by A. D. Crake
that brilliant sky, thesame stars looked down peacefully upon his home, where all slept sweetlyunder 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 wanderedunder the herdsman's care to their distant pastures; the subduedtinkling of the sheep bells met the ear, and the other subdued soundswhich soothe the air on a summer's day; and so the hours fled by, and noone would have dreamed that, not twenty miles away, man met man in thefierce and deadly struggle of war.
When the reapers assembled for their midday meal, they discussed themerits of the quarrel, and nearly all those who had been brought underthe eye of "Edwy the Fair" were eager in pleading his cause, and tryingto find some extenuation of his misdeeds in the matter of the illegalmarriage, for such it was, from the mildest point of view; and scarcelya voice was raised on the opposite side, until Ella drew near the sceneof conversation, and observed that "while God forbid they should judgethe matter harshly, yet law was law, and right was right, and abeautiful 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 Iwished I could but lay down sword and lance to take more innocentweapons in hand, and to spend my declining days 'mid scenes like these."
"Indeed!" said Ella. "It is generally thought that men whose trade iswar love their calling."
"Yes; sometimes the fierce din of battle seems a pastime fit for thegods, 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 weremuch dreaded. An Englishman was always ready to take up arms whenlawfully called by his feudal superior, or when home or civil rightswere in danger, but he generally laid them down and returned to hisfields with joy; hence the rustics looked upon a man like Redwald withmuch undisguised curiosity.
"Think you we shall soon hear from the contending parties?" askedAlfred, who was, as usual, in attendance upon his father.
"Perhaps by nightfall; one of my men has just returned to tell me thatthe king's progress was stopped by an entrenched camp of the rebels, andthat 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 forceshave gained the victory he will speed hither as fast as four legs canbring him; we shall probably hear by eventide."
It is needless to say how every one panted for the decisive news. Ellaand Alfred soon returned to the castle, and Redwald took his horse, androde out, as he said, to meet the messenger.
The hours seemed to pass more slowly; the sun drew near the west, theshadows lengthened; and Ella, with the lady Edith, Alfred, Edgitha, andall the members of the little society, could hardly bend their minds toany occupation, mental or physical. Elfric was ever in their thoughts.
"O Ella!" said his wife, "this suspense is very hard to bear; I long tohear about our boy."
The mother's heart was bound up in him, as if there were no other lifein danger that day; Edwy or Edgar, it was little to her in comparisonwith her longing for her first-born son.
"He is in God's Hands, dearest!" returned her husband; "and in betterHands than ours."
Well might the thoughts of the lady Edith be concentrated on the crisisbefore her. She had borne, with a mother's wounded heart, the separationof three years, and now it was a question of a few short hours whethershe should ever see him again or not. Now fancy painted him wounded, naydying, on the bloodstained field; now it impelled her to sally forthtowards the scene, as though her feeble strength could bear her to him.Now she sought the chapel, and found refuge in prayer. She had foundrefuge many many hours of that eventful day, but especially sinceRedwald had borne the news of the imminent battle.
At length the long suspense was ended. Redwald was seen riding at fullspeed towards the castle, followed by the long-expected messenger.
"Victory! victory!" he cried; "the rebels are defeated; the king shallenjoy 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--happytears of joy.
The messenger who followed Redwald brought detailed accounts of theevent. According to his statements it appeared that the king had brokenthrough the hostile entrenchment, and had scattered their forces in thefirst attack. The messenger particularly asserted that he had seenElfric, and had been charged with the fondest messages for home, wherethe youth hoped to be in a few days at the latest, seeing there was nolonger 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 thankGod;" and they went together to the chapel which had witnessed so manyearnest prayers that day--now, they believed, so fully answered.
All gloom and despondency seemed removed, and Ella went forth to walkalone in the woods, to meditate in silence on the goodness of God.Nearly each evening this had been his habit. The woods, he said, wereGod's first temples, and when alone he best raised his heart from natureto nature's God.
His thoughts were happy that evening: his first-born boy would berestored to him, and, like the father in the Gospels, he longed toembrace the prodigal, and to tell him that all was forgiven. But heschooled himself to patience, and many a fervent thanksgiving did heoffer 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. Thetrees grew thickly behind and before him, on each side of the glade,which terminated at no great distance in the heart of the pathlessforest, so that no occasional wayfarer would be likely to pass that way.
There he reposed, until a gentle slumber stole over him and buried allhis senses in oblivion.
The day was nearly spent, the light clouds which still reflected thesun's ruddy glow were fast fading into a grey neutral tint, and darknesswas approaching. Once a timid deer passed along the glade, and startedas it beheld the sleeping form, then went on, but started yet moreviolently as it passed a thicket on the opposite side. The night breezehad arisen and was blowing freshly; but still the old man slept on, asthough he slept that sleep from which none shall awaken until thearchangel's trump.
Meanwhile they grew uneasy at the hall over his prolonged absence, andat length Alfred started to find his father, beginning to fear that theexcitement of the day had been too great for him, and that he might needassistance. He knew the favourite glade wherein the aged thane was wontto walk, and the mossy bank whereon he frequently reposed, so he lost notime, but bent his steps directly for the spot.
As he drew near, he saw his father lying on the bank beneath the oak asstill in sound sleep, and marvelled that the chilly air of the eveninghad not awoke him. He was not wont to sleep thus soundly. He approachedclosely, 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. Alfredbecame seriously alarmed, but his alarm changed suddenly into dreadcertainty. The feathered shaft of an arrow met his eye, dimly seen inthe 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 firstcontinued 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 salutehim 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 thecountenance. The weapon had pierced through the heart; death had beeninstantaneous, and the sleeper had passed from the sleep of this earthto that which is sweetly called "sleep in the Lord," without a struggleor a pang.
His heart full of joy and thanksgiving, he had gone to carry his tributeof praise to the very throne of God.
When the first paroxysm of pain and grief was over, the necessity ofsummoning some further aid, of bearing the sad news to his home, presseditself upon the mind of Alfred, and he took his homeward road alone, asif he hardly knew what he was doing, but simply obeyed instinct. Arrivedthere, he could not tell his mother or sister; he only sought thechamberlain and the steward, and