Ballads from English History.

BY JAMES PAYN.

I.-ALFRED.

THE story of our minstrel king's expedition to the camp of Guthrum is, where it deserves to be, in the hearts of all his countrymen. A short sketch of the desperate position to which his fortunes were reduced before this perilous incident, may not, however, be superfluous. At the young prince's nominal accession, in his one-and-twentieth year, almost all the kingdom was in the power of the Danes. They had long overrun the north, and their terrible Raven standard, leaving whole countries desolate behind it, was steadily advancing towards the south-west corner of the island, where Somerset, Devonshire, and Cornwall remained yet subject to native rule. The sea-kings despatched a navy to take King Alfred in rear, but his little Saxon fleet at the mouth of the Exe entirely destroyed it. In a single year he is said to have fought eight pitched battles with the "Truce-breakers," and with almost invariable success. Nevertheless, fresh hordes of the invaders poured in on every side to combine themselves with those vanquished hosts, and the Saxons, to whom victory was become as fatal as defeat, lost heart and deserted their king. The brave men of Somerset retained yet some spirit, and in that county he took refuge, but with such a scanty band of followers, that he was obliged to hide in fens and coverts for fear of the powerful Guthrum. The waters of the little rivers Thone and Parret now flow by corn-field, farm, and orchard, but in the time of Alfred they encircled an island of dense forest, the haunt of wild boar and of goat, and in this lair the king abode for months. He was not, however, cut off from correspondence with his most faithful friends, who were in hiding, like himself, and in considerable numbers, in the Forest of Selwood. It was at this time that he undertook the expedition that forms the subject of the ballad, and immediately, upon its successful accomplishment, attacked Guthrum, in the most unguarded quarter of his camp, at Eddington, and obtained a complete victory, and lasting in its results.

All his land was with the Dane,
All his kingdom from him ta'en
Save that Isle of Athelney,
Save that spot wherein he lay-
Fifty roods of marshy ground
Set with stagnant waters round-
He that should be king and lord,
Owner but of his good sword!

Isle of Nobles! well 'twas call'd!
Ditch-encircled, wattle-wall'd,
Never yet held place of pride
Nobler than did there abide;
Never from the stateliest tower
Forth look'd king in leaguer'd hour,
With a thousand at his hest
Of the bravest and the best,
Half so king-like as did he
Girt by that scant company:
Never in the aftertime

Shall there stand one more sublime,
One of all his royal race
With less shadow of disgrace;
Never one more truly king
(If that brow do lack its ring),
Though to some shall bend the knee
Nations from beyond the sea,
Then that were not known to be.
Monarch, who mad'st war to cease
But to be more great in peace;

Statesman, who in evil age
Gav'st men equal heritage;
Warrior, first of all that race,
Gleaning smiles from captive face;
Poet of the deed achieved
(Bay and laurel interleaved);
Perfect man of matchless fate,
Alfred, Britons own "the Great!"
Minstrel too!-for whence it hung
Reach'd he down the harp unstrung,
Laid he bow and bugle by,
Quench'd the king-light in his eye,
Taking his song-lighten'd way
From that Isle of Athelney
Unto where the royal Dane
Campéd lay with prince and thane:
For in ancient days to bard
Need was none of gold or sword,
Threatened none his life nor limb
For his harp was shield to him;
He that drew the smile and tear
Cause had never frown to fear;
Nor unguerdon'd sang their lays
Minstrels of the ancient days.
Far he mark'd the Reafen
Floating o'er their pirate den,
Flag, whose spell had oft been proven,
By slain Hubba's sisters woven,
Waving left-hand, waving right,
Ill or well as fared the fight;

Sure shall now the coal-black wing,
Now, if e'er, its warning fling!
Now from that discordant throat
Burst, if e'er, a boding note!
Nay, it droops in sleepy fold
While the foe stands in their hold.

Spoils he marked from every place
Which the traitress sea doth face:
Gold and silver vessels set
With their holy wine still wet,
But the priests they lie in gore
And shall bless no goblets more;
There are carven clubs from Spain,
But the scent doth not remain,
Of the peaceful cedarn wood—
There is hair on them and blood;
Bosséd shield and javelin
(Axe and bare breast did them win)
Pluck'd from many a wasted strand;
Beakers for the double hand
Standing up to the mid-thigh
Only chiefs might set down dry-
They who couch'd their yellow hair
Round the feast-board half made bare,
Toying with their captured feres
Hewn from out some grove of spears;
Grinn'd the wolfshead-helm above
Each fierce leader's eyes of love;
Grimly nodded each their pleasure
Beating to the mystic measure,
Subject to the throbbing string,
And owning in the bard a king.

