A GRIM TEMPLE, A GRIM PRIEST, AND A SAD HEART.
"When true hearts lie wither'd
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?"
Moore.
Ethel, deeply muffled and disguised, passed through the little postern-gate of the fortress. A word in the ear of the sentinel who paced to and fro before it on guard, secured instant obedience. Ethel's position in the fortress was thoroughly understood by all. Her self-denial, her patience, and her burning patriotism, were well known in this camp of Saxon outlaws. The readiness with which she undertook positions involving fatigue and privation, for the cause, was a constant inspiration to the common people. They watched her come and go with veneration—almost with awe and superstition. They whispered one to another of her strange journeyings by night and day; and many regarded this young chieftainess as a special favourite of the gods. As she glided through the gate in the early morning hours, the sentinel thrust his head forth and watched her swiftly descend the slope, like a ghost in the darkness. When her form was no longer visible, he closed the door, and secured it with bolt and bar.
"Whatever can she be after so early in the morning, and before the day dawns? There's something very uncanny about her, tramping over hill and dale by night and day like any wolfshead, or wicca-hag.[3] I saw the fiery lights in the heavens two hours ago. I wonder what it all means. I almost wish I was safely out in the Bruneswald, where I could hop about like a bird from tree to tree, and where never a Norman could corner one. This being cooped up like a rabbit in a hole I don't relish. I like room to ply my heels. Howsomever, I'll stick, and stand my chance, for the women can't be whisked through the air; and the children, too, they must have a nest." So the sentinel continued his watch, and ruminated on these things.
Meanwhile, Ethel sped with quick step over the rugged limestone hills, flying before the fastly pursuing dawn like a fugitive who dreaded his revealing power. Ever and anon she turned to measure with her eye the distance she had traversed. The shadowy outlines of the fortress she left behind began to take shape in the distance, and she quickened her pace. "I shall soon be beyond the reach of vision," she muttered to herself. "I would not have Oswald know my errand to-day for worlds. My mind is dark, I know not what I do; but my hope dies, and my heart breaks. Perhaps the Norseman's gods may help me, for the Christian's God fails me. 'Tis a dread alternative; but I would know, if I could, what Fate has decreed for me."
For three weary hours she sped over dreary moors and scraggy, precipitous valleys, which were often little better than ravines. Presently she turned into a declivity running between two banked-up, precipitous sides. A little ahead, the two sides curved inwards and came together, and to all appearance this strange gorge came to an end. Ethel marched forward with unfaltering step, evidently straight at the blunt face of the joined limestone rock. But when she reached the extremity, there became visible, what at a very short distance could not be seen, an obscure opening behind a jagged projection of rock. It might be, to all appearance, merely an entrance to a fox's or wolf's den. Into this opening, however, Ethel crept, without halt or questionings of any kind. Presently the narrow entrance became larger, and she stood upright, but continued to descend a rough and precipitous path, until she reached a level piece of ground. Looking up—the place was simply a stupendous slit in the limestone rock, broadening downwards into a considerable area. The trees and shrubs growing at the top interlocked from side to side, and the light came streaming through a network of branches. Desolate and awe-inspiring was the place. At the farther end were two mounds of earth, or tumuli, where the grim priests of Thor and Woden were sleeping the long sleep of death—lives which had been literally burnt out by the fierce fires of fanaticism, and savage asceticism. Ethel paused to look around, but everything was still as death; she shuddered and drew her cloak tighter about her.
"The last time I came to this spot my father brought me. I feel his untamed Norseman blood stir within me. The fierce gods of war and revenge and death his Viking ancestors and he worshipped, I dare to consult to-day. 'Tis a cruel necessity, and jars my woman's instincts—I feel it petrifies my heart with unlovely savagery; but the followers of this Christ have slain my people with a wicked and unsparing slaughter. They differ in no way in their wanton cruelty to Norseman and Dane. Their women, too, with their fair faces, dainty fingers, and courtly manners, have stolen the heart of Oswald, and I am slighted and disdained; nothing in my beauty—and suitors of noble lineage have sought me ere now for my beauty; nothing in my rank—and it is but yesterday that I might have stood amongst the proudest of the land. No; I am a withered leaf, battered, bruised, and trampled upon. My love is unrequited! My misfortunes are compassionated, but that soothes not my wounded spirit, and is but a hateful substitute for the love I crave. Alas! nothing avails me, for I am only a heathen woman and an outcast. So, hard driven by my misfortunes and my wounded love, I will consult the gods of my father. The Norseman's gods may help me perhaps. Yet," said she, pausing for a moment, whilst her breast heaved with strange and powerful emotions which struggled for the mastery within her, "my mother was Christian and Saxon. She was a follower of this Christ. She was gentle, and taught me to pray to Him. I remember it well, though I was but a child. 'Our Father which art in heaven.' Ah, that is wonderfully soothing to me, and not like the prayers I was taught to offer to Thor and Odin. But my mother could not have known this Jesus; for if He was merciful and gentle, why do His blood-thirsty followers delight in treachery and bloodshed. 'Twas a part of my cruel fate that she should die in my infancy, for had she lived I might have learned of her more perfectly. O ye gods!" said she, wringing her hands in agony above her head, and looking up to the vaulted roof with tear-blinded eyes and with agonised entreaty,—"have pity on me in my friendlessness!"
Then she sped on with a quick, determined tread. Down each side of this weird retreat there were standing out, like grim, ghostly sentinels in the uncertain light, a long line of runic stones, on which were carved many strange devices; rude figures of uncouth and unearthly animals and reptiles. She had been taught that these strange hieroglyphics and signs had marvellous potency for good or ill. They could cause passionate love, or undying hatred, in the breasts of those over whom their spell was thrown. Indeed, the power of life and death was wielded by them. Strange supernatural agencies and powers were their messengers, and did their bidding. Starting from the rock, or planted here and there, were many of the ominous rowan trees, or witch-wood. The hemlock and the nightshade clustered together, and the nodding cypress dropped sombrely over the runic stones beneath them. Ethel glanced nervously round, but not a living thing was visible; not a sound broke the death-like silence of the place. Quickly gliding beneath the drooping branches of one of the cypress trees, she fell on her knees before the frowning pillar of stone. She had knelt there before by the side of her father, who had remained heathen to the last. But to kneel alone, in this very vestibule of the Place of Darkness, and to pour out her passionate entreaties to powers which she knew were the Powers of Darkness, strange to mercy, and which had but the attributes of fiends; the ordeal was terrible indeed. With feelings tumultuous and frenzied, she apostrophised the weird and forbidding emblem before her.