University of Virginia Library

ACT I.

SCENE I.

A desolate heath near Chippenham Castle,—the wind sighing, and the roar of battle in the distance: a long pause: then a rout of flying English and pursuing Danes in the back of the stage; with afterwards a wounded white horse, royally caparisoned, and riderless, galloping across. After this a lull: and then hurriedly from opposite points, back and front, Ethelnoth and Hereward run in, with mace and sword, bloody.
Hereward
(eagerly).
Where's the King?—where's the King?—

Ethelnoth.
Alas! alas!
I much do fear me dead: his milkwhite charger,
Ever the very focus of the fight,
Fell with him o'er a heap of dead and dying,
And, madden'd by the arrows, broke away
Leaving the King afoot. I saw him stand
Surrounded by a jackal pack of Danes,
The very lion at bay; they crowded on,
But still he slew and slew, heaps upon heaps;
I strove to reach him, but could not get nigh;
For, wielding his red mace like Thor himself
Stoutly he cleft a narrow bloody lane
Right through their opposite host,—and then, as if
Fell'd by some coward caitiffs from behind,
I lost his gold-sphered head!

Hereward.
Woe worth the day!
With Alfred's death, what hope for England's life?

Ethelnoth
(despondingly).
What hope:—for Alfred is the soul of England
Of free, brave, honourable, religious England,—
That doth with an indomitable will
What Duty hath determined shall be done:
And, with him dead, alas, for England dead!
Seeing the days are evil, and her sons
Through mammon-worship and the selfishness
Of peace and quietness at any price
Are thus degenerate from old country love.
Why, friend,—our magnates, baser than their names,
To save their rank, and still upon the poor
To trample with a rich man's cruel heel,
All, save our gallant few in Somerset,
Have covertly gone over to the Dane,
Worship his Raven, call this Guthrom king,
And in their quaking crafty avarice
Pretending peace with all men, brotherhood,
And universal love,—that poppy milk
Of poisoned human kindness,—have deserted
Alfred to fight for England all alone!

Hereward.
Alone?—nay, Ethelnoth,—for some stand with him.

Ethelnoth.
We will not boast ourselves, good Hereward,
But of the nobler and the richer sort
All else have been corrupted by the Dane,
Flattered,—or frightened at his pirate fist
Clutching their moneybags,—thus to stand back
And leave our English Alfred all alone!

Hereward.
Alone?—yet are there millions with the King:
O Sir, the country's heart, the country's strength,
Her thews and muscles all are with the King,—
The People are for England and the King,—
And God with us,—then say not thou alone!

Ethelnoth.
My noble friend, forgive,—and Heaven forgive
That false and feeble word of fear, alone:
O wise and good rebuke!—my vision clears,—
Alone? I see so many now with us,
All that is honest, earnest, brave in England,
And God Himself on our side for the right,
That none but perishable evil things
Would seem to be against us. Yet, ah! dread
Unspeakable, O ruin past repair,
If English Alfred with his battleaxe
Hath hewed him out only a grave,—
[Wulf the neatherd runs in, ridiculously frightened.
—Stand back!—
Speak, sirrah,—leave thy gaping.

Wulf.
Mighty captains,
How went the battle down in Wilts? which won,
Saxon or Dane? there's plenty o' both about,
Axemen and pikemen, sword and mace and bowmen,
I'm so afeard at all o' them,—which side won?

Hereward.
Art thou for Alfred, churl?

Wulf.
Nay, mighty captain,
Art thou for Alfred? I'm—for—you, great captains,—
Is then the Saxon or the Dane my lord?

Ethelnoth.
Alfred is lord and king above thee, churl.

Wulf.
Just what yon archer told me,—to the word:
A wounded dusty relic of the fight
Now biding at my hovel: when I asked
Which side had won, and who was lord and king,—
He quoth, quoth he,—

Ethelnoth.
Stop, sirrah: lead us straight
To see this archer; he may bring perchance
Some tidings of the king: we'll to thy hovel.

[they go out.

SCENE II.

The neatherd's hut. Egga, the housewife, comes in, and busies herself about kneading dough, going first up to Alfred, who, disguised as an archer, mends his broken bow beside a hearth.
Egga
(angrily).

