or hard by the road, which, skirting the summit ofthe watershed between the Thames and the Avon, afforded magnificent views.
About an hour after starting they came upon a singular monument ofDruidical times, consisting of sixty huge stones arranged in a circularform, with an entrance at the northeast, while a single rock or largestone, the largest of all, stood apart from the circle, as if lookingdown into the valley beneath.[xix]
"What can be the origin of this circle?" said Alfred.
"It belongs to the old days of heathenesse; before the Welsh wereconquered by the Romans, perhaps before our Blessed Lord came into theworld, these stones were placed as you now see them," replied FatherCuthbert.
"What purpose could they serve?"
"For their devil worship, I suppose; you see those five stones whichstand at some little distance?"
"They are the Five Whispering Knights," said Oswy.
"They are the remains of a cromlech or altar whereon they offered theirsons and daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, wherefore theLord brought the Romans upon them."
"But the Romans were idolatrous, too."
"Yet their religion was milder than the one it superseded. Jupiterrequired no human sacrifices; and even otherwise, God has said that thewicked man is often His sword to avenge Him of His adversaries."
"Oswy looks as if he had a tale to tell."
"Speak out, Oswy, and let us all hear," said the good father.
"Well, then," said Oswy, "these were not once stones at all, but livingmen--a king, five knights, and sixty soldiers--who came to take LongCompton, the town down there, in the valley; but it so happened that agreat enchanter dwelt there, and being out that morning he saw themcoming, muttered his spells, and while the king--that stone yonder--was in front looking down on his prey, the five knights all whisperingtogether, and the sixty soldiers behind in a circle, they were allsuddenly changed into stone."
They all laughed heartily at this, and leaving the Rholdrwyg Stones,turned aside to the hospitable hall where they ought to have spent theprevious night. So delighted was the Thane of Rholdrwyg or Rollrich toreceive his guests that he detained them almost by force all that day,and it was only on the morrow that he permitted them to continue theirjourney.
They joined the Foss Way again after a few miles at Stow on the Wold;the road was so good that they succeeded in reaching Cirencester, theancient Corinium, that night, a distance of nearly thirty miles. Herethey found a considerable population, for the town had been one of greatimportance, and was still one of the chief cities of southern Mercia,full of the remains of her departed Roman greatness, with shatteredcolumn and shapely arch yet diversifying the thatched hovels of theMercians.
Two more days brought them to Bath, but the old Roman city had beenutterly destroyed, and long subsequently the English town had beenfounded upon its site, so that there seemed no identity between Bath andAqua Solis, such as prevailed between Cirencester and Corinium.
One day's journey from Bath brought them at eventide within an easy dayof Glastonbury, so that they paused in their journey for the last timeat a well-known hostelry, chiefly occupied by pilgrims bound forGlastonbury, for the morrow was a high festival, or rather thecommencement of one, and Dunstan was expected to conduct the ceremoniesin person.
So crowded was the hostelry that Alfred and his revered tutor could onlyobtain a small chamber for their private accommodation, while theirservants were forced to content themselves with such share of the strawof the outbuildings as they could obtain, in company with many others.
It was still early when they stopped at the inn, for one of theirhorses, which they had purchased by the way, had broken down socompletely that they could not well proceed, and they were about toenter a dark and dangerous forest, full of ravenous bears and wolves,which had already cast its shade upon their path.
But this was not an uncommon feature in English travelling of thatcentury, when there were no horses to be hired at the inns, andtravellers could only purchase the animals they needed (if there wereany to be sold); the forest, too, was reported to be the haunt offreebooters, and men dared to affirm that they were encouraged by theking to prey upon the fraternity at Glastonbury.
Still the dangers of the forest did not deter Alfred, who dearly lovedwoodland scenery and sport, from strolling therein when their hasty mealhad been despatched, weary of the continuous objurgations and smalltalkof the crowded inn.
He had wandered some distance, lost in thought, when all at once hestarted in some surprise, for the spot on which he was seemed familiarto him, although he had never been in Wessex before.
