The same ruins seen now, after the mellowing influences of time have toned down the painful features, excite interest unmingled, in the case of most visitors, with regret, and they say, “What a beautiful ruin;” but it was different then: a visit to Glastonbury, Tintern, or Furness, must have rent the heart of any one who could feel for the victims of injustice, or grieve over the wanton mutilation of all that was beautiful in architecture, or sacred in religion.[24] When our hero entered the once beautiful Abbey church, when he saw the ashes of the holy dead scattered abroad, their tombs defaced; above all, when he saw the altar which had been stripped and rent from its place, and this by a people who had not yet renounced their faith in the sacramental presence, by a king who at the same time sent men and women to the stake because they disbelieved in Transubstantiation,[25] he fell upon his face and sobbed, while the words escaped his lips, “How long, O Lord, how long?” All his early teaching had led him to revere what he saw thus desecrated, and he was shocked to the very core of his heart. He saw the moonbeams fall through broken windows and chequer the mutilated floor with light; he sought in vain a place of rest, until it occurred to him that the organ loft which was over the entrance to the monk’s choir, and which was reached by a winding staircase, would be the best place of refuge, in case he should be sought, which he deemed _unlikely_; there were but few who would harm him, and they were off the scent. I do not attempt to analyse his feelings towards Grabber, neither would it have been well for the latter to have met Cuthbert just then; warm-hearted and loving to his friends, nay, Christian in heart as Cuthbert was, it would have been hard at that time to put in action the spirit of forgiveness as one ought. Up the spiral staircase he crept into the loft; there some cushions were left by chance amongst the remains of the organ; he contrived to make a couch out of two or three of them and slept. How long he knew not, but at length he seemed to hear the bells ring out the midnight hour, and he began to dream that he was assisting at a solemn office for the dead. He awoke and raised himself up; the same sounds he had heard in his dream were actually ascending from below. “Requiem æternam dona eis Domine et lux perpetua luceat eis.” Then followed the words of the psalm:-- “Te decet hymnus Deus in Syon, et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.”[26] He gazed around him in amazement. He discovered the familiar odour of incense, he perceived the glimmer of many tapers. He dared at last, not knowing whether he beheld ghosts or living men, to look over the edge of the gallery, and saw a company of monks in the familiar Benedictine habit, standing around an open grave, while beyond them the desecrated altar was set up, and furnished with its accustomed ornaments, and the Celebrant with his assistant ministers, stood before it.