rotherhood accompanied them with cross and banners and burning tapers,
and set them well on their way beyond the river.

Now think of Rheinfrid and Hereman traversing the wild England of those
olden times. One day they were wandering in the depths of the woods;
on another they were moving along some neglected Roman road, through
swamps and quagmires. Now they were passing hastily through the ruins
of some Saxon thorpe which had been burned by the Normans, or lodging
for the night as guests at some convent or priory, or crossing a
dangerous river-ford, or making a brief stay in a busy town to preach
and exhibit the shrine of the saint, so that the diseased and suffering
might be touched by the miraculous relics. And all along their journey
they gathered the offerings which the people brought them.

"This, surely," thought Rheinfrid, "is the journey appointed me," and
his spirit was at last peaceful and contented.

Now in the third week of their pilgrimage they came to a wide moor
which they had to cross. A heavy white mist lay on the lonely waste,
and they had not gone far among the heath and grey boulders before
Rheinfrid, absorbed in prayer, found himself separated from his
companions. He called aloud to them by their names, but no one
answered him. This way and that he wandered, still crying aloud, and
hoping to discover some trace of the faint path which led over the
moor. Suddenly he came to the brink of a vast chasm, the depth of
which was hidden by the mist. It was a terrible place and he thanked
God that he had not come thither in the darkness of the night. As he
gazed anxiously on all sides, wondering what he should do next, he
perceived through the vapour a tall dark figure. Approaching it, he
saw that it was a high stone cross, and he murmured gratefully, "Here I
am safe. The foot of Thy cross is an ever-lasting refuge." As he
ascended the rough granite steps, he noticed how wonderfully the cross
was sculptured, with a vine running up the shaft, and birds and small
wild creatures among the vine-leaves, and he was able to read, in the
centre, words from a famous old poem which he knew:

_Rood is my name; long ago I bore a goodly King; trembling,_
_dripping with blood._

As he read them he became aware that some one had come out of the mist
and was standing near him. "In the darkness the danger is great," said
the stranger; "another step would have carried thee over the brink; and
non