Yes, he certainly knew the glade, with the fine beech trees surroundingit: where could he have seen it before? All at once he remembered hisdream in the ruined temple, and started to discover the secretforeknowledge he had thus possessed.
He wandered up and down the glade till it became dusk, and then shookoff the thoughts to which he had been a prey, and started to return tothe inn, when, to his dismay, he found he had forgotten in whichdirection it lay.
While seeking to find the path by which he had entered the glade, hesuddenly noticed a beaten track between two huge rocks, which seemed topoint in the direction he had come, and yet which he recognised as thepath he had been bidden to follow in his dream. He hesitated not, butcommitted himself to it, while darkness seemed to increase each moment.
He was beginning to fear the dangers of a night in the woods, when hewas startled by a sound as of many low voices, and at the same momentbecame conscious that a light was tinging with red the upper branches ofthe trees at no little distance, as if proceeding from some fire, hiddenby the formation of the ground.
At first he thought that he was in the neighbourhood of outlaws, andtried to retire, but, as in his dream, he felt so strong an impulse todiscover the party whom the woods concealed that he persevered.
Suddenly he stopped short, for he had come to the edge of a kind ofnatural amphitheatre, a deep hollow in the earth, the sides of whichwere covered with bushes and trees, while the area at the bottom mightperhaps have covered a hundred square yards, and was clothed withverdant turf. Not one, but several fires were burning, and around themwere reclining small groups of armed men, while some were walking aboutchatting with each other.
Alfred gazed in much surprise, for the party did not at all realise hisconception of a body of freebooters or robbers; they all seemed to wearthe same uniform, and to resemble each other in their accoutrements andcharacteristics; they rather resembled, in short, a detachment ofregular forces than a body of men whom chance might have throwntogether, or the fortune of predatory war.
While he gazed upon them, two of their number, whose attire was rich andcostly, and who seemed to be of higher rank than the rest, perhaps theirofficers, attracted his attention as they walked near the spot where,clinging to a tree, he overlooked the encampment from above.
One of them was a tall, dark warrior, whose whole demeanour was that ofthe professional soldier, whose dress was plain yet rich, and who mighteasily be guessed to be the commander of the party. He was talkingearnestly, but in a subdued tone, to his younger companion, whom heseemed to be labouring to convince of the propriety of some course ofaction.
Alfred watched them eagerly; the form of the younger--for so heappeared by his slender frame--seemed familiar to him, and when atlast they turned their faces and walked towards him, the light of aneighbouring fire showed him the face of his brother Elfric.
"My dream!" he mentally exclaimed.
They were evidently talking about some very important subject, and itwas also evident that the objections of the younger, whatever they mightbe, were becoming rapidly overruled, when, as chance, if it were chance,would have it, they paused in their circuit of the little camp justbeneath the tree where Alfred was posted.
"You see," said the elder, "that our course is clear, so definitelyclear that we have but to do our duty to the king, while we avenge athousand little insults we have ourselves receiv
ed from this insolentmonk--such insults as warriors wash out with blood."
"Yet he is a churchman, and it would be called utter sacrilege."
"Sacrilege! is a churchman's blood redder than that of layman, and is henot doomed as a traitor by a judgment as righteous as ever English lawpronounced! did he not keep Edwy from his throne during the lifetime ofthe usurper Edred!"
"That was the sentence of the Witan, and you served Edred."
"I did not owe the allegiance of an Englishman to either, being offoreign birth, and so was no traitor; as for the Witan, it is well knownDunstan influenced their decision at the death of the royal Edmund."
"I never heard the assertion before."
"You have many things still to learn; you are but young as yet. But letit pass. Does not his conduct to Queen Elgiva merit death!"
"I think it does. But still not without sentence of law."
"That sentence has been in fact pronounced, for in such cases as these,where the subject is too powerful for the direct action of the law toreach him, the decision of the king and council must pass for law, andthey have decided that Dunstan must die, and have left the execution ofthe sentence--to us."
