Dead Mans Plack and an Old Thorn | Page 3

to make her peace with God, came and
built a Priory and took the habit herself and there finished her darkened
life.
This then was how he juggled with words and documents and
chronicles (his thimble-rigging), making a truth a lie or a lie a truth
according as it suited a froward and prejudicate mind, to quote the
expression of an older and simpler-minded historian--Sir Walter
Raleigh.
Finally, to wind up the whole controversy, he says you are to take it as
a positive truth that Edgar married Elfrida, and a positive falsehood that
Edgar killed Athelwold. Why--seeing there is as good authority and
reason for believing the one statement as the other? A foolish question!
Why?--Because I, Professor or Pope Freeman, say so!
The main thing here is the effect the Freeman anecdote had on me,
which was that when I went back to continue my insect-watching and
rested at noon at Dead Man's Plack, the old legend would keep
intruding itself on my mind, until, wishing to have done with it, I said
and I swore that it was true--that the tradition preserved in the
neighbourhood, that on this very spot Athelwold was slain by the king,
was better than any document or history. It was an act which had been
witnessed by many persons, and the memory of it preserved and
handed down from father to son for thirty generations; for it must be
borne in mind that the inhabitants of this district of Andover and the
villages on the Test have never in the last thousand years been
exterminated or expelled. And ten centuries is not so long for an event
of so startling a character to persist in the memory of the people when
we consider that such traditions have come down to us even from
prehistoric times and have proved true. Our archæologists, for example,
after long study of the remains, cannot tell us how long ago--centuries
or thousands of years--a warrior with golden armour was buried under
the great cairn at Mold in Flintshire.

And now the curious part of all this matter comes in. Having taken my
side in the controversy and made my pronouncement, I found that I was
not yet free of it. It remained with me, but in a new way--not as an old
story in old books, but as an event, or series of events, now being
re-enacted before my very eyes. I actually saw and heard it all, from the
very beginning to the dreadful end; and this is what I am now going to
relate. But whether or not I shall in my relation be in close accord with
what history tells us I know not, nor does it matter in the least. For just
as the religious mystic is exempt from the study of theology and the
whole body of religious doctrine, and from all the observances
necessary to those who in fear and trembling are seeking their salvation,
even so those who have been brought to the Gate of Remembrance are
independent of written documents, chronicles and histories, and of the
weary task of separating the false from the true. They have better
sources of information. For I am not so vain as to imagine for one
moment that without such external aid I am able to make shadows
breathe, revive the dead, and know what silent mouths once said.

I
When, sitting at noon in the shade of an oak tree at Dead Man's Plack, I
beheld Edgar, I almost ceased to wonder at the miracle that had
happened in this war-mad, desolated England, where Saxon and Dane,
like two infuriated bull-dogs, were everlastingly at grips, striving to
tear each other's throats out, and deluging the country with blood; how,
ceasing from their strife, they had all at once agreed to live in peace and
unity side by side under the young king; and this seemingly unnatural
state of things endured even to the end of his life, on which account he
was called Edgar the Peaceful.
He was beautiful in person and had infinite charm, and these gifts,
together with his kingly qualities, which have won the admiration of all
men of all ages, endeared him to his people. He was but thirteen when
he came to be king of united England, and small for his age, but even in
these terrible times he was remarkable for his courage, both physical
and moral. Withal he had a subtle mind; indeed, I think he surpassed all

our kings of the past thousand years in combining so many excellent
qualities. His was the wisdom of the serpent combined with the
gentleness--I will not say of the dove, but rather of the cat, our little
tiger on the hearthrug, the most beautiful of four-footed things, so