uld I waste my life within these walls?" But immediately
afterwards he was filled with remorse, and confessed his thoughts to
the Abbot.

"Have faith and patience, my son," said Agelwyn. "Consider the many
years God waited for thee, and grew not impatient with thy delay. When
His good time comes thou shalt of a certainty set out on thy journey."

So for a while Rheinfrid ceased to repine, and served faithfully in the
Abbey.

In the years which followed, William the Norman came into these parts
and harried whole shires on account of the rebels and broken men who
haunted the great roads which ran through the Forest. Cheshire and
Shropshire, Stafford and Warwick were wasted with fire and sword. And
crowds naked and starving--townsmen and churls, men young and old,
maidens and aged crones, women with babes in their arms and little ones
at their knees--came straggling into Eovesholme, fleeing most
sorrowfully from the misery of want.

In the little town they lay, indoors and out, and it was now that the
Abbot got himself the name of the Great-hearted. For he gave his monks
orders that all should be fed and cared for; and daily from his own
table he sent food for thirty wanderers whom he named his guests, and
daily in memory of the love of Christ he washed the feet of twelve
others, and never shrank from the unhappy lepers among them. But for
all his care the people died lamentably from grief and sickness--on no
day fewer than five or six between prime and compline; and these poor
souls were buried by the brethren. Of the little children that were
left to the mothering of the east wind, some were adopted by the canons
and priests of the Abbey church, and others by the monks.

In his eagerness to help and solace, the Abbot even sent forth
messengers to bring in the fugitives to refuge. Now on a day that
Rheinfrid went out on this work of mercy, he met at a crossway a number
of peasants fleeing before a dozen Norman men-at-arms. He raised his
arm and called to them to make a stand, but they were too much
terrified to heed him. Then he saw that one of the soldiers had seized
by the hair a fair Saxon woman with a babe at her bosom, and with a
great cry he bade him let her go, for his blood was hot within him as
he thought of the Saxon woman who had carried him in her arms and
suckled him when he was but such a little child. But the Norman only
laughed and turned the point of his sword against the monk.

Then