“Now, you can’t have a better point than this,” said he; “you remember what I told you about the armies. The Danes held the higher ground, that is, Uffington Castle, up here, behind us. Alfred, with his division of the Saxon army, lay over there, in that valley to the left, where you see the great wood in the middle of the down. That is Ashdown Park, Lord Craven’s seat, and just on the edge of it there is a circular earthwork, which is called Alfred’s camp. Aubrey says that in his time it was ‘almost quite defaced, by digging for the Sarsden stones to build my Lord Craven’s house in the park;’ but you may still find it if you look. Then, over there, on that point, a mile or more away to the right, is a camp called Hardwell Camp, where Æthelred lay. The crown of the slope you see along which the Ridgeway runs, is midway between the Saxon camps. “In the early spring morning, the low call to arms passes round the height; the Danish host, marshalled behind the high earthworks, breaks over them, like an overflowing lake, and rushes down the slope. Alfred’s division of the Saxon army is already on foot, and there he sits, the sickly stripling on the white horse, untried save in one luckless fight. How will he guide such a battle? See, his host is in motion; scouts fly out, riding for life across to Æthelred’s camp. ‘Come up, my brother! the Pagan is upon us--while I live they shall not divide us--I will hold the crest of the Ridgeway, come life, come death.’ The vans are together with a wild shout, squadron by squadron the hosts close up, the fight sways slowly backwards and forwards, the life’s blood of a brave man pays for every inch won or lost. The Saxons are but one to three, the Pagans slowly overlap them--are on their flanks. The white horse and his rider dash from side to side, faster and faster, as the over-matched Christians faint, reel, give back--now here, now there, along the line. When will the mass be over? Cut it short, as thou art Saxon man, oh priest! and get thee to sword and buckler. “At last they come, Æthelred and his host--they are upon the right flank of the Pagan, and the fight is restored; and with many an ebb and pause, but steadily, through the long morning hours, rolls up the hill towards the camp and the fatal thorn.” “Is that the old thorn-tree, then, do you think, Sir?” said I, pointing to one which was growing by itself some way off.