He did not add that the council in question consisted of the giddy youngnobles who had surrounded Edwy from the first, aided by a few hoarysinners whose lives of plunder and rapine had given them a personalhatred of the Church.
Elfric heaved a sigh, and said:
"If so, I suppose I must obey; but I wish I had not been sent on theexpedition."
"It is to test your loyalty."
"Then it shall be proved. I have no personal motives of gratitudetowards Dunstan."
"Rather the contrary."
"Rather the contrary, as you say. But what sound was that? Surelysomething stirred the bush!"
"A rabbit or a hare. You are becoming fanciful and timid. Well, you willremember that tomorrow there must be no timidity, no yielding to whatsome would call conscience, but wise men the scruples of superstition.We shall not reach the monastery till dark, most of the visitors willthen have quitted it, and we shall take the old fox in a trap."
"You will not slay him in cold blood!"
"No. I shall bid him follow me to the king, and if he and his resist, asprobably they will, then their blood be on their own heads. But surely--"
At that moment a large stone, which Alfred had most inopportunelydislodged, rolled down the bank, and made Elfric, who was in its path,leap aside. Alfred, whose foot had rested upon it, slipped, and for amoment seemed in danger of following the stone, but he had happily timeto grasp the tree securely, and by its aid he drew himself back anddarted into the wood.
Luckily there was moonlight enough to guide him by the track he hadhitherto followed, and he ran forward, dreading nothing so much as tofall into the hands of the friends of his brother, and trusting that hemight prevent the execution of the foul deed he had heard meditated. Heran for a long distance before he paused, when he became aware thatpursuers were on his track. Luckily his life had been spent so much inthe open air that he was capable of great exertion, and could run well.So he resumed his course, although he knew not where it would lead him,and soon had the pleasure of feeling that he was distancing hispursuers. Yet every time he ran over a piece of smooth turf he fanciedhe could hear them in his rear, and it was with the greatest feeling ofrelief that he suddenly emerged from the wood upon the Foss Way, and sawthe lights of the hostelry at no great distance below him.
His pursuers did not follow him farther, probably unwilling to betraytheir presence to the neighbourhood, and perhaps utterly unconsciousthat the intruder upon their peace was possessed of any dangeroussecrets, or other than some rustic woodman belated on his homeward way,who would be unable in any degree to interfere with them or to guesstheir designs.
But it was not till the ardour of his flight had abated, that Alfredcould fully realise that his unhappy brother was committed to a deed ofscandalous atrocity, and the discovery was hard for him to bear. Thestrong impression which his dream had made upon him--an impressionthat he was to be the means of saving his brother from some great sin--came upon him now with greater force than ever, and was of greatcomfort. The identity of the scenery he had seen in dreamland with theactual scenery he had gone through, made him feel that he was under thespecial guidance of Providence.
Returning to the inn he sought Father Cuthbert, and found him somewhatuneasy at his long absence, and to him he communicated all that he hadseen and heard.
The good father was a man of sound sense but of much affection, and atfirst he could not credit that the boy he had loved so well, Elfric ofAescendune, should have grown to be the associate of murderers, for suchonly could either he or Alfred style the agents of Edwy's wrath.
But, once fully convinced, he was equal to the emergency.
"We will not start at once, we should but break down on the road, anddefeat our own object. We must rest quietly, and sleep soundly ifpossible, and start with the earliest dawn. We shall reach Glastonburyby midday, and be able to warn the holy abbot of his danger in good time."
So Alfred was forced to curb his impatience and to try to sleep soundly.Father Cuthbert soon gave good assurance that he was asleep; but thenoisy manner in which the assurance was given banished sleep from theeyelids of his anxious pupil. At length he yielded to weariness both ofmind and body, and the overwrought brain was still.
He was but little refreshed when he heard Father Cuthbert's morningsalutation, "_Benedicamus Domino_," and could hardly stammer out thecustomary reply, "_Deo gratias_."
