kingfishers shot suddenly up on to their supper station, on a stunted willow stump, some twenty yards below him, and sat there in the glory of their blue backs and cloudy red waistcoats, watching with long sagacious beaks pointed to the water beneath, and every now and then dropping like flashes of light into the stream, and rising again, with what seemed one motion, to their perches. A heron or two were fishing about the meadows; and Tom watched them stalking about in their sober quaker coats, or rising on slow heavy wing, and lumbering away home with a weird cry. He heard the strong pinions of the wood pigeon in the air, and then from the trees above his head came the soft call, “Take-two-cow-Taffy, take-two-cow-Taffy,” with which that fair and false bird is said to have beguiled the hapless Welchman to the gallows. Presently, as he lay motionless, the timid and graceful little water-hens peered out from their doors in the rushes opposite, and, seeing no cause for fear, stepped daintily into the water, and were suddenly surrounded by little bundles of black soft down, which went paddling about in and out of the weeds, encouraged by the occasional sharp, clear, parental “keck—keck,” and merry little dabchicks popped up in mid-stream, and looked round, and nodded at him, pert and voiceless, and dived again; even old cunning water-rats sat up on the bank with round black noses and gleaming eyes, or took solemn swims out, and turned up their tails and disappeared for his amusement. A comfortable low came at intervals from the cattle, revelling in the abundant herbage. All living things seemed to be disporting themselves, and enjoying, after their kind, the last gleams of the sunset, which were making the whole vault of heaven glow and shimmer; and, as he watched them, Tom blessed his stars as he contrasted the river-side with the glare of lamps and the click of balls in the noisy pool-room.

And then the summer twilight came on, and the birds disappeared, and the hush of night settled down on river, and copse, and meadow—cool and gentle summer twilight, after the hot bright day. He welcomed it too, as it folded up the landscape, and the trees lost their outline, and settled into soft black masses rising here and there out of the white mist, which seemed to have crept up to within a few yards all round him unawares. There was no sound now but the gentle murmur of the water, and an occasional rustle of reeds, or of the leaves over his head, as a stray wandering puff of air passed through them on its way home to bed. Nothing to listen to, and nothing to look at; for the moon had not risen, and the light mist hid everything except a star or two right up above him. So, the outside world having left him for the present, he was turned inwards on himself.

CXXX.

The nights are pleasant in May, short and pleasant for travel. We will leave the city asleep, and do our flight in the night to save time. Trust yourselves, then, to the story-teller’s aërial machine. It is but a rough affair, I own, rough and humble, unfitted for high or great flights, with no gilded panels, or dainty cushions, or C-springs—not that we shall care about springs, by the way, until we alight on terra-firma again—still, there is much to be learned in a third-class carriage if we will only not look while in it for cushions, and fine panels, and forty miles an hour travelling, and will not be shocked at our fellow-passengers for being weak in their h’s and smelling of fustian. Mount in it, then, you who will, after this warning; the fares are holiday fares, the tickets return tickets. Take with you nothing but the poet’s luggage,

“A smile for Hope, a tear for Pain, A breath to swell the voice of Prayer,”

and may you have a pleasant journey, for it is time that the stoker should be looking to his going gear!

So now we rise slowly in the moonlight from St. Ambrose’s quadrangle, and, when we are clear of the clock-tower, steer away southwards, over Oxford city and all its sleeping wisdom and folly, over street and past spire, over Christ Church and the canons’ houses, and the fountain in Tom quad; over St. Aldate’s and the river, along which the moonbeams lie in a pathway of twinkling silver, over the railway sheds—no, there was then no railway, but only the quiet fields and foot-paths of Hincksey hamlet. Well, no matter; at any rate, the hills beyond, and Bagley Wood, were there then as now: and over hills and wood we rise, catching the purr of the night-jar, the trill of the nightingale, and the first crow of the earliest cock-pheasant, as he stretches his jewelled wings, conscious of his strength and his beauty, heedless of the fellows of St. John’s, who slumber within sight of his perch, on whose hospitable board he shall one day lie, prone on his back, with fair larded breast turned upwards for the carving knife, having crowed his last crow. He knows it not; what matters it to him? If he knew it, could a Bagley Wood cock-pheasant desire a better ending?

We pass over the vale beyond; hall and hamlet, church, and meadow, and copse, folded in mist and shadow below us, each hamlet holding in its bosom the materials of three-volumed novels by the dozen, if we could only pull off the roofs of the houses and look steadily into the interiors; but our destination is farther yet. The faint white streak behind the distant Chilterns reminds us that we have no time for gossip by the way; May nights are short, and the sun will be up by four. No matter; our journey will now be soon over, for the broad vale is crossed, and the chalk hills and downs beyond. Larks quiver up by us, “higher, ever higher,” hastening up to get a first glimpse of the coming monarch, careless of food, flooding the fresh air with song. Steady plodding rooks labor along below us, and lively starlings rush by on the look-out for the early worm; lark and swallow, rook and starling, each on his appointed round. The sun arises, and they get them to it; he is up now, and these breezy uplands over which we hang are swimming in the light of horizontal rays, though the shadows and mists still lie on the wooded dells which slope away southwards.

