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Fleeing, he sought our South-Dane folk, over surge of ocean the Honor-Scyldings, when first I was ruling the folk of Danes, wielded, youthful, this widespread realm, this hoard-hold of heroes. Sore is my soul to say to any of the race of man what ruth for me in Heorot Grendel with hate hath wrought, what sudden harryings.
It would be perhaps too much to say that Charlemagne founded Belgian nationality, in the same way that Clovis established French nationality in unifying Gaul, or that Alfred revealed the English to themselves in his triumphant struggle against the Danes.
The great amount of spoil with which she was loaded had enabled her crew largely to assist their friends, and it was this which had already raised the condition of the people above that of their neighbours. Houses were being gradually rebuilt, animals had been brought from districts which had been less ravaged by the Danes, and something approaching comfort was being rapidly restored.
The men-of-war who had charge of the convoy behaved nobly; but still they were becalmed, and many of us were a long way astern. Our ship was pretty well up; but she was too far in-shore; and the Danes made a dash at us with the hope of making a capture. The men-of-war, seeing what the enemy were about, sent boats to beat them off; but it was too late to prevent them boarding, which they did.
I think the trouble in my voice was plain, for the lady deemed that there was some to be told. "Where is she now?" she asked. "I hope that no harm came to her when the evil Danes overran your land." "I know not where she may be, dear lady," I said. "We know that she was in safety after the first peril passed. Now our land is in Danish hands, and I have no news from thence for four years."
Alfred at the same time strongly fortified his own position, about thirty miles distant, and kept so close a watch over the movements of his enemies that they rarely ventured beyond their own intrenchments. A sort of desultory warfare succeeded, and continued for a year without any decisive results. At last the Danes, getting weary, broke up their camps, and resolved to pass into East Anglia.
With a milking-stool for his table and the shepherd's rude bunk for a throne, the young King of the Danes was bending in scowling meditation over an open scroll.
One spring morning, when a late frost had made the grass unusually slippery, just as he was expounding to an interested audience how the Danes used to shoot "arrers through them little slits of windies in the wall beyant," his foot slipped, and after rolling for a little distance down the steep incline, he went over the precipitous side of the crag, and fell some twenty feet on to the stones below.
Dangerous as it seemed, to involve the nation in a new war, when, even amidst its conquests, it was almost exhausted by the old, the desire of revenge, and the deep-rooted hatred which subsisted between Danes and Swedes, prevailed over all other considerations; and even the embarrassment in which hostilities with Germany had plunged it, only served as an additional motive to try its fortune against Denmark.
The Danes were at that time at war, having joined the Russians; and they were made prisoners, while I was of course liberated, and treated with great distinction; but as I could not speak either French or their own language, I could not get on very well. However, I had a handsome allowance, and permission to go to England as soon as I pleased.
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