roof covered with
lead, its five big bells--all these wonders filled the minds of men
accustomed to the rude wooden rafters and beams of the common Saxon
churches, with amazement and awe. Then too a mysterious interest had
always attached to the site. Besides the old legend of the first
consecration by St. Peter, the belief in many mysteries and miracles
connected with the Confessor had grown up with the growth of his Abbey
Church.

The saintly king, with his pink cheeks, his long white beard, his wavy
hair and his delicate hands that healed the diseases of his people by
their magical touch, would startle his courtiers with a strange laugh
now and again, and then recount some vision which had come to him while
they thought he slept. "He had seen the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus
suddenly turn from their right sides to their left, and recognized in
this omen the sign of war, famine, and pestilence for the coming seventy
years, during which the sleepers were to lie in their new position."[4]

He had given a precious ring, "large, royal and beautiful," off his
finger, to a beggar who implored alms of him in the name of St. John.
The beggar vanished. And the ring was brought back to him from Syria by
two English pilgrims, to whom an aged man had confided it, telling them
that he was St. John the Evangelist, "with the warning that in six
months the king should be with him in Paradise."

The six months have ended.

The Abbey Church of St. Peter is finished, while hard by, in his palace
of Westminster, Edward, the last Saxon king, lies dying. On Wednesday,
the Feast of the Holy Innocents, or Childermas, the dying king rouses
himself sufficiently to sign the Charter of the foundation: but Edith
his queen has to represent him at the consecration. And the first
ceremony after the consecration of the glorious minster he loved so
well, is the Confessor's own burial. In his royal robes, a crown of gold
upon his head, a crucifix of gold on his breast, a golden chain about
his neck, and the pilgrim's ring on his hand, he lies before the High
Altar with an unearthly smile upon his lips.

A great horror and terror had fallen upon the people of England--and
well it might. Well might the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus turn uneasily in
their slumber--for within a year William the Norman was standing before
that same High Altar--standing on the very gravestone of King Edward,
"trembling from head to foot"[5] for the first time in his life amid