emnity to answer the charges brought against him, his relics were
seized and burned, and--which was more to the point in the King's view,
his shrine was stripped of its gold and jewels and vestments, which were
conveyed in a string of twenty-six carts to the King's treasury. The
following year events were yet more terrible. The few great houses that
survived were one by one brought within reach of the King's hand; and
those that did not voluntarily surrender fell under the heavier
penalties of attainder. Abbot Whiting of Glastonbury was sent up to
London in September, and two months later suffered on Tor hill within
sight of the monastery he had ruled so long and so justly; and on the
same day the Abbot of Reading suffered too outside his own gateway. Six
weeks afterwards Abbot Marshall, of Colchester, was also put to death.

* * * * *

It was a piteous life that devout persons led at this time; and few were
more unhappy than the household at Overfield. It was the more miserable
because Lady Torridon herself was so entirely out of sympathy with the
others. While she was not often the actual bearer of ill news--for she
had neither sufficient strenuousness nor opportunity for it--it was
impossible to doubt that she enjoyed its arrival.

They were all together at supper one warm summer evening when a servant
came in to announce that a monk of St. Swithun's was asking hospitality.
Sir James glanced at his wife who sat with passive downcast face; and
then ordered the priest to be brought in.

He was a timid, tactless man who failed to grasp the situation, and when
the wine and food had warmed his heart he began to talk a great deal too
freely, taking it for granted that all there were in sympathy with him.
He addressed himself chiefly to Chris, who answered courteously; and
described the sacking of the shrine at some length.

"He had already set aside our cross called Hierusalem," cried the monk,
his weak face looking infinitely pathetic with its mingled sorrow and
anger, "and two of our gold chalices, to take them with him when he
went; and then with his knives and hammers, as the psalmist tells us, he
hacked off the silver plates from the shrine. There was a fellow I knew
very well--he had been to me to confession two days before--who held a
candle and laughed. And then when all was done; and that was not till
three o'clock in the morning, one of the smiths tested the metal and
cried out