He passed on, not giving a second thought to an adventure which would fill the mind of a modern youth for hours—but he was hardened to adventures, and blasé of them. So he took them as a matter of course and as the ordinary incidents of life: it was a time of carnage, when the "survival of the fittest" was being worked out amongst our ancestors.
"Ah, here is the river at last," he said to himself, "and now I know my way: the ice will bear me safely enough, and I shall have an easier road; although I must be careful, for did I get in, I could hardly swim in this mail-shirt."
So he stopped, and taking a pair of rude skates from his wallet, bound them to his iron-clad shoes, and skated up stream—through a desolate country.
Anon the grim old castle of the Harcourts frowned down upon him from the height where their modern mansion now stands. The sentinels saw him and sent an arrow after him, but it was vain defiance—the river was beyond arrow shot, and they only sent one, because it was the usual playful habit of the day to shoot at strangers, young or old. Every man's hand was against every man.
They did not think the dimly discerned stranger, scudding up stream, worth pursuit, especially as it was getting dark, and the snow drifts were dangerous. So they let him go, not exactly with a benediction.
And soon he was opposite the village of Sandford, or rather where the village should have been; but it was burnt to the very ground—not a house or hovel was standing; not a dog barked, for there were no dogs left to bark; nor was any living creature to be seen. Soon Iffley, another scene of desolation, was in sight; but here there were people. The old Norman Church, the same the voyager still sees, and stops to examine, was standing, and was indeed the only edifice to be seen: all else was blackened ruin, or would have been did not the snow mercifully cover it.
Here our young friend left the river, and taking off his rude skates, ascended the bank to the church by a well-trodden path, and pushed open the west door.
He gazed upon a scene to which this age happily affords no parallel. The church was full, but not of worshippers; two or three fires blazed upon the stone pavement, and the smoke, eddying upwards, made its exit through holes purposely broken in the roof for that end; around each fire sat or squatted groups of men, women, and children—hollow-eyed, famine-pinched, plague-stricken, or the like. There was hardly a face amongst them which distress had not deprived of any beauty it might once have possessed. Many a household was there—father, mother, sons and daughters, from the stripling to the babe. The altar and sanctuary were alone respected: a screen then divided them from the nave, and the gate was jealously locked, opened only each day when the parish priest, who lived in the old tower above, still faithful to his duty, went in at dawn, and said Mass; while the poor wretched creatures forgot their misery for a while, and worshipped.
Osric passed, unquestioned, through the groups,—the church was a sanctuary to all,—and at last he reached the chancel gate. A youth of his own age leant against it.
"Osric."