Zigzag Journeys in Northern Lands by Hezekiah Butterworth (fiction books to read .txt) 📕
- Author: Hezekiah Butterworth
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Edward and a youthful court party went hunting one day in the dreamy old forests of Dorsetshire. Chancing to ride near Crofe Castle, Edward thought that he would like to see Elfrida and his little brother. So he separated himself from his attendants, rode to the castle, and blew his horn.
Elfrida presently appeared, her face glowing with smiles.
“Thou art welcome, dear king,” she said, in a winning way. “Pray dismount and come in, and we will have pleasant talk and good cheer.”
“No, madam,” said Edward. “My company would notice my absence, and think that some evil had befallen me. Please bring me a cup of wine, and I will drink to your health and to my little brother’s, in my saddle, and then I must away with speed.”
Elfrida turned away to order the wine. She gave another order at the same time in a whisper to an armed attendant.
The wine was brought. Elfrida filled the cup and handed it to the boy king. As he held it up it sparkled in the light. Elfrida stood in the gateway, holding little Ethelred by the hand.
“Health,” said Edward, putting the bright cup to his lips.
There crept up behind him softly an armed man, whose muscles stood out like brass, and whose eyes burned like fire. He sprang upon the boy king and stabbed him in the back. The affrighted horse dashed away, dragging the bleeding body by the stirrup,—on, on, on, over rut and rock, bush and brier.
They tracked him by his blood. They found his broken body at last. They took it up tenderly and with many tears, and laid it beneath the moss and fern.
THE MURDER OF EDWARD.
When little Ethelred saw his brother stabbed and bleeding, and dragged over the rough earth, he began to weep. Elfrida beat him and sent him to his chamber.
What a night was that when the moon silvered the forest! One boy king mangled and dead on the cold ground, and another boy king weeping in the forest castle, and beaten and bruised for being touched at heart at the murder of his bright, innocent brother.
Ethelred came to the English throne at the age of ten. He was the last of the six boy kings.
The people held him in disfavor from the first on account of his bad mother, and when Dunstan put the crown on his head at Kingston, he pronounced a curse instead of a blessing. Neither the blessing nor the curse of a man like Dunstan could be of much account, and we do not believe that the latter did the little boy Ethelred any harm.
Dunstan was now old and as full of craft and wickedness as he was full of years. He continued to practise jugglery, which he called performing miracles, whenever he found his influence declining, or had an important end to accomplish.
In the reign of Ethelred Dunstan died. As he had used politics to help the church, he was made a saint. This was in a rude and ignorant age.
Poor boy kings! Edmund was murdered; Edwy died of a broken heart; Edward was stabbed and dragged to death at his horse’s heels; and Ethelred lost his kingdom. Three of them were good and three were bad. Only one of them was happy.
Edmund, eighteen years of age, reigned from 940 to 946; Edred, 946 to 955; Edwy, fifteen years of age, 955 to 958; Edgar, fifteen years of age, 958 to 975; Edward, thirteen years of age, 975 to 979; Ethelred, ten years of age, 979 to 1016.
So the boy kings reigned in all seventy-six years, and governed England in their youth for nearly fifty years.
“I like your story, Master Toby,” said Master Lewis; “as a story, I mean. The historic facts are mainly as you have given them, but I think St. Dunstan’s intentions may have been good, after all. He lived in an age of superstition, when it was believed that any political act was right that would increase the power of the church. Christianity then was not what it had been in the early church nor what it is to-day. Men must be somewhat regarded in the light of the times in which they lived.”
The literary exercises for the evening were thus closed.
CHAPTER IV. GERMAN STORIES.The Story of the Emperor William.—The Story of “Sneeze with Delight.”—Poem-Stories.
AT the first meeting of the Club to study the history and to relate stories of the Rhine and the North, Master Lewis was present, and, after the preliminary business had been transacted, said that he had some suggestions in mind which he wished to make.
“I notice,” he said, “that many of you have been obtaining from the Boston Public Library English translations of the works of Hauff, Hoffman, Baron de La Motte Fouqué, Grimm, Schiller, and Tieck, and I think that there is danger that story-reading and story-telling may occupy too much of your time and thought. Let me propose that a brief history of each author be given with the story at the meetings of the Club, so that you may at least obtain some knowledge of German literature.”
The suggestion met with the approval of all, and it was voted that at future meetings the biographies of authors should be given with the stories, and that only the stories of the best authors should be selected, except in the case of legends of places.
“I have another proposal to make,” said Master Lewis. “You are not very familiar with German politics. Suppose you let me give you from time to time some short talks about the German Government and its ministers,—King William, Count Bismarck, and Count Von Moltke.”
This kind offer was received with cheers and placed upon record with thanks.
