Abbeychurch by Charlotte M. Yonge (best english novels for beginners TXT) 📖

clear himself of having any share in his brother's death, even though Alphonso was silly enough to be affronted.'

'Like Montrose's feeling towards his lady-love,' said Elizabeth; 'not bearing the least stain on what he loved or honoured.'

'But he is not our earliest knight,' said Anne; 'I begin with our own Alfred, with his blue shield and golden cross.'

'King Alfred!' exclaimed Elizabeth, 'do you consider him a knight?'

'Certainly,' said Anne; 'besides that I care more for the spirit of chivalry than for the etiquette of the accolade and golden spurs; we know that Alfred knighted his grandson Athelstane, so that he must have been a knight himself.'

'By-the-bye,' said Elizabeth, 'I think I have found out the origin of the golden spurs being part of a knight's equipment. Do you remember when the Cid's beloved king Don Sancho was killed, that Rodrigo could not overtake the traitor Bellido Dolfos, because he had no spurs on, whereupon he cursed every knight who should for the future ride without them. Now that was at the time when the laws of chivalry were attaining their perfection, but--'

'Not so fast,' said Anne; 'I have a much earlier pair of golden spurs for you. Do not you remember Edmund, the last King of East Anglia, being betrayed to the Danish wedding-party at Hoxne, by the glitter of his golden spurs, and cursing every new married pair who should ever pass over the bridge where he was found. I think that makes for my side of the question. Here is Edmund, a knight in golden spurs when Alfred was a child. Ah ha, Miss Lizzie!'

Before Elizabeth could answer, Winifred came to tell her that her mamma wanted her, and she was forced to leave the question of King Alfred's and King Edmund's chivalry undecided; for, to her praise be it spoken, she was much too useful a person ever to be able to pursue her own peculiar diversions for many minutes together. She had to listen to some directions, and undertake some messages, so that she could not return to her own room till after Anne had gone down-stairs. She herself was not ready till just as the elders were setting off to the dinner-party at Marlowe Court, and rejoicing in the cessation of the rain and the fineness of the evening.

About half an hour afterwards, the young ladies assembled in the inner drawing-room to drink tea. Helen, however, remained in the outer drawing-room, practising her music, regardless of the sounds of mirth that proceeded from the other room, until Elizabeth opened the door, calling out,

'"Sweet bird, that shunnest the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy,"

come in to tea, so please your highness.'

'What can you mean?' said Helen; 'I am sure I am not melancholy.'

'I am sure you shun the noise of folly,' said Elizabeth.

'I am sorry you consider all our merriment as folly,' said Anne, hoping to save Helen.

'Indeed I do not,' said Elizabeth; 'it was no more folly than a kitten's play, and quite as much in the natural course of things.'

'Helen's occupation being out of the natural course of things,' said Anne, 'I should think she was better employed than we were.'

'In making a noise,' said Elizabeth; 'so were we, I do not see much difference.'

'O Lizzie, it was not the same thing!' said Helen, exceedingly mortified at being laughed at for what she considered as a heroic piece of self-denial, and so it was, though perhaps not so great in her as it would have been in one who was less musical, and more addicted to the noise of folly.

'How touchy Helen is this evening!' thought Elizabeth; 'I had better let her alone, both for her sake and my own.'

'How foolish I was to interfere!' thought Anne; 'it was the most awkward thing I ever did; I only roused the spirit of contradiction, and did Helen more harm than good; I never will meddle between sisters again.'

Presently after, Elizabeth asked Harriet Hazleby whether she had ever been at Winchester.

'Yes,' was the answer, 'and a duller place I would not wish to see.'

'It is a handsome old town, is it not?' inquired Anne, turning to Lucy; but Harriet caught up the word, and exclaimed, 'Handsome, indeed! I do not think there is one tolerable new looking street in the whole place, except one or two houses just up by the railroad station.'

Anne still looked towards Lucy, as if awaiting her answer; Lucy replied, 'The Cathedral and College and the old gateways are very beautiful, but there are not so many old looking houses as you would expect.'

'It must be badly off indeed,' said Elizabeth, 'if it has neither old houses nor new; but I wanted to know whether William Rufus' monument is in a tolerable state of preservation.'

'Oh! the monuments are very grand indeed,' said Harriet; 'everyone admired them. There are the heads of some of the old kings most beautifully painted, put away in a dark corner. They are very curious things indeed; I wonder they do not bring them out.'

'Those are the heads of the Stuart kings,' whispered Lucy.

'Why, Harriet,' exclaimed Dora, 'William Rufus was not a Stuart, he was the second of the Normans.'

'Very likely, very likely, Dora, my dear,' answered Harriet; 'I have done with all those things now, thank goodness; I only know that seeing the Cathedral was good fun; I did not like going into the crypts, I said I would not go, when I saw how dark it was; and Frank Hollis said I should, and it was such fun!'

Dora opened her eyes very wide, and Elizabeth said, 'There could certainly never be a better time or place.'

