Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune Part 32

"O father," he cried; "neglect not longer to make your peace with a long-suffering G.o.d; even in this eleventh hour He will not reject the penitent."

He was interrupted by the entrance of Edmund, his half-brother, whom he feared, because he could not understand so different a nature.

"Our father has long pined for you," he said, in a timid voice; "I fear you are too late, and that he will hardly know you."

"I have ridden from Aescendune day and night since the news of his danger was brought me.

"Father," he said, as he bent over the bed, "do you not know me?"

The dying man raised himself up and looked him full in the face, and a look of recognition came slowly.

"Edmund!" he said, "I am so glad, you will protect me; take your battle-axe, you are strong. Sigeferth and Morcar, whom Edric slew at Oxford, have been here, and they said they would come back and drag me with them to some judgment seat; now take thine axe, Edmund, my son, and slay them when they enter; they want killing again."

A look of indescribable pain pa.s.sed over the features of Edmund.

The door opened, and Edward left the room after a conference with the physician, who sat in a corner of the room compounding drugs at a small table; a few minutes pa.s.sed in silence, when he returned and held the door open for the bishop of London, who entered, bearing the viatic.u.m, as the last communion of the sick was then called, and attended by an acolyte, who bore a lighted taper before him and carried a bell.

The king rose up in his bed, glared fixedly at the prelate, and then shrieked aloud:

"St. Brice! St. Brice! art thou come again? What dost thou glare at me for? 'Twas not I who defiled thy festival with blood. It was Edric, Edric! Why does he not come to answer for his own sin?"

"If he did, I would brain him," muttered Edmund.

"There! do not glare upon me. Hast thou brought me the blood of the victims to drink? Ah! there is Gunhilda. What right hast thou to complain if I slew thee, which I did not, at least not with my own hands: thy brother Sweyn has slain thousands. I did not at least kill my father; I have only disgraced his name, as you will say.

"O Edmund! Edmund! protect me."

"My son," said the bishop, in a deep calm voice, which seemed to still the ravings of the king, "think of thy sins, repent, confess; the Church hath power to loose in her Lord's name, Who came to save sinners."

"Yes, father, heed him," said Edward. "Father, you are dying, the leech says; you have not a day to live. Waste not the precious hours."

The patient sank back upon his bed, and for a few minutes only the sound of his breathing could be heard; the difficulty with which he drew his breath seemed to increase each moment.

The bishop held the crucifix before his eyes.

"Gaze, my son," said he, "at the emblem of Him who died that thou mightest live, and say, 'O my G.o.d, I put Thy most pitiful pa.s.sion between Thee and my sins!'"

"Yes, father, hearken," said Edward.

"I bethink me now that Gunhilda clung to the crucifix, and said she was a Christian. But what of that? She was a Dane, and they did right in dragging her from it and slaying her."

"My son, my son, you throw away your salvation!" cried the bishop.

"Father, show him the viatic.u.m," said Emma.

"It is useless; without repentance and faith 'twould but increase--" and the prelate paused. "Let us pray. It is all we can do."

And all present knelt round the bed, while the plaintive cry arose from the lips of the prelate, and was echoed from all around:

"Kyrie eleeson: Christe eleeson: kyrie eleeson."

And so the litany for the dying rolled solemnly along, with its intense burning words of supplication, its deep agony of prayer, its loving earnestness of intercession. But upon the dying sinner's ears it fell as an echo of the long, long past; of that day when the litany arose before his coronation at Kingston, and the prophetic curse of Dunstan.

"Listen!" he said. "I hear the voice of Dunstan.

"Oh, why didst thou lay thy curse upon me? Did I murder my brother Edward? Nay, 'twas my cruel mother, who murdered her own husband that she might become queen. Her sins are visited upon me. Nay, recall thy curse. Alas! it is uttered in thunders before the eternal judgment seat.

"See, they come to drag me thither; they all come--Edward; the victims whom I slew sixteen years agone in c.u.mbria; the slain on St. Brice's day; Elfhelm of Shrewsbury and his sons, with their empty sockets, and their eyes hanging down; Sigeferth, Morcar, and a thousand others. See, Dunstan bids them all await me at the judgment seat. I will not come; nay, they drag me.

"Edric, wilt thou not answer for me now? Accursed be thy name, accursed!"

His frightful maledictions overpowered the supplications around his bed; but they died away in silence--silence so long continued, that suspicion soon became certainty.

Ethelred the Unready was dead.

"We must leave him to G.o.d's mercy," said the bishop, as he closed the eyes, while the wife and children of the unhappy king sobbed around. "He knoweth whereof we are made; He remembereth that we are but dust."

Yet he trembled as he spoke, and, kneeling down, completed with faltering voice the office for the commendation of the departed soul.

CHAPTER XX. THE MIDNIGHT FLIGHT.

So soon as the news of the death of Ethelred travelled abroad, the bishops, abbots, ealdormen, and thanes of southern England, despairing of the cause of the house of Cerdic, met together at Southampton, and renouncing Ethelred and his descendants, elected Canute to be their king, while he swore that both in things spiritual and temporal he would maintain their liberties.

But the citizens of London were of n.o.bler mould, and, disdaining submission, chose Edmund to be their king. A council was at once held, and it became apparent that the allegiance of the greater part of Wess.e.x depended upon Edmund's prompt appearance amongst them, while, on the other hand, the rapid approach of Canute made his presence in the city very essential to the safety of the inhabitants.

Up rose a n.o.ble thane, and spake his mind.

"Surely we can defend our own city until the valiant Edmund brings us aid. We have kept off Canute before, and his father before him, and we can do as much again. Meanwhile Edmund will soon have all Wess.e.x at his back, and Canute will find his match for once."

The words of the gallant speaker found their echo in many a breast, and it was decided that Edmund should be advised to hurry into Wess.e.x, and leave London to defend itself.

A deputation from the council at once waited upon Edmund, and in the name of the city, and, as they took the liberty of adding, of every true man in England, they proferred him his father's crown. Like the citizens of a certain modern capital, they const.i.tuted themselves the representatives of the nation.

Edmund, who certainly did not lack confidence, and who could not help knowing that he alone was able to cope with the Danes, took scant time to consider their proposal.

"I accept the crown," he said; "a th.o.r.n.y one it is like to prove, but I thank you for your love and trust."

In the course of a day or two Ethelred the Unready was buried by Archbishop Lyfing in St. Paul's minster, with the a.s.sistance of the cathedral body. Emma and her children, as also Edwy, the son of Ethelred by his first wife, were the chief mourners, nay, the only real ones. Most men felt as when a cloud pa.s.ses away. The sad procession pa.s.sed through the streets, the people flocked into the church, and in the presence of all the "wise men" of London, they solemnly committed the frail tabernacle in which the living spirit had sinned and suffered to the parent earth, where the rush and roar of a mighty city should ever peal around it.

A few days later the archbishop was called upon to perform a very different ceremony, the coronation of King Edmund, which also took place in St. Paul's Cathedral, amidst tears of joy, and cries which even the sanct.i.ty of the place could not wholly restrain, "G.o.d bless King Edmund!" The solemn oath of fidelity was administered, and when all was over, with mingled tears and acclamations, those who had met to bury the late king greeted with joy his son and successor.

It yet remained to be seen whether the choice of the realm would ratify this decisive step on the part of the citizens of London.

Emma, the queen dowager, was deeply mortified, even while she confessed the heritage was hardly worth having. Still her boy Alfred seemed slighted by the choice, and she left England at once, with Alfred and Edward, for Normandy, while Elgitha departed secretly from London to join her husband Edric, and tell him all that had been done.