But the appointed day came, the horse which was to bear him away stood at the door, another horse loaded with his personal effects stood near, for carriages were then unknown, neither would the roads have permitted their use, so changed were the times since the Roman period.
His father and mother, his brother and sister, stood without the drawbridge, where the last goodbye took place; tears started unbidden to his eyes—he was only fifteen—as he heard the parting blessing, and as his mother pressed him to her bosom.
Alfred and his sister Edith seemed almost broken hearted at the parting. But Elfric tried to bear up, and the end came.
The little cavalcade left the castle, two attendants, well armed and mounted, being his bodyguard.
Again and again he looked back; and when, after a journey of two miles, the envious woods closed in, and hid the dear familiar home from his sight, a strange sense of desolation rushed upon him, as if he were alone in the world.
The route taken by the cavalcade led them in the first place to Warwick, even then a flourishing Saxon town: this was the limit of Elfric’s previous wanderings, and when they left it for the south, the whole country was strange to him.
The royal messenger had business at the cathedral city of Dorchester, at the junction of the Tame and Isis, and they did not take the more direct route by the Watling Street, the most perfect Roman road remaining. The land was but thinly peopled, forests covered the greater portion, and desolate marshes much of the remainder; thus, through alternate forest and marsh, the travellers advanced along the ruinous remains of an old Roman crossroad, which had once afforded good accommodation to travellers, but had been suffered to fall into utter ruin and decay by the neglect of their successors, our own barbarous ancestors.
Originally it had been paved with stone, and causeways had been formed over marsh and mere, but the stones had been taken away, for the road formed the most accessible quarry in the neighbourhood. Here and there, however, it was still good, surviving the wear of centuries, and even the old mileposts of iron were still existing covered with rust, with the letters denoting so many Roman miles—or thousands of paces—still legible.
A few hours’ riding from Warwick brought them at the close of the day in sight of Beranbyrig (Banbury), where three centuries earlier a bloody battle had been fought, [vi] wherein success—almost for the last time—visited the British arms, and saved the Celtic race from expulsion for twenty years.
The spot was very interesting to Elfric, for here his ancestor Sebbald had fought by the side of the invading king, Cynric, the son of Cerdic, and had fallen “gloriously” on the field.