bove the other, three great dazzling wings; they were the
left-hand side wings of one of the Angels at the foot of the bed.

Then all was deep darkness.

The Vicar thought that it was the blindness that had fallen upon him,
but the only regret he felt was that the vision had vanished so
quickly. Then, as he turned away, he found that not only had he not
lost his sight, but that he could now see with a marvellous clearness.
He saw the road, and even the foot-prints and grains of sand on the
road; the hut, and the reeds on the hut; the moor, and the boulders and
the rowan-trees on the moor. Everything was as distinct as if it had
been--not daylight, but as if the air were of the clear colour of a
nut-brown brook in summer.

Praising God for all His goodness he returned home, and as he went he
looked back once and again and yet again, and each time he saw the
twelve awful figures in strange clothing, guarding the lonely thatched
hovel on the edge of the moor.

After this there were no more stories told of Mary, and no one even
dared speak to her of the wonderful manner in which her prayer was
answered, so that she never knew what the old Vicar had seen. But late
at night people would rather go a great way round than take the road
which passed by her poor hut.

On the Shores of Longing

It was in the old forgotten days when all the western coast of Spain
was sprinkled with lonely hermitages among the rocks, and with holy
houses and towers of prayer; and this west coast was thought to be the
last and outermost edge of all land, for beyond there lay nothing but
the vast ocean stream and the sunset. There, in the west of the world,
on the brink of the sea and the lights of the day that is done, lived
the men of God, looking for ever towards the east for the coming of the
Lord. Even the dead were laid in the place of their resurrection with
their feet pointing to the morning, so that when they should arise
their faces would be turned towards His coming. Thus it came to pass
that the keen white wind out of the east was named the wind of the dead
men's feet.

Now in one or these holy houses lived the monk Bresal of the Songs, who
had followed Sedulius the Bishop into Spain.

Bresal had been sent thither to teach the brethren the music of the
choirs of the Isle of the Gael and to train the novices in chant and
psalmody, for of all singers the sweetest was he, and he could play on
every instrument of wind or s