"Tell them, and let me read the rede; sense dwells in the voices of the night."
Harold mused, and after a short pause, he said:
"Methinks, Hilda, I can myself explain how those dreams came to haunt me."
Then raising himself on his elbow, he continued, while he fixed his clear penetrating eyes upon his hostess:
"Tell me frankly, Hilda, didst thou not cause some light to shine on yonder knoll, by the mound and stone, within the temple of the Druids?"
But if Harold had suspected himself to be the dupe of some imposture, the thought vanished when he saw the look of keen interest, even of awe, which Hilda's face instantly assumed.
"Didst thou see a light, son of Godwin, by the altar of Thor, and over the bautastein of the mighty dead? a flame, lambent and livid, like moonbeams collected over snow?"
"So seemed to me the light."
"No human hand ever kindled that flame, which announces the presence of the Dead," said Hilda, with a tremulous voice; "though seldom, uncompelled by the seid and the rune, does the spectre itself warn the eyes of the living."
"What shape, or what shadow of shape, does that spectre assume?"