The King's Sons by George Manville Fenn (popular books to read .txt) 📗
- Author: George Manville Fenn
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The Danes, he sent word, were in great force, and more and more of their war-galleys kept coming up the river, the occupants slaying and destroying wherever they landed.
It was an anxious time for Queen Osburga, whose eyes often looked red as if she had been weeping, while her cheeks grew white and thin, and she shut herself up a great deal, so that no one should see her.
The men-folk had nearly all departed from the place, and there was no one to exercise authority, so, as soon as the four boys had recovered from their disappointment at not being allowed to go with the little army their father led, they began to look upon it as a free and jovial time in which they could do whatever pleased them most, and this they did to such an extent that poor Swythe’s face became full of lines, and after trying in vain to make his pupils continue their studies, and putting up with a great amount of disobedience on their part, he began to reproach them in his mild way. He was one of the gentlest and most amiable of men, but the wilfulness of the boys had at length compelled him to protest.
“It seems so shocking,” he said, rather piteously. “I only beg and pray of you all, now that the King is at the war and our dear lady the Queen in such sorrow and trouble, to try your best to get on with your lessons, so that the King may feel proud of his sons when he returns. Ethelbald laughs and mocks at me; Ethelbert says he will not study; Ethelred follows his example; and Alfred, of whom I expected better things, has just told me he does not mind a bit what I say, and that he will do just as he likes.”
“And so he shall!” said Bald boldly. “That is, he shall do as I like. Father has gone to fight the Danes, and while he’s away, as I am the eldest, I shall act in his place, and shall expect everyone to obey me as if I were King.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” cried Swythe, looking shocked. “Our dear lady Osburga is Queen, and everyone must obey her.”
“Do not speak of that to me!” cried Ethelbald. “She is only a woman, and cannot manage the men. Why, if father should be killed—”
“Which Heaven forbid!” cried Swythe, with a look of horror on his face. “Oh, dear me, Ethelbald, what a thing for you to say! Shocking, my dear boy.”
“I don’t want him to be killed,” cried Bald. “Of course not. But if he should be killed I shall become King directly, and I shall order everybody to do what I like, and no one will dare to say a word. The first thing I shall do,” he continued, with a laugh, “will be to send old Swythe away, so that there will be no more learning Latin, boys, and no crabbing fingers up to hold tens.”
The three brothers said something with a shout which in those days answered to “Hooray!” and then Alfred, who had shouted the loudest, being the youngest and ready to think brother Bald’s words very brave and fine, suddenly began to feel uncomfortable; for he had a certain amount of fear of the monk his master, and felt a kind of shrinking from rebelling against his authority. He glanced sidewise at Father Swythe and saw that his eyes glimmered in a peculiar way as if water was rising in them. Directly afterwards his heart felt a little sore, and a sense of shame began to trouble him, for there was no mistake: Father Swythe’s eyes were wet and his voice sounded hoarse and strange as he said sadly:
“You would not send me away, Ethelbald? I have always tried to do my duty to the young sons of my lord the King and have tried to make them grow into scholarly princes fit to rule the land.”
“Bah! We do not want to be scholarly!” cried Bald scornfully. “We want to learn to be brave soldiers, so that we can go forth and beat the Danes.”
“Yes,” said the monk sadly; “but, my boys, the warrior who’s a scholar as well is more brave and noble and merciful, and his name is one that lives longer in the land. Ah, well, you have made me very sad. I had hoped that I had done something to make the sons of my dear lady the Queen love me; but if they do not it would be better perhaps that I should go back to my cell at the old abbey, where I could be happy with my parchments and my pens.”
The old monk sighed and turned away; he appeared to have received a shock which had broken his heart.
The three elder boys were laughing and joking about the matter, and suddenly Ethelbald cried out:
“Come along, boys! Bows and arrows. I saw a roebuck feeding outside the oak wood. Here, we’ll take spears with us too to-day. Let old Swythe teach the swineherds’ boys to read Latin instead of minding the little pigs hunting for acorns.”
“No spears left!” said Bert.
“The men took them all when they went away!” said Red.
“Then let’s go without!” said Bald.
Alfred said nothing; he was watching the monk going slowly and sadly away, and somehow the little figure did not look comic to him then, even if it was short and plump and round.
“Where’s Fred?” cried Bald the next minute, when the boys were getting their bows and quivers.
His brothers could not tell him where Alfred was; so after a few moments pause, Ethelbald said:
“Never mind: let’s go without him. Hers too young and weak to do what we do. Let him stay behind and learn Latin with old Swythe.”
