ed. Not
sumptuously with Mammon? How then could he 'encourage trade,'--
cause Howel and James, and many wine-merchants to bless him, and
the tailor's heart (though in a very short-sighted manner) to
sing for joy? Much in this Edmund's Life is mysterious.

That he could, on occasion, do what he liked with his own is,
meanwhile, evident enough. Certain Heathen Physical-Force Ultra-
Chartists, 'Danes' as they were then called, coming into his
territory with their 'five points,' or rather with their five-
and-twenty thousand _points_ and edges too, of pikes namely and
battleaxes; and proposing mere Heathenism, confiscation,
spoliation, and fire and sword,--Edmund answered that he would
oppose to the utmost such savagery. They took him prisoner;
again required his sanction to said proposals. Edmund again
refused. Cannot we kill you? cried they.--Cannot I die? answered
he. My life, I think, is my own to do what I like with! And he
died, under barbarous tortures, refusing to the last breath; and
the Ultra-Chartist Danes _lost_ their propositions;--and went
with their 'points' and other apparatus, as is supposed, to the
Devil, the Father of them. Some say, indeed, these Danes were
not Ultra-Chartists, but Ultra-Tories, demanding to reap where
they had not sown, and live in this world without working, though
all the world should starve for it; which likewise seems a
possible hypothesis. Be what they might, they went, as we say,
to the Devil; and Edmund doing what he liked with his own, the
Earth was got cleared of them.

Another version is, that Edmund on this and the like occasions
stood by his order; the oldest, and indeed only true order of
Nobility known under the stars, that of just Men and Sons of God,
in opposition to Unjust and Sons of Belial,--which latter indeed
are _second_-oldest, but yet a very unvenerable order. This,
truly, seems the likeliest hypothesis of all. Names and
appearances alter so strangely, in some half-score centuries;
and all fluctuates chameleon-like, taking now this hue, now that.
Thus much is very plain, and does not change hue: Landlord
Edmund was seen and felt by all men to have done verily a man's
part in this life-pilgrimage of his; and benedictions, and
outflowing love and admiration from the universal heart, were his
meed. Well-done! Well-done! cried the hearts of all men. They
raised his slain and martyred body; washed its wounds with fast-
flowing universal te