orders, attended the evensong at the minster church, as if moved thereto
by devotion, although the curious spectator might easily discover the
unaccustomed character of their service, by the difficulty with which
they followed the prayers, and the uneasy impatience with which they
listened to a lengthened exposition of a portion of the Anglo-Saxon
version of the Gospels from Father Cuthbert.

The old thane and all his family were very anxious, it may be readily
believed, for the earliest news from the field of battle, for battle
every one agreed was impending; and, to gratify their natural curiosity.
Redwald sent out quick and alert members of his troop, to act as
messengers, and bear speedy news from the scene of action.

The night set in clear and bright, as we have already seen; and while
poor Elfric was wandering about uneasily beneath that brilliant sky, the
same stars looked down peacefully upon his home, where all slept sweetly
under the fostering care, as they would have said, of their guardian angels.

The morn broke brightly, and with every promise of a fine harvest day.
The labourers were speedily again in the fields; the cattle wandered
under the herdsman's care to their distant pastures; the subdued
tinkling of the sheep bells met the ear, and the other subdued sounds
which soothe the air on a summer's day; and so the hours fled by, and no
one would have dreamed that, not twenty miles away, man met man in the
fierce and deadly struggle of war.

When the reapers assembled for their midday meal, they discussed the
merits of the quarrel, and nearly all those who had been brought under
the eye of "Edwy the Fair" were eager in pleading his cause, and trying
to find some extenuation of his misdeeds in the matter of the illegal