The Kings Sons | Page 2

four sons cared for such things as gave her delight.
They all loved to be out in the open air along with Cerda, the Saxon jarl,
one 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