with the Cam, increased by the volume of the Ouse, spreading far deeper and broader than now between Barraway and Thetford-inthe-Isle; and saw, too, that a disaster in that labyrinth might be a destruction. So he determined on the near and straight path, through Long Stanton and Willingham, down the old bridle-way from Willingham ploughed field;-every village there, and in the isle likewise, had and has still its "field," or ancient clearing of ploughed land,— and then to try that terrible half-mile, with the courage and wit of a general to whom human lives were as those of the gnats under the hedge. So all his host camped themselves in Willingham field, by the old earth-work which men now call Belsar's Hills: and down the bridle-way poured countless men bearing timber and faggots, cut from all the hills, that they might bridge the black half-mile. They made a narrow firm path through the reeds, and down to the brink of the Ouse, if brink it could be called, where the water, rising and falling a foot or two each tide, covered the floating peat for many yards, before it sunk into a brown depth of bottomless slime. They would make a bottom for themselves by driving piles. The piles would not hold; and they began to make a floating bridge with long beams, say the chroniclers, and blown-up cattlehides to float them. Soon they made a floating-sow, and thrust it on before them as they worked across the stream; for they were getting under shot from the island. Meanwhile, the besieged had not been idle. They had thrown up a turf rampart on the island shore, and "ante-muralia et propugnacula,"-doubtless overhanging "hoardings," or scaffolds through the floor of which they could shower down missiles. And so they awaited the attack, contenting themselves with gliding in and out of the reeds in their canoes, and annoying the builders with arrows and cross-bolts. At last the bridge was finished, and the sow safe across the Westwater; and thrust in, as far as it would float, among the reeds on the high tide. They in the fort could touch it with a pole. The English would have destroyed it if they could. But The Wake bade them leave it alone. He had watched all their work, and made up his mind to the event. "The rats have set a trap for themselves," he said to his men; "and we shall be fools to break it up till the rats are safe inside." So there the huge sow lay, black and silent, showing nothing to the enemy but a side of strong plank, covered with hide to prevent its being burned. It lay there for three hours, and The Wake let it lie. He had never been so cheerful, so confident. "Play the man this day, every one of you; and ere nightfall you will have taught the Frenchman once more the lesson of York. He seems to have forgotten that. It is time to remind him of it." And he looked to his bow and to his arrows, and prepared to play the man himself; as was the fashion in those old days, when a general proved his worth by hitting harder and more surely than any of his men. At last the army was in motion, and Willingham field opposite was like a crawling ants' nest. Brigade after brigade moved down to the reed beds, and the assault began. And now advanced along the causeway, and along the bridge, a dark column of men, surmounted by glittering steel; knights in complete mail; footmen in leather coats and jerkins; at first orderly enough, each under the banner of his lord: but more and more mingled and crowded, as each hurried forward, eager for his selfish shares of the inestimable treasures of Ely. They pushed along the bridge. The mass became more and more crowded; men stumbled over each other, and fell into the mire and water, calling vainly for help but their comrades hurried on unheeding, in the mad thirst for spoil. : On they came in thousands; and fresh thousands streamed out of the fields, as if the whole army intended to pour itself into the isle at once. "They are numberless," said Torfrida, in a serious and astonished voice, as she stood by Hereward's side. "Would they were!" said Hereward. "Let them come on, thick and threefold. The more their numbers, the fatter will the fish be, before tomorrow morning. Look there, already!" And already the bridge was swaying, and sinking beneath their weight. The men, in places, were ankle deep in water. They rushed on all the more eagerly; filled the sow, and swarmed up to its roof. Then, what with its own weight, what with the weight of the laden bridge which dragged upon it from behind, the huge sow began to tilt backwards, and slide down the slimy bank. The men on the top tried vainly to keep their footing; to hurl grapnels into the rampart: to shoot off their quarrels and arrows. "You must be quick, Frenchmen," shouted Hereward in derision, "if you mean to come on board here." The French knew that well: and as Hereward spoke, two panels in the front of the sow creaked on their hinges, and dropped landward, forming two draw-bridges, over which reeled to the attack a dozen body knights, mingled with soldiers bearing scaling ladders. They recoiled. Between the ends of the draw-bridges and the foot of the rampart was some two fathoms' breadth of black ooze. The catastrophe which The Wake had forseen was come, and a shout of derision arose from the unseen defenders above. "Come on, leap it like men! Send back for your horses, knights, and ride them at it like bold huntsmen!" The front rank could not but rush on: for the pressure behind forced them forward, whether they would or not. In a moment they were wallowing waist deep; trampled on; disappearing under their struggling comrades, who disappeared in their turn. "Look, Torfrida! If they plant their scaling ladders, it will be on a foundation of their comrades' corpses." Torfrida gave one glance through the openings of the boarding, upon the writhing mass below, and turned away in horror. The men were not so merciful. Down between the hoarding-beams rained stones, javelins, arrows, increasing the agony and death. The scaling ladders would not stand in the mire; if they had stood a moment, the struggles of the dying would have thrown them down. And still fresh victims pressed on from behind, shouting "Dex Aie! On to the gold of Ely!" And still the sow, under the weight, slipped further and further back into the stream, and the foul gulf widened between besiegers and besieged. At last one scaling ladder was planted upon the bodies of the dead, and hooked firmly