Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/347

Rh was the loveliest woman in England, with a true Devonshire complexion of cream and heather-bloom, sent Ethelwald, Earl of the East Angles, to interview her before he committed himself. Ethelwald no sooner saw her than he was a "gone coon," and he asked the hand of Elfrida from her brother. Having received his consent, he hurried back to the king and told him that the lady was much over-rated, that her chief beauty lay in her wealth; as her only brother Ordulf was childless, she had expectations of coming in for his fortune when it should please Providence, and so on.

So, as though looking only to her expectations, Ethelwald asked the king to give him the lady. Edgar yielded his consent, and Ethelwald married Elfrida, and became by her the father of a boy whom he persuaded the king to take as his god-child, and to whom he gave the name of Edgar. Then Ethelwald was glad, for he knew that according to the laws of the Church, they had contracted a spiritual relationship which would prevent the king from ever marrying Elfrida and removing himself, the obstacle which stood in the way should he contemplate an union.

Now the report reached the king that he had been "done," done out of the loveliest woman in Christendom, and the little man ruffled up and became fiery red, and vowed he would a-hunting go, and hunt in the royal chase of Dartmoor. So he sent word to Ethelwald that he purposed visiting him at his Castle of Harewood, and solicited a bed and breakfast.

Harewood is situated on a tongue of land about