United States or United Arab Emirates ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was a little later when Deede Dawson returned to the subject of Wreste Abbey. "Lord Chobham has a very valuable collection of plate and jewellery and so on, hasn't he?" he asked. "Oh, there's plenty of the stuff there," Dunn answered. "Why?"
It meant no less than a "duel to the death" between the accuser and the accused or their accepted champions, and, upon the result of the duel hung the lives of those in dispute. And the Princess Edith's glove lying on the floor of the Abbey hall was her assertion that she had spoken the truth and was willing to risk her life in proof of her innocence.
A poor task no doubt it was, but it involved a journey up the beautiful Tyne valley, and a glimpse of the old abbey town; it meant, in short, the change from a life of drudgery to one of adventure, and that morning I felt that I had recovered my lost youth. But enough of my own feelings.
The legend, whether authenticated or not only Macdonald, the historian of Fernhurst, could say, was handed down from generation to generation. It was believed that, when the building of the Abbey was finished, all the masons, glass-workers and artificers packed up their tools and paraded the town with music and song, celebrating the glory of their accomplished work.
I do feel it, yet I know it was more appropriate to such a man than the deathbed where friends and relations weep. Henry Irving belonged to England, not to a family. England showed that she knew it when she buried him in Westminster Abbey. Years before I had discussed, half in joke, the possibility of this honor.
Its internal discipline had recently undergone a thorough reformation, and the abbey rose to such a high reputation, that men of piety and learning took up their abode in its vicinity, to enjoy literary leisure. The establishment received pupils, and its system of education became celebrated in a religious and intellectual point of view. The great rivals of the Port Royalists were the Jesuits.
And while I still cling to the subject, I have found out that he can sing as well as paint. But the singing belongs to Sweetheart Abbey; and Ruthwell Cross came before. Mrs. James and Sir S. excited my interest in Galloway by telling me bits from the "Raiders," then stopping in exciting places to talk of something else.
It contains only a bed, and the usual instruments of a lady's toilet; but Lady Selina does not choose to have it shown, and it has become invested, in the eyes of the visitors, with no ordinary mystery. Many a petitionary whisper is addressed to the housekeeper on the subject, but in vain; and, consequently, the public too often leave Grey Abbey dissatisfied.
Six hundred years ago the English looked upon it as their holiest and most national shrine, and since then our kings and our warriors and our thinkers and our poets have all been laid there, until there is such an accumulation that the huge Abbey has hardly space for another monument. Let us spend an hour inside it.
Cashel, one of the wonders of the world, grows up suddenly into sight on a high rock rising from level land crowned with buildings. A great abbey dominates; beside it clings that carved gem of a stone-roofed church, Cormac's Chapel. Round Tower and Cross are there, and many a sculptured tomb.
Word Of The Day