This feat of skillful archery on the part of the page called forth no shout, nor even a word of applause, from the partial group of flatterers, who had so loudly commended the Atheling's less successful shots. Their silence, however, was best pleasing to the modest Wilfrid, who, without so much as casting a single triumphant glance upon those who had insulted and reviled him, dropped his bow upon the earth, and, bowing to his royal master, retired from the scene without uttering a syllable.
From that day there was a visible change in the manners of the Atheling toward his page, for his vanity had been piqued by this trifling circumstance, of which the artful Brithric took advantage to irritate his mind against Wilfrid. He now addressed him only in the language of imperious command, and not unfrequently treated him with personal indignity.
Wilfrid felt these things very acutely, and the more so because the former kindness of his youthful lord had won his earliest affections. But he now bore all his capricious changes of temper with meekness. It was only in his unrestrained confidence with his widowed mother that he ever uttered a complaint of the young Atheling, and then he spoke of him in sorrow, not in anger; for he rightly attributed much of Prince Edwin's unamiable conduct to the pernicious influence which the artful Brithric had, through flattery, obtained over his mind.
"Patience, my son," would the widowed Ermengarde say in those moments when Wilfrid sought relief by venting his anguish in tears on the bosom of his tender mother, "patience, my son; true greatness is shown most especially in enduring with magnanimity the crosses and trials which are of every-day occurence. Let sorrow, sickness, or any other adversity touch Prince Edwin, and he will learn the difference between a true friend and a false flatterer. In due time, your worth will be proved, and your victory will be a glorious one: for it will be the triumph of virtue!"
CHAPTER III.
The day which Ermengarde had predicted was close at hand. An infectious fever broke out in the college, which, in several instances, proved fatal to those who were attacked by it, and spread such terror throughout the college that when Prince Edwin fell sick he was forsaken by almost every living creature. His faithful page, Wilfrid, however, watched him day and night, and supplied him with drink and nourishment, which were brought to him by the widow Ermengarde.
For six days the young Atheling was insensible of everything but his own sufferings, and gave no indications of consciousness. On the night of the seventh, as Wilfrid was supporting upon his bosom the head of his afflicted master, and holding a cup of cooling drink to his parched lips, he murmured, "Is it you, my faithful Brithric?"
"No," replied the page, "Brithric is not present, neither hath he entered this chamber, my lord, since the term of your sore sickness commenced."
"Surely, then, he must himself be sick, perhaps dead," said the prince.
"No," replied Wilfrid, with a smile; "he is only fearful of exposing himself to the contagion of the fever."