snowy table-cloth of the Briton.

[Illustration: THEY WIPED THEIR COARSE RED WHISKERS ON THE SNOWY
TABLE-CLOTH.]

In West Wales, or Dumnonia, was the home of King Arthur, so justly
celebrated in song and story. Arthur was more interesting to the poet
than the historian, and probably as a champion of human rights and a
higher civilization should stand in that great galaxy occupied by Santa
Claus and Jack the Giant-Killer.

The Danes or Jutes joined the Angles also at this time, and with the
Saxons spread terror, anarchy, and common drunks all over Albion. Those
who still claim that the Angles were right Angles are certainly
ignorant of English history. They were obtuse Angles, and when bedtime
came and they tried to walk a crack, the historian, in a spirit of
mischief, exclaims that they were mostly a pack of Isosceles Try Angles,
but this doubtless is mere badinage.

They were all savages, and their religion was entirely unfit for
publication. Socially they were coarse and repulsive. Slaves did the
housework, and serfs each morning changed the straw bedding of the lord
and drove the pigs out of the boudoir. The pig was the great social
middle class between the serf and the nobility: for the serf slept with
the pig by day, and the pig slept with the nobility at night.

And yet they were courageous to a degree (the Saxons, not the pigs).
They were fearless navigators and reckless warriors. Armed with their
rude meat-axes and one or two Excalibars, they would take something in
the way of a tonic and march right up to the mouth of the great Thomas
catapult, or fall in the moat with a courage that knew not, recked not
of danger.

Christianity was first preached in Great Britain in 597 A.D., at the
suggestion of Gregory, afterwards Pope, who by chance saw some Anglican
youths exposed for sale in Rome. They were fine-looking fellows, and the
good man pitied their benighted land. Thus the Roman religion was
introduced into England, and was first to turn the savage heart towards
God.

[Illustration: EGBERT GAINS A GREAT VICTORY OVER THE FRENCH INVADERS.]

Augustine was very kindly received by Ethelbert, and invited up to the
house. Augustine met with great success, for the king experienced
religion and was baptized, after which many of his subjects repented and
accepted salvation on learning that it was free. As many as ten thousand
in one day were converted, and Augustine was made Archbishop of
Canterbury. On a small