where Elfrida and Ethelred lived. Wishing
to see them, kindly, he rode away from his
attendants and galloped to the castle gate,
where he arrived at twilight and blew his
hunting-horn. "You are welcome, dear
king," said Elfrida, coming out, with her
brightest smiles. "Pray you dismount and
enter." "Not so, dear madam," said the
king. "My company will miss me, and fear
that I have met with some harm. Please
you to give me a cup of wine, that I may
drink here, in the saddle, to you and to my
little brother, and so ride away with the good
speed I have made in riding here." Elfrida,
going in to bring the wine, whispered an
armed servant one of her attendants, who stole
out of the darkening gateway, and crept round
behind the king's horse. As the king raised
the cup to his lips, saying, "Health!" to the
wicked woman who was smiling on him, and
to his innocent brother whose hand she held
in hers, and who was only ten years old, this
armed man made a spring and stabbed him
in the back. He dropped the cup and spurred
his horse away; but, soon fainting with loss
of blood, drooped from the saddle, and, in his
fall, entangled one of his feet in the stirrup.
The frightened horse dashed on, trailing his
rider's curls upon the ground; dragging his
smooth young face through ruts, and stones,
and briers, and fallen leaves, and mud; until
the hunters, tracking the animal's course by
the king's blood, caught his bridle, and
released the disfigured body.

Then, came the sixth and last of the boy-
kings, ETHELRED: whom Elfrida, when he
cried out at the sight of his murdered brother
riding away from the castle gate, unmercifully
beat with a torch which she snatched from
one of the attendants. The people so disliked
this boy, on account of his cruel mother and
the murder she had done to promote him, that
Dunstan would not have had him for king, but
would have made EDGITHA, the daughter of
the dead King Edgar and of the lady whom
he stole out of the convent at Wilton, Queen
of England, if she would have consented. But,
she knew the stories of the youthful kings too
well, and would not be persuaded from the
convent where she lived in peace; so, Dunstan
put Ethelred on the throne, having no one
else to put there, and gave him the nickname
of THE UNREADY—knowing that he wanted
resolution and firmness.

At first, Elfrida possessed great influence
over the young king, but, as he grew older
and came of age, her influence declined. The
infamous woman, not having it in her power
to do any more evil, then retired from
court, and, according to the fashion of the
time, built churches and monasteries, to
expiate her guilt. As if a church, with a steeple
reaching to the very stars, would have been
any sign of true repentance for the blood of
the poor boy, whose murdered form was
trailed at his horse's heels! As if she could
have buried her wickedness beneath the
senseless stones of the whole world, piled up
one upon another, for the monks to live in!

About the ninth or tenth year of this reign,
Dunstan died. He was growing old then, but
was as stern and artful as ever. Two
circumstances that happened in connexion with him,
in this reign of Ethelred, made a great noise.
Once, he was present at a meeting of the
Church, when the question was discussed
whether priests should have permission to
marry; and, as he sat with his head hung
down, apparently thinking deeply about it,
a voice seemed to come out of a crucifix in
the room, and warn the meeting to be of his
opinion. This was some juggling of Dunstan's,
and was probably his own voice disguised.
But, he played off a worse juggle than that,
soon afterwards; for, another meeting being
held on the same subject, and he and his
supporters being seated on one side of a great
room, and their opponents on the other, he
rose and said, "To Christ himself, as Judge,
do I commit this cause!" Immediately on
those words being spoken, the floor where
the opposite party sat, gave way, and some
were killed and many wounded. You may
be pretty sure it had been weakened
under Dunstan's direction, and that it fell at
Dunstan's signal. His part of the floor did
not go down. No, no. He was too good a
workman for that.

When he died, the monks settled that he
was a Saint, and called him Saint Dunstan
ever afterwards. They might just as well
have settled that he was a coach-horse, and
could just as easily have called him one.

Ethelred the Unready was glad enough, I
dare say, to be rid of this holy saint; but,
left to himself, he was a poor weak king, and
his reign was a reign of defeat and shame.
The restless Danes, led by SWEYN a son of
the King of Denmark who had quarrelled
with his father and been banished from home,
again came into England, and, year after year,
attacked and despoiled large towns. To coax
these sea-kings away, the weak Ethelred paid
them money; but, the more money he paid,
the more money the Danes wanted—at first,
he gave them ten thousand pounds; on their
next invasion, sixteen thousand pounds; on
their next invasion, four and twenty thousand
pounds: to pay which large sums, the
unfortunate English people were heavily taxed.
But, as the Danes still came back and wanted
more, he thought it would be a good plan to
marry into some powerful foreign family that
would help him with soldiers. So, in the
year one thousand and two, he courted and
married Emma, the sister of Richard Duke
of Normandy; a lady who was called The
Flower of Normandy.

And now, a terrible deed was done in
England, the like of which was never done on
English ground, before or since. On the
thirteenth of November, in pursuance of
secret instructions sent by the king over the
whole country, the inhabitants of every town