The Ward of King Canute | Page 4

the Lord of Ivarsdale paid his Debt
XXIII. A Blood-Stained Crown
XXIV. On the Road to London
XXV. The King's Wife
XXVI. In the Judgment Hall
XXVII. Pixie-Led
XXVIII. When Love meets Love
XXIX. The Ring of the Coiled Snake
XXX. When the King takes a Queen
XXXI. The Twilight of the Gods
XXXII. In Time's Morning

The Ward of King Canute

Foreword
There is an old myth of a hero who renewed his strength each time he

touched the earth, and finally was overcome by being raised in the air
and crushed. Whether or not the Angles risked a like fate as they raised
themselves away from the primitive virtues that had been their life and
strength, no one can tell; but it has been well said that when Northern
blood mingled with English blood at the time of the Danish Conquest,
the Anglo-Saxon race touched the earth again.
Chapter I
The Fall of the House of Frode
Full stocked folds I saw at the sons of Fitjung, Now they carry beggars'
staffs; Wealth is Like the twinkling of an eye, The most unstable of
friends. Ha'vama'l.
As the blackness of the midsummer night paled, the broken towers and
wrecked walls of the monastery loomed up dim and stark in the gray
light. The long- drawn sigh of a waking world crept through the air and
rustled the ivy leaves. The pitying angel of dreams, who had striven all
night long to restore the plundered shrine and raise from their graves
the band of martyred nuns, ceased from his ministrations, softly as a
bubble frees itself from the pipe that shaped it, and floated away on the
breath of the wind. Through a breach in the moss-grown wall, the first
sunbeam stole in and pointed a bright finger across the cloister garth at
the charred spot in the centre, where missals and parchment rolls had
made a roaring fire to warm the invaders' blood-stained hands.
As the lark rose through the brightening air to greet the coming day, a
woman in the tunic and cowl of a nun opened what was left of the
wicket-gate in the one unbattered wall. A trace of the luxury that had
dwelt under the gilded spires survived in her robes, which had been of a
royal purple and embroidered with silken flowers; but the voice of
Time and of Ruin spoke from them also, for the purple was faded to a
rusty brown, and the silken embroideries were threadbare. She struck a
note in perfect harmony with her surroundings, as she stood under the
crumbling arch, peering out into the flowering lane.
Stretching away from her feet in dewy freshness, it made a green link

between the herb-garden of St. Mildred's and the highway of the
Watling Street. Like the straggling hedges that were half buried under a
net of wild roses, red and white, the path was half effaced by grass; but
beyond, her eye could follow the straight line of the great Roman road
over marsh and meadow and hill-top. If grass had gathered there also,
during the Anglo-Saxon times, there were no traces of it now, in the
days of Edmund Ironside when Canute of Denmark was leading his
war-host back and forth over its stones. Between the dark walls of oak
and beech, it gleamed as white as the Milky Way. The nun was able to
trace its course up the slope of the last hill. Just beyond the crest, a pall
of smoke was spread over a burning village. Though it was miles away,
it seemed to her that the wind brought cries of anguish to her ear, and
prayers for mercy. Shivering, she turned her face back to the desolate
peace of the ruins.
"Now is it clear to all men why a bloody cloud was hung over the land
in the year that Ethelred came to the throne," she said. "I feel as the
blessed dead might feel should they be forced to leave the shelter of
their graves and look out upon the world."
Rising from its knees beside a bed of herbs, a second figure in faded
robes approached the gate. Sister Sexberga was very old, much older
than her companion, and her face was a wrinkled parchment whereon
Time had written some terrible lessons.
She said gently, "We are one with the dead, beloved sister. Those who
lie under the chancel lay no safer than we, last night, though the
Pagans' passing tread shook the ground we lay on, and their songs
broke our slumbers. Let us cease not to give thanks to Him who has
spread over us the peace of the grave."
The shadows deepened in the eyes of Sister Wynfreda as she turned
them back toward the lane, for her