The Dragon and the Raven; Or, The Days of King Alfred Read online

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  THE DRAGON AND THE RAVEN:

  Or The Days of King Alfred

  By

  G. A. Henty

  C O N T E N T S

  PREFACE I. THE FUGITIVES II. THE BATTLE OF KESTEVEN III. THE MASSACRE AT CROYLAND IV. THE INVASION OF WESSEX V. A DISCIPLINED BAND VI. THE SAXON FORT VII. THE DRAGON VIII. THE CRUISE OF THE DRAGON IX. A PRISONER X. THE COMBAT XI. THE ISLE OF ATHELNEY XII. FOUR YEARS OF PEACE XIII. THE SIEGE OF PARIS XIV. THE REPULSE OF THE NORSEMEN XV. FRIENDS IN TROUBLE XVI. FREDA XVII. A LONG CHASE XVIII. FREDA DISCOVERED XIX. UNITED

  PREFACE

  MY DEAR LADS,

  Living in the present days of peace and tranquillity it is difficult topicture the life of our ancestors in the days of King Alfred, when thewhole country was for years overrun by hordes of pagan barbarians, whoslaughtered, plundered, and destroyed at will. You may gain, perhaps, afair conception of the state of things if you imagine that at the timeof the great mutiny the English population of India approached that ofthe natives, and that the mutiny was everywhere triumphant. Thewholesale massacres and outrages which would in such a case have beeninflicted upon the conquered whites could be no worse than thosesuffered by the Saxons at the hands of the Danes. From this terriblestate of subjection and suffering the Saxons were rescued by theprudence, the patience, the valour and wisdom of King Alfred. In allsubsequent ages England has produced no single man who united inhimself so many great qualities as did this first of great Englishmen.He was learned, wise, brave, prudent, and pious; devoted to his people,clement to his conquered enemies. He was as great in peace as in war;and yet few English boys know more than a faint outline of the eventsof Alfred's reign--events which have exercised an influence upon thewhole future of the English people. School histories pass briefly overthem; and the incident of the burned cake is that which is, of all theactions of a great and glorious reign, the most prominent in boys'minds. In this story I have tried to supply the deficiency. Fortunatelyin the Saxon Chronicles and in the life of King Alfred written by hisfriend and counsellor Asser, we have a trustworthy account of theevents and battles which first laid Wessex prostrate beneath the footof the Danes, and finally freed England for many years from theinvaders. These histories I have faithfully followed. The account ofthe siege of Paris is taken from a very full and detailed history ofthat event by the Abbe D'Abbon, who was a witness of the scenes hedescribed.

  Yours sincerely, G. A. HENTY

  CHAPTER I: THE FUGITIVES

  A low hut built of turf roughly thatched with rushes and standing onthe highest spot of some slightly raised ground. It was surrounded by atangled growth of bushes and low trees, through which a narrow andwinding path gave admission to the narrow space on which the hut stood.The ground sloped rapidly. Twenty yards from the house the treesceased, and a rank vegetation of reeds and rushes took the place of thebushes, and the ground became soft and swampy. A little further poolsof stagnant water appeared among the rushes, and the path abruptlystopped at the edge of a stagnant swamp, though the passage could befollowed by the eye for some distance among the tall rushes. The hut,in fact, stood on a hummock in the midst of a wide swamp where thewater sometimes deepened into lakes connected by sluggish streams.

  On the open spaces of water herons stalked near the margin, and greatflocks of wild-fowl dotted the surface. Other signs of life there werenone, although a sharp eye might have detected light threads of smokecurling up here and there from spots where the ground rose somewhatabove the general level. These slight elevations, however, were notvisible to the eye, for the herbage here grew shorter than on the lowerand wetter ground, and the land apparently stretched away for a vastdistance in a dead flat--a rush-covered swamp, broken only here andthere by patches of bushes and low trees.

  The little hut was situated in the very heart of the fen country, nowdrained and cultivated, but in the year 870 untouched by the hand ofman, the haunt of wild-fowl and human fugitives. At the door of the hutstood a lad some fourteen years old. His only garment was a shortsleeveless tunic girded in at the waist, his arms and legs were bare;his head was uncovered, and his hair fell in masses on his shoulders.In his hand he held a short spear, and leaning against the wall of thehut close at hand was a bow and quiver of arrows. The lad looked at thesun, which was sinking towards the horizon.

  "Father is late," he said. "I trust that no harm has come to him andEgbert. He said he would return to-day without fail; he said three orfour days, and this is the fourth. It is dull work here alone. Youthink so, Wolf, don't you, old fellow? And it is worse for you than itis for me, pent up on this hummock of ground with scarce room tostretch your limbs."