This is no chalk, this high knoll which rises above—one may almost say hangs over—the village, crowned with Scotch firs, its sides tufted with gorse and heather. It is the Hawk’s Lynch, the favorite resort of Englebourn folk, who come up for the view, for the air, because their fathers and mothers came up before them, because they came up themselves as children—from an instinct which moves them all in leisure hours and Sunday evenings, when the sun shines and the birds sing, whether they care for view or air or not. Something guides all their feet hitherward; the children, to play hide-and-seek and look for nests in the gorse-bushes; young men and maidens, to saunter and look and talk, as they will till the world’s end—or as long, at any rate, as the Hawk’s Lynch and Englebourn last—and to cut their initials, inclosed in a true lover’s knot, on the short rabbit’s turf; steady married couples, to plod along together consulting on hard times and growing families; even old tottering men, who love to sit at the feet of the firs, with chins leaning on their sticks, prattling of days long past, to any one who will listen, or looking silently with dim eyes into the summer air, feeling perhaps in their spirits after a wider and more peaceful view which will soon open for them. A common knoll, open to all, up in the silent air, well away from every-day Englebourn life, with the Hampshire range and the distant Beacon Hill lying soft on the horizon, and nothing higher between you and the southern sea, what a blessing the Hawk’s Lynch is to the village folk, one and all! May Heaven and a thankless soil long preserve it and them from an inclosure under the Act!

CXXXI.

In January, 878, King Alfred disappears from the eyes of Saxon and Northmen, and we follow him, by such light as tradition throws upon these months, into the thickets and marshes of Selwood. It is at this point, as is natural enough, that romance has been most busy, and it has become impossible to disentangle the actual facts from monkish legend and Saxon ballad. In happier times Alfred was in the habit himself of talking over the events of his wandering life pleasantly with his courtiers, and there is no reason to doubt that the foundation of most of the stories still current rests on those conversations of the truth-loving king, noted down by Bishop Asser and others.

The best known of these is, of course, the story of the cakes. In the depths of the Saxon forests there were always a few neat-herds and swine-herds, scattered up and down, living in rough huts enough we may be sure, and occupied with the care of the cattle and herds of their masters. Amongst these in Selwood was a neat-herd of the king, a faithful man, to whom the secret of Alfred’s disguise was intrusted, and who kept it even from his wife. To this man’s hut the king came one day alone, and, sitting himself down by the burning logs on the hearth, began mending his bows and arrows. The neat-herd’s wife had just finished her baking, and, having other household matters to attend to, confided her loaves to the king, a poor, tired looking body, who might be glad of the warmth, and could make himself useful by turning the batch, and so earn his share while she got on with other business. But Alfred worked away at his weapons, thinking of anything but the good housewife’s batch of loaves, which in due course were not only done, but rapidly burning to a cinder. At this moment the neat-herd’s wife comes back, and flying to the hearth to rescue the bread, cries out, “D’rat the man! never to turn the loaves when you see them burning. I’ze warrant you ready enough to eat them when they’re done.” But beside the king’s faithful neat-herd, whose name is not preserved, there are other churls in the forest, who must be Alfred’s comrades just now if he will have any. And even here he has an eye for a good man, and will lose no opportunity to help one to the best of his power. Such a one he finds in a certain swine-herd called Denewulf, whom he gets to know, a thoughtful Saxon man, minding his charge there in the oak woods. The rough churl, or thrall, we know not which, has great capacity, as Alfred soon finds out, and desire to learn. So the king goes to work upon Denewulf under the oak trees, when the swine will let him, and is well satisfied with the results of his teachings and the progress of his pupil.

But in those miserable days the commonest necessaries of life were hard enough to come by for the king and his few companions, and for his wife and family, who soon joined him in the forest, even if they were not with him from the first. The poor foresters cannot maintain them, nor are this band of exiles the men to live on the poor. So Alfred and his comrades are soon foraging on the borders of the forest, and getting what subsistence they can from the Pagan, or from the Christians who had submitted to their yoke. So we may imagine them dragging on life till near Easter when a gleam of good news comes up from the west, to gladden the hearts and strengthen the arms of these poor men in the depths of Selwood.

