Some slept; others watched restlessly, and talked together, sleepless under the influence of that strange excitement, half exhilaration and half fear, which prevails in a camp on the eve of a battle.

The camp fires burned brightly all the night, and the sentinels kept vigilant watch, expecting every moment some sudden alarm.
The night passed quietly away.

Ethelred and Alfred both arose early.
Alfred went out to arouse and muster the men in his division of the encampment, and to prepare for battle.

Ethelred, on the other hand, sent for his priest, and, assembling the officers in immediate attendance upon him, commenced divine service in his tent--the service of the mass, according to the forms and usages which, even in that early day, were prescribed by the Catholic Church.

Alfred was thus bent on immediate and energetic action, while Ethelred thought that the hour for putting forth the exertion of human strength did not come until time had been allowed for completing, in the most deliberate and solemn manner, the work of imploring the protection of Heaven.
Ethelred seems by his conduct on this occasion to have inherited from his father, even more than Alfred, the spirit of religious devotion at least so far as the strict and faithful observance of religious forms was concerned.