Lauded be the good Saint Felix, who miraculously interposes for our salvation from the jaws of destruction. Sudden, mysterious, a blanket of white fog rises from the fens and envelopes the river banks. Blotted out are the runners: they cry and wave no more. The Ely prow is swallowed up in vacuous whiteness: the swish of the Ely oars is silenced, and Monk Peter’s voice is raised in objurgation. They have run upon that willow that grows aslant the brook, and it is to be doubted that their bows are staved in. Were it not a Christian act to hail them with a loud _Benedicite_ in parting? And here is Erith strand and Brother Brihtmer and the Ramsey men. Brother Alfwin, it will be proper for you to give direction to the kitchener for a suitable congratulation for the brethren at supper to-night. To-morrow we will deliberate on the matter of the bell-tower. “Candid reader,” says the Ramsey chronicler, “this is a queer tale. The authority for it is ancient but shaky--_fluctuans veterum nobis tradidit relatio_. I by no means require you to believe it, provided only that in any case you have unhesitating faith that the relics of Saint Felix were translated from the aforesaid town of Soham to Ramsey church, and that there the saint confers inestimable benefits on his worshippers.” Ramsey abbey is gone: the shrine of Saint Felix is gone. The tale of the boat race remains. I ask you to believe it, if you can. [Illustration: _In the Fens._] The Sacrist of Saint Radegund On a certain day in mid June in the year 1431 the tolling of the bell in St. Radegund’s church tower announced to the neighbours of the Priory that a nun was to be buried that day. In an interval between church services the nuns wander in the garden, which is also the graveyard of St Radegund’s, and lies sequestered next the chancel walls. To-day they are drawn thither by a new-made empty grave; for a funeral is a mildly exciting incident in conventual routine. But three sisters sit in the cloister on the stone bench next the chapter door. Also a small novice is curled up on the paved floor with her back against the bench. The day is warm, and the church wall casts a grateful shadow where they sit. And, because labour and silence are enjoined in the cloister, they rest, and two of them gossip, and Agnes Senclowe, the novice, listens and lays to heart. The two who gossip are Joan Sudbury, succentrix, and Elizabeth Daveys, who is older than Joan, and holds no office in the monastery. With them sits, and half dozes, Emma Denton, who is very old and very infirm. She does not gossip, for she has hardly spoken a word of sense these forty years past. She is a heavy affliction to the cloister society. She lives mainly in the infirmary, and does not attend church. She knows when it is the hour for a meal, and she knows very little else. If she speaks an intelligible word, it is about something that happened forty years ago. She remembers the great pestilence in 1390.