Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune Part 18

A loud and vigorous blast of horns was blown, while the greater part of the 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 stoutly was 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, he set the example of applying it to the gate, but without any result save to split a few planks, while the iron framework, designed by Dunstan himself, who was clever at such arts, held as firmly as ever.

Unprovided with other means of forcing it, the besiegers had recourse to fire, and gathering fuel with some difficulty, they piled it against the gate. Shortly the woodwork caught, and the whole gate presently yielded to the action of the fire; the iron bars, loosened by the destruction of the 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's lodgings, and the doorway at the foot was immediately attacked. It presently yielded, and Redwald, who had obtained a good notion of the place, rushed with his chief villains to the chamber he knew to be Dunstan's; yet he began to fear failure, for the absence of all the inmates was disheartening. No, not all, for there was the loud laughter within the very chamber of the abbot.

The door was fastened securely, and while the axes were doing their destructive work upon it, the mocking laughter was again heard. Redwald had become so enraged that he mentally vowed the direst vengeance upon the 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 had to satiate their vengeance by destroying the humble furniture of the abbot.

What to do next they knew not, and Redwald, deeply mystified, was reluctantly forced to own his discomfiture, and to prepare to pa.s.s the night in the abbey. Accordingly, his men dispersed in search of food and wine. Some found their way to the b.u.t.tery; it was but poorly supplied, all the provisions in the place having been given to the poorer pilgrims by the departing monks. The cellar was not so easily emptied, and such wine as had been stored up for future use was at once appropriated.

Redwald and Elfric, having shared the common meal gloomily, were seated in the abbot's chamber--little did Elfric dream that his brother had so 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 the monastery, and he came to give information that he had seen Dunstan with five 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 distant farm of mine."

"Why did you not stop them?"

"I was too weak for that; they were six to one. I heard you had been seen coming here by a cowherd, and came to warn you. If you ride fast you may catch the holy fox yet before he runs to earth; but you must be very 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 found only a portion of his men awake: the others were mainly drunk and sleeping it off on the floor.

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

Dunstan and his party had ridden some four or five hours, when the moon became overcast, and low peals of distant thunder were heard. The atmosphere was so intensely hot, and the silence of nature so oppressive, 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 evil spirits lurk there."

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

The guide hesitated no longer, and struck into a bypath, which penetrated the depth of the woody marsh through which the Foss Way then had its course. After a minute or two it became evident, from the footing, that they were upon the paved work of a causeway overgrown with weeds and rank herbage; huge mounds showed where fortifications had once existed, and shortly, broken pillars and ruined walls appeared at irregular intervals.

They had little time to look around them, for the storm had come rapidly up, and the glare of the lightning was incessant, while the rain poured down in absolute torrents. Before them rose a huge ruin covered with ivy and with the roof partly protecting the interior. It was so large that they were able to lead their horses within its protection and wait the cessation of the rain.

Between the flashes the sky was intensely dark, but they were almost incessant, and revealed the city of the dead in which they had found refuge. It was an ancient Welsh town, and in the latter years of the deadly struggle with the English, had been taken after a protracted resistance. Tradition had not even preserved its name, and only stated that every living soul had perished in the ma.s.sacre when the outer walls were at length stormed and the town given to fire and sword. The victors, as was frequently the case, had avoided the spot, preferring to build elsewhere, and, like Silchester or Anderida, it had fallen into desolation such as befell mighty Babylon.

And now the ignorant rustic peopled its buildings with the imaginary forms of doleful creatures, and shunned the fatal precincts where once family love and social affections had flourished; where hearts, long mouldered to dust, had beaten with tender affection, where all the little circ.u.mstances which make up life--the trivial round, the common task--had gone on beneath the summer's sun or winter's storm, till the great convulsion which ended the existence of the whole community.

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

The continuous roar of thunder, the hissing of the descending rain, the wind which blew in angry gusts, prevented all conversation until nearly an hour had elapsed, when the strife began to diminish. It was a sad and mournful sight to gaze upon the remains of departed greatness when thus illuminated by the electric flash, and easily might the fancy, deceived by the transient glimpses of things, people the ruins with the shades of their departed inhabitants.

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

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

"Were they heathen?"

"At one time, but they were converted by the missions from Rome and the East, of which the earliest was that of St. Joseph of Arimathea to our own Glas...o...b..ry; he may have preached to the very people who lived here, nay, in this very basilica, which, I think, may have been converted into a church."

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

"It seems strange that G.o.d should have permitted them to fall before the sword of our heathen ancestors."

"Their own historian Gildas, who lies buried at Glas...o...b..ry, explains it. He tells us that such was the corruption of faith and of morals towards the close of their brief day, that had not the Saxon sword interposed; plague, pestilence, or famine, or some similar calamity, must have done the fatal work. G.o.d grant that we, now that in turn we have received the message of the Gospel, may be more faithful servants, or similar ruin may, at no distant period, await the Englishman also, as it did the Welshman."

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

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

"I know not; many wise men have thought it possible, and that they may haunt the places where they sinned, ever bearing their condemnation within them, even while they clothe themselves in semblance of the mortal 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, and the 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 azure void above, and casting her beams on the ruins, as she had once cast them on the beauteous city; its basilicas, palaces, and temples yet standing.

At this moment their guide came hastily to them.