"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