Dead Mans Plack and an Old Thorn | Page 5

so simple as to buy a pig
in a poke. The lady, he said, had not been to court, consequently she
had not been seen by those best able to judge of her reputed beauty. Her
fame rested wholly on the report of the people of her own country, who
were great as every one knew at blowing their own trumpets. Their red
and green county was England's paradise; their men the bravest and
handsomest and their women the most beautiful in the land. For his part
he believed there were as good men and as fair women in Mercia and
East Anglia as in the West. It would certainly be an awkward business
if the king found himself bound in honour to wed with a person he did
not like. Awkward because of her father's fierce pride and power. A
better plan would be to send some one he could trust not to make a
mistake to find out the truth of the report.
Edgar was pleased at his friend's wise caution, and praised him for his
candour, which was that of a true friend, and as he was the only man he
could thoroughly trust in such a matter he would send him.
Accordingly, Athelwold, still much amused at Edgar's sudden wish to
make an offer of marriage to a woman he had never seen, set out on his
journey in great state with many attendants as befitted his person and
his mission, which was ostensibly to bear greetings and loving
messages from the king to some of his most important subjects in the
West Country.
In this way he travelled through Wilts, Somerset and Devon, and in due
time arrived at Earl Ongar's castle on the Exe.

III
Athelwold, who thought highly of himself, had undertaken his mission
with a light heart, but now when his progress in the West had brought
him to the great earldoman's castle it was borne in on him that he had
put himself in a very responsible position. He was here to look at this

woman with cold, critical eyes, which was easy enough; and having
looked at and measured and weighed her, he would make a true report
to Edgar; that too would be easy for him, since all his power and
happiness in life depended on the king's continual favour. But Ongar
stood between him and the woman he had come to see and take stock
of with that clear unbiassed judgment which he could safely rely on.
And Ongar was a proud and stern old man, jealous of his great position,
who had not hesitated to say on Edgar's accession to the kingship,
knowing well that his words would be reported in due time, that he
refused to be one of the crowd who came flocking from all over the
land to pay homage to a boy. It thus came about that neither then nor at
any subsequent period had there been any personal relations between
the king and this English subject, who was prouder than all the Welsh
kings who had rushed at Edgar's call to make their submission.
But now when Ongar had been informed that the king's intimate friend
and confidant was on his way to him with greetings and loving
messages from Edgar, he was flattered, and resolved to receive him in a
friendly and loyal spirit and do him all the honour in his power. For
Edgar was no longer a boy: he was king over all this hitherto turbulent
realm, East and West from sea to sea and from the Land's End to the
Tweed, and the strange enduring peace of the times was a proof of his
power.
It thus came to pass that Athelwold's mission was made smooth to him,
and when they met and conversed, the fierce old Earl was so well
pleased with his visitor, that all trace of the sullen hostility he had
cherished towards the court passed away like the shadow of a cloud.
And later, in the banqueting-room, Athelwold came face to face with
the woman he had come to look at with cold, critical eyes, like one who
examines a horse in the interests of a friend who desires to become its
purchaser.
Down to that fatal moment the one desire of his heart was to serve his
friend faithfully in this delicate business. Now, the first sight of her, the
first touch of her hand, wrought a change in him, and all thought of
Edgar and of the purpose of his visit vanished out of his mind. Even he,

one of the great nobles of his time, the accomplished courtier and life
of the court, stood silent like a person spell-bound before this woman
who had been to no court, but had lived always