University of Virginia Library

ACT II

SCENE I

[Athelney. Serfs are carrying loads to a barn near the King's Camp.]
FIRST SERF.
Fetch me a hunk of salted flitch,
And a jug of sweetened ale,
And off I trudge to bank the ditch,
Or bang about the flail.
Who reeks of summer sweat and swink,
Or winter's icy pang?
Tilt up the mug, my mates, and drink,
And let the world go hang,
Go hang,
And let the world go hang.

SECOND SERF.
Now, youngsters, snap the fallen sticks,
Now, hearthwife, boil the pot,
For we have thatched the barley ricks,
And ploughed the gafol plot.
The shepherd's star begins to wink,
The she-wolf whets her fang;
Up with the mead-bowl, mates, and drink,
And let the world go hang,
Go hang,
And let the world go hang!

THIRD SERF.

'Tis but a lean life we lead in Athelney. More tuns of marsh water, I warrant, than combs of smooth ale.

FIRST SERF.

Aye, and with sopping sedge to lie on, o'nights. But, after bearing planks to make ready the Witan for the King and the King's thanes, one 'ud sleep on a midden heap, were it dead froze. But that's done with; and now to stack all this gear afore noon.

[Alfred, still disguised as a peasant, passes by.]
SECOND SERF
(to Alfred).

Lend us a hand, gaffer, with this amber o' meal; none o' your sharps nor dog-bran, but real Earl's barley-meal, white as an Easter smock.

[Alfred helps, first one, then the other, in carrying the loads.]
THIRD SERF.

They won't starve, anyhow. Ten score ambers have been lodged in the King's Barn, since rising-time, along with two dozen staters of cheese.

FIRST SERF.

Aye, and more weys of bacon than I have fingers to score with, and gafolwood enow to brew as many combs of ale as 'ud drown all the Danes in Wessex.

SECOND SERF.

Trust Alfred for sousing them less wastefully nor that, before gangdays come round anew. (To ALFRED.)
Why, thou hast more thews than any twain of us, though thou'rt not goodly grown, nor seemst fit for bearing loads. But thou liftst with a will.

ALFRED.

'Tis the will does half the work. Heave but with the heart, and no sack feels heavy.

FIRST SERF.

And here are clews of net yarn for the weaving women, that no hands hang idle in Alfred's Camp.

ALFRED.

Am I free to go, masters?

SECOND SERF.

Aye, as free as a boor may fare.

[Alfred leaves them.]
THIRD SERF.

He's a rare hand at a pack, though we top him by a poll.

FIRST SERF.

An awry song for the lambing season, and with the cuckoo a-chuckling over the foster hedge-sparrow.

THIRD SERF.

No song's out o' season that cheers a man up. There's more warmth in an old song than in green faggots.

SECOND SERF.

Aye, and singing's a posset that suits summer and winter alike. They say Alfred the King wrote rare ditties before the Army broke out anew; though more anent spear-thrusts than tankards. But gammer rhymes are well enough for honest churls.

SCENE II

[The King's Chamber.]
ETHELNOTH.
Still, Alfred comes not.

PLEGMUND.
He is sure to come
Ere to the socket burns this rushlight down.
He never wantoned with his word, nor now
Will prove untrue to it.

ETHELNOTH.
Not if he live
Nor if he still be free to come. But how
If eyes as searching as his own have stripped
From off his kingly gait the peasant's smock,
And even now within the Danish lines
He dwells a bondman.

ETHELRED.
[Alfred enters.]

[They make obeisance.]
ALFRED.
Yes, I am back, my wistful friends, but not
Ere I have marked where the false Guthrum folds
His savage flock, and whither next he wends,
Seeking fresh pasture; aye, and every track,
Here through the forest, there along the stream,
And clear beyond between the dimpled downs,
That, twisting hither and thither, will lead at length
To covert hollow, whence, with God for guide,
We may upon their present fastness spring,
And send them flying hearthless as the wind,
Over the waste they have made.

ETHELNOTH.
Thank Heaven! you are safe,
Nor for such wayward danger paid with life.

