“The country has taken the alarm,” said the Thane.

“What must we do, father?”

“Summon and arm all our vassals, and await the sheriff’s orders; the king will communicate to us through him.  We know not yet where the danger is.”

“Perhaps it is only a false alarm,” said Bertric.

“God grant it; but I dare not hope as much.”

Alfgar was very silent.  Well he might be.  The enemy dreaded was his own kith and kin; and although all his sympathies were with his English friends, from whom he had received more kindness and love than he had ever known elsewhere, yet he seemed to feel compromised by the deeds of his kindred, whose savage cruelty no Christianity had as yet softened.

While they yet remained on the hill, fire after fire took up the tale and reddened the horizon, until a score of those baleful bonfires were in sight.  Sighing deeply, Elfwyn led the way down the hill.

“What have you seen?” was the inquiry of the Lady Hilda.

“The hills flame with beacons.”

“Alas for poor Wessex!”

“Alas for England!  I have a foreboding that we shall not always be exempt from the woes which affect our neighbours.  Wessex scarcely tempts the plunderer now; neither does East Anglia.  Northumbria is half Danish, and kites do not peck out kites’ eyes.  No; on Mercia, poor Mercia, the blow must sooner or later fall.”

“And how to avert it?”

“There is but one way; we must fight the foe in Wessex.  Now we must rest, to rise early, and await the sheriff’s summons.”

It was silent, deep night; the whole house was buried in slumber, when Alfgar dreamed a strange dream.  He thought he stood amidst the ruins of his home, the home of his father Anlaf, and that he heard steps approaching from the forest.  Soon a solitary figure emerged, and searched anxiously amongst the fallen and blackened walls, uttering one anxious ejaculation, “My son!  I seek my son!” and Alfgar knew his father.  Their eyes met, recognition took place, and he awoke with such a keen impression of his father’s presence that he could not shake it off for a long time.

“Do the dead indeed revisit earth?” he said.  “Nay, it was but a dream.”

He went to the narrow window of his chamber, and looked out.  The dawn was already breaking in the east, and even as he gazed upon the purpling skies the birds began their matin songs of praise, and the valley awoke.  The priory bell, beneath, by the riverside, now tolled its summons to matins, and Alfgar arose and dressed.

Never did the household of Aescendune begin the day without religious observance, and the first thing that they did on this, as on every day, was to repair to the priory church, where Father Cuthbert said mass; after which he and his brother the Thane were closeted together for a long time.

The rest of the party returned home to break their fast, and conversed about the warnings of the preceding night.