hung upon great days over the dais at the high table of the hall.

The monastery is well endowed with lands by the liberality of its first founder, as appears in the deeds preserved in our great muniment chest. We have ten hides of woodland, wherein none may cut wood save for our use in the winter; five hides of arable land, and the same extent of pasturage for cattle. Now for the care of the culture thereof we have a hundred serfs attached to the glebe, who, we trust, do not find us unkind lords.

There are twenty brethren who have taken the final vows according to the rule of St. Benedict, and ten novices, besides six lay brethren, and other our chief servitors. We keep the monastic hours, duly rising at daybreak to sing our lauds, and lying down after compline, with the peace and blessing of Him who alone maketh us dwell in safety.

Our daily work is not light. We preach on Sundays and festivals in the priory church. We visit the sick. We instruct the youth in the elements of Christian doctrine. We superintend the labours of those who till the soil. We copy the sacred writings. In short, we have a great deal to do, and I fear do it very imperfectly sometimes.

I will add a few words only about myself. I am the third son of Alfred ^{i}, thane of Aescendune, and his wife the Lady Alftrude of Rollrich. Elfric, my eldest brother, died young. Elfwyn is now thane, and I, the third boy, was given to the Church, for which I had ever felt a vocation, perhaps from my love to my godfather. We only had one sister, Bertha, and she has married the Thane Herstan of Clifton, near Dorchester, the seat of our good bishop Aelfhelm, and the shrine of holy Birinus.

My father and mother both sleep the sleep of the just. They lived to see their children happy and prosperous, and then departed amidst the lamentations of all who had known and loved them. Taken from the evil to come, we cannot mourn them, nor would we call them back, although we sorely missed their loved forms. They were full of years, yet age had not dimmed their faculties. My father died in the year 998, my mother the following year. They rest by the side of their ancestors in the priory church.

My brother Elfwyn married Hilda, the daughter of Ceolfric, a Thane of Wessex, in the year 985. He has two children--Bertric, a fine lad of twelve, and as good as he is manly; and Ethelgiva, a merry girl of ten. His household is well-ordered and happy-- nurtured in the admonition of the Lord.

For myself I have had many offers of promotion in the brotherhood of St. Benedict, but have refused them. I was once offered the high office of abbot in one of our great Benedictine houses, but I wished to be near my own people and my father's house, and here I trust I shall stay till I seek a continuing city, whose builder and maker is God.

And now a little about the state of the country round us. In this neighbourhood we have as yet been preserved from the evils of war, but for many years past the Danes, those evil men, have renewed their inroads, as they used to make them before the great King Alfred pacified the country. They began again in the year 980, and, with but slight intermission, have continued year by year.

The awful prophecy which God forced from the lips of Dunstan ^{ii}, at the coronation of our most unhappy king, has been too sadly fulfilled. Ah me! I fear the curse of the saints is upon him. When the holy bishop departed this life, I was one of the few who stood round his bed, and as he foretold of the evil to come, he bade us all bear our portion manfully, for the time, he said, would be short in which to endure, and the eternal crown secure.

Many of those to whom he spoke have since died the martyr's or the patriot's death, but as yet no evil has reached us at Aescendune, although many parts of Wessex, nay, all the sea coast and the banks of the great rivers have been wasted with fire and sword, and the money which has been given the barbarians has been worse than wasted, for they only come for more.

Our armies seem led by traitors; our councils, sad to say, by fools. Nothing prospers, and thoughtless people say the saints are asleep. Every day we say the petition in our Litany, "That it would please Thee to abate the cruelty of our pagan enemies, and to turn their hearts; we beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord," and we must wait His time, and pray for strength to submit to His will.

Around the priory live the serfs, the theows, and ceorls of the estate, each in his own little cottage, save the domestics, who live at the Hall, which is only half-a-mile distant.

On Sundays and Saints' days they all assemble in our minster church. It was full this day at the high mass, and I preached them a homily upon the Saints, great part of which I took from a sermon I once heard the holy Dunstan preach. And he showed us how saints did not live idle lives on this earth, but always went about, like their Lord and Master, doing good, and that through much tribulation they entered the eternal kingdom, which also bids fair to be our lot nowadays, although we be all miserable sinners, and not saints.

Ah! how I thought of the dear ones we have lost when the Gospel was read at mass, about the great multitude which no man could number, and I almost seemed as if I could see father, mother, and Elfric there. I would not wish them back; yet my heart is very lonely sometimes. I wonder whether they remember now that it is All Saints' Day, and that we are thinking of them. Yes, I am sure they must do so.

There have been few troubles from the Danes, close at hand; so few that they seem trivial in comparison with those our countrymen suffer elsewhere. Still we have many of the pagans living as settlers in our neighbourhood, whose presence is tolerated for fear of the reprisals which might follow any acts of hostility against them. Kill one Dane, the people say, and a hundred come to his funeral. Many of these settlers have acquired their lands peaceably, but others by the strong arms of their ancestors in periods of ancient strife; and these have been allowed to keep their possessions for generations, so that if they did not retain their heathen customs we might forget they were not Englishmen.

One of these lives near us. His name is Anlaf. Some say he boasts of being a descendant of that Anlaf who once ravaged England, and was defeated at Brunanburgh. He married an English girl, whose heart, they say, he broke by his cruelty. They had one child, Alfgar by name.

The mother died a Christian. Taking my life in my hands, I penetrated their fortalice, and administered the last sacrament to her; but they threatened my life for entering their domains, and, perhaps, had I been but a simple priest, and not also, small boast as it is, the son of a powerful English thane, whom they feared to offend, I had died in doing my duty. When the poor girl was dying she committed the boy as well as she could to my care, begging me to see that he was baptized; but the father has prevented me from carrying out her wishes, asserting that he would sooner slay the lad.

But it seems as if the boy retained some traces of his mother's faith; over and over again I have seen him hiding in some remote corner of the church during service time, but he has always shrunk away when any of the brethren attempted to speak to him.

I am sure he wishes to be a Christian.

I may, perhaps, find a chance of speaking to him, and a few words may reach his heart. He knows my brother's family, and has once or twice joined them in expeditions in the woods, and even entered their gates. His must be a lonely life at home; there are no other children, but from time to time hoary warriors,