ALFRED.
And if I had! 'Tis not for length of days,
No, but for breadth of days that we should crave.
Life is God's gift for godlike purposes.
'Tis the mere die we play with; that which counts
Is the high stake of honour that we throw for,
And for such worthy gamesters Heaven provides.
Not in safe coffer should we lock our lives,
But put them out to peril, that our sons
May be the richer for the stake we won.
Withal, my shrewd Archbishop, 'tis allowed,
When dangerous duty doth not bid us spend
Life without thought or reckoning, 'tis so short,
Well must it be to use it thriftily;
So for your helpful hands is further work,
To eke out mine, still hampered by the sword.
Aid me; nay, mend me; for my lesser skill
Needs your large craft. Pope Gregory's Pastoral,
We call his Hindbook in our English tongue,
Worcester's good Bishop, Werefrith, will revise.
And I myself must follow, when I may,
Wulfstan and Othere through those norward seas
Whence came our fathers on their flashing oars,
And with their Finnish voyages enrich
The pages of Orosius. Unto you
The harder task, to render faithfully
The Consolations of Philosophy,
Where I have missed what sage Boethius means.
O Plegmund! Plegmund! Sore is it to scan,
As yesternight I did, in Alcuin's verse,
The list of Latin texts once housed in York,
The envy of the Frankish Emperor,
Great Charles himself, now wandering on the winds,
Or fuel for the fire of these rude Danes,
But all of them to be some day replaced
By God's good help and yours, and written plain
In Saxon speech for English boys to read,
And thereby understand, though, unlike me,
They may not journey thither, that which Rome
Did and still does to better man. But now,
The dwindling rushlight in the lanthorn shows
We must unto the Witan. Ethelnoth,
Come to my side, and you too, Ethelred,
Both craftier with the sword than with the pen,
And help me both with presence and with voice
To rouse my people from their peaceful hives,
And make them swarm for battle!

SCENE III

[The Witanagemote. Alfred, wearing a circlet of gold round his head, and bearing in his hand a wand, is seated on a high oaken settle, with Edward standing on his right. Round him are his Reeves, Thanes, and chief Ealdormen; Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury; Werefrith, Bishop of Worcester, and Grimbald, his Mass-priest. In the enclosed space are congregated the lesser Ealdormen and their followers, the armed Freemen. Behind, at a little distance, stand the short-haired unarmed Serfs. The Queen and her daughter Ethelfrida, followed by a train of noble maidens, carry the mead-bowl round to the Thanes and Ealdormen.]
FIRST FREEMAN.
He looks like Justice throned.

SECOND FREEMAN.
And such he is,
And hither will none hie to press their claim,
Save it be true; for Alfred's gaze can pierce
Through densest fogs of falsehood and uncloak
Each hireling lie.

THIRD FREEMAN.
Withal, how mild his look.
A mother's eyes are not more moist with love
Than his, when they are fixed upon his son,
The stalwart Atheling.

FOURTH FREEMAN.
Yet is he stern
As Ethelnoth himself, if he but mark
Some blemish on a forehead unabashed.
I would as lief face God, were I to blame,
As stand, for fault stripped bare, before the King.

FIRST FREEMAN.
Can it be true that he as lettered is
As Grimbald's self?

SECOND FREEMAN.
Aye, ever since the day
He learned the book of pictured Saxon verse
Quickest of all his brothers, he hath stored
His mind with written lore.

THIRD FREEMAN.
I mind me, too,
How in his boyhood was there none more deft
To cope a haggard peregrine, to knit
The bewits to the bells, or smoothly swing
The feathered lure around his head until
The unseamed falcon learned to wing its way
Over the herons homing up the wind,
And, binding, rake its quarry to the ground.

FOURTH FREEMAN.
Aye, and I warrant he could still unhood
A cast, and send them flying on the chase,
As he will stoop upon the Danes, and force
Their filthy pannels to disgorge the food
Poached in our English pools.

FIRST FREEMAN.
In every art
He shows the way. Woodcraft and masonry,
Shoesmith or wheelwright, all are one to him.
He throws the buttressed bridge across the stream,
And plans the sinewy curve of each fresh keel
That bears the roving ramparts of the realm.
Unto the goldsmith's dainty handiwork
He lends his counsel, even while he broods
On the rough shifts and sudden wants of war.
Never, like Buhred, would he quit the land,
Came every Danish oarsman oversea
To hem us in.

SECOND FREEMAN.
Hush! He anon will speak.