Soon after Guthrum and the main body of the Pagans moved from Gloster, southwards, the Viking Hubba, as had been agreed, sailed with thirty ships of war from his winter quarters on the South Welsh coast, and landed in Devon. The news of the catastrophe at Chippenham, and of the disappearance of the king, was no doubt already known in the west; and in the face of it Odda the alderman cannot gather strength to meet the Pagans in the open field. But he is a brave and true man, and will make no term with the spoilers; so, with other faithful thegns of King Alfred and their followers, he throws himself into a castle or fort called Cynwith, or Cynnit, there to abide whatever issue of this business God will send them. Hubba, with the war-flag Raven, and a host laden with the spoil of rich Devon vales, appear in due course before the place. It is not strong naturally, and has only “walls in our own fashion,” meaning probably rough earth-works. But there are resolute men behind them, and on the whole Hubba declines the assault, and sits down before the place. There is no spring of water, he hears, within the Saxon lines, and they are otherwise wholly unprepared for a siege. A few days will no doubt settle the matter, and the sword or slavery will be the portion of Odda and the rest of Alfred’s men; meantime there is spoil enough in the camp from Devonshire homesteads, which brave men can revel in round the war-flag Raven, while they watch the Saxon ramparts. Odda, however, has quite other views than death from thirst, or surrender. Before any stress comes, early one morning, he and his whole force sally out over their earth-works, and from the first “cut down the Pagans in great numbers;” eight hundred and forty warriors (some say one thousand two hundred), with Hubba himself, are slain before Cynnit fort; the rest, few in number, escape to their ships. The war-flag Raven is left in the hands of Odda and the men of Devon.

This is the news which comes to Alfred, Ethelnoth the alderman of Somerset, Denewulf the swine-herd, and the rest of the Selwood Forest group, some time before Easter. These men of Devonshire, it seems, are still staunch, and ready to peril their lives against the Pagans. No doubt up and down Wessex, thrashed and trodden out as the nation is by this time, there are other good men and true, who will neither cross the sea or the Welsh marches, nor make terms with the Pagan; some sprinkling of men who will yet set life at stake, for faith in Christ and love of England. If these can only be rallied, who can say what may follow? So, in the lengthening days of spring, council is held in Selwood and there will have been Easter services in some chapel, or hermitage, in the forest, or, at any rate in some quiet glade. The “day of days” will surely have had its voice of hope for this poor remnant. Christ is risen and reigns; and it is not in these heathen Danes, or in all the Northmen who ever sailed across the sea, to put back his kingdom, or enslave those whom he has freed.

The result is, that, far away from the eastern boundary of the forest, on a rising ground—hill it can scarcely be called—surrounded by dangerous marshes formed by the little rivers Thone and Parret, fordable only in summer, and even then dangerous to all who have not the secret, a small fortified camp is thrown up under Alfred’s eye, by Ethelnoth and the Somersetshire men, where he can once again raise his standard. The spot has been chosen by the king with the utmost care, for it is his last throw. He names it the Etheling’s eig or island, “Athelney.” Probably his young son, the Etheling of England, is there amongst the first, with his mother and his grand-mother Eadburgha, the widow of Ethelred Mucil, the venerable lady whom Asser saw in later years, and who has now no country but her daughter’s. There are, as has been reckoned, some two acres of hard ground on the island, and around vast brakes of alder-bush, full of deer and other game. Here the Somersetshire men can keep up constant communication with him, and a small army grows together. They are soon strong enough to make forays into the open country, and in many skirmishes they cut off parties of the Pagans, and supplies. “For, even when overthrown and cast down,” says Malmesbury, “Alfred had always to be fought with; so then, when one would esteem him altogether worn down and broken, like a snake slipping from the hand of him who would grasp it, he would suddenly flash out again from his hiding-places, rising up to smite his foes in the height of their insolent confidence, and never more hard to beat than after a flight.”

But it was still a trying life at Athelney. Followers came in slowly, and provender and supplies of all kinds are hard to wring from the Pagan, and harder still to take from Christian men. One day, while it was yet so cold that the water was still frozen, the king’s people had gone out “to get them fish or fowl, or some such purveyance as they sustained themselves withal.” No one was left in the royal hut for the moment but himself and his mother-in-law, Eadburgha. The king (after his constant wont whensoever he had opportunity) was reading from the Psalms of David, out of the Manual which he carried always in his bosom. At this moment a poor man appeared at the door and begged for a morsel of bread “for Christ his sake.” Whereupon the king, receiving the stranger as a brother, called to his mother-in-law to give him to eat. Eadburgha replied that there was but one loaf in their store, and a little wine in a pitcher, a provision wholly insufficient for his own family and people. But the king bade her, nevertheless, to give the stranger part of the last loaf, which she accordingly did. But when he had been served, the stranger was no more seen, and the loaf remained whole, and the pitcher full to the brim. Alfred, meantime, had turned to his reading, over which he fell asleep and dreamed that St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne stood by him, and told him it was he who had been his guest, and that God had seen his afflictions and those of his people, which were now about to end, in token whereof his people would return that day from their expedition with a great take of fish. The king awaking, and being much impressed with his dream, called to his mother-in-law and recounted it to her, who thereupon assured him that she too had been overcome with sleep, and had had the same dream. And while they yet talked together on what had happened so strangely to them, their servants came in, bringing fish enough, as it seemed to them, to have fed an army.