Every one rose early in those days, and the timely departure of theparty from Aescendune excited no special comment. Hundreds of pilgrimswere on the road, and Alfred expressed his conviction that there wouldbe force enough at Glastonbury to protect Dunstan, to which FatherCuthbert replied--"If he would accept such protection."
On former days their journey had been frequently impeded by brokenbridges and dangerous fords; but as they drew near Glastonbury thepresence of a mighty civilising power became manifest. The fields werewell tilled, for the possessions for miles around the abbey were let totenant farmers by the monks, who had first reclaimed them from thewilderness. The farm houses and the abodes of the poor were betterconstructed, and the streams were all bridged over, while the old Romanroad was kept in tolerable repair.
A short distance before they reached the city, the pilgrims, who were aspace in advance of the party, came in sight of the towers of themonastery, whereupon they all paused for one moment, and raised thesolemn strain then but recently composed--
I.Founded on the Rock of Ages,Salem, city of the blest,Built of living stones most precious,Vision of eternal rest,Angel hands, in love attending,Thee in bridal robes invest.II.Down from God all new descendingThee our joyful eyes behold,Like a bride adorned for spousals,Decked with radiant wealth untold;All thy streets and walls are fashioned,All are bright with purest gold!III.Gates of pearl, for ever open,Welcome there the loved, the lost;Ransomed by their Saviour's merits;This the price their freedom cost:City of eternal refuge,Haven of the tempest-tost.IV.Fierce the blow, and firm the pressure,Which hath polished thus each stone:Well the Mastermind hath fittedTo his chosen place each one.When the Architect takes reck'ning,He will count the work His Own.V.Glory be to God, the Father;Glory to th' Eternal Son;Glory to the Blessed Spirit:One in Three, and Three in One.Glory, honour, might, dominion,While eternal ages run.Amen.[xx]
The grand strains seemed to bring assurance of Divine aid to Alfred, andhe could but imitate Father Cuthbert, who lifted up his stentorian voiceand thundered out in chorus, as they drew near the pilgrims.
Here they left the Foss Way for the side road leading to the monastery,now only a short distance from them.
CHAPTER XI. THE FLIGHT OF DUNSTAN.
It was the day of St. Alban, the protomartyr of England, and the saintwas greatly honoured at Glastonbury, where, as we have seen, Dunstan wasin residence, and, as a natural consequence, every departm
ent of themonastic life was quickened by his presence. The abbey was full of monkswho had professed the Benedictine rule, and having but recently beenrebuilt, it possessed many improvements hardly yet introduced intoEnglish architecture in general. The greater part of the building was ofstone, and it was not, in its general features, unlike some of the oldercolleges at Oxford or Cambridge, although the order of the architecturewas, of course, exclusively that of the Saxon period, characterised bythe heavy and massive, yet imposing, circular arch.
But upon the church or abbey chapel all the skill of the architect hadbeen concentrated, and it seemed worthy alike of its founder and of itsobject. Seen upon the morning in question, when the bright summer sunfilled every corner with gladsome light, just as the long procession ofwhite-robed priests, and monks in their sombre garb, with their hoodsthrown back, were entering for high mass, and the choral psalm arose, itwas peculiarly imposing.
The procession had not long entered the church, when the party ofpilgrims we have described, closely followed by our friends fromAescendune, entered the quadrangle, and crossed it to the great porch ofthe church. It was with the greatest difficulty they could enter, forthe whole floor of the huge building was crowded with kneelingworshippers. The portion of Scripture appointed for the epistle wasbeing chanted, and the words struck Alfred's ears as he entered--"Hepleased God, and was beloved of Him, so that, living among sinners, hewas translated."
The words seemed to come upon him with special application to the dangerthe great abbot was in, and the thought that the martyr's day might bestained by a deed of blood, or, as some might say, hallowed by anothermartyrdom, added to his agitation.
And now he had gained a position where the high altar was in full view,illuminated by its countless tapers, and fragrant with aromatic odours.There, in