“He did go out after him,” said Bert.
“Yes, I saw him. I remember now,” cried Red.
His last words were almost smothered by his eldest brother, who raised to his lips a curling cow-horn tipped with a copper mouthpiece and strengthened with a ring at the head end. He proceeded to blow into it, but failed to produce anything more huntsman-like than a kind of bray such as might be uttered by a jackass suffering from a sore-throat.
But it was good enough to send all the dogs about the place frantic, and away the three boys went, followed by a pack of hounds, some of which would have been as ready to tackle wolf or boar as to dash after the lordly stag or the big-eyed, prong-horned, graceful roes of which there were many about the forest lands which surrounded the King’s home.
Alfred, from one of the upper windows, saw them go away in triumph and longed to join them; but he did not do so, for there was sorrow in his heart, and for the first time in his young life he had begun to think deeply about the words spoken by his brother and those uttered so sadly and reproachfully by the simple-hearted, gentle monk.
It was in the afternoon of that same day that young Alfred loitered about the place feeling very lonely and miserable and, truth to tell, repentant because he had not joined his brothers in the glorious chase they must be having. Taken altogether, he felt very miserable.
But he was not alone in that, for, going to the window, he saw Father Swythe walking slowly down the garden amongst the Queen’s flower and herb beds, with his head bowed down and his hands behind him, looking unhappy in the extreme.
Alfred turned away, feeling guilty, and went into another room, when, to his surprise, he came suddenly upon Osburga, his mother, seated alone by her embroidery-frame, her needle and silk in her hands, but not at work.
She was sitting back thinking, with the tears slowly trickling down her cheeks.
Alfred felt that this was a most miserable day, and, with his heart feeling more sore than ever, he crept softly behind his mother’s chair and, quite unobserved, sank down upon his knees to lay his brown and ruddy cheek against her hand.
The Queen started slightly, and then, raising her hand, she laid it upon Alfred’s fair, curly locks and began to smoothe them.
“Why are you crying, mother?” whispered the boy at last, as he felt that he must say something, although he knew perfectly well the reason of his mother’s sorrow.
“I am crying, Fred,” she said, in a deep sad voice, “because the days go by and no messenger comes to tell me how the King your father fares; and more tears came, my boy, because now that I am in such pain and sorrow I find that my sons, instead of trying to be wise and thoughtful of their duties, grow more wild and wilful every day.”
Alfred drew a deep catching breath which was first cousin to a sob, and the Queen went on:
“I want them to grow up wise and good, and I find that not only do they think of nothing except their own selfish ends, but they behave ill to one of the gentlest, kindest, and best of men—one who is as wise and learned as he is modest and womanly at heart. It makes mine sore, my son, at such a time as this, for there is nothing better nor greater than wisdom, my boy, and he who possesses it leads a double life whose pleasures are without end. But I am in no mood to scold and reproach you, Fred. You are the youngest and least to blame. Still, I had looked for better things of you all than that I should hear that you openly defy Father Swythe, and have made him come to me to say that he can do no more, and to ask to be dismissed. There, Fred, leave me now. I will talk to your brothers when they return from the chase.”
Alfred’s lips were apart, ready to utter words of repentance; but they seemed to stick on the way, leaving him dumb.
Feeling more miserable than ever, he stole out, looking guilty and wretched, and went straight into the garden for a reason of his own.
But it was not to pick flowers or to gather fruit. He wanted to see the gentle old monk; for he felt as if he could say to him what he could not utter to the Queen. But there was another disappointment awaiting him. Swythe was not there, and the boy stamped his foot angrily.
“Oh,” he said, half aloud and angrily, “how unlucky I am!”
Just then there came as if out of one of the low windows looking upon the garden a deep-toned sound such as might have been made by a very big and musical bee, and the boy’s face brightened as he turned and made for the door, crossed the hall, and then went down a stone passage, to stop at a door, whose latch he lifted gently, and looked in, letting out at once the full deep tones he had heard in the garden floating out of the open window.
There was Swythe sitting at a low table beneath the window with his back to him, singing a portion of a chant whose sweet deep tones seemed to chain the boy to the spot, as he listened with a very pleasurable sensation, and watched the monk busily turning a big flattened pebble stone round and round as if grinding something black upon a square of smoothly-polished slab.
Alfred watched eagerly, and his eyes wandered about the cell-like room devoted to Swythe—a very plain and homely place, with a stool or two and a large table beneath the window, while one side was taken up by the simple pallet upon which the monk slept.
All at once the chanting ceased, the grinding came to
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