"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!