Etheridge

“ He knew the name of Etheridge as belonging to a rich and influential family in New York, but could recall no definite acquaintance even with them.
There was a lovely winter sunset that evening, and Hertford felt it a delight that his eyes took in the same scene as hers, and felt that the same emotions were [207] aroused by it in both their hearts. When, at last, she spoke to the maid and rose to go below, he boldly resolved to make a move at the same time, and so he walked the length of the deck behind her, and followed her through the door. ”

“ Etheridge gave a cry of horror, and Mamma screamed with fright, but Ethel held her father in a convulsive embrace, her erotic fury making her at the moment as strong as a lioness, whilst Frank for his part thrust so vigorously at his mother that, in spite of their horror at the incestuous situation, they all spent simultaneously.
It would be impossible to describe the sense of shame that overcame the poor parents ”

“ Both were [2] tall, well-made, and handsome, and, to draw at once a distinction between them which will effectually separate their personalities, Frank Etheridge was a man to attract the attention of men, and Edgar Sellick that of women; the former betraying at first glance all his good qualities in the keenness of his eye and the frankness of his smile, and the latter hiding his best impulses under an air of cynicism so allied to melancholy that imagination was allowed free play in his behalf. They had attended the same college and had met on the train by chance. ”

“ Who is it? The shadow is on his face and we cannot see, but one thing is apparent, Frank Etheridge is not the only man who worships at this especial shrine to-night.
[55] VI.
YOUNG MEN'S FANCIES.
The next morning at about nine o'clock Frank burst impetuously into Edgar's presence. They had not met for a good-night the evening before and they had taken breakfast separately.
"Edgar, what is this I hear about Hermione Cavanagh? Is it true she lives alone in that house with her sister, and that they neither of them ever go out, not even for a half-hour's stroll in the streets?" ”

“ Words could not express Richard's emotions as he held that note in his shaking hand, and gazed at the words, "My own darling Ethie." Quiet men like Richard Markham are terrible when roused; and Richard was terrible in his anger, as he sat like a block of stone, contemplating the proof of his wife's unfaithfulness. He called it by that hard name, grating his teeth together as he thought of her going by appointment to meet Frank Van Buren, who had called him an "old maid," and planned to have him left behind if possible. ”

“ Here she assembled seventy-four nuns, but hearing of the great sanctity of St. Etheldreda at Ely, and being desirous to live in greater obscurity, and to be more at liberty to employ all her thoughts on heaven, she left the kingdom of Kent, and retired to Ely before the year 679, in which she was chosen to succeed her sister St. Etheldreda, or Audry, in the government of that house. Sixteen years after she caused the body of that saint to be taken up, and passed herself to bliss in a good old age, on the 6th of July, toward the end of the seventh century. ”

“ Every stone, and plank and tack, and nail had in it a thought of the Ethie whose coming back had been speculated upon and planned in so many different ways, but never in this way--never just as it had finally occurred, with Richard gone, and no one there to welcome her, save the servants in the kitchen, who, while she ate her solitary dinner, feeling more desolate and wretched than she had ever before felt in her life, wondered who she was, and how far they ought to go with their attentions and civilities. ”

“ Scarcely has the king gone out and the count disappeared behind him, than a thick tapestry is raised and Edith enters on the scene. She has seen nothing save that the king is young and beautiful; heard nothing but that he loves her. Ethelwood's devotion, his refusal to marry the king's sister, the danger he is incurring, all glide over her heart like a breath on a mirror. She goes to the window. Ethelwood is on his knees holding the king's stirrup. In the office which, where nobility of spirit is present, is regarded as an honour, Edith sees nothing but shame ”

“ Richard could not find Ethelyn, or any trace of her, and after a protracted search of six long weeks, he went back to his Iowa home, sick, worn out, and discouraged. Aunt Barbara roused herself for action. "Men were good for nothing to hunt. They could not find a thing if it was right before their face and eyes. It took a woman; and she was going to see what she could do," she said to Mrs. Van Buren, who was up at the homestead for a few days, and who looked aghast at her sister's proposition, that she should accompany her, and help her hunt up Ethie. ”