  A great wolf-hound, who was lying with his head between his paws by theembers of a fire in the centre of the hut, raised his head on beingaddressed, and uttered a low howl indicative of his agreement with hismaster's opinion and his disgust at his present place of abode.

  "Never mind, old fellow," the boy continued, "we sha'n't be here long,I hope, and then you shall go with me in the woods again and hunt thewolves to your heart's content." The great hound gave a lazy wag of histail. "And now, Wolf, I must go. You lie here and guard the hut while Iam away. Not that you are likely to have any strangers to call in myabsence."

  The dog rose and stretched himself, and followed his master down thepath until it terminated at the edge of the water. Here he gave a lowwhimper as the lad stepped in and waded through the water; then turninghe walked back to the hut and threw himself down at the door. The boyproceeded for some thirty or forty yards through the water, then pausedand pushed aside the wall of rushes which bordered the passage, andpulled out a boat which was floating among them.

  It was constructed of osier rods neatly woven together into a sort ofbasket-work, and covered with an untanned hide with the hairy side in.It was nearly oval in shape, and resembled a great bowl some three feetand a half wide and a foot longer. A broad paddle with a long handlelay in it, and the boy, getting into it and standing erect in themiddle paddled down the strip of water which a hundred yards furtheropened out into a broad half a mile long and four or five hundred yardswide. Beyond moving slowly away as the coracle approached them, thewater-fowl paid but little heed to its appearance.

  The boy paddled to the end of the broad, whence a passage, throughwhich flowed a stream so sluggish that its current could scarce bedetected, led into the next sheet of water. Across the entrance to thispassage floated some bundles of light rushes. These the boy drew outone by one. Attached to each was a piece of cord which, being pulledupon, brought to the surface a large cage, constructed somewhat on theplan of a modern eel or lobster pot. They were baited by pieces of deadfish, and from them the boy extracted half a score of eels and as manyfish of different kinds.

  "Not a bad haul," he said as he lowered the cages to the bottom again."Now let us see what we have got in our pen."

  He paddled a short way along the broad to a point where a little laneof water ran up through the rushes. This narrowed rapidly and the ladgot out from his boat into the water, as the coracle could proceed nofurther between the lines of rushes. The water was knee-deep and thebottom soft and oozy. At the end of the creek it narrowed until therushes were but a foot apart. They were bent over here, as it wouldseem to a superficial observer naturally; but a close examination wouldshow that those facing each other were tied together where they crossedat a distance of a couple of feet above the water, forming a sort oftunnel. Two feet farther on this ceased, and the rushes were succeededby lines of strong osier withies, a
n inch or two apart, arched over andfastened together. At this point was a sort of hanging door formed ofrushes backed with osiers, and so arranged that at the slightest pushfrom without the door lifted and enabled a wild-fowl to pass under, butdropping behind it prevented its exit. The osier tunnel widened out toa sort of inverted basket three feet in diameter.

  On the surface of the creek floated some grain which had been scatteredthere the evening before as a bait. The lad left the creek before hegot to the narrower part, and, making a small circuit in the swamp,came down upon the pen.

  "Good!" he said, "I am in luck to-day; here are three fine ducks."

  Bending the yielding osiers aside, he drew out the ducks one by one,wrung their necks, and passing their heads through his girdle, made hisway again to the coracle. Then he scattered another handful or two ofgrain on the water, sparingly near the mouth of the creek, but morethickly at the entrance to the trap, and then paddled back again by theway he had come.

  Almost noiselessly as he dipped the paddle in the water, the hound'squick ear had caught the sound, and he was standing at the edge of theswamp, wagging his tail in dignified welcome as his master stepped onto dry land.

  "There, Wolf, what do you think of that? A good score of eels and fishand three fine wild ducks. That means bones for you with your mealto-night--not to satisfy your hunger, you know, for they would not beof much use in that way, but to give a flavour to your supper. Now letus make the fire up and pluck the birds, for I warrant me that fatherand Egbert, if they return this evening, will be sharp-set. There arethe cakes to bake too, so you see there is work for the next hour ortwo."

  The sun had set now, and the flames, dancing up as the boy threw anarmful of dry wood on the fire, gave the hut a more cheerfulappearance. For some time the lad busied himself with preparation forsupper. The three ducks were plucked in readiness for putting over thefire should they be required; cakes of coarse rye-flour were made andplaced in the red ashes of the fire; and then the lad threw himselfdown by the side of the dog.

