The Kings Sons | Page 2

of the King's chief fighting-men, who urged them to learn how to use the broadsword. After setting one of the men to make swords for the boys--not of hard cutting steel, but of good tough ash-wood--and then matching them two against two, he would sit and roar with laughter at the blows they gave and took.
"Well done! At him again!" he cried. "Another wound; but it will not bleed."
It was Cerda, too, who had bows and arrows made for the boys, whilst King Ethelwulf would look on, sometimes smiling and sometimes sighing, for he cared nothing for these things.
"But we must have fighting-men, Swythe," he said, to a little plump, rosy-looking monk in a long gown held tightly to his waist by a knotted rope, which cut in a good way, for the monk was very fat.
"Oh, but fighting's bad, sir, very bad," said the monk, passing one of his hands round and round over his shining, closely-shaven crown.
"Very bad," said King Ethelwulf. "I hate it; but you know what the Danes have done to so many of your holy house--killing, burning, and carrying off everything that is good."
The monk screwed up his face, shook his head, and sighed, while the rosy little man looked so droll that the King smiled.
"Look here, Swythe," he said, "suppose a horde of the savage wretches came up here to plunder my pleasant home, what would you do?"
"Hah!" said the monk. "I am a man of peace, sir; I should run away."
"And leave the Queen and my boys and me to be killed or taken prisoners?"
"Hah! No," said the monk. "I couldn't do that. I'm afraid I should take the biggest staff I could lift--or a sword--or an axe--and--and if either of the wretches tried to touch our good Queen or either of my dear boys I should hit him as hard as ever I could."
"With the club?" said the King.
"No; I should strike him down with the axe, sir."
"But you might kill him, Swythe."
"And if I did, sir," said the little monk fiercely, "it would be a good thing too; for these Norsemen are wicked pagans, come to kill and slay."
"You see, we must have fighting-men, Swythe," said the King; and then he turned to the Queen, who was listening to what they said.
"Hah! yes, sir," said the monk, with a sigh. "I suppose we must; and it does my heart good to see how clever the young Princes are with sword and bow; but they spend too much time learning to fight. If they would only spend half the time learning with me!"
"Yes, it would be good," said Queen Osburga sadly.
"But they don't," continued the monk. "There's only young Alured-- Alfred, as you call him--who will learn at all, and he is nearly as idle as his brothers."
"You cannot say that they are idle," said the Queen, smiling gently.
"Well, perhaps not idle, my daughter," said the monk, shaking his head, "because they do work hard to learn what Jarl Cerda teaches them."
"Yes," said King Ethelwulf, "they are apt to learn how to fight; but you must make them learned, as kings should be, so as to rule wisely and well when the Danes have killed me and they are called upon to reign."
"The Danes never shall kill you, sir," cried the little monk fiercely, "so long as I can stand in their way."
The little group now separated, for the King and Queen had many duties to perform in connection with state affairs, and the little monk had to prepare the lessons for the boys.
And that's how matters were on that bright sunny day when King Ethelwulf's sons lay out on the steep hill-side--Bald, Bert, Red, and Fred--four as crisp and tongue-tripping names as four bright Saxon English boys could own, but each with the addition of Athel or Ethel before, except the youngest, in whose name it shortened into Al; and these were their titles, because each was a Prince.
CHAPTER TWO.
"BOYS WILL BE BOYS."
One of the boys' amusements had been for one to shoot an arrow as high up as he could, and for his brothers to follow and try and hit the first one sent. Fine practice this in marksmanship, but unsatisfactory and tiring after a few tries, for the arrows flew far, and this time they had brought no young serfs' sons to retrieve the arrows, one of which took a long time to find.
But it was found at last, just as the head of a man appeared above the distant ridge; and the boys stopped to look, the head being followed by the shoulders and breast of the man, while behind him there was a fringe of something bright and shimmering in the sunshine.
The next minute the boys began to run, for they saw that the object first seen