“But the eldest brother sent two of the young men to seek their master, who, meeting with a certain Moorish people, learnt that a priest, bearing a paten and chalice, had passed before them a few days before, crossing the desert in the direction of the cave of the holy Amma.

“And they inquiring who this Amma might be, the Moors answered that some twenty years ago there had arrived in those mountains a woman more beautiful than had ever before been seen in that region, who, after distributing among them the rich jewels which she wore, had embraced the hermit’s life, and sojourned upon the highest peak of a neighbouring mountain.

“Then the two brothers, determining to proceed, arrived upon the summit of the said mountain.

“There in an open grave, guarded by two lions, lay the body of Philammon, the abbot; and by his side, wrapped in his cloak, the corpse of a woman of exceeding beauty, such as the Moors had described.  And by the grave-side stood the paten and the chalice, emptied of their divine contents.  Whereupon, filling in the grave with all haste, they returned weeping to the laura.

“Now, before they returned, one of the brethren, searching the cave wherein the holy woman dwelt, found nothing there, saving one bracelet of gold, of large size and strange workmanship, engraven with foreign characters, which no one could decipher.

“And it came to pass years afterwards that certain wandering barbarians of the Vandalic race saw this bracelet in the laura of Scetis, and pretended that it had belonged to a warrior of their tribe.”

* * * * *

So be it.  Pelagia and Philammon, like the rest, went to their own place; to the only place where such in such days could find rest; to the desert and the hermit’s cell.

Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone, whether at Hypatia or Pelagia, Cyril or Philammon.

* * * * *

Two Years Ago

Kingsley’s “Two Years Ago” has been said by his son to be the only novel, pure and simple, that ever came from the pen of the famous writer, Published in 1857, it was begun two years earlier while staying at Bideford.  At this time Kingsley was deeply interested in the Crimean War, and many thousands of copies of his pamphlet, “Brave Words to Brave Soldiers,” were distributed to the army.  His military tastes no doubt go a long way towards explaining his doctrine in “Two Years Ago” that the war was to exercise a great regenerating influence in English life.  Although the story is in many respects weaker than its predecessors, it nevertheless abounds in brilliant and vivid word-paintings, the descriptions of North Devon scenery being probably unsurpassed in English prose.

I.—­Tom Thurnall’s Wanderings

To tell my story I must go back sixteen years to the days when the pleasant old town of Whitbury boasted of forty coaches a day, instead of one railway, and set forth how there stood two pleasant houses side by side in its southern suburb.