Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-10-31
CHAPTER I.
The Fall of the House of Erode.
COPYRIGHT. 1903, 81 A.C.nne c.

Full stocked folds
z / saw at the of Fitjung.
r. Now they carry beggars STATS;
D.. 4 Wealth Is
ttl Like the twinkling of eye,
The most unstable Of friends.
-Havamal.
AS the blackness of the midsummer night
paled, the broken towers and wrecked
walls of the monastery doomed up dim and
stark in the gray light The long-drawn
sigh of a waking world crept through the
air and rustled the ivy leaves. The pity
Ing angel of dreams who had striven all
night long TO restore the plundered shrine
and raise from their graves the band of
martyred nuns. ceased from his ministra-
tons, softly as n bubble frees itself from
the pipe that shaped it, and floated away
on the breath of the wind. Through a
breach in the mossgrown wall the first
sunbeam stole in and pointed a bright
finger across the cloister garth at the
charred spot in the center. where missals
and parchment rolls had made roaring
fire to warm the invaders oodstained
hands
As the lark rose through the frightening
air to greet the coming day, a woman in
the tunic and cowl of nun opened what
was. left of the wicket-gate in the one I'M
battered wall A trace of the luxury that
in her robes, which had been of a royal
purple and embroidered with siken flowers;
but the voice of Time and of Ruin spoke
from them also. for the purple was faded
to rusty brown, and the silken embroid-
cries were threadbare. She struck a note
in perfect harmony with her surroundings,
she stood under the crumbllns arch,
peering out into the Towering lane.
Stretching away from her feet in dewy
freshness, it made a green link between the
herb-garden of st. Mldreds and the high
way of the Waiting street. Like the stray
CLING hedges that were half buried under
net of wild roses, red and white, the
path was half effaced by grass; but beyond
her eye could follow the straight line of the
great Roman road over marsh and meadow
and hilltop. If grass had gathered there
also. during the Anglo-Saxon times,
there were no traces of it now,
in the days of Edmund Ironside, when
Canute of Denmark was leading his war
host back and forth over its stones Be
tween the dark walls of oak and beech it
cleaned as white as the Milky Way. The
nun was able to trace it's course I'D the
slope of the last hill. Just beyond the crest,
a pail of smoke was spread over a burning
village Though 1t was miles away, it
seemed to her that the wind brought cries
OF anguish to her ear, and prayers for mer-
ey. Shiverng. she turned her face back to
the desolate peace of the ruins.
Now is it clear to all men why a bloody
cloud was hung over the land in the year
that Ethelred came to the throne, she
said. Il feel as the blessed dead might
feel should they be forced to leave the
shelter of their graves and look out upon
the world"
Rising from its knees beside a bed Of
herbs. second figure in faded robes APP
preached the gate. Sister Sexberga was
very old much older than her companion,
and her face was a wrinkled parchment
wherein Time had written some terrible
lessons.
She said gently. I'VE are one with the
dead, beloved sister. Those who lie I'M
der the chancel lay no safer than We last
night, though the Pagans passing tread
shook the ground we lay on, and their
songs broke our Slumbers. Let us cease
not to give thanks to Him who has spread
over us the peace of the grave"
The shadows deepened in the eyes of Sis
ter Wynfreda as she turned them back