A Prince of Cornwall / A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex

by Charles W. Whistler

Now the ealdorman could not bring Elfrida round, and he thought it best to take her hence. So he had her lifted to him on his horse, and went slowly and carefully down the hill toward the village with her. I had told him all that had happened by this time, and I was to bring word presently to him of how the search went.

So I and those two friends who had first come sat there on the cliff top waiting in silence for the coming of the man with his ropes. All that could be said had been said.

Here and there on the face of the cliff some yew trees had managed to find a holding, and their boughs were broken by the passage of the horse at least through them. But there were no shreds of clothing on them, as if Erpwald had reached them. That might be because the weightier horse fell first. It seemed to me in that moment of the fall that he was between the horse and the cliff as he went over the edge, for the forefeet of the horse struck his legs and threw him backward, and the last thing that I minded was seeing his head against the horse's mane in some way. That last glimpse will bide with me until I forget all things.

It seemed very long before our friends came back with the ropes. Backwards and forwards in front of us flew untiringly two ravens, now flying across the gorge, and then again almost brushing us with their wings as they swept up the face of the cliff from below. We thought they had a nest somewhere close at hand, for it was their time.

"If Erpwald were dead," I said presently, "those birds would not be so restless. It is hard to think that they know where he is and how he fares; but at least they tell us that he is not yet prey for them."

Backward and forward they swept, until my eyes grew dazed with watching them, and then suddenly they both croaked their alarm note, wheeled quickly away from the cliff's face, and fled across the gorge and were gone.

Then was a rattle of stones, and a shout from some one in the track below, and I started and saw a head slowly rising above the edge of the cliff as if its owner had climbed up to us. White and streaked with blood was the face, but it was not crushed or marred, and it was Erpwald's.

"Lend me a hand," he said, as we stared at him, as one needs must stare at one who comes back as it were from the grave. "My head swims even yet."

I grasped his hand and helped him to the grass, and once there he stood upright and shook himself, looking round in an astonished way as he did so.

"No broken bones," he said. "Where is Elfrida? Is she all right? I was rough with her, I fear, but I could not help it. Could I have managed otherwise?"