  "No, Wolf, it is no use your looking at those ducks. I am not going toroast them if no one comes; I have got half a one left from dinner."After sitting quiet for half an hour the dog suddenly raised himselfinto a sitting position, with ears erect and muzzle pointed towards thedoor; then he gave a low whine, and his tail began to beat the groundrapidly.

  "What! do you hear them, old fellow?" the boy said, leaping to hisfeet. "I wish my ears were as sharp as yours are, Wolf; there would beno fear then of being caught asleep. Come on, old boy, let us go andmeet them."

  It was some minutes after he reached the edge of the swamp before theboy could hear the sounds which the quick ears of the hound haddetected. Then he heard a faint splashing noise, and a minute or twolater two figures were seen wading through the water.

  "Welcome back, father," the lad cried. "I was beginning to be anxiousabout you, for here we are at the end of the fourth day."

  "I did not name any hour, Edmund," the boy's father said, as he steppedfrom the water, "but I own that I did not reckon upon being so late;but in truth Egbert and I missed our way in the windings of theseswamps, and should not have been back to-night had we not luckilyfallen upon a man fishing, who was able to put us right. You have gotsome supper, I hope, for Egbert and I are as hungry as wolves, for wehave had nothing since we started before sunrise."

  "I have plenty to eat, father; but you will have to wait till it iscooked, for it was no use putting it over the fire until I knew thatyou would return; but there is a good fire, and you will not have towait long. And how has it fared with you, and what is the news?"

  "The news is bad, Edmund. The Danes are ever receiving reinforcementsfrom Mercia, and scarce a day passes but fresh bands arrive atThetford, and I fear that ere long East Anglia, like Northumbria, willfall into their clutches. Nay, unless we soon make head against themthey will come to occupy all the island, just as did our forefathers."

  "That were shame indeed," Edmund exclaimed. "We know that the peopleconquered by our ancestors were unwarlike and cowardly; but it would beshame indeed were we Saxons so to be overcome by the Danes, seeingmoreover that we have the help of God, being Christians, while theDanes are pagans and idolaters."

  "Nevertheless, my son, for the last five years these heathen have beenmasters of Northumbria, have wasted the whole country, and haveplundered and destroyed the churches and monasteries. At present theyhave but made a beginning here in East Anglia; but if they continue toflock in they will soon overrun the whole country, instead of having,as at present, a mere foothold near the rivers except for those whohave come down to Thetford. We have been among the first sufferers,seeing that our lands lie round Thetford, and hitherto I have hopedthat there would be a general rising against these invaders; but theking is indolent and unwarlike, and I see that he will not arousehimself and call his ealdormen and thanes together for a united effortuntil it is too late. Already from the north the Danes are flockingdown into Mercia, and although the advent of the West Saxons to the aidof the King of Mercia forced them to retreat for a while, I doubt notthat they will soon pour down again."

  "'Tis a pity, father, that the Saxons are not all under one leading;then we might surely defend England against the Danes. If the peopledid but rise and fall upon each band of Northmen as they arrived theywould get no footing among us."

  "Yes," the father replied, "it is the unhappy divisions between theSaxon kingdoms which have enabled the Danes to get so firm a footing inthe land. Our only hope now lies in the West Saxons. Until lately theywere at feud with Mercia; but the royal families are now related bymarriage, seeing that the King of Mercia is wedded to a West Saxonprincess, and that Alfred, the West Saxon king's brother and heir tothe throne, has lately espoused one of the royal blood of Mercia. Thefact that they marched at the call of the King of Mercia and drove theDanes from Nottingham shows that the West Saxon princes are alive tothe common danger of the country, and if they are but joined heartilyby our people of East Anglia and the Mercians, they may yet succeed inchecking the progress of these heathen. And now, Edmund, as we see nohope of any general effort to drive the Danes off our coasts, 'tisuseless for us to lurk here longer. I propose to-morrow, then, tojourney north into Lincolnshire, to the Abbey of Croyland, where, asyou know, my brother Theodore is the abbot; there we can rest in peacefor a time, and watch the progress of events. If we hear that thepeople of these parts are aroused from their lethargy, we will comeback and fight for our home and lands; if not, I will no longer stay inEast Anglia, which I see is destined to fall piecemeal into the handsof the Danes; but we will journey down to Somerset, and I will prayKing Ethelbert to assign me lands there, and to take me as his thane."

