To return to our subject:
The feast proceeded with great animation. At first Elfric hesitated when the meat was placed before him, but he withered, in his weakness, before the mocking smile of Edwy, and the sarcasm which played upon the lips of the rest of the company, who perceived his hesitation. So he yielded, and, shaking off all restraint, ate heartily.
Dish followed dish, and the wine cup circulated with great freedom. Excited as he was, Elfric could but remark the loose tone of the conversation. Subjects were freely discussed which had never found admittance either in the palace of King Edred or at Æscendune, and which, indeed, caused him to look up with surprise, remembering in whose presence he sat.
But, as is often the case in an age where opinion is severely repressed in its outward expression, and amongst those compelled against their will to observe silence on such subjects on ordinary occasions, all restraint seemed abandoned at the table of Ethelgiva. It was not that the language was coarse, but whether the conversation turned upon the restraints of the clergy, or the court, or upon the fashionable frivolities of the day—for there were frivolities and fashions even in that primitive age—there was a freedom of expression bordering upon profanity or licentiousness.
Edred was mocked as an old babbler; Dunstan was sometimes a fool, sometimes a hypocrite, sometimes even a sorcerer, although this was said sneeringly; the clergy were divided into fools and knaves; the claims of the Church—that is of Christianity—derided, and the principle freely avowed—“Enjoy life while you can, for you know not what may come after.”
Excited by the wine he had drunk, Elfric became as wild in his talk as the other young men, and as the intoxicating drink mounted to his brain, seemed to think that he had just learnt how to enjoy life.
The ladies retired at last, and Edwy followed them. Elfric was on the point of rising too, but a hint from his companions restrained him. The wine cup still circulated, the conversation, now unrestrained, initiated the boy into many an evil secret he had never known earlier; and so the hours passed on, till Edwy, himself much flushed, came in and said that it was time to depart, for midnight had long been tolled from the distant towers of London.
He smiled as he saw by Elfric’s bloodshot eyes and unsteady gait, as he rose, upsetting his seat, that his companion was something less master of himself than usual; he felt, it need hardly be said, no remorse, but rather regarded the whole thing as what might now be termed “a jolly lark.”
“Shall you require bearers, or can you walk to the boat? I do not wonder you are ill, you have eaten too much fish today; it is a shame to make the knees weak through fasting in this style.”
“I—I—am all right now.”