pereat, with the name of the maker: Petrus Lightfoot, monachus,

fecit hoc opus.

The monastery was also rebuilt on a grand scale, to judge by its ruins. It was enclosed by a high wall, which contained sixty acres within its circuit, and was complete in all its arrangements. The Abbot occupied a separate dwelling, south of the great hall.

In the dormitory each monk occupied a separate chamber, in which was a narrow bedstead with a straw bed, a coarse blanket and bolster of straw or flock. By the bedside was a kneeling-desk with a crucifix over it; besides another desk and table with shelves and drawers for books and papers, and one chair. In the corridors and in the middle of each dortoir were cressets or lanterns, wrought in stone with lights in them to give light to the monks when they rose at night to say matins.

The above quotation is taken from Dugdale's Monasticon, Ed. 1655, in which a full description is given of each part of the monastery. In the guest-house all travelers were received, from the prince to the peasant, and entertained according to their rank and quality. The monks were bound to show this hospitality by the fifty-third chapter of their rule, wherein they are commanded to receive all comers as they would Christ himself, who will hereafter say: "I was a stranger and ye took Me in."

The wooden cup used as a grace-cup by the monks after dinner is preserved at Wardour Castle. It is of Anglo-Saxon workmanship, and tradition asserts it to have been carved out of a piece of the Holy Thorn. The bowl, on which are figures of the twelve Apostles, rests on crouching lions; on the lid the crucifixion is carved, with the Blessed Virgin and St. John. The cup holds two quarts and originally had eight pegs fixed one above another inside, dividing its contents into equal quantities of half-a-pint. This arrangement led to such vessels being called by the name of peg-tankards.

The inventory made by the Royal Commissioners in 1535 shows the ornaments of the church, the jewels, the gold and silver plate, to have been of very great value. They were all delivered to the king, who himself acknowledged the receipt of

management of the Abbey by the Abbot Whiting, yet it shared the fate of all other religious houses at that unhappy time, when a storm of unbelief swept over the Church, and many of the venerable institutions she had founded went down in the destructive cataclysm. The end of the last Abbot of Glastonbury, Richard Whiting, is pathetically described in a sermon preached by the Bishop of Clifton, on occasion of opening the new choir of Downside Abbey, September, 1905, from which the following extract is taken.

Of all the touching and tragic scenes that were enacted during that bloody epoch, surely none is more replete with tragedy, or moves our pity more, than that which was perpetrated on a day in November of the year 1539, not many miles from the spot on which the modern Abbey of Downside stands. On a lonely eminence dominating the fair champaign below, as it stretches to the waters of the channel, may be seen a comely and venerable old man, over whose head eighty summers have passed. Around him press his executioners, busily arranging the ghastly apparatus of a felon's death. The gallows has been erected near the tower of St. Michael's (now vanished) church; the boiling cauldron and butcher's knife are ready. Naught has been brought or proven against the old man, save that he will not forfeit his allegiance to the Vicar of Christ; or yield up his Abbey. He has led a blameless life, a holy life; he is beloved by all the countryside, over which he ruled with a father's sway. He is the last of the long line of Abbots of Glaston, and this spot of vantage from which he is compelled to look down upon his beloved Abbey has been brutally chosen for his murder, that he may drain the cup of bitterness to the dregs. "He took his death very patiently," wrote an unfeeling eye-witness of the butchery; but had we been there, and had it been given to us to know the varied emotions of his heart as he ascended the fatal ladder, what despondency joined with resignation, what fear mingled with love, what joy, yet merging in a sea of sorrow, should we not have found there. He clearly saw that soon the floodgates of error would be opened wide, and the waters of destruction sweep away long-cherished beliefs, banishing rites and ordinances that had been channels of grace to the people for a thousand years. The clean oblation, the holy sacrifice, would be abolished; no more would the sacred, time-honored chant resound along the aisles of his well-loved

would be rifled and plucked down, his brethren done to death or dispersed, perhaps forever. This must have been the bitterest draught of all to him, for the ties of consecrated love are as dear as those of kin, and he might be pardoned if he gloried in all that his Order had achieved for the Island of Saints. Were they not her Apostles? Had they not given to England many of that illustrious line of sainted confessors and bishops, statesmen and writers? Now he might exclaim : "Our inheritance is turned to aliens, our house to strangers." But the noose is now drawn round his neck, the cart is driven away, and Richard Whiting takes his place among the whiterobed army of martyrs encircling the throne of the Lamb that was slain.