  While they had been thus talking Egbert had been broiling the eels andwild ducks over the fire. He was a freeman, and a distant relation ofEdmund's father, Eldred, who was an ealdorman in West Norfolk, hislands lying beyond Thetford, and upon whom, therefore, the first bruntof the Danish invasion from Mercia had fallen. He had made a stoutresistance, and assembling his people had given battle to the invaders.These, however, were too strong and numerous, and his force having beenscattered and dispersed, he had sought refuge with Egbert and his sonin the fen country. Here he had remained for two months in hopes thatsome general effort would be made to drive back the Danes; but beingnow convinced that at present the Angles were too disunited to join ina common effort, he determined to retire for a while from the scene.

  "I suppose, father," Edmund said, "you will leave your treasures buriedhere?"

  "Yes," his father replied; "we have no means of transporting them, andwe can at any time return and fetch them. We must dig up the big chestand take such garments as we may need, and the personal ornaments ofour rank; but the rest, with the gold and silver vessels, can remainhere till we need them."

  Gold and silver vessels seem little in accordance with the primitivemode of life prevailing in the ninth century. The Saxon civilizationwas indeed a mixed one. Their mode of life
was primitive, theirdwellings, with the exception of the religious houses and the abodes ofa few of the great nobles, simple in the extreme; but they possessedvessels of gold and silver, armlets, necklaces, and ornaments of thesame metals, rich and brightly coloured dresses, and elaborate bedfurniture while their tables and household utensils were of theroughest kind, and their floors strewn with rushes. When they invadedand conquered England they found existing the civilization introducedby the Romans, which was far in advance of their own; much of this theyadopted. The introduction of Christianity further advanced them in thescale.

  The prelates and monks from Rome brought with them a high degree ofcivilization, and this to no small extent the Saxons imitated andborrowed. The church was held in much honour, great wealth andpossessions were bestowed upon it, and the bishops and abbots possessedlarge temporal as well as spiritual power, and bore a prominent part inthe councils of the kingdoms. But even in the handsome and well-builtmonasteries, with their stately services and handsome vestments,learning was at the lowest ebb--so low, indeed, that when Prince Alfreddesired to learn Latin he could find no one in his father's dominionscapable of teaching him, and his studies were for a long time hinderedfor want of an instructor, and at the time he ascended the throne hewas probably the only Englishman outside a monastery who was able toread and write fluently.

  "Tell me, father," Edmund said after the meal was concluded, "about theWest Saxons, since it is to them, as it seems, that we must look forthe protection of England against the Danes. This Prince Alfred, ofwhom I before heard you speak in terms of high praise, is the brother,is he not, of the king? In that case how is it that he does not reignin Kent, which I thought, though joined to the West Saxon kingdom, wasalways ruled over by the eldest son of the king."

  "Such has been the rule, Edmund; but seeing the troubled times whenEthelbert came to the throne, it was thought better to unite the twokingdoms under one crown with the understanding that at Ethelbert'sdeath Alfred should succeed him. Their father, Ethelwulf, was a weakking, and should have been born a churchman rather than a prince. Henominally reigned over Wessex, Kent, and Mercia, but the last paid himbut a slight allegiance. Alfred was his favourite son, and he sent him,when quite a child, to Rome for a visit. In 855 he himself, with amagnificent retinue, and accompanied by Alfred, visited Rome,travelling through the land of the Franks, and it was there, doubtless,that Alfred acquired that love of learning, and many of those ideas,far in advance of his people, which distinguish him. His mother,Osburgha, died before he and his father started on the pilgrimage. Theking was received with much honour by the pope, to whom he presented agold crown of four pounds weight, ten dishes of the purest gold, asword richly set in gold, two gold images, some silver-gilt urns,stoles bordered with gold and purple, white silken robes embroideredwith figures, and other costly articles of clothing for the celebrationof the service of the church, together with rich presents in gold andsilver to the churches, bishops, clergy, and other dwellers in Rome.They say that the people of Rome marvelled much at these magnificentgifts from a king of a country which they had considered as barbarous.On his way back he married Judith, daughter of the King of the Franks;a foolish marriage, for the king was far advanced in years and Judithwas but a girl.

  "Ethelbald, Ethelwulf's eldest son, had acted as regent in his father'sabsence, and so angered was he at this marriage that he raised hisstandard of revolt against his father. At her marriage Judith had beencrowned queen, and this was contrary to the customs of the West Saxons,therefore Ethelbald was supported by the people of that country; on hisfather's return to England, however, father and son met, and a divisionof the kingdom was agreed upon.

