Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 273 pages of information about Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune.

Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 273 pages of information about Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune.

Strange to say, now that the parental consent was gained, and no obstacle lay between him and the accomplishment of his ardent wish, he did not feel half so happy as he had expected to feel.  Home affections seemed to increase as the hours rushed by which were to be his last in the bosom of his family; every familiar object became precious as the thought arose that it might be seen for the last time; favourites, both men and animals, had to be bidden farewell.  There was the old forester, the gleeman, the warder, the gardener, the chamberlain, the cellarius, the cook (not an unimportant personage in Saxon households), the foster mother, his old nurse, and many a friend in the village.  Then there were his favourite dogs, his pony, some pigeons he had reared; and all had some claim on his affection, home nurtured as he had been in a most kindly household.

But the appointed day came, the horse which was to bear him away stood at the door, another horse loaded with his personal effects stood near, for carriages were then unknown, neither would the roads have permitted their use, so changed were the times since the Roman period.

His father and mother, his brother and sister, stood without the drawbridge, where the last goodbye took place; tears started unbidden to his eyes—­he was only fifteen—­as he heard the parting blessing, and as his mother pressed him to her bosom.

Alfred and his sister Edith seemed almost broken hearted at the parting.  But Elfric tried to bear up, and the end came.

The little cavalcade left the castle, two attendants, well armed and mounted, being his bodyguard.

Again and again he looked back; and when, after a journey of two miles, the envious woods closed in, and hid the dear familiar home from his sight, a strange sense of desolation rushed upon him, as if he were alone in the world.

The route taken by the cavalcade led them in the first place to Warwick, even then a flourishing Saxon town:  this was the limit of Elfric’s previous wanderings, and when they left it for the south, the whole country was strange to him.

The royal messenger had business at the cathedral city of Dorchester, at the junction of the Tame and Isis, and they did not take the more direct route by the Watling Street, the most perfect Roman road remaining.  The land was but thinly peopled, forests covered the greater portion, and desolate marshes much of the remainder; thus, through alternate forest and marsh, the travellers advanced along the ruinous remains of an old Roman crossroad, which had once afforded good accommodation to travellers, but had been suffered to fall into utter ruin and decay by the neglect of their successors, our own barbarous ancestors.

Originally it had been paved with stone, and causeways had been formed over marsh and mere, but the stones had been taken away, for the road formed the most accessible quarry in the neighbourhood.  Here and there, however, it was still good, surviving the wear of centuries, and even the old mileposts of iron were still existing covered with rust, with the letters denoting so many Roman miles—­or thousands of paces—­ still legible.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.