old man slept on, as
though he slept that sleep from which none shall awaken until the
archangel's trump.

Meanwhile they grew uneasy at the hall over his prolonged absence, and
at length Alfred started to find his father, beginning to fear that the
excitement of the day had been too great for him, and that he might need
assistance. He knew the favourite glade wherein the aged thane was wont
to walk, and the mossy bank whereon he frequently reposed, so he lost no
time, but bent his steps directly for the spot.

As he drew near, he saw his father lying on the bank beneath the oak as
still in sound sleep, and marvelled that the chilly air of the evening
had not awoke him. He was not wont to sleep thus soundly. He approached
closely, but his steps did not arouse the sleeper. He now bent over him,
and put his hand on his shoulder affectionately and lovingly.

"Father, awake," he said; "the night is coming on; you will take cold."

But there was no answering voice, and the sleeper stirred not. Alfred
became seriously alarmed, but his alarm changed suddenly into dread
certainty. The feathered shaft of an arrow met his eye, dimly seen in
the darkness, as it stuck in the left side of the sleeping Ella.
Sleeping, indeed. But the sleep was eternal.

Horrified at the sight, refusing to believe his eyes, the son first
continued his vain attempts to awake his sire, then fell on his knees,
and wrung his hands while he cried piteously, "O father, speak to me!"
as if he could not accept the fact that those lips would never salute
him more. The moonbeams fell on that calm face, calm as if in sleep,
without a spasm of pain, without the contraction of a line of the
countenance. The weapon had pierced through the heart; death had been
instantaneous, and the sleeper had passed from the sleep of this earth
to that which is sweetly called "sleep in the Lord," without a struggle
or a pang.

His heart full of joy and thanksgiving, he had gone to carry his tribute
of praise to the very throne of God.

When the first paroxysm of pain and grief was over, the necessity of
summoning some further aid, of bearing the sad news to his home, pressed
itself upon the mind of Alfred, and he took his homeward road alone, as
if he hardly knew what he was doing, but simply obeyed instinct. Arrived
there, he could not tell his mother or sister; he only sought the
chamberlain and the steward, and begged them to come forth with him, and
said something ha