Nay now, young man, but I heard thee amouthing and
araving and tongue-clappering lustily; and all about
England's woes forsooth! Why, ye'll scare my fowls: and
there's the old grey hen asitting on thirteen eggs to hatch
come Woden's-day: a plague on thy thriftless clamouring!

Alfred,
(looking up, and feeling the point of an arrow.)

Dame, I will hold my peace.

Egga.

Ay, and it's pity too there's anything else abroad: why
can't we all bide at peace, and hatch our chickens quietly,
I should like to know. A plague on that quarrelsome king
of ourn, says I! Why can't he be peaceably disposed with
these brave newcomers,—but fights and wars with the
worthy gentlemen, to the ruination of all our crops? A
plague on the great king Alfred, says I,—and I only wish I
had 'un here to tell 'un what I thought of 'un.

Alfred.

What ill could you say of him, Dame?

Egga.

Ill? O, a plenty, a plenty: who but he hinders us all
from biding contentedly under any other outlandish king
that wills to come and rule us? Who but he exasperates
your wealthy voyagers from Daneland, (rich gentlefolk hung
about with links o' gold too,) driving them to burn down
our homesteads and haply roast us inside, when they come
to pay us a neighbourly visit, and find Alfred's England so
little willing to be hospitable? Who but this glory-craving
king of our's, with his royal rights and revenues, his
gracious grandeurs, that only signify a narrowhearted
selfish—

Alfred.
No, Dame! he fights not for his single self
But for his People,—for their liberties,
Their laws, religion,—

Egga.

Stop you there, religion quotha! What's your new
fangled monk-worship to compare with grand old Thor and
Woden, and Asgard and the Asen and the Valhal and
Valkyrior, I'd like to know? Ay, ay, young man,—the
Skalds ha' taught us enough, and well enough, I wot.

Our old country gods be more terrible than your relics.
And—as for laws and liberties,—Saturn save us from them
both, and let us hatch our eggs peaceably. There now,
mind thou well yon batch o' cakes, young man, and turn
'em on the hearth when they're a-browning: and I must go
water the cattle, and feed the pigs awhile.

[she goes out.
Alfred,
(alone,—rises slowly, and speaks mournfully.)
Heaven grant me patience! Can they sink so low
And still be counted men and Englishmen,—
That liberties are nothing, good laws nothing,
Religion nothing,—so they may keep peace
And hatch in shame and sin their golden eggs!
O, this is bitterness: my noble people,
With those false magnates leading them astray,
Their true king lost,—my sheep without a shepherd,
Infected with this rot of canting love
To welcoming the wolves within their sheepfold!
It hath been something to have lost this day,
And dared the scoff of craven by my flight:
Yet did I dare it—even this—for England!
And I have hidden those my royal robes
Hastily in the thicket, where I found
One of my noble archers lying dead,—
And so I borrowed these old gearn of his
To clothe withal my shaméd majesty.
Yet,—all for such!—if such can be true sample,—
A nation like this boor and his old shrew,
Who heed their crops but not the Mother-land,
Loving their country less than they love cattle,
Despising their great birthright liberty
Ready to sell it for a mess of pottage,
Scorning the grace of equitable laws,
Scoffing in misbelief at true religion,
And for invaders leaving their fall'n king,—
O, this is bitterness!
—But no, no, no!
My People, England,—thou art not as these,—
My generous noble dear devoted People!
Had there been only weapons in your hands
True as the hands that should have wielded them,
These fierce sea-robbers never had set foot
Upon our sacred shore,—or, once flung there
As jetsam in a storm, had never found
A grave beyond the beach!

Enter Egga from behind.

How now?—what, amouthing again! How's the manchets?
—Whew—they're cinders!—why, thou poor harlotry
play-actor, be this thy way o' winning bread? to burn the
manchets, and all for a spell o' speech-making?—Out on
thee, thriftless!

[she offers to strike him.
[enter Ethelnoth and Hereward with the neatherd.
Wulf.
Here, this way, mighty captains, here's our archer.

Ethelnoth.
O king, O blessed hour!

Hereward.
England's darling!

