Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings — Complete by Lytton (an ebook reader TXT) 📖

German, but still disagreeably foreign to English ears, requested them to follow him into the presence of the Atheling.

In a room yet retaining the rude splendour with which it had been invested by Canute, a handsome boy, about the age of thirteen or fourteen, but seeming much younger, was engaged in the construction of a stuffed bird, a lure for a young hawk that stood blindfold on its perch. The employment made so habitual a part of the serious education of youth, that the thegns smoothed their brows at the sight, and deemed the boy worthily occupied. At another end of the room, a grave Norman priest was seated at a table on which were books and writing implements; he was the tutor commissioned by Edward to teach Norman tongue and saintly lore to the Atheling. A profusion of toys strewed the floor, and some children of Edgar’s own age were playing with them. His little sister Margaret 211 was seated seriously, apart from all the other children, and employed in needlework.

When Alred approached the Atheling, with a blending of reverent obeisance and paternal cordiality, the boy carelessly cried, in a barbarous jargon, half German, half Norman-French:

“There, come not too near, you scare my hawk. What are you doing? You trample my toys, which the good Norman bishop William sent me as a gift from the Duke. Art thou blind, man?”

“My son,” said the prelate kindly, “these are the things of childhood—childhood ends sooner with princes than with common men. Leave thy lure and thy toys, and welcome these noble thegns, and address them, so please you, in our own Saxon tongue.”

“Saxon tongue!—language of villeins! not I. Little do I know of it, save to scold a ceorl or a nurse. King Edward did not tell me to learn Saxon, but Norman! and Godfroi yonder says, that if I know Norman well, Duke William will make me his knight. But I don’t desire to learn anything more to-day.” And the child turned peevishly from thegn and prelate.

The three Saxon lords interchanged looks of profound displeasure and proud disgust. But Harold, with an effort over himself, approached, and said winningly:

“Edgar the Atheling, thou art not so young but thou knowest already that the great live for others. Wilt thou not be proud to live for this fair country, and these noble men, and to speak the language of Alfred the Great?”

“Alfred the Great! they always weary me with Alfred the Great,” said the boy, pouting. “Alfred the Great, he is the plague of my life! if I am Atheling, men are to live for me, not I for them; and if you tease me any more, I will run away to Duke William in Rouen; Godfroi says I shall never be teased there!”

So saying, already tired of hawk and lure, the child threw himself on the floor with the other children, and snatched the toys from their hands.

The serious Margaret then rose quietly, and went to her brother, and said, in good Saxon:

“Fie! if you behave thus, I shall call you NIDDERING!” At the threat of that word, the vilest in the language—that word which the lowest ceorl would forfeit life rather than endure—a threat applied to the Atheling of England, the descendant of Saxon heroes—the three thegns drew close, and watched the boy, hoping to see that he would start to his feet with wrath and in shame.

“Call me what you will, silly sister,” said the child, indifferently, “I am not so Saxon as to care for your ceorlish Saxon names.”

“Enow,” cried the proudest and greatest of the thegns, his very moustache curling with ire. “He who can be called niddering shall never be crowned king!”

“I don’t want to be crowned king, rude man, with your laidly moustache: I want to be made knight, and have banderol and baldric.—Go away!”

“We go, son,” said Alred, mournfully.

And with slow and tottering step he moved to the door; there he halted, turned back,—and the child was pointing at him in mimicry, while Godfroi, the Norman tutor, smiled as in pleasure. The prelate shook his head, and the group gained again the ante-hall.

“Fit leader of bearded men! fit king for the Saxon land!” cried a thegn. “No more of your Atheling, Alred my father!”

“No more of him, indeed!” said the prelate, mournfully. “It is but the fault of his nurture and rearing,—a neglected childhood, a Norman tutor, German hirelings. We may remould yet the pliant clay,” said Harold.

“Nay,” returned Alred, “no leisure for such hopes, no time to undo what is done by circumstance, and, I fear, by nature. Ere the year is out the throne will stand empty in our halls.”

“Who then,” said Haco, abruptly, “who then,—(pardon the ignorance of youth wasted in captivity abroad!) who then, failing the Atheling, will save this realm from the Norman Duke, who, I know well, counts on it as the reaper on the harvest ripening to his sickle?”

“Alas, who then?” murmured Alred.

“Who then?” cried the three thegns, with one voice, “why the worthiest, the wisest, the bravest! Stand forth, Harold the Earl, Thou art the man!” And without awaiting his answer, they strode from the hall.