ALFRED
(rising).
Ealdormen, and Thanes, and Free Men all,
Whom here I see, banded in battle-gear,
Kin of my sceptre, helpmates of my sword,
To you I come, your King and Overlord,
Offering and seeking wisdom. Let them speak,
So that they fight, both when and how they will,
And only those stand husht who bear no spear.
For 'twere unmeet that those who in a State
Wield no more worthy weapon than the tongue,
Should have or voice or share in ruling it.
In Witanagemote and Folkmote both,
More royal-rich than these marsh fastnesses,
In better days we have met. But let none think
That I am less a King, or you more base,
That of such trappings we awhile are scant
As Peace can hang about a Ruler's hearth.
For he still reigns whose mind is not dethroned,
And, though marauders ravage half his realm,
Upholds unserfed the Sceptre of his soul.
Kings there have been, aye and of Cerdic's blood,
With Woden's thunder moaning in their veins,
Who, even as Inè, doffed a doleful Crown,
Donning the cowl. I shall not do like these.
What though I found within the royal bed,
Where I had lain with this my cleanly Queen,
Littered, the farrow of a forest sow,
Should I bemoan the fashion of the world,
Tonsure the head Pope Leo's very hand
Anointed kingly, and slink hence to Rome
A niddering pilgrim? Never, while you stand
Steadfast about me! Nay, if you should leave
The Crown of Egbert fenceless on my brow,
It should not fall till I had fallen too,
And gone to God to answer for my Rule,
As every shriven soul must answer Him
Whose Sceptre doth not pass. Tell me then, now,
Free Men of Hampshire, Devon, Somerset,
Here mustered in your Hundreds, do you will
That we fare forth anew unto the field,
To put it to the proof of life and death,
If this fair isle be Guthrum's land or ours?

Freemen
(clashing their spears).
Aye! Aye!

ALFRED.
You answer as beseemeth those that clung
Close to my side at Ashdune on the day
When Ethelred, my brother, now with God,
Lingered at mass, and the rough Danish King,
Barsac, along with Osbern, Harold, Frene,
And the two Sidracs, lay upon their backs,
And never stood up more; aye, and who took
Their share with me in those eight sinewy shocks
At Merton, Reading, Wilton, Englefield,
Within one year, whereby, when first I wore
The kingly crown, Guthrum and Oskytel
Swore not alone on relics of the saints,
But on their pagan bracelet smeared with blood,
In sacrifice, the pledges now they break.
Their hostages I hold, but 'tis not meet
That upon these should fall the Christian sword;
And, spared, they now fain fight upon our side,
Betraying their betrayers. But there be
Others, unfree, withal for whom Christ died,
Into whose hands I will entrust the spear,
So they will thrust for England, and your voice
Says aye to mine.

Freemen
(clashing their spears).
Aye! Aye!

ALFRED.
(to the Serfs).
Therefore, in this free Witan, I decree,
Weaponless men, that you be weaponed now;
And, should you fall, your offspring shall be free,
And offspring's offspring, and their locks shall float
Over their necks by no base burden bowed.
Nor yet of these alone I snap the chain;
But unto you, the tonsured serfs of God,
I stretch my hand, and bid you, I your King,
To do as Toli at Kesteven did,
When Hingvar's pagan bands, with Hubba's horde,
Moved against Croyland, now alas! their prey:
The layman's sword he buckled to his frock,
And with the battle-axe avenged the Cross.
Do you as he, and with a better doom,
Reclaiming Croyland, Ely, Huntingdon,
For pious peace, such as at Glastonbury
Still happily abides. Yet, since the land
Which bred you, suckled you, and fosters now,
Hath upon all male thews this righteous toll,
More needful is it still that they whom God
Shaped to be nests and nourishers of life,
Should double now their song and suit to Heaven
For England's weal. Therefore, my Wife, depart,
With all white souls that willing wend with you,
Unto the eastern gate of Shaftesbury,
And build you there a nunnery whose vows
May win the deathless Overlord of War
To lead our van in fight, and fence our rear.
I have your leave for this, Lady and Wife,
Whom still a silent helpmate at my side,
And by that silence keeping me more strong,
I pray to have, till strength avails no more.
And, though my grandsire Egbert left his land
To those that wield the spear, and not to those
That ply the distaff, and his law stands mine,
To you, in endless token of the trust
That you have had in me, and I in you,
I do bequeathe Wantage and Athelney,
My cradle, and my refuge, in this war,
To hold as free as you have held my love.
And may the bane of Christ and all His Saints
Blind him that setteth it aside!

[The Queen, Ethelfrida, and their handmaidens, depart. As they pass out, Asser, followed by a group of Welsh Chieftains, enters.]
ALFRED.
[Recognising Asser.]

