transient glimpses of things, people the ruins with the shades of
their departed inhabitants.

"Father," said Alfred, at length, "who were they who lived here? Do you
know aught about them?"

"The men whom our ancestors subdued--the Welsh, or British--an
unhappy race."

"Were they heathen?"

"At one time, but they were converted by the missions from Rome and the
East, of which the earliest was that of St. Joseph of Arimathea to our
own Glastonbury; he may have preached to the very people who lived here,
nay, in this very basilica, which, I think, may have been converted into
a church."

It was indeed the ruin of a basilica wherein they stood, but no trace
survived to show whether Dunstan's conjecture was correct.

"It seems strange that God should have permitted them to fall before the
sword of our heathen ancestors."

"Their own historian Gildas, who lies buried at Glastonbury, explains
it. He tells us that such was the corruption of faith and of morals
towards the close of their brief day, that had not the Saxon sword
interposed; plague, pestilence, or famine, or some similar calamity,
must have done the fatal work. God grant that we, now that in turn we
have received the message of the Gospel, may be more faithful servants,
or similar ruin may, at no distant period, await the Englishman also, as
it did the Welshman."

He sighed deeply, and Alfred echoed the sigh in his heart; he read the
abbot's thoughts.

"Do you believe," said he, after a pause, "that their spirits ever
revisit the earth?"

"I know not; many wise men have thought it possible, and that they may
haunt the places where they sinned, ever bearing their condemnation
within them, even while they clothe themselves in semblance of the
mortal flesh they once wore."

The whole party shuddered, and Father Guthlac said, deprecatingly:

"My father, let us not talk of this now. We are too weak to bear it, and
the place is so awful!"

By this time the wind had made a huge rent in the black clouds overhead,
and the moon came suddenly in sight, sailing tranquilly in the azure
void above, and casting her beams on the ruins, as she had once cast
them on the beauteous city; its basilicas, palaces, and temples yet
standing.

At this moment their guide came hastily to them.

"We are in some danger, father. Horsemen, twelve of them, are galloping
along the Foss Way in spite of the storm."

Dunstan left the shelter, which was no longer needed, the ra