The messenger who followed Redwald brought detailed accounts of the event.  According to his statements it appeared that the king had broken through the hostile entrenchment, and had scattered their forces in the first attack.  The messenger particularly asserted that he had seen Elfric, and had been charged with the fondest messages for home, where the youth hoped to be in a few days at the latest, seeing there was no longer an enemy to fear.

The hearts of all present were filled with thankfulness and joy.

“Come, my beloved Edith,” said the old thane.  “Let us go first to thank God;” and they went together to the chapel which had witnessed so many earnest prayers that day—­now, they believed, so fully answered.

All gloom and despondency seemed removed, and Ella went forth to walk alone in the woods, to meditate in silence on the goodness of God.  Nearly each evening this had been his habit.  The woods, he said, were God’s first temples, and when alone he best raised his heart from nature to nature’s God.

His thoughts were happy that evening:  his first-born boy would be restored to him, and, like the father in the Gospels, he longed to embrace the prodigal, and to tell him that all was forgiven.  But he schooled himself to patience, and many a fervent thanksgiving did he offer as he wandered amidst the grassy glades.

But he was more weary than usual with the toil and anxiety of the day, and shortly seated himself upon a mossy bank beneath an aged oak.  The trees grew thickly behind and before him, on each side of the glade, which terminated at no great distance in the heart of the pathless forest, so that no occasional wayfarer would be likely to pass that way.

There he reposed, until a gentle slumber stole over him and buried all his senses in oblivion.

The day was nearly spent, the light clouds which still reflected the sun’s ruddy glow were fast fading into a grey neutral tint, and darkness was approaching.  Once a timid deer passed along the glade, and started as it beheld the sleeping form, then went on, but started yet more violently as it passed a thicket on the opposite side.  The night breeze had arisen and was blowing freshly; but still the old man slept on, as though he slept that sleep from which none shall awaken until the archangel’s trump.

Meanwhile they grew uneasy at the hall over his prolonged absence, and at length Alfred started to find his father, beginning to fear that the excitement of the day had been too great for him, and that he might need assistance.  He knew the favourite glade wherein the aged thane was wont to walk, and the mossy bank whereon he frequently reposed, so he lost no time, but bent his steps directly for the spot.

As he drew near, he saw his father lying on the bank beneath the oak as still in sound sleep, and marvelled that the chilly air of the evening had not awoke him.  He was not wont to sleep thus soundly.  He approached closely, but his steps did not arouse the sleeper.  He now bent over him, and put his hand on his shoulder affectionately and lovingly.