ASSER.
Loving Lord and King,
My pupil, yet my master, these scared men
Are gentle in their blood, of princely birth,
Sons of King Mouric, Tendyr, Hemrid, Ris,
Who now on-this-side Britain wield the rod.
They from Demetria followed me, their guide,
To crave your overlordship in their land
Against the unrulier Welsh that harry it,
Leagued with the Danish robbers of the main.

ALFRED.
Asser! to bring good tidings ever first,
You never brought me blither news than this.
Bid them be seated,—aye, more near to me,—
And tell them in their tongue, till they learn ours
Which it will be your happy lot to teach,
That in this Island there must be one lord,
One law, one speech, one bond of blood between
Saxon and Briton, and that Wales must be
Not more nor less than England, but the same.
Their will is still their own, to go or stay,
But, on the word and promise of a King,
So they will aid me to beset the foe,
And we together conquer, they shall dwell,
They and their kindred, free among their hills,
Fenced beyond heathen ravin by my sword.
[Again addressing the Witanagemote.]
Gone are the women. None but men stand here,
And but to men and manly ears I speak.
You know my law, whereby, one half the year,
Each one may keep his hearth and till his land,
Eschewing for that while the toll of war,
But, when the time is past, he must anew
Take shield and spear; and some of you there be
Who now afresh have claim to put these off,
And back unto their homesteads; and the law,
The law shall stand, if 'tis their will to go.
Never shall law be broken in this land,
Leastways by me: so speak who claim to go,
And nurse a liking for the coward's doom,
A grave of mire, with hurdle over it.

[They all remain silent.]
ALFRED.
Nay, but I will not shame you into right,
Nor in the deadly fellowship of war
Have at my side unwilling guild-brothers.
Therefore I say to all, to those that hold
Five hides of land and owe me service for it,
Earl and ceorl, tithing—hundred—man,
Franklin and yeoman, ploughman, goatherd, sower,
Hayward and woodward, all that liefer would
Earn with their sweat what they might win with blood,
You all are free to go, and in the fight
We will make boot without you. House-carles shall
Fill up the gap you leave.

FREEMEN.
We all will stay.

ALFRED.
Then pledge me in the mead-bowl, spearmen all,
Me, your host-leader! While that Ethelred,
My brother, lived, I bowed to him as King,
Though by my father's will I might have claimed
Rule over Kent; and this I did because
'Twas best for England, and for England now
Is it not best I be your Overlord?

Freemen
(striking their shields with their spears).

ALFRED.
Now tell them, Werefrith, that whoever falls
Fighting for England, soul-shot sure shall be,
And wend him straight from battle-doom to Christ.

[All kneel, and Werefrith blesses them.]

SCENE IV

[Alfred's Study. Alfred is shaping models of long-oared boats, meant to cope with the Danish esks.]
ALFRED.
Not till the Sea hath owned us for its lord,
Will England's shore be free. Hence must we lay
Our rod along the waters till it stretch
Wide as they welter, further than they foam.
Who holds the sea, perforce doth hold the land,
And who lose that must lose the other too,
When wave on wave gleams crested with a foe,
And billows given for safety gape with doom
And ruin for the redeless. Right meseem
Stem, stern, and keel, nigh twice the bulk of those
The Frisians use, and with a sharper sweep.
God grant that I may chase them from the seas,
And gird this island with a watery belt
Not all the world in arms can cleave or cross!

[Enter the Atheling.]
EDWARD.
Unto your bidding, Father, am I come.

ALFRED.
Where were you, Edward, yesterday at noon?

EDWARD.
In Selwood Forest, in its very heart,
Hard by the clearing round the hut where dwells
The neatherd Danewulf.

ALFRED.
And why went you there?

EDWARD.
To greet the loveliest maiden in the land.
Forgive me, Sir! but oh, if you could see
How fair, how—

ALFRED.
[Edward is about to speak.]

EDWARD.
Father, I swear,
My love for this fair maiden is as clean
As her unblemished soul, and I would fain,
Having your yea, still woo her for my wife.
Nay, but still hear me, you that ever were
Suffering and mild, blithesome and good to me,
Let me go fetch and bring her to your feet!
The coralled hawthorn in the wayside brake,
When Autumn winds have blown the leaves away,
Hath not the ruddy ripeness of her lips.
June's bluebells are not heavenlier than her eyes,
Nor than her cheek more dewy, and her voice,—
The woodwete's is no sweeter when it soars,
And we look up to hear it!