[they kneel: Egga, bustling up and peering at them all curiously.
Egga.

How? be'st thou the king,—the great, the glorious, the
good king Alfred? Nay, nay, but we'll build thee up a
throne; hither, goodman, the bolster and the pillows!
(ye're an earl or an ealderman at the least, fool!) quick,
fool, quick with the pillows.

Alfred
(mournfully).
Is any left with you to call me king?
Have any more of English blood escaped
The murderous onset of the Dane?

Ethelnoth.
O king!
We love thee, England loves thee, and thy name
Is as a tower of strength: for God and thee
All England lives!

Alfred.
Yet,—have they not made peace,
A shameful peace with this invading Dane?

Hereward.
Only the rich and noble, for estates.

Alfred.
Headman! the commons with this deadly taint
Of loving peace instead of righteousness
Are touched; I know it, feel it bitterly.

Ethelnoth
(with warmth).
It is another race, another blood
Of alien feeling and an adverse faith.
Old England's heart is evermore with thee
Her king, her best of kings, her longtime Darling;
We are for Alfred: but there is a folk
That antedates the coming of our good
And heeds of even thee as new and strange,
Hating and plotting, though they cringe like serfs;
Let such dream on. For England and for thee
Are we, and (Heaven forgive us!) all good men,
The generous common-people, honest hearts,
The true, the sturdy, the keensighted class
That midway judges England, and commands
All higher and all lower to love Alfred!

Alfred.
Amen! for God, and Alfred, God's poor servant:
I will, He willing, live and dare and die
For only England: but, my patriot friends,
What sign is there of such a loyal spirit
When not alone the lords fall to this Dane,
But ev'n the commons be a trifle touched
For merchandize and hatching of their eggs,
What sign of hope, if thus the nation leans
Against their liberties and laws and me?

Ethelnoth
(vehemently).
They hang on thee, great Alfred! Never yet
(And for a thousand years shall this be true,)
Have Englishmen or England striven against
The strong incline their Alfred sloped for them!
Thou hast invented Liberty for England;
Thou hast forged Law: thy veriest fantasies
Have stood religious doctrines for all England:
The twelve wellsworn that judge of life and death,
The schoolread bishop, and the parish-priest,
The unbribed judge, the prisoner's advocate,
Lieutenants, sheriffs, bailiffs, constables,
The coroners for innocence or crime,
The watchers on the highway, and the wards
Who feed the poor by largesse of the rich
All are of Alfred: yea, and more than so,—
Our armies levied by thy providence,—
Our navies, that do sentinel the ports
And guard (with angels in their tops) against
Invading foemen,—these are all of Alfred!
O King, we never can forget our Alfred!

Alfred
(devoutly).
To Heaven the praise, where praise is justly due.
And thanks to you, friends, for this timely comfort.
Believe me, never shall despair of England
Weaken this arm, or paralyse this heart
Or cloud the brow of God's anointed.
Listen; (in a low voice)

[Wulf and Egga have been whispering together, and are creeping out.
We must hie hence at speed: yon Celtic serf
Discerning his advantage in our need
(Look how he mutters with his mate) forthwith
Will sell us to the Dane,—

Ethelnoth.
My dagger's point
[drawing a dagger.
Frees thee, and us, from danger!

Alfred
(solemnly).
Ethelnoth!
I do rebuke thee for that thought of shame;
Put up thy murderous sting, and let them live.
To slay our open enemies afield
Hotblooded for the right in self-defence
Seemeth necessity, though sore and sad:
But thus to steal a march on Providence
(That willeth only good and through good means)
By sheer assassination in cold blood
For selfish safety, is—with God, a crime,
With men, an utter folly, Ethelnoth.
No: we must hence at once, and secretly:
My diadem and mace and royal cloak,
Cerdic's own mace, and Egbert's diadem,
We first, with backward step (to spoil the scent)
Must straight reclaim from yonder tangled thicket;
Thence, doubling on our track, to—
Follow me.

Ethelnoth.
Lead on, good King, we live to follow thee!

[The music between this Act and the Second may include the old English airs of “From merciless invaders,” and “The brave men of Kent,” &c. with perhaps the modern one of “Hard Times, come again no more.”]