Four months had passed away since the tragical events recorded in our last chapter, and the blustering month of March was in mid-career; the winds swept over the ruined Abbey, now in great part roofless, and dismantled, the abode of bats and owls; they swept over the bare and rounded summit of Glastonbury Tor, stained so lately by a foul deed of blood. Many a violent storm of rain had beaten upon that blood-stained summit, and the traces of the butchery had long since vanished; but the peasants yet gazed up to the hill top with awe and wonder. But the storm which had desolated the proud Abbey had left the humble cottage of Giles Hodge untouched: there the old man and his wife lived in peace, like their neighbours, and went through their daily round, their trivial task-- Each morning saw some work begun Each evening saw its close. Their foster son was often present to their remembrances, but he had not been with them in person since the martyrdom. They had wisely judged it best to remove him from the immediate neighbourhood of such harrowing recollections, and as old Giles had a brother who lived at Lyme Regis, a seafaring man, thither he had sent Cuthbert to spend the winter. The change of scene had wrought good. The poor boy had gone there broken-hearted, and suffering from the nervous excitement which he had passed through; the shock had been very great, but youth is elastic, and soon recovers from such a strain. The sea and its wonders, the romantic scenery around, all contributed to the beneficial change. Sometimes Cuthbert would go out fishing with his uncle, as he had learned to call the brother of his foster father; the fishing awakened all his interest: on the deep all the night, watching the moonbeams on the waves, the gradual breaking of the dawn, the “many dimpled smile of ocean:” all this was new to the land-bred youth, and exercised a most happy effect upon his health and spirits. But it must not be supposed that he forgot the Abbot, or that he was unmindful of the secret entrusted to him; he had told his foster father that he expected some communication from the friends of the late Abbot, and old Hodge had promised that if anyone arrived, and presented the ring which was to serve as a token, he would send for Cuthbert without any delay. And at last the message came, just when Cuthbert returned home with his “uncle,” after a most successful night at sea, bringing the scaly spoils of the deep in their boats. A rustic messenger had ridden across the country from Glastonbury, through Langport, Ilminster, Chard, and Axminster, a distance of from thirty to forty miles. Old Giles could not write, he only sent word by his envoy, “Come home, I have seen the ring, he expects thee to-morrow.” * * * * *