"It costs more to win my esteem than a few unmeaning compliments, which Brithric is accustomed to pay to every one with whom he is desirous of carrying his point," said Wilfrid.
"And what should Brithric, who is the heir of the richest thane in my brother"s court, want to gain of a poor, landless orphan who owes his sustenance and education to the compa.s.sion of King Athelstane?"
retorted the prince, angrily.
The pale cheek of Wilfrid flushed with unwonted crimson at this unexpected taunt from the lips of his young lord. It was with difficulty that he restrained the tears which filled his eyes from overflowing, but turning meekly away, he said--
"It is the first time the Atheling has condescended to upbraid his page with the bounty of his royal brother, the generous Athelstane, whom may heaven long preserve and bless."
"It is good policy, methinks, for the son of a traitor to speak loudly of his loyalty to the mighty Athelstane," said Brithric, who, having entered unperceived, was listening to this conversation.
"Nay, Brithric," said the prince, "Wilfrid could not help his father"s fault; though the remembrance of his crime and punishment ought to restrain him from offering his opinion too boldly, when speaking of the friends of his lord."
"Let every one be judged by his own deeds," replied Wilfrid. "My unfortunate parent offended against the laws of his country, and has suffered the penalty decreed to those who do so by the loss of life and forfeiture of lands. As a further punishment, I, his only child, who was born the heir of a fair patrimony, am reared in a state of servitude and sorrow, and am doomed not only to mourn my early bereavement of a father"s care and my hard reverse of fortune, but to endure the taunts of those who are unkind enough to reproach me with the sore calamities which, without any fault of mine, have fallen upon my youthful head."
The voice of Wilfrid failed him as he concluded, and he burst into a flood of tears.
The heart of Prince Edwin smote him for the pain he had inflicted upon his faithful page; but he was too proud to acknowledge his fault. He could not, however, bear to look upon his tears; so he left him to indulge them in solitude, and, taking the ready arm of Brithric, strolled into the archery ground to amuse himself by shooting at a mark.
His hand was unsteady and his aim uncertain that day, yet Brithric"s voice was louder than ever in praising the skill of the Atheling. The rest of the royal wards took their cue from the bold flatterer, and addressed to the prince the most extravagant compliments every time his arrow came near the mark, which they all purposely abstained from hitting.
At that moment the pale, sorrowful Wilfrid crossed the ground; but, wishing to escape the attention of the joyous group, he kept at a distance. The prince, however, observed him, and willing to obliterate the remembrance of his late unkindness, called to him in a lively voice: "Come hither, Wilfrid," said he, "and tell me if you think you could send an arrow nearer to yonder mark than I have done."
"Certainly," replied Wilfrid, "or I should prove myself but a bad archer."
The group of youthful flatterers, who surrounded the heir of the throne, smiled contemptuously at the unguarded sincerity of the page in speaking the truth thus openly and plainly to his lord.
"Wilfrid, if we may believe his own testimony, is not only wiser and better than any of the servants of the Atheling," said Brithric scornfully, "but excels even the royal Atheling himself, in all the exercises of princely skill."
"He has yet to prove his boast," replied the prince, coloring with suppressed anger; "but give him his bow, Brithric," continued he, "that we may all have the advantage of taking a lesson from so peerless an archer."
"It is far from my wish presumptuously to compete with my lord,"
replied Wilfrid, calmly rejecting the bow.
"He has boasted that which he cannot perform," said Brithric, with an insulting laugh.
"You are welcome to that opinion, Brithric, if it so please you," said Wilfrid, turning about to quit the ground.
"Nay," cried the prince, "you go not till you have made good your boast, young sir, by sending an arrow nearer to the mark than mine."
"Ay, royal Atheling," shouted the company, "compel the vaunter to show us a sample of his skill."
"Rather, let my lord, the Atheling, try his own skill once more," said Wilfrid; "he can hit the mark himself, if he will."
Prince Edwin bent his bow, and this time the arrow entered the centre of the target. The ground rang with the plaudits of the spectators.
"Let us see now if Wilfrid, the son of Cendric, the traitor, can equal the Atheling"s shot," shouted Brithric.
"Shoot, Wilfrid, shoot!" cried more than twenty voices among the royal wards.
"I have no wish to bend the bow to-day," said Wilfrid.
"Because you know that you must expose yourself to contempt by failing to make your vaunt good," said Brithric; "but you shall not escape thus lightly."
"Nothing but the express command of the prince, my master, will induce me to bend my bow to-day," said Wilfrid.
"Wilfrid, son of Cendric, I, Edwin Atheling, command thee to shoot at yonder mark," said the prince.
Wilfrid bowed his head in obedience to the mandate. He fitted the arrow to the string, and stepping a pace backward, took his aim and bent the bow. The arrow flew unerringly, and cleft in twain that of Prince Edwin which already remained fixed in the centre of the mark.
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 circ.u.mstance, 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."
"Who, then, hath nursed and attended upon me so kindly during these many days of suffering while I have lain here unconscious of everything around me?"
"Your servant Wilfrid," replied the page.
"And where then are my chamberlains and attendants, by whom I ought to be surrounded?" asked the prince, raising his languid head from the bosom of Wilfrid, and looking round the s.p.a.cious but deserted room of state, in which he lay.
"They are all overcome by the terrors of the contagion," said Wilfrid.
"And why did you not flee from it also, Wilfrid?" asked the prince.
"Because, my lord," said Wilfrid, "I knew that you must perish if I abandoned you."
"Ah! Wilfrid," said the prince, bursting into tears, "I deserve not this goodness from you, for of late I have treated you very unkindly; I know and feel that I have: can you forgive me?"
"Think no more of it, my lord, I pray you," replied Wilfrid, pressing the burning hand of the prince to his lips. "I freely forgive all that has pa.s.sed, and only wish you to remember it, whenever you feel disposed to yield to the impulses of a defective temper, which, for your own sake, rather than mine, I earnestly hope you will correct."
Prince Edwin bowed his face on the bosom of his faithful page, and wept long and pa.s.sionately, promising, at the same time, amendment of his faults if ever it should please his Heavenly Father to raise him up from the bed of sickness on which he then lay.