d 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.

[Illustration: 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