The monkish legend goes on to tell that on the next morning the king crossed to the mainland in a boat, and wound his horn thrice, which drew to him before noon five hundred men. What we may think of the story and the dream, as Sir John Spelman says, “is not here very much material,” seeing that whether we deem it natural or supernatural, “the one as well as the other serves at God’s appointment, by raising or dejecting of the mind with hopes or fears, to lead man to the resolution of those things whereof he has before ordained the event.”

CXXXII.

“Mrs. Winburn is ill, isn’t she?” asked Tom, after looking his guide over.

“Ees, her be—terrible bad,” said the constable.

“What is the matter with her, do you know?”

“Zummat o’ fits, I hears. Her’ve had ’em this six year, on and off.”

“I suppose it’s dangerous. I mean she isn’t likely to get well?”

“’Tis in the Lord’s hands,” replied the constable, “but her’s that bad wi’ pain, at times, ’twould be a mussy if ’twoud plaase He to tak’ her out on’t.”

“Perhaps she mightn’t think so,” said Tom, superciliously; he was not in the mind to agree with any one. The constable looked at him solemnly for a moment and then said:

“Her’s been a God-fearin’ woman from her youth up, and her’s had a deal o’ trouble. Thaay as the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and ’tisn’t such as thaay as is afeard to go afore Him.”

“Well, I never found that having trouble made people a bit more anxious to get ‘out on’t,’ as you call it,” said Tom.

“It don’t seem to me as you can ’a had much o’ trouble to judge by,” said the constable, who was beginning to be nettled by Tom’s manner.

“How can you tell that?”

“Leastways ’twould be whoam-made, then,” persisted the constable; “and ther’s a sight o’ odds atween whoam-made troubles and thaay as the Lord sends.”

“So there may; but I may have seen both sorts for anything you can tell.”

“Nay, nay; the Lord’s troubles leave His marks.”

CXXXIII.

“And I be to write to you, sir, then, if Harry gets into trouble?”

“Yes; but we must keep him out of trouble, even home-made ones, which don’t leave good marks, you know,” said Tom.

“And thaay be nine out o’ ten o’ aal as comes to a man, sir,” said David, “as I’ve a told Harry scores o’ times.”

“That seems to be your text, David,” said Tom, laughing.

“Ah, and ’tis a good un too, sir. ’Tis a sight better to have the Lord’s troubles while you be about it, for thaay as hasn’t makes wus for theirselves out o’ nothin’.”

CXXXIV.

Grey, who had never given up hopes of bringing Tom round to his own views, had not neglected the opportunities which his residence in town offered, and had enlisted Tom’s services on more than one occasion. He had found him specially useful in instructing the big boys, whom he was trying to bring together and civilize in a “Young Men’s Club,” in the rudiments of cricket on Saturday evenings. But on the morning in question an altogether different work was on hand.

A lady living some eight or nine miles to the northwest of London, who took great interest in Grey’s doings, had asked him to bring the children of his night-school down to spend a day in her grounds, and this was the happy occasion. It was before the days of cheap excursions by rail, so that vans had to be found for the party; and Grey had discovered a benevolent remover of furniture in Paddington, who was ready to take them at a reasonable figure. The two vans, with awnings and curtains in the height of the fashion, and horses with tasselled ear-caps, and everything handsome about them, were already drawn up in the midst of a group of excited children, and scarcely less excited mothers, when Tom arrived. Grey was arranging his forces, and laboring to reduce the Irish children, who formed almost half of his ragged little flock, into something like order before starting. By degrees this was managed, and Tom was placed in command of the rear van, while Grey reserved the leading one to himself. The children were divided, and warned not to lean over the sides and tumble out—a somewhat superfluous caution, as most of them, though unused to riding in any legitimate manner, were pretty well used to balancing themselves behind any vehicle which offered as much as a spike to sit on, out of sight of the driver. Then came the rush into the vans. Grey and Tom took up their places next the doors as conductors, and the procession lumbered off with great success, and much shouting from treble voices.

Tom soon found that he had plenty of work on his hands to keep the peace amongst his flock. The Irish element was in a state of wild effervescence, and he had to draft them down to his own end, leaving the foremost part of the van to the sober English children. He was much struck by the contrast of the whole set to the Englebourn school children, whom he had lately seen under somewhat similar circumstances. The difficulty with them had been to draw them out, and put anything like life into them; here, all he had to do was to repress the superabundant life. However, the vans held on their way, and got safely into the suburbs, and so at last to an occasional hedge, and a suspicion of trees, and green fields beyond.