'Alas! poor dolphin!' she exclaimed, as she saw it dragged to the shore opposite the creek, then leading up to Wyke's Bishop Palace in the hamlet of St. Clement. 'Alas, poor dolphin! thou didst deserve a better fate! For thou hast respected the laws of nature more than cruel man!' She sat down in the barge and wept. De Freston had intended to have landed, and his men would have been equally glad to have seen a creature so rare in the Orwell. He urged them to proceed at once, without delay, to the landing-place beside St. Peter's Priory. It was a long time before Ellen could rouse herself from the sorrowful feeling into which the recent incident had thrown her; and she spoke not a word until the hand of De Freston assisted her to land, and then it was-- 'Father, I shall never forget the dolphin and her offspring.' CHAPTER VII. THE VISIT. The outer wall of St. Peter's Priory then abutted upon the waters of the Orwell, and formed a long river border, from the Common Quay nearly to the first lock gates where the Orwell and Gipping meet. At the junction of the two rivers, where the salt water and fresh salute each other at high tide, there was formerly the termination wall of the Priory, and the southern gate to the town of Ipswich. At this point was, at low water, the celebrated Stoke Ford, where the Danes entered the town; and Terkettel, the Danish giant, was slain by an archer from the wall. The channel of the river swept along close under the walls of the Priory; and though the cells of the monks did not face the waves, yet there were light niches or loop holes in those walls, through which, if occasion required, any one ascending by ladder, or frame, might discharge his arrows upon an enemy. There were small Saxon arches, equidistant along the wall, which gave a degree of light and elegance to that otherwise dark and dreary brick fortification. The Priory was then in its greatest prosperity and had vast possessions in the town, on the banks of Stoke, and along the meadows of the winding Gipping. De Freston's barge had been espied coming up the river, and the Prior, for many reasons, paid court to the lords of De Freston. Independently of the many donations he received from the charity of his ancestors, he had only a few days before received substantial proof of the liberality of the present lord, who had presented to the fraternity, for the shrine of St. Peter, two massive candlesticks of silver, together with twelve ornamental brass ones for the chapel. There was, therefore, nothing surprising in the fact, that when De Freston came to St. Peter's, or the Southern Gate, he should be met by the Prior and six canons, bareheaded, to solicit a visit to their monastery.