Dead Mans Plack and an Old Thorn | Page 9

other life
and no greater happiness than this.

V
It was early September, and the king with some of the nobles who were
with him, after hunting the deer over against Cranbourne, returned at
evening to Salisbury, and after meat with some of his intimates they sat
late drinking wine and fell into a merry, boisterous mood. They spoke
of Athelwold, who was not with them, and indulged in some mocking
remarks about his frequent and prolonged absences from the king's
company. Edgar took it in good part and smilingly replied that it had
been reported to him that the earl was now wedded to a woman with a
will. Also he knew that her father, the great Earldoman of Devon, had

been famed for his tremendous physical strength. It was related of him
that he had once been charged by a furious bull, that he had calmly
waited the onset and had dealt the animal a staggering blow with his
fist on its head and had then taken it up in his arms and hurled it into
the river Exe. If, he concluded, the daughter had inherited something of
this power it was not to be wondered at that she was able to detain her
husband at home.
Loud laughter followed this pleasantry of the king's, then one of the
company remarked that not a woman's will, though it might be like
steel of the finest temper, nor her muscular power, would serve to
change Athelwold's nature or keep him from his friend, but only a
woman's exceeding beauty.
Then Edgar, seeing that he had been put upon the defence of his absent
friend, and that all of them were eager to hear his next word, replied
that there was no possession a man was prouder of than that of a
beautiful wife; that it was more to him than his own best qualities, his
greatest actions, or than titles and lands and gold. If Athelwold had
indeed been so happy as to secure the most beautiful woman he would
have been glad to bring her to court to exhibit her to all--friends and
foes alike--for his own satisfaction and glory.
Again they greeted his speech with laughter, and one cried out: Do you
believe it?
Then another, bolder still, exclaimed: It's God's truth that she is the
fairest woman in the land--perhaps no fairer has been in any land since
Helen of Troy. This I can swear to, he added, smiting the board with
his hand, because I have it from one who saw her at her home in Devon
before her marriage. One who is a better judge in such matters than I
am or than any one at this table, not excepting the king, seeing that he
is not only gifted with the serpent's wisdom but with that creature's cold
blood as well.
Edgar heard him frowningly, then ended the discussion by rising, and
silence fell on the company, for all saw that he was offended. But he
was not offended with them, since they knew nothing of his and

Athelwold's secret, and what they thought and felt about his friend was
nothing to him. But these fatal words about Elfrida's beauty had pierced
him with a sudden suspicion of his friend's treachery. And Athelwold
was the man he greatly loved--the companion of all his years since their
boyhood together. Had he betrayed him in this monstrous
way--wounding him in his tenderest part? The very thought that such a
thing might be was like a madness in him. Then he reflected--then he
remembered, and said to himself: Yes, let me follow his teaching in this
matter too, as in the other, and exercise caution and look before I leap. I
shall look and look well and see and judge for myself.
The result was that when his boon companions next met him there was
no shadow of displeasure in him; he was in a peculiarly genial mood,
and so continued. And when his friend returned he embraced him and
gently upbraided him for having kept away for so long a time. He
begged him to remember that he was his one friend and confidant who
was more than a brother to him, and that if wholly deprived of his
company he would regard himself as the loneliest man in the kingdom.
Then in a short time he spoke once more in the same strain, and said he
had not yet sufficiently honoured his friend before the world, and that
he proposed visiting him at his own castle to make the acquaintance of
his wife and spend a day with him hunting the boar in Harewood
Forest.
Athelwold, secretly alarmed, made a suitable reply, expressing his
delight at the prospect of receiving the king, and begging him to