ALFRED.
Need is none
To tell me that. I heard it yesterday,
Between the whiles you wantoned in the wood,
And heeded not the King that crossed your path,
In tattered seeming.

EDWARD.
Your forgiveness, Father!

ALFRED.
Rise, boy! Your love is loyal; and no maid,
That, bred on English soil and fain to bide
By English hearthfire, hath not in her blood
The blur of bondage, can be held unmeet
To grace the bed and settle of a King.
But, Edward, can it be, in these mirk days,
You dally in the dreamy ways of love,
Now that your one fast thought by day, your one
Fond hope when moist sleep loosens all your limbs,
Should be for England! England, none but England
Clean or unclean, this is no time for love.
Where is your sword? I'll have no Atheling
Lulled in the sleek and sleepy lap of love,
When every heart-beat in his body should
Hasten the hour for death-grip with the Dane!

[Enter a Messenger.]
MESSENGER.
A Danish girl, seen slinking by the stream
Trod by your outmost watchers, hath been brought
Into the camp, and claims to see the King.

ALFRED.
Let her within.

[Edgiva enters.]
EDGIVA.
Edward!

EDWARD
(to Edgiva).
The King!

[Edgiva kneels.]
ALFRED
(to EDWARD, sternly).
Go hence!

[Edward quits the King's presence.]
ALFRED.
Rise, child! But wherefore pry you in our land,
So straitened now, that all beyond it feeds
The heathen Army?

EDGIVA.
But I did not pry.
I am as true to Alfred and his name,
As they that roughly clutched and dragged me here,
Because of Danish bracelet round my wrist;
And, since they would not harken, but led on
My footsteps hitherward, I claimed to see
Yourself, the King, and tell you all my tale.

ALFRED.
Tell it me, then.

EDGIVA.
Who was it that you chid
Out of your sight?

ALFRED.
My son, the Atheling.

EDGIVA.
Oh! [She covers her face.]

Why did he come into my lowly life,
And with his April sunshine cozen it
To blossom back to his! It was not worthy.
I pray you, let me fare unto my home,
To Danewulf and my mother, where I may
Forget him utterly, and never more
Hear words of fond untruth.

ALFRED.
Blame him not thus!
He is my son, and, never since he learned
From Saxon mother this our Saxon tongue,
Or spake or thought untruth. He loves too well,
And hence it was I drove him from your sight.

EDGIVA.
'Twas all unwitting that I gave him first
A love-tryst in the forest. Had I known!
But now meseems I know not what I know,
Save that I never will behold him more.
Nay, be a King! and send me to my home!

ALFRED.
We'll think of that to-morrow. For to-night,
You needs must lie in Athelney. But, child,
What sought you when our wardens, overwise,
As witlessness oft is, enforced you here?

EDGIVA.
It was the path whereby he went when last
He looked farewell, and so I trod the place,
Because it seemed to bring me nearer to him;
And, as I did so, luckless that I am,
I dropped and lost upon the river bank,
Or maybe in the stream, the crystal token
Given me by hoary wanderer who had sought
Rest in our hut, and promised, should I seek
His dwelling with that earnest, he would teach me
To spell and read, and make me learned and wise.
Now is it lost, and everything is lost,
And I shall know nor love nor learning now.

ALFRED.
Would you that withered master know again?

EDGIVA.
Sooth, that I should! I never can forget
His look, his voice. His speech was like to yours,
But he was gone in years, and on his brow
Their snows had drifted.

ALFRED.
Maiden, it was I,
Whose business 'tis to learn what mischief may
Be brewing on our borders, so awhile
Misfeatured thus; and you have nothing lost,
Saving the jewel, easily forgone,
And somewhere lost for other days to find,
Time-token of the trouble England bore,
And, bearing, yet will better. I myself,
True to my word, will teach your tongue to read,
And you teach Edward more than thus you learn,—
Since household lore the truest wisdom is,—
When War's loud shuttle shall have woven peace,
And in this England all who love may live
As safe as nest of whinchat in the brake.
But, child, not now, not now! For never think,
Until the howling pack of Pagan wolves
Are flogged to heel or scattered oversea,
To lift and lay your arms about his neck,
Whose service lies elsewhere! What ho! without. [An attendant enters.]

Unto our Lady lead this guest, and say
It is the bidding of the King she be
With the handmaidens pillowed for the night.