Guthrum, set amidst his power,
Victors in their wassail hour,
Courteous speech and look could spare
To him who brought high music there:
If thy voice, Sir Minstrel, be

Rare as is thy minstrelsy,

Fear not thou to raise its tone,

| Clash of spear and targe's ring
Greeted loud the minstrel king;
Wrench'd the chieftain from its hold,
Armlet rough with massy gold,
"Guerdon'd thus, Sir Scald," he said,

Sing us song less fit for maid
Sick for love and sad by choice."
Thus he sang with fuller voice:

SONG.

The wolf and the wild dog

Are under the hill,
The hart's in the upland,
The fox in the ghyll;
There's game for the hunter
On mountain and moor,
But mine be the forest

And mine the wild boar!
His crash through the covert
From sleuth-hound to flee,
His roar like the thunder

Is music to me;

The trace of his black blood
And foam track afar,
More glads me than wine-cup
Fill'd high after war.
His warm lair abandon'd

When madden'd, half blind,
He comes swift as storm bolt,
My staunch dogs behind;
I, right in his pathway,

With bowstring at strain
And dart drawn to stone head,
One moment remain,
The next-through that red eye
The arrow hath flown,
The short sword finds scabbard,
The death-mort is blown.
From the wassail brake a shout
Over the dark hills about,
Scaring many an antler'd deer;

Rebel tongue though thou may'st own." Mayhap, in his dusky lair,

SONG.

I strike my harp with fetter'd hand,
I sing to alien ear,
And yet my song is sweet to me,
And yet my harp is dear;
My foot is set on native soil,

A soil that is not free,
My kin are slain, my love is lost,
My harp remains to me.
The ruin'd home that shelter'd us,
The burnt and wasted plain,
A smiling cot, a fertile vale,
I find in song again;
And where I go, or friend or foe,
A welcome free affords

The voice that sings to every heart,
The hand that rules the chords.

Rousing with its tumult long
Many a hero of that song,
Following far upon his way
The minstrel king to Athelney.
When King Alfred came again
Guest unto the royal Dane,
It was not with harp nor song;
But his island strength among,
In green Selwood that had grown,
Watchful for that hour to dawn.
Where the dart might least offend,
Well the minstrel's eye had kenn'd—
Ramparts' low declivity,

Vacant guard, or sheltering tree.
From a nest made desolate

The Danish Raven croaked her hate-
Thanks unto our minstrel king—
Marr'd in claw and clipp'd in wing!

THEY stood together, the tempter and the deceived. She, one of the fairest of earth's daughters in person, whatever she may have been in mind, leaned in a listless attitude against the window-frame, looking out on to the square. Perhaps listening for a woman of misery, with three children round her, was singing her doleful ditty there, and gazing up at the noble mansion as if she hoped some poor mite might be dropped to her from its superfluity of wealth. The children were thin and haggard, with that sharp, pinching look of age in their faces so unsuited to childhood, and which never comes but from famine and long-continued wretchedness. The woman-she was little more than a girl-made a halt opposite the window: her eye had caught the beautiful face enshrined there amidst the curtains, and she sang out louder and more pitifully than ever.

よう

ว

"Now I think that's real-no imposture-none of those made-up cases that the Mendicity Society look up and expose.'

The remark came from a young man, who was likewise looking out, of elegant appearance and prepossessing countenance. There was an air of tenderness in his manner as he spoke, implying tenderness of heart for her who stood by him. And the Lady Adela roused herself, and carelessly asked, "What's real?" For her mind and thoughts had been dwelling on invisible and absent things, and the poverty and the singing had remained to her as if it had not been.

"That poor wretch there, and those famished children. That onethe boy-looks as if he had not tasted food for a twelvemonth. See how it fixes its eyes up here!"

"Oh, Charles, don't worry about such objects. What are streetbeggars to us? They are all alike, a hardened, wicked set. I wonder they are suffered to prowl about our end of the town. They should be made to confine themselves to the City, and those low parts."

"What's that about the City ?" inquired a gentleman, a tall, fine man, who now entered and caught the Lady Adela's last words; while the young man, moving listlessly towards a distant window, stealthily threw a shilling from it, and then quitted the room.

"Street-beggars," answered the lady. "I say they ought not to be allowed out of the City, exposing their rags and their wretchedness to us! It is disgraceful."

"The City is much obliged to you," observed the gentleman, in a marked manner, as if implying that he belonged to it. And the Lady Adela shrugged her shoulders in a very French fashion, the gesture betraying contempt for the speaker and his words.

"Lady Adela," he said, quietly sitting down beside her, "I have long wanted a few minutes' serious talk with you, and have put it off from day to day, for the subject is full of pain to me as it ought to be to you; of shame, I had almost said."

She turned her magnificent eyes full upon him, and he saw their hard, defiant expression, even through the dusk of the summer's evening.

"You may spare yourself the trouble of a lecture, if that is what you intend. Better go back to your wine and your nap. The one will do you more good than the other-and me also.”