“ Richard was walking up and down the room, white with rage, as he said this, and Andy, cowering in a corner, was looking on and listening. He did not speak until Richard declared his incapacity for forgiving Ethie, when he started up, and confronting the angry man, said to him rebukingly:
"Hold there, old Dick! You have gone a leetle too far. If God can forgive you and me all them things we've done, which he knows about, and other folks don't, you can, or or'to forgive sister Ethie, let her sin be what it may. ”

“ The Saxon nobles who had so recently sent Ethelred away, now wanted him back again. They despatched a message, however, to the effect that, if he would promise to be a good king, and never be naughty any more, they would be glad to accept him once more as their sovereign. Ethelred turning his son Edmund into a postman, forwarded a letter by hand, promising reform, but stipulating that there should be no "fraud or treachery," or in other words, no humbug on either side. ”

“ Soon she was the fortunate mother of Kanute and Harald. When these princes had attained man's estate, they put forth a fleet and quelled the reckless insolence of the Sclavs. Neither did they leave England free from an attack of the same kind. Ethelred was delighted with their spirit, and rejoiced at the violence his nephews offered him; accepting an abominable wrong as though it were the richest of benefits. For he saw far more merit in their bravery than in piety. ”

“ Those were trying days to Richard, who rarely left Ethie's bedside, except when it was absolutely necessary. She was more quiet with him, and would sometimes sleep for hours upon his arm, with one hand clasped in Aunt Barbara's, and the other held by Andy. At other times, when the fever was on, no arm availed to hold her as she tossed from side to side, talking of things at which a stranger would have marveled, and which made Richard's heart ache to its very core. At times she was a girl in Chicopee, and all the past as connected with Frank Van Buren was lived over again ”

“ In the tide of health, the youthful monarch, offspring of Ethelred! ruled well his subjects; the Welsh and the Scots, and the Britons also, Angles and Saxons relations of old. So apprehend the first in rank, that to Edward all the noble king were firmly held high-seated men. Blithe-minded aye was the harmless king; though he long ere, of land bereft, abode in exile wide on the earth; when Knute o'ercame the kin of Ethelred, and the Danes wielded the dear kingdom of Engle-land. Eight and twenty winters' rounds they wealth dispensed. ”

“ Why King Ethelred was called the Unready; how the Danes drove away the English princes, and made Canute king; how Canute rebuked his courtiers and improved the people, and how the Danes and Saxons made slaves of their prisoners and of the poor. The son of the wicked Elfrida was king after his brother Edward. His name was Ethelred, and he was king a great many years, but never did anything wise or good. The Danes came again to England, when they found out how foolish King Ethelred was, and that he was never ready, either with his ships or his soldiers, or with good counsel ”

“ XXI. How Bishop Theodore made peace between the kings Egfrid and Ethelred. [679 a.d.] In the ninth year of the reign of King Egfrid, a great battle674 was fought between him and Ethelred, king of the Mercians, near the river Trent, and Aelfwine,675 brother to King Egfrid, was slain, a youth about eighteen years of age, and much beloved by both provinces; for King Ethelred had married his sister Osthryth.676 There was now reason to expect a more bloody war, and more lasting enmity between those kings and their fierce nations ”

“ Then followed the whole story of Ethelyn's first love. Nothing was concealed, nothing kept back. Even the dreariness of the day when Aunt Van Buren came up from Boston and broke poor Ethie's heart, was described and dwelt upon with that particularity which shows how the lights, and shadows, and sunshine, and storms which mark certain events in one's history will impress themselves upon one's mind, as parts of the great joy or sorrow which can never be forgotten. Then she spoke of meeting Richard, and the train of circumstances which finally led to their betrothal. ”

