“And let them burn,” said Wyllys.
“The woman,” said Tommy, “gave him a gentle hint, saying that if he was too lazy to watch them, he would be glad enough to eat them when they were cooked. I have heard my mother make very similar remarks.”
CANUTE AND HIS COURTIERS.
“Canute, of whom you spoke, was the king who ordered his throne to be placed on the margin of the sea,” said Wyllys to Master Lewis, “and then commanded the sea to rise no farther.”
“But the sea rose,” said Master Lewis, “and the king refused to wear again his golden crown for ever, resolving to serve only that King who rules the sea.
“The history of Oxford covers a period of a thousand years,” continued Master Lewis. “Here Queen Matilda, or the Empress Maud, as she was called, because she had been the wife of the German Emperor, was besieged by King Stephen, who had usurped the throne, and thence she fled from him one snowy day, herself and attendants dressed in white that they might not be discovered; here the people closed the gates against William the Conqueror; here Richard I. was born, and here Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer were burned. The early history of nearly all great English scholars for many centuries is associated with the colleges in this place.”
