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Hakon!" The ship was near enough for her men to hear that. I saw a man on her high bows lift his hand in the silent answer of the seaman who hears and understands a hail, and I saw a red shield, blazoned with a golden lion, at the masthead. Then Bertric sat down and laughed as if he could not cease. "It is Hakon, Athelstane's foster son, on the way to win Norway for himself.
Take any contemporary work of fiction and turn to the scene where the young Socialist denounces the millionaire, and then compare the stilted sociological lecture given by that self-sacrificing bore with the surging joy of words in Rob Roy's declaration of himself, or Athelstane's defiance of De Bracy.
The castle was before him; the western tower was in flames; the besiegers were pressing at the southern gate; Athelstane's banner, the bull rampant, was still on the northern bartizan. "An Ivanhoe, an Ivanhoe!" he bellowed out, with a shout that overcame all the din of battle: "Nostre Dame a la rescousse!"
I never thought to see one in the war gear of the young master again and not to resent it but Gerda will have made no mistake. Now, what will you do? Arnkel sits in the hall, and with him men who have come from Eric Bloodaxe the King." "Hakon, Athelstane's foster son, is king," said Bertric. "There is news for you. He is at Thrandheim, and the north has risen for him. We are his men."
The royal Athelstane's attention was at length attracted by the anxious glances which both mother and son bent upon him; and as he perceived that they were in distress, he waved his hand for them to draw near. "Who are ye?" said the king, when the mournful widow and her son, in obedience to his encouraging sign, advanced, and bowed the knee before him.
A little boy was playing on Athelstane's knee; Rowena smiling and patting the Saxon Thane fondly on his broad bullhead, filled him a huge cup of spiced wine from a golden jug. He drained a quart of the liquor, and, turning round, addressed the friar: "And so, gray frere, thou sawest good King Richard fall at Chalus by the bolt of that felon bowman?" "We did, an it please you.
"Nay, Rupert," she answered, "I am ashamed to say that I had not thought of asking you anything on your cousin Athelstane's behalf. 'Tis I and my father who are now prisoners, in spite of your pledges to us. Surely you will not suffer this!" Thus she spoke to him, but, ah! not in the old self-confident strain, but with a certain mournful submission which wrung my very heartstrings.
Not only in his language, which belongs to the period of transition from Anglo-Saxon to Middle English, but in his verse and phraseology, he shows the influence of earlier Anglo-Saxon literature. The sound of the Ode on Athelstane's Victory and of Beowulf is in our ears as we read his intense, stirring lines.
Still, however, his speech was hailed by Cedric as an incontestible token of reviving spirit in his companion, whose previous indifference had begun, notwithstanding his respect for Athelstane's descent, to wear out his patience.
Saxon, the unfailing sunshine-radiator of the household, tried to ignore the tone of discontent in her husband's voice, the grumpy attitude of Egbert, Quenrede's fit of the blues, and Athelstane's rather martyred pose. She insisted on bundling everybody out for a blow on the moors.
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