  "Ethelbald received Wessex, the principal part of the kingdom, andEthelwulf took Kent, which he had already ruled over in the time of hisfather Egbert. Ethelwulf died a few months afterwards, leaving Kent toEthelbert, his second surviving son. The following year, to the horrorand indignation of the people of the country, Ethelbald married hisstepmother Judith, but two years afterwards died, and Ethelbert, Kingof Kent, again united Wessex to his own dominions, which consisted ofKent, Surrey, and Sussex. Ethelbert reigned but a short time, and athis death Ethelred, his next brother, ascended the throne. Last yearAlfred, the youngest brother, married Elswitha, the daughter ofEthelred Mucil, Earl of the Gaini, in Lincolnshire, whose mother wasone of the royal family of Mercia.

  "It was but a short time after the marriage that the Danes poured intoMercia from the north. Messengers were sent to ask the assistance ofthe West Saxons. These at once obeyed the summons, and, joining theMercians, marched against the Danes, who shut themselves up in thestrong city of Nottingham, and were there for some time besieged. Theplace was strong, the winter at hand, and the time of the soldiers'service nearly expired. A treaty was accordingly made by which theDanes were allowed to depart unharmed to the north side of the Humber,and the West Saxons returned to their kingdom.

  "Such is the situation at present, but we may be sure that the Daneswill not long remain quiet, but will soon gather for another invasion;ere long, too, we may expect another of their great fleets to arrivesomewhere off these coasts, and every Saxon who can bear arms had needtake the field to fight for our country and faith against these heatheninvaders. Hitherto, Edmund, as you know, I have deeply mourned thedeath of your mother, and of your sisters who died in infancy; but nowI feel that it is for the best, for a terrible time is before us. Wemen can take refuge in swamp and forest, but it would have been hardfor delicate women; and those men are best off who stand alone and areable to give every thought and energy to the defence of their country.'Tis well that you are now approaching an age when the Saxon youth arewont to take their place in the ranks of battle. I have spared no painswith your training in arms, and though assuredly you lack strength yetto cope in hand-to-hand conflict with these fierce Danes, you may yettake your part in battle, with me on one side of you and Egbert on theother. I have thought over many things of late, and it seems to me thatwe Saxons have done harm in holding the people of this country asserfs."

  "Why, father," Edmund exclaimed in astonishment, "surely you would nothave all men free and equal."

  "The idea seems strange to you, no doubt, Edmund, and it appears onlynatural that some men should be born to rule and others to labour, butthis might be so even without serfdom, since, as you know, the poorerfreemen labour just as do the serfs, only they receive a somewhatlarger guerdon for their toil; but had the two races mixed more closelytogether, had serfdom been abolished and all men been free and capableof bearing arms, we should have been able to show a far better front tothe Danes, seeing that the serfs are as three to one to the freemen."

  "But the serfs are cowardly and spiritless," Edmund said; "they are notof a fighting race, and fell almost without resistance before ourancestors when they landed here."

  "Their race is no doubt inferior to our own, Edmund," his father said,"seeing that they are neither so tall nor so strong as we Saxons, butof old they were not deficient in bravery, for they fought as stoutlyagainst the Romans as did our own hardy ancestors. After having beenfor hundreds of years subject to the Roman yoke, and having no occasionto use arms, they lost their manly virtues, and when the Romans leftthem were an easy prey for the first comer. Our fathers could notforesee that the time would come when they too in turn would beinvaded. Had they done so, methinks they would not have set up so broada line of separation between themselves and the Britons, but would haveadmitted the latter to the rights of citizenship, in which caseintermarriage would have taken place freely, and the whole people wouldhave become amalgamated. The Britons, accustomed to our freeinstitutions, and taking part in the wars between the various Saxonkingdoms, would have recovered their warlike virtues, and it would beas one people that we should resist the Danes. As it is, the serfs, whoform by far the largest part of the population, are apathetic andcowardly; they view the struggle with indifference, for what signifiesto them whether Dane or Saxon conquer; they have no interest in thestr
uggle, nothing to lose or to gain, it is but a change of masters."

  Edmund was silent. The very possibility of a state of things in whichthere should be no serfs, and when all men should be free and equal,had never occurred to him; but he had a deep respect for his father,who bore indeed the reputation of being one of the wisest and mostclear-headed of the nobles of East Anglia, and it seemed to him thatthis strange and novel doctrine contained much truth in it. Still theidea was as strange to him as it would have been to the son of asouthern planter in America half a century ago. The existence of slavesseemed as much a matter of course as that of horses or dogs, andalthough he had been accustomed to see from time to time freedombestowed upon some favourite serf as a special reward for services, thethought of a general liberation of the slaves was strange and almostbewildering, and he lay awake puzzling over the problem long after hisfather and kinsman had fallen asleep.