d, shaking off all restraint, ate heartily.

Dish followed dish, and the wine cup circulated with great freedom.
Excited as he was, Elfric could but remark the loose tone of the
conversation. Subjects were freely discussed which had never found
admittance either in the palace of King Edred or at Aescendune, and
which, indeed, caused him to look up with surprise, remembering in whose
presence he sat.

But, as is often the case in an age where opinion is severely repressed
in its outward expression, and amongst those compelled against their
will to observe silence on such subjects on ordinary occasions, all
restraint seemed abandoned at the table of Ethelgiva. It was not that
the language was coarse, but whether the conversation turned upon the
restraints of the clergy, or the court, or upon the fashionable
frivolities of the day--for there were frivolities and fashions even
in that primitive age--there was a freedom of expression bordering
upon profanity or licentiousness.

Edred was mocked as an old babbler; Dunstan was sometimes a fool,
sometimes a hypocrite, sometimes even a sorcerer, although this was said
sneeringly; the clergy were divided into fools and knaves; the claims of
the Church--that is of Christianity--derided, and the principle
freely avowed--"Enjoy life while you can, for you know not what may
come after."

Excited by the wine he had drunk, Elfric became as wild in his talk as
the other young men, and as the intoxicating drink mounted to his brain,
seemed to think that he had just learnt how to enjoy life.

The ladies retired at last, and Edwy followed them. Elfric was on the
point of rising too, but a hint from his companions restrained him. The
wine cup still circulated, the conversation, now unrestrained, initiated
the boy into many an evil secret he had never known earlier; and so the
hours passed on, till Edwy, himself much flushed, came in and said that
it was time to depart, for midnight had long been tolled from the
distant towers of London.

He smiled as he saw by Elfric's bloodshot eyes and unsteady gait, as he
rose, upsetting his seat, that his companion was something less master
of himself than usual; he felt, it need hardly be said, no remorse, but
rather regarded the whole thing as what might now be termed "a jolly lark."

"Shall you require bearers, or can you walk to the boat? I do not wonder
you are ill, you have eaten too much fish today; it is a shame to make
the knees weak th