on the gunwale of the boarding. Ere it could be hurled off again by the English, it was so crowded with men that even Hereward's strength was insufficient to lift it off. He stood at the top, ready to hew down the first comer; and he hewed him down. But the French were not to be daunted. Man after man dropped dead from the ladder top,-man after man took his place; sometimes scrambling over each other's backs. The English, even in the insolence of victory, cheered them with honest admiration. "You are fellows worth fighting, you French!" "So we are," shouted a knight, the first and last who crossed that parapet; for, thrusting Hereward back with a blow of his sword-hilt, he staggered past him over the hoarding, and fell on his knees. ing: A dozen men were upon him: but he was up again and shout "To me, men at arms! A Deda! A Deda!" But no man answered. "Yield!" quoth Hereward. Sir Deda answered by a blow on Hereward's helmet, which felled The Wake to his knees, and broke the sword into twenty splinters. "Well hit!" said Hereward, as he rose. "Don't touch him, men! this is my quarrel now. Yield sir! you have done enough for your honor. It is madness to throw away your life." The knight looked round on the fierce ring of faces, in the nidst of which he stood alone. "To none but The Wake." "The Wake am I." "Ah," said the knight, "had I but hit a little harder!" "You would have broke your sword into more splinters. My armor is enchanted. So yield like a reasonable and valiant man.' "What care I?" said the knight, stepping on to the earthwork, and sitting down quietly. "I vowed to St. Mary and King William that into Ely I would get this day; and in Ely I am; so I have done my work." "And now you shall taste-as such a gallant knight deserves— the hospitality of Ely." It was Torfrida who spoke. "My husband's prisoners are mine; and I, when I find them such gallant knights as you are, have no lighter chains for them than that which a lady's bower can afford." Sir Deda was going to make an equally courteous answer, when over and above the shouts and curses of the combatants rose a yell so keen, so dreadful, as made all hurry forward to the rampart. That which The Wake had foreseen was come at last. The bridge, strained more and more by its living burden, and by the falling tide, had parted,-not at the Ely end, where the sliding of the sow took off the pressure, but at the end nearest the camp. One sideway roll it gave, and then, turning over, engulfed in that foul stream the flower of Norman chivalry; leaving a line-a full quarter of a mile in length-of wretches drowning in the dark water, or, more hideous still, in the bottomless slime of peat and mud. Thousands are said to have perished. The armor and weapons were found at times, by delvers and dykers, for centuries after; are found at times unto this day, beneath the rich drained cornfields which now fill up the black half-mile; or in the bed of the narrow brook to which the Westwater, robbed of its streams by the Bedford Level, has dwindled down at last. William, they say, struck his tents and departed forthwith, "groaning from deep grief of heart." Eastward he went, and encamped the remains of his army at Brandon, where he seems to have begun that castle, the ruins of which still exist in Weeting Park hard by. He put a line of sentinels along the Rech-dyke, which men now call the Devil's Ditch; and did his best to blockade the isle, as he could not storm it. And so ended the first battle of Aldreth. The Vesper Hour" Conducted by Chancellor John H. Vincent Delivered to the C. L. S. C. Class of 1910, Chautauqua, N. Y., T O the members of the C. L. S. C. Class of 1910: Greeting and benediction! If gladness be your portion today, with health and unbroken family circles and what we call prosperity, I congratulate you in the name of the good and great God. If you have any measure of anxiety, of trouble, of fear and solicitude for any reason whatsoever, I have a message for you in a text found in 1 Peter, 5:7. "Casting all your care on Him." 1 Peter, 5:7. The word here translated "care" is the same that in the Sermon on the Mount is rendered "thought,”—“take no thought,"-no thought with the dark thread of anxiety *The Vesper Hour, contributed to THE CHAUTAUQUAN each month by Chancellor Vincent, continues the ministries of Chautauqua's Vesper Service throughout the year. drawn through it. Certain men, misguided, seeing that Jesus did say it, as they misinterpret Him, have become fanatics, and by their theories and policies, by wrong emphasis on the law of self-denial and self-crucifixion, by an unjustifiable withdrawal from the world Christ commissioned them to reform and regenerate, have dishonored Him and injured His church. If ever a thoroughly sane man walked in the ways of human life, it was Jesus. There was no touch of asceticism in Him. He was a man, a most manly man, delighting in nature, in children, in social life, and, like all true men today, in communion with God His Father. He trod the highways, climbed the mountains, crossed rivers and seas, and found both beauty and wisdom in stones, flowers, walls, fountains, flocks and shepherds. He was peculiarly and keenly alive to the evils that filled the world. He lived and suffered for human good. He was the only real priest the world ever knew, and no one then knew it. He looked rather the peasant. He wore no priestly garb, no scholar's gown, and on his breast was no badge of distinction. He was a true man, living in a false world. You might have known it by the smiles and looks-the sadness, that, as Browning says, "happened on His face." He was courageous, denouncing sin, oppression, Pharisaism and all forms of human pretense and selfishness. He commended simplicity, moderation, industry, and faith in the loving providence of the Father in heaven. He insisted that, as the disciples and children of God, we take no thought, have no "anxiety" about tomorrow nor about today. This casting all one's anxiety on God is really committing to Him, the entire contents of life, with all its relations, responsibilities, solicitudes and endeavors. In Christ's time these words were sorely needed by all classes of people. Life then was not full as now of facilities and felicities. To be sure, ours is a very different age, but we have not outgrown "care." Our civilization has increased our sensitiveness. We shrink more readily from inconvenience, discomfort and |