“ Brice, 1002, he gave it out that he would massacre these people, among them the sister of the Danish king, a noble woman who had become a Christian (only it is to be hoped a better one) , and married an English earl. He had them all butchered.
[Illustration: ETHELRED WEDS EMMA.]
In 1003, Sweyn, with revenge in his heart, began a war of extermination or subjugation, and never yielded till he was, in fact, king of England, while the royal intellectual polyp, known as Ethelred the Unwholesome, fled to Normandy, in the 1013th year Anno Domini. ”

“ But Ethie did not know it, as Richard wisely refrained from being the first to speak of the matter. That she was going to Washington Ethelyn had no doubt, and this made her intercourse with the Olneyites far more endurable. Some of them she found pleasant, cultivated people--especially Mr. Townsend, the clergyman, who, after the Sunday on which she appeared at the Village Hall in her blue silk and elegant basquine, came to see her, and seemed so much like an old friend when she found that he had met at Clifton, in New York, some of her acquaintances. ”

“ Van Buren's trained chambermaid, Mag, had ever entered into the clearing-up process with greater zeal than did Eunice when once she knew that Richard expected it of her. She was naturally kind-hearted, and though Ethelyn's lofty ways annoyed her somewhat, her admiration for the beautiful woman and her elegant wardrobe was unbounded, and she felt a pride in waiting upon her which she would once have thought impossible to feel in anything pertaining to her duties as a servant. ”

“ Born during the lifetime of his grandfather Ælfred, Æthelstan was a favourite of the great West-Saxon king, who gave him as a boy a purple cloak, a jewelled belt, and a sword with a golden scabbard, no doubt to mark him out, in spite of his illegitimacy, as a right ætheling. When the young prince was six years old, Ælfred died, and during the stormy years when Eadward was slowly recovering the overlordship of Mercia and Northumbria from the Danish hosts, Æthelstan was sent to be brought up by his aunt Æthelflæd, the Lady of the Mercians, and her husband the ealdorman Æthelred. ”

“ Richard said, in the low, peculiar tone, which she had almost unconsciously learned to fear, just as she did the dark expression which his hazel eyes assumed as he said the single word "Ethelyn!"
She was afraid of Richard when he looked and spoke that way, and putting up her lip, she permitted the kiss which the warm-hearted James gave to her. He was naturally more demonstrative than his brother, and more susceptible, too; a pretty face would always set his heart to beating and call out all the gallantry of his nature. ”

“ Dr. Van Buren who asked this question, her voice betokening that nothing which Richard could offer as an excuse would be received. They must have Ethie's reason or none. Richard would far rather Mrs. Dr. Van Buren had been in Boston, or Paris, or Guinea, than there in Chicopee, staring so coolly at him; but as her being there was something he could not help, he accepted it as a part of the train of calamities closing so fast about him, and answered, respectfully:
"It was no one thing which made her go, but the culmination of many. ”

“ So, as though looking only to her expectations, Ethelwald asked the king to give him the lady. Edgar yielded his consent, and Ethelwald married Elfrida, and became by her the father of a boy whom he persuaded the king to take as his god-child, and to whom he gave the name of Edgar. Then Ethelwald was glad, for he knew that according to the laws of the Church, they had contracted a spiritual relationship which would prevent the king from ever marrying Elfrida and removing himself, the obstacle which stood in the way should he contemplate an union. ”

“ Taking advantage of his brother-in-law's tender age, Ethelfrid usurped the throne of Deira, and became King of the whole of Northumbria, and the boy Eadwine was taken into exile by his friends. For many years, until he grew up to manhood, he wandered about from one refuge to another, until at last he found a safe asylum at the court of Redwald, King of the East Angles. ”

“ Edith grows pale; she begins to understand. The parchment upon which Ethelwood has rapidly traced a [Pg 112] few lines will tell to every one that the count has taken refuge from the king's anger in death. As Edith lay in her grave, Ethelwood will be laid in his; and, as he watched over her, she, in her turn, shall watch by him; as he had the key of death, she shall have the key of life. Edith fights against this idea; she measures her own weakness, urges her ambition, but too late: Ethelwood, when he left the king, had taken the narcotic. ”