excitement of a battle?"

"You are made to be a monk, Alfred, and I daresay, if you get the
chance, will be a martyr, and get put in the calendar by-and-by. I
suppose they will keep your relics here in the priory church, and you
will be St. Alfred of Aescendune; for me, I would sooner die as the old
sea kings loved to die, surrounded by heaps of slain, with my sword
broken in my hand."

It was at this moment that their conversation was suddenly interrupted
by a loud crashing of boughs in the adjacent underwood, a rush as of
some wild beast, a loud cry in boyish tones--"Help! help! the wolf!
the wolf!"

Elfric jumped up in an instant, and rushed forward heedless of danger,
followed closely by his younger brother, who was scarcely less eager to
render immediate assistance.

The cries for help became more and more piercing, as if some pressing
danger menaced the utterer. Elfric, who, in spite of his flippant
speech, was by no means destitute of keen sympathies and self devotion,
hurried forward, fearless of danger, bounding through thicket and
underwood, until, arriving upon a small clearing, the whole scene
flashed upon him.

A huge grey wolf, wounded and bleeding, was about to rush for the second
time upon a youth in hunting costume, whose broken spear, broken in the
first encounter with the beast he had disturbed, seemed to deprive him
of all chance of success in the desperate encounter evidently impending.
His trembling limbs showed his extreme apprehension, and the sweat stood