Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune

place."

  A loud and vigorous blast of horns was blown, while the greater part ofthe troop dismounted and paused impatiently for an answer from within.

  "Two or three of you step forward with your axes," exclaimed Redwald.

  They did so, and thundered on the gate without any success, so stoutlywas it made.

  "What can it mean?" said Redwald. "All is silent as the grave."

  "No; there is some one laughing at us," said Elfric.

  A peal of merry laughter was heard within.

  Redwald was thoroughly enraged, and seizing an axe with his own hand, heset the example of applying it to the gate, but without any result saveto split a few planks, while the iron framework, designed by Dunstanhimself, who was clever at such arts, held as firmly as ever.

  Unprovided with other means of forcing it, the besiegers had recourse tofire, and gathering fuel with some difficulty, they piled it against thegate. Shortly the woodwork caught, and the whole gate presently yieldedto the action of the fire; the iron bars, loosened by the destruction ofthe woodwork, gave way, and the besiegers rushed into the quadrangle.Here, all was dark and silent, not a sound to be heard or a light seen.

  "What can it mean? Have they fled? You all heard the laughter!"

  "There it is again."

  The boisterous and untimely mirth had begun just within the abbot'slodgings, and the doorway at the foot was immediately attacked. Itpresently yielded, and Redwald, who had obtained a good notion of theplace, rushed with his chief villains to the chamber he knew to beDunstan's; yet he began to fear failure, for the absence of all theinmates was disheartening. No, not all, for there was the loud laughterwithin the very chamber of the abbot.

  The door was fastened securely, and while the axes were doing theirdestructive work upon it, the mocking laughter was again heard. Redwaldhad become so enraged that he mentally vowed the direst vengeance uponthe untimely jester, when the door burst open and he rushed in.

  "Where is he? Surely there was some one here?"

  "Who could it be? We all heard the laughter."

  But victim there was none; and searching all the place in vain, they hadto satiate their vengeance by destroying the humble furniture of the abbot.

  What to do next they knew not, and Redwald, deeply mystified, wasreluctantly forced to own his discomfiture, and to prepare to pass thenight in the abbey. Accordingly, his men dispersed in search of food andwine. Some found their way to the buttery; it was but poorly supplied,all the provisions in the place having been given to the poorer pilgrimsby the departing monks. The cellar was not so easily emptied, and suchwine as had been stored up for future use was at once appropriated.

  Redwald and Elfric, having shared the common meal gloomily, were seatedin the abbot's chamber--little did Elfric dream that his brother hadso recently been in the same room--when one of the guards entered,bringing with him a stranger. He turned out to be a neighbouring thane,one of those bitter enemies to Dunstan whom Edwy had planted round themonastery, and he came to give information that he had seen Dunstan withfive companions escaping by the Foss Way.

  Redwald jumped up eagerly. "How long since?" he asked.

  "About two hours, and ten miles off, I was returning home from a distantfarm of mine."

  "Why did you not stop them?"

  "I was too weak for that; they were six to one. I heard you had beenseen coming here by a cowherd, and came to warn you. If you ride fastyou may catch the holy fox yet before he runs to earth; but you must bevery quick."

  "What pace were they riding?"

  "Slowly at that moment; it was up a hill."

  Redwald rushed from the room, crying, "To horse, to horse!" but foundonly a portion of his men awake: the others were mainly drunk andsleeping it off on the floor.

  Cursing their untimely indulgence, he got about a dozen men rapidlymounted on the fleetest horses, taking care Elfric should be one, anddashed off in pursuit of the fugitives.

  Dunstan and his party had ridden some four or five hours, when the moonbecame overcast, and low peals of distant thunder were heard. Theatmosphere was so intensely hot, and the silence of nature sooppressive, that it was evident some convulsion was at hand.

  "Is there any shelter near?"

  "Only a ruined city [xxiv] in the wood on the left hand,but it is a dangerous place to approach after nightfall. They say evilspirits lurk there."

