unknown to his gloomy, settled, impassible
nature--Haco said calmly, as they descended the knoll:

"What evil did the hag predict to thee?"

"Haco," answered the King, "yonder, by the shores of Sussex, lies all the
future which our eyes now should scan, and our hearts should be firm to
meet. These omens and apparitions are but the ghosts of a dead Religion;
spectres sent from the grave of the fearful Heathenesse; they may appal
but to lure us from our duty. Lo, as we gaze around--the ruins of all
the creeds that have made the hearts of men quake with unsubstantial
awe--lo, the temple of the Briton!--lo, the fane of the Roman!--lo, the
mouldering altar of our ancestral Thor! Ages past lie wrecked around us
in these shattered symbols. A new age hath risen, and a new creed. Keep
we to the broad truths before us; duty here; knowledge comes alone in the
Hereafter."

"That Hereafter!--is it not near?" murmured Haco.

They mounted in silence; and ere they regained the army paused, by a
common impulse, and looked behind. Awful in their desolation rose the
temple and the altar! And in Hilda's mysterious death it seemed that
their last and lingering Genius,--the Genius of the dark and fierce, the
warlike and the wizard North, had expired for ever. Yet, on the outskirt
of the forest, dusk and shapeless, that witch without a name stood in the
shadow, pointing towards them, with outstretched arm, in vague and
denouncing menace;--as if, come what may, all change of creed,--be the
faith ever so simple, the truth ever so bright and clear,--there is a
SUPERSTITION native to that Border-land between the Visible and the
Unseen, which will find its priest and its votaries, till the full and
crowning splendour of Heaven shall melt every shadow from the world!

CHAPTER V.

On the broad plain between Pevensey and Hastings, Duke William had
arrayed his armaments. In the rear he had built a castle of wood, all
the framework of which he had brought with him, and which was to serve as
a refuge in case of retreat. His ships he had run into deep water, and
scuttled; so that the thought of return, without victory, might be
banished from his miscellaneous and multitudinous force. His outposts
stretched for miles, keeping watch night and day against surprise. The
ground chosen was adapted for all the manoeuvres of a cavalry never
before paralleled in England nor perhaps in the world,--almost every
horseman a knight, almost every