Honor followed to the corner of the fallen transept, where Miss Maitland was installed on a fragment of broken column. The girls, in various attitudes of comfort, had flung themselves on the grass within earshot, prepared to listen lazily while revelling in the calm, tranquil beauty and the old-world atmosphere of the scene. It seemed so peaceful, so far removed from the bustle and noise of our hurrying, pushing age, that they could almost throw their minds back through the centuries, and imagine they heard the vesper bell tolling from the tower overhead, and the slow footfalls of the monks pacing round the cloister to those carved seats in the choir of which the very remains were so exquisite. "Yes, Baldurstone is a wonderful spot," began Miss Maitland. "I don't believe any place in the neighbourhood has older traditions. St. Kolgan was a British saint, and his legend has come down to us from the very earliest times. You know that there was a thriving and orthodox Celtic Church in Britain long before St. Augustine's 'introduction' of Christianity--a Church that was so important and vigorous that it contributed three bishops to the Council of Arles in A.D. 314, and several to the Council of Nicaea in 325, thus showing that it formed a part of united Christendom. It sent missionaries both to Ireland, where St. Patrick preached the Faith, and to Scotland, where St. Ninian spread Christian teaching in the north. Then came the invasion of the heathen Norsemen, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes of history, who burnt and plundered every sanctuary they could find, slaying the priests at the altars, destroying both prelates and people, and forcing the Britons to take refuge in the woods and mountains. Though driven westward, the Celtic Church did not perish, and every now and then some devoted monk would try to establish himself among the worshippers of Thor and Odin. Such a mission was extremely dangerous, for so intense was the hatred of the pagan conquerors for the religion of the New Testament that it was almost impossible for a Christian teacher to show himself among them and live.