  "They tell that story of every ruined place, be it city, temple, orhouse; and even if it be, we have more cause to dread evil men than evilspirits."

  The guide hesitated no longer, and struck into a bypath, whichpenetrated the depth of the woody marsh through which the Foss Way thenhad its course. After a minute or two it became evident, from thefooting, that they were upon the paved work of a causeway overgrown withweeds and rank herbage; huge mounds showed where fortifications had onceexisted, and shortly, broken pillars and ruined walls appeared atirregular intervals.

  They had little time to look around them, for the storm had come rapidlyup, and the glare of the lightning was incessant, while the rain poureddown in absolute torrents. Before them rose a huge ruin covered with ivyand with the roof partly protecting the interior. It was so large thatthey were able to lead their horses within its protection and wait thecessation of the rain.

  Between the flashes the sky was intensely dark, but they were almostincessant, and revealed the city of the dead in which they had foundrefuge. It was an ancient Welsh town, and in the latter years of thedeadly struggle with the English, had been taken after a protractedresistance. Tradition had not even preserved its name, and only statedthat every living soul had perished in the massacre when the outer wallswere at length stormed and the town given to fire and sword. Thevictors, as was frequently the case, had avoided the spot, preferring tobuild elsewhere, and, like Silchester or Anderida, it had fallen intodesolation such as befell mighty Babylon.

  And now the ignorant rustic peopled its buildings with the imaginaryforms of doleful creatures, and shunned the fatal precincts where oncefamily love and social affections had flourished; where hearts, longmouldered to dust, had beaten with tender affection, where all thelittle circumstances which make up life--the trivial round, the commontask--had gone on beneath the summer's sun or winter's storm, till thegreat convulsion which ended the existence of the whole community.

  Dunstan noticed that his whole party crowded closely together, and whenthe lightning illuminated each face saw that fear had left its visible mark.

  The continuous roar of thunder, the hissing of the descending rain, thewind which blew in angry gusts, prevented all conversation until nearlyan hour had elapsed, when the strife began to diminish. It was a sad andmournful sight to gaze upon the remains of departed greatness when thusilluminated by the electric flash, and easily might the fancy, deceivedby the transient glimpses of things, people the ruins with the shades oftheir departed inhabitants.

  "Father," said Alfred, at length, "who were they who lived here? Do youknow aught about them?"

  "The men whom our ancestors subdued--the Welsh, or British--anunhappy race."

  "Were they heathen?"

  "At one time, but they were converted by the missions from Rome and theEast, of which the earliest was that of St. Joseph of Arimathea to ourown Glastonbury; he may have preached to the very people who lived here,nay, in this very basilica, which, I think, may have been converted intoa church."

  It was indeed the ruin of a basilica wherein they stood, but no tracesurvived to show whether Dunstan's conjecture was correct.

  "It seems strange that God should have permitted them to fall before thesword of our heathen ancestors."

  "Their own historian Gildas, who lies buried at Glastonbury, explainsit. He tells us that such was the corruption of faith and of moralstowards the close of their brief day, that had not the Saxon swordinterposed; plague, pestilence, or famine, or some similar calamity,must have done the fatal work. God grant that we, now that in turn wehave received the message of the Gospel, may be mor
e faithful servants,or similar ruin may, at no distant period, await the Englishman also, asit did the Welshman."

  He sighed deeply, and Alfred echoed the sigh in his heart; he read theabbot's thoughts.

  "Do you believe," said he, after a pause, "that their spirits everrevisit the earth?"

  "I know not; many wise men have thought it possible, and that they mayhaunt the places where they sinned, ever bearing their condemnationwithin them, even while they clothe themselves in semblance of themortal flesh they once wore."

  The whole party shuddered, and Father Guthlac said, deprecatingly:

  "My father, let us not talk of this now. We are too weak to bear it, andthe place is so awful!"

  By this time the wind had made a huge rent in the black clouds overhead,and the moon came suddenly in sight, sailing tranquilly in the azurevoid above, and