Looking up, she saw poor Lucy's burning cheeks, and was sorry she had not been silent. No one spoke for a few moments, but presently Anne said, 'Alfred the Great is not buried in the Cathedral, is he?'

No one could tell; at last Helen said, 'I remember reading that he was buried in Hyde Abbey, which is now pulled down.'

'There is a street at Winchester, called Hyde Street,' said Lucy.

'Yes, I know,' said Harriet, 'where the Bridewell is, I remember--'

'By-the-bye, Anne,' said Elizabeth, anxious to cut short Harriet's reminiscences, 'I never answered what you said about Alfred and Athelstane. I do not think that Alfred did more than present him with his sword, which was always solemnly done, even to squires, before they were allowed to fight, and might be done by a priest.'

'But when Athelstane is called a knight, and the ceremony of presenting him with his weapons is mentioned,' said Anne, 'I cannot see why we should not consider him to have been really knighted.'

'Because,' said Elizabeth, 'I do not think that the old Saxon word, knight, meant the sworn champion, the devoted warrior of noble birth, which it now expresses. You know Canute's old rhyme says, "Row to the shore, knights," as if they were boatmen, and not gentlemen.'

'I do not think it could have been beneath the dignity of a knight to row Canute,' said Anne, 'considering that eight kings rowed Edgar the Peaceable.'

'Other things prove that Knight meant a servant, in Saxon,' said Elizabeth.

'I know it does sometimes, as in German now,' said Anne; 'but the question is, when it acquired a meaning equivalent in dignity to the French Chevalier.'

'Though it properly means anything but a horseman,' said Elizabeth; 'we ought to have a word answering to the German Ritter.'

'Yes, our language was spoilt by being mixed with French before it had come to its perfection,' said Anne; 'but still you have not proved that King Alfred was not a knight in the highest sense of the word, a preux chevalier.'

'I never heard of Alfred on horseback, nor did I ever know him called Sir Alfred of Wessex.'

'Sir is French, and short for seigneur or senior,' said Anne; 'besides, I suppose, you never heard Coeur-de-Lion called Sir Richard Plantagenet.'

'I will tell you how you may find out all about it,' interrupted Katherine; 'Mrs. Turner's nephew, Mr. Augustus Mills, is going to give a lecture this evening, at seven o'clock, upon chivalry, and all that. Mrs. Turner has been telling us all day how much she wishes us to go.'

'Mr. Augustus Mills!' said Elizabeth; 'is he the little red-haired wretch who used to pester me about dancing all last year?'

'No, no,' said Katherine, 'that was Mr. Adolphus Mills, his brother, who is gone to be clerk to an attorney somewhere. This is Mr. Augustus, a very fine young man, and so clever, Willie says, and he has most beautiful curling black hair.'

'It wants a quarter to seven now,' said Elizabeth, 'and the sky is most beautifully clear, at last. Do you like the thoughts of this lecture, Anne?'

'I should like to go very much indeed,' said Anne; 'but first I must go and seal and send some letters for Mamma, so I must depart while you finish your tea.' So saying, she left the room.

'Pray, Kate,' said Helen, as Anne closed the door, 'where is this lecture to be given?'

'At the Mechanics' Institute, of course,' said Katherine.

'So we cannot go,' said Helen.

'And pray why not, my sapient sister?' said Elizabeth; 'what objection has your high mightiness?'

'My dear Lizzie,' said Helen, 'I wish you had heard all that I have heard, at Dykelands, about Mechanics' Institutes.'

'My dear Helen,' said Elizabeth, 'I wish you would learn that Dykelands is no Delphos to me.'

'Nay, but my dearest sister,' exclaimed Helen, clasping her hands, 'do but listen to me; I am sure that harm will come of your going.'

'Well, ope your lips, Sir Oracle,' said Elizabeth impatiently, 'no dog shall bark, only make haste about it, or we shall be too late.'

'Do you not know, Lizzie,' said Helen, 'that Socialists often hold forth in Mechanics' Institutes?'

'The abuse of a thing does not cancel its use,' said Elizabeth, 'and I do not suppose that Mr. Mills preaches Socialism.'

'Captain Atherley says,' persisted Helen, 'that all sorts of people ought not to mix themselves up together on equal terms.'

'Oh! then he never goes to church,' retorted Elizabeth.

'No, no, that was only my foolish way of expressing myself,' said Helen; 'I meant that he says that it is wrong for Church people to put themselves on a level with Dissenters, or Infidels, or Socialists, for aught they know to the contrary.'

'Since you have been in the north, Helen,' said Elizabeth, 'you have thought every third man you met a Chartist or a Socialist; but as I do not believe there are specimens of either kind in Abbeychurch, I see no harm in taking our chance of the very few Dissenters there are here, and sitting to hear a lecture in company with our own townspeople.'

'Really, I think we had better not go without asking leave first,' said Katherine.

'In the first place,' said Elizabeth, 'there is no one to ask; and next, I know that Mrs. Turner has offered hundreds of times to take us there, and I suppose Papa would have refused once for all, if he had been so very much afraid of