est, or, at least, they
pretended to be so, but they waited until the morning. The Danes
divided their forces into two bodies. Two kings commanded one
division, and certain chieftains, called _earls_, directed the
other. King Ethelred undertook to meet this order of battle by
a corresponding distribution of his own troops, and he gave,
accordingly, to Alfred the command of one division, while he himself
was to lead the other. All things being thus arranged, the hum and
bustle of the two great encampments subsided at last, at a late hour,
as the men sought repose under their rude tents, in preparation for
the fatigues and exposures of the coming day. Some slept; others
watched restlessly, and talked together, sleepless under the influence
of that strange excitement, half exhilaration and half fear, which
prevails in a camp on the eve of a battle. The camp fires burned
brightly all the night, and the sentinels kept vigilant watch,
expecting every moment some sudden alarm.

The night passed quietly away. Ethelred and Alfred both arose early.
Alfred went out to arouse and muster the men in his division of the
encampment, and to prepare for battle. Ethelred, on the other hand,
sent for his priest, and, assembling the officers in immediate
attendance upon him, commenced divine service in his tent--the service
of the mass, according to the forms and usages which, even in that
early day, were prescribed by the Catholic Church. Alfred was thus
bent on immediate and energetic action, while Ethelred thought that
the hour for putting forth the exertion of human strength did not come
until time had been allowed for completing, in the most deliberate and
solemn manner, the work of imploring the protection of Heaven.

Ethelred seems by his conduct on this occasion to have inherited from
his father, even more than Alfred, the spirit of religious devotion at
least so far as the strict and faithful observance of religious forms
was concerned. There was, it is true, a particular reason in this case
why the forms of divine service should be faithfully observed, and
that is, that the war was considered in a great measure a religious
war. The Danes were pagans. The Saxons were Christians. In making
their attacks upon the dominions of Ethelred, the ruthless invaders
were animated by a special hatred of the name of Christ, and they
evinced a special hostility toward every edifice, or institution, or
observance which bore the Christian name.