More Bywords - Yonge Charlotte Mary

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Hawk of the Mountain,

      The Wolf of the West,

      Meet in fierce combat.

      Sinks the bold Wolf-cub,

      Folds his wing the Falcon!

      Shall the soft priestling

      Step before him to Valhal,

      Cheating Lok’s daughter

      Of weak-hearted prey?

      Lo! the Wolf wakens.

      Valkyr relaxes,

      Waits for a battlefield,

      Wolf-cub to claim.

      Friendly the Falcon,

      Friendly the Gray-Wolf.

      So it ran on, to the great scandal of Lucius, who longed for better knowledge of the Gothic tongue to convince the old man of the folly of his heathen dreams.  Meinhard, who was likewise rather shocked, explained that the father and son had been recent arrivals, who had been baptized because Euric required his followers to embrace his faith, but with little real knowledge or acceptance on the part of the father.  Young Odorik had been a far more ardent convert; and, after the fashion of many a believer, had taken up the distinctions of sect rather than of religion, and, zealous in the faith he knew, had thought it incumbent on him to insult the Catholics where they seemed to him idolatrous.

      A message on the road informed the travellers that they would find Odorik at the villa.  Thither then they went, and soon saw the whole household on the steps in eager anticipation.  A tall young figure, with a bandage still round his fair flowing locks, came down the steps as Verronax helped the blind man to dismount; and Odo, with a cry of ‘My son!’ with a ring of ecstasy in the sound, held the youth to his breast and felt him all over.

      “Are we friends?” said Odorik, turning to Verronax, when his father released him.

      “That is as thou wiliest,” returned the Arvernian gravely.

      “Know then,” said Odorik, “that I know that I erred.  I knew not thy Lord when I mocked thine honour to Him.  Father, we had but half learnt the Christian’s God.  I have seen it now.  It was not thy blow, O Arvernian! that taught me; but the Master who inspired yonder youth to offer his life, and who sent the maiden there to wait upon her foe.  He is more than man.  I own in him the Eternal Creator, Redeemer, and Lord!”

      “Yea,” said Sidonius to his friend Æmilius, “a great work hath been wrought out.  Thus hath the parable of actual life led this zealous but half-taught youth to enter into the higher truth.  Lucius will be none the worse priest for having trodden in the steps of Him who was High-priest and Victim.  Who may abide strict Divine Justice, had not One stood between the sinner and the Judge?  Thus ‘Mercy and Truth have met together; Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other.’”

      THE CAT OF CAT COPSE

      A HAMPSHIRE TRADITION

I

      The Dane! the Dane!  The heathen Dane

      Is wasting Hampshire’s coast again—

      From ravaged church and plundered farm

      Flash the dread beacons of alarm—

         Fly, helpless peasants, fly!

      Ytene’s green banks and forest shades,

      Her heathery slopes and gorse-clad glades

         Re-echo to the cry—

      Where is the King, whose strong right hand

      Hath oft from danger freed the land?

      Nor fleet nor covenant avails

      To drive aloof those pirate sails,

         In vain is Alfred’s sword;

      Vain seems in every sacred fane

      The chant—‘From fury of the Dane,

         Deliver us, good Lord.’

II

      The long keels have the Needles past,

      Wight’s fairest bowers are flaming fast;

      From Solent’s waves rise many a mast,

      With swelling sails of gold and red,

      Dragon and serpent at each head,

      Havoc and slaughter breathing forth,

      Steer on these locusts of the north.

      Each vessel bears a deadly freight;

      Each Viking, fired with greed and hate,

      His axe is whetting for the strife,

      And counting how each Christian life

      Shall win him fame in Skaldic lays,

      And in Valhalla endless praise.

      For Hamble’s river straight they steer;

      Prayer is in vain, no aid is near—

      Hopeless and helpless all must die.

      Oh, fainting heart and failing eye,

      Look forth upon the foe once more!

      Why leap they not upon the shore?

      Why pause their keels upon the strand,

      As checked by some resistless hand?

      The sail they spread, the oars they ply,

      Yet neither may advance nor fly.

III

      Who is it holds them helpless there?

      ’Tis He Who hears the anguished prayer;

         ’Tis He Who to the wave

      Hath fixed the bound—mud, rock, or sand—

      To mark how far upon the strand

         Its foaming sweep may rave.

      What is it, but the ebbing tide,

      That leaves them here, by Hamble’s side,

      So firm embedded in the mud

      No force of stream, nor storm, nor flood,

      Shall ever these five ships bear forth

      To fiords and islets of the north;

      A thousand years shall pass away,

      And leave those keels in Hamble’s bay.

IV

      Ill were it in my rhyme to tell

      The work of slaughter that befell;

      In sooth it was a savage time—

      Crime ever will engender crime.

      Each Viking, as he swam to land,

      Fell by a Saxon’s vengeful hand;

      Turn we from all that vengeance wild—

      Where on the deck there cowered a child,

      And, closely to his bosom prest,

      A snow-white kitten found a nest.

      That tender boy, with tresses fair,

      Was Edric, Egbert’s cherished heir;

      The plaything of the homestead he,

      Now fondled on his grandame’s knee;

      Or as beside the hearth he sat,

      Oft sporting with his snow-white cat;

      Now by the chaplain taught to read,

      And lisp his Pater and his Creed;

      Well nurtured at his mother’s side,

      And by his father trained to ride,

      To speak the truth, to draw the bow,

      And all an English Thane should know,

      His days had been as one bright dream—

      As smooth as his own river’s stream!

      Until,

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