"What you mean by wine and nap I do not understand. To wine I have never been addicted, as you know, and if I have now and then fallen into a doze after dinner, my hard day's work in the City may excuse it, for my mind and brain are there always in exercise; but it has happened rarely. These inuendoes fall harmless, Lady Adela." She hummed a merry tune.

Adela, listen to me," he interrupted, somewhat peremptorily. "Your behaviour is not what it ought to be, and you must alter it."

"So you have told me ever since we were married, all the four years

and the odd months," she said, with a mocking laugh.

"

“Of your behaviour to me I have told you so repeatedly and uselessly

that I have now dropped the subject for ever. What I would now speak

of is your behaviour to Mr. Cleveland. The world is already beginning to notice it, and, Lady Adela, what is objectionable in it shall be discontinued."

"Charley," she uttered, in a most excited tone, turning towards her right hand, on which the young man mentioned had stood "Charley, you hear him? He would insinuate- Where is he? I thought

do

he was here."

“Had he been here I should not have spoken," was Mr. Grubb's reply, biting his lip with deep vexation.

"Is your rôle now going to be that of a jealous husband?" she scornfully returned.

"No," he replied. "You have striven, with unnecessary endeavour, to deaden the love for you which once filled my heart: if that love has not turned to gall and bitterness, it is not your fault. At any rate, there is not enough of it left for jealousy to disturb me like a fond schoolboy. But your reputation is, in a degree, in my keeping; my honour is bound up in yours, and that honour, that reputation, shall be cared for in the eyes of the world.”

"There is no necessity for your caring for it," she retorted; "your honour"—with a sneer at the word-"is perfectly safe in my keeping. I am not going to lose myself: the man is not in being who could bring such disgrace upon me. You are out of your senses.'

"That it is really safe I do not doubt," he returned, drawing himself slightly up. "Forgive me, Lady Adela, if my words could have borne any other construction. But I am solicitous that it should be so in appearance as well as reality. Your mother spoke to me to-day about Mr. Cleveland. She said if I did not interfere with you in the matter she should."

"Let my mother mind her own affairs," said Lady Adela, in a resentful tone. "She can control my sisters, those who are left to her; but when I married I emancipated myself from it. Pray, where did her? Has it come to secret meetings, in which my conduct is discussed ?"

you see

"She came to me in the City, but other business. I pass over

upon

your insinuation, Lady Adela: it is unworthy of your mother and of myself."

"And so you got up a nice little mare's-nest between you, that I was too intimate with Charley Cleveland! and was to be snubbed for it, like a child”

"That you were too free with him, Lady Adela," corrected her husband; "that your manners with him, chiefly in this your own house, were not tempered with sufficient reserve. She said the world was already coupling your names together."

"And what did you say?" sneered Lady Adela.

"I said nothing," he replied, a sort of sadness in his tone. "I could have said that the subject had long been to me a source of annoyance : I could have added that I had refrained from remonstrance, for that remonstrance from me to my wife had ever been worse than useless." "That's true enough, sir. Then why attempt it now?"

"For your own sake. And in years to come, when time shall have brought to you sense and feeling, you will thank me for being more careful of your fair fame than you seem inclined to be yourself. I do not wish to pursue the subject, Lady Adela; let the hint I have given you . avail. Be more circumspect in your manners with Mr. Cleveland, and then-"

"And then- - Well ?"

"I shall not be called upon to interpose my authority. It would be against my inclination and his interests."

"Your authority!" she scornfully uttered. "Do you really think I should alter my conduct for any authority of yours? You must

"Lady Grace Chenevix," interrupted a servant, throwing open the door.

A quiet-looking person entered; quiet in dress, quiet in manner; very thin, rather withered, with two sharp lines on her brow, and her years over thirty. It was the eldest sister of Lady Adela.

"Mamma and

"I took the chance of finding you at home," she said. Harriet are gone to the Dowager Cust's. Are you going out, Mr.

Grubb?"

"To the club, for half an hour, Grace. You will stay with Lady Adela." "Grace," to his sister-in-law; "Lady Adela," to his wife: what did that tell?

"One never knows what to do on these dull Friday evenings," began Lady Grace, as Mr. Grubb left the room.

66

"No

"" opera, no Pray are you a party to this conspiracy between my mother and him ?" unceremoniously interposed Lady Adela, with a contemptuous gesture towards the door by which her husband had disappeared, to indicate whom she meant by "him;" and the words were the first she had condescended to utter to her sister since her entrance.

"Conspiracy? I don't know of any," answered Lady Grace, carelessly. "I do feel so ennuyée'd this evening!"

"Had

you come in a few minutes before, you would have found him holding forth about Charley Cleveland. And he said my mother went to him in the City to-day to put him up to it."

"Oh, if you mean about Charley Cleveland, I was going to tell you of it myself. You are getting quite absurd with him, Adela. Or he is