The early dawn Author:Elizabeth Rundle Charles Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. AN ANGLO-SAXON FAMlLY THROUGH THREE GENERATlONS. STORY OF THE ABBESS FRIDESWIDE, RECORDED BY DEORWYN, THE NUN. |T must have been in the very night ... more »when the great Abbess Hilda died that Frideswide, our mother, Prioress of our Abbey of St. John's, on the Derwent Lake, related to me the things which I am about to write. for I remember the winds howled fiercely down the valleys, and the waves of the lake dashed against the banks like the waves of the great sea, and tearing the convent fishing-boat from its moorings, broke it in pieces. And with the sounds of winds and waters came other sounds,—voices, wild wails, and low faint moans, other than winds can make. And three days afterwards a monk came from the Abbey of Streaneschalch (Whitby), and told us how the Lady Hilda, mother of so many congregations, was dead; and then we knew why such strange terrors had seized us on that stormy night; for.doubtless, there had been great tumult among the powers of the air when that great spirit went its way through storm and cloud to God. The night was very wild. It was a comfort when we looked across the foaming waters to see the little lamp 'still gleaming from the island where Herbert dwelt, the (holy anchor. Because we knew his heart also was lit, I and girded, and that throughout the storm he was defend- . ing us all with his holy vigils of prayer. But the hearts of many of the younger sisters quailed. More than once the dormitory, which was only built of oak and thatched with reeds, quivered as if it would fall; and the rain came through the roof. Therefore we were all rejoiced to obey the order to rise and chant the midnight psalms in the church ; and afterwards Frideswide, the abbess, permitted me, when the rest had retired, to sit with her by the fire in the great hall...« less