“Perhaps you may be willing to open our exercises to-night with one of the talks you have planned,” said the President. “It would be a helpful beginning, which we would appreciate.”
“I am not as well prepared as I would like,” said the teacher; “but as I believe in making a first meeting of this kind a sort of a model in its plan and purpose, I will in a free way tell you something of
THE STORY OF THE EMPEROR WILLIAM.The life of the Emperor of Germany has been full of thrilling and dramatic scenes.
When he was a boy, Germany—the great Germany of Charlemagne—was divided into states, each having its own ruler. His father was Frederick William III., King of Prussia, and his mother was Louise, an excellent woman; his youth was passed amid the excitements of Napoleon’s conquests. Russia and Prussia combined against Napoleon; Russia was placed at a disadvantage in two doubtful battles, when she deserted the Prussian cause, and made a treaty of peace.
Napoleon then sent for the King of Prussia, to tell him what he would leave him.
The lovely Queen Louise went with the unfortunate king to meet the French conqueror, hoping thereby to obtain more favorable terms. But Napoleon treated her with scorn, boasting that he was like “waxed cloth to rain.”
He, however, offered the queen a rose, in a softer moment.
“Yes,” said Louise, thinking of her kingdom, “but with Magdeburg.”
“It is I who give, and you who take,” answered Napoleon haughtily.
Napoleon took away from Prussia all the lands on the Elbe and the Rhine, and, uniting these to other German states, formed a kingdom for his brother Jerome.
The good Queen Louise pined away with grief and shame at her country’s losses, and died two years after of a broken heart. So the boyhood of William was very sad.
It is said that children fulfil the ideals of their mothers. Poor Louise little thought that her second son would one day be crowned Emperor of all Germany in the palace of the French kings at Versailles.
William was born in 1797; he ascended the throne as King of Prussia in 1861. How widely these dates stand apart!
On the day of his coronation as King of Prussia, he exhibited his own character and religious faith by putting the crown on his own head. “I rule,” he said, “by the favor of God and no one else.”
Under his vigorous rule Prussia grew in military power, and excited the jealousy of the French people. Napoleon III., on a slight pretext, declared war with Prussia. In this war Prussia was victorious.
A MEMORABLE HOUR.That was indeed a memorable hour in the emperor’s life when he met the fallen Emperor of the French in the Chateau Bellevue, on a hill of the Meuse overlooking Sedan. The king and the emperor had met before; they then were equals, brother rulers of two of the most powerful nations on earth. They met now as conqueror and captive, and the one held the fate of the other in his hands.
“We were both moved at seeing each other again under such circumstances,” said King William. “I had seen Napoleon only three years before, at the summit of his power. What my feelings were is more than I can describe.”
The king spoke first.
“God has given victory to me in the war that has been declared against me.”
“The war,” said Napoleon, “was not sought by me. I did not desire it. I declared it in obedience to the public sentiment of France.”
“Your Majesty,” said the king, “made the war to meet public opinion; but your ministers created that public opinion.”
“Your artillery, sire, won the battle. The Prussian artillery is the finest in the world.”
“Has your Majesty any conditions to propose?”
“None: I have no power; I am a prisoner.”
“Where is the government in France with which I can treat?”
“In Paris: the empress and the ministers. I am powerless.”
King William, as you know, marched to Paris, and at last made conditions of peace almost as hard as Napoleon I. had made with his father. The German princes in his hour of victory offered him the crown of Southern Germany, and he was crowned at Versailles, in the great hall of mirrors, Emperor of Germany.
Let me now speak of the kaiser’s
MILITARY CAREER.It is rare that men and women live to celebrate their seventy-fifth birthday. The age allotted to mortals by the Psalmist is threescore and ten.
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM AND NAPOLEON III.
But the hale old Emperor of Germany has not only recently commemorated the completion of his eighty-sixth year, but—what is still more striking—at the same time marked the seventy-sixth year of his service as an officer in the Prussian army.
It is related that, on the 22d of March, 1807, on which day William was just ten years old, his father, then King of Prussia, called him into his study and said,—
“My son, I appoint you an officer in my army. You will serve in Company No. 1 of the First Guard Regiment.”
The little prince drew himself up, gave his father a prompt military salute, and retired. An hour later he reappeared before the king, attired in the uniform of his new rank; and, repeating the salute, announced to his royal father that “he was ready for duty.”
WILLIAM BEFORE HIS FATHER.
Even at so early an age, William was no fancy soldier, holding rank and title, and leaving to humbler officers the duties and hardships. He at once devoted himself to the task of a junior ensign; and from that time onward became an officer in truth, laboring zealously to master the military science, and rising step by step, not by favor, but by merit and seniority.
At the age of eighteen, William was in Blucher’s army at Waterloo, taking an active part in the overthrow of Napoleon, and witnessing that mighty downfall. A little later,
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