It was on Tor Hill that the last Abbot of Glastonbury was executed, with two of his monks, under the pretext that they had robbed Glastonbury Church. The Abbot's body was divided into four parts, according to the barbarous custom of the time, and sent to Wells, Bath, Ilchester, and Bridgewater. His head was placed over the Abbey gate. The lands were then sold, the property divided, and after they had been stripped of their treasures for the royal exchequer, the magnificent and venerable edifices were given up to pillage and desecration. In the reign of Queen Mary some of the monks petitioned her Majesty to "raise their Abbey again," which was held to be the "ancientest and richest in England." But the unsettled state of the realm, and the Queen's death, ended all hope of the restoration of Glastonbury Abbey.

Amongst other traditions of Glastonbury in the olden time is that of its being the burial place of the renowned British King Arthur, the hero of early legend, represented as the flower of chivalry and of Christian valor. It is said that when mortally wounded in his last great battle of Camleon in Cornwall, he bade his followers convey him to "the island-valley of Avilion," in order that he might in solitude prepare to depart out of this world. This scene has been the theme of many a bard's song, but none describes it so touchingly as the master-poet of the last century, Tennyson, in the "Morte d'Arthur." The hero speaks to his favorite knight, the brave Sir Bedivere:

But now farewell, I am going a long way

(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)
To the island-valley of Avilion ;

Where falls not hail, nor rain, nor any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly, but it lies
Deep meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns,
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.

Formal search was not made for the grave until the twelfth century, when the spot, marked by two sculptured crosses, was found. At the depth of seven feet from the surface a flat stone was unearthed bearing in rude characters the words in Latin *: Here lies the renowned King Arthur, buried in the island Avalonia. Below was a huge oak coffin, which, when opened, was seen to contain the King's bones, which were of a large size; on the skull were the marks of ten wounds. The same coffin contained the bones of Queen Guinevere. These remains were removed to a chapel in the great church.

The town of Glastonbury has in itself little to attract the traveler. The population numbers about 5,000; the only building of any note is the Pilgrim's Inn, a house of considerable architectural beauty, built and once maintained at the expense of one of the Abbots in the fifteenth century. Every visitor was treated as a guest, and allowed to remain for two days. When first the relics at Glastonbury attracted a great number of pilgrims to the shrine, they found accommodation in the Abbey; then a hospice for their benefit was erected adjoining the monastery walls; and when this proved insufficient for their entertainment, they were lodged at the Pilgrim's Inn, which was connected with the monastery by a subterranean passage. In the extensive cellars rises a spring of water, beside it is a stone seat whereon penitents are traditionally said to have sat up to their knees in water. More probably, however, if this practice really existed, it was destined rather for ills of the body than of the soul, since we read that at one time the mineral waters rising at the foot of Tor Hill, below which Glastonbury is situated, attained considerable notoriety on account of their health-restoring qualities.

LISHEEN; OR, THE TEST OF THE SPIRITS.*

BY CANON P. A. SHEEHAN, D.D.,

Author of "My New Curate"; "Luke Delmege"; "Glenanaar," etc.

CHAPTER XIII.

NEMESIS.

O woman, mother or maiden, ever utterly loathes that which she has once loved. Her usually flexible nature seems to be hardened by that passion into a shape which cannot be bent backward or broken. There may be anger, jealousy, hate, under which her soul will vibrate painfully. But, at length and at last, it settles down into one fixed poise, which seems as unchangeable as the earth's axis towards the sun.

Hence Mabel Willoughby, after her baptism of tears, took the regenerated soul of her husband unto her own, and settled down into a calm attitude of resignation and affection. The effect on Outram was almost startling. The unavowed forgiveness of his wife for his deadly deception touched unto better purposes and larger issues a spirit that had grown old in duplicity; and he came to worship, with a kind of doglike uplook, the woman whom he had betrayed, and who had so nobly absolved him. Hence, during these fleeting summer and autumnal months, he lost all his cunning, all his cynicism; and went about a humble and deferential follower of his wife, asking for and obeying her commands; whilst she, in turn, seemed to regard him with a kind of respect for his misfortune and forgiven fault.

But, where men forgive, Nature and her handmaid, Nemesis, are sometimes relentless; and certainly, in some mysterious manner, the magnanimity of men is not imitated by that hidden and masked executioner, called Fate. And so it happened that one day Outram, who was fleeing from Fate, fell into its arms; and expiating his sin, liberated at the same time the woman who had been his victim and pardoner together.

One autumn day, unlike autumn however in a strong breeze