"Slacken, we are too far for accurate aim; and we English must not disgrace ourselves in Danish eyes."
They slackened, another arrow sped, and the foremost rower fell. Evidently the Danes had no means of reply.
"Slacken yet more;" and before the pursuers could recover their confusion, a third fell, then a fourth, before the unerring shafts. The fifth was at the fearful gleeman's mercy, but he restrained himself, now danger had vanished.
But as he did so he cried aloud:
"Dane, we give thee thy life, blood sucker though thou art. Go, and tell King Sweyn that Edmund[ {viii}] the Etheling, son of Ethelred of England, has been his gleeman, and hopes he enjoyed the song which told the doom of parricides."
[CHAPTER XII]. THE MONASTERY OF ABINGDON.
One of the central lights of civilisation and Christianity in the early days of Wessex was the monastery of Abingdon. St. Birinus had fixed the centre of his missionary labours at Dorchester, only six miles distant, but the Abbey was the fruit of the heroic zeal of another evangelist, upon whom his mantle fell--St. Wilfrid. After the death of Birinus, the zeal of his successors failed to evangelise the southeastern districts of Wessex, until, at length, came Wilfrid, fervent in zeal, and, stationing himself at Selsey, near Chichester, evangelised both Sussex and Wessex, sending out missionaries like-minded with himself, even into the most inaccessible wilds.
Centwin was then king of Sussex, but various petty states were tributary to him, and ruled by viceroys. One of these viceroys was Cissa, whose dominions included Wiltshire and the greater part of Berkshire[ {ix}]. This Cissa and his nephew, Hean, founded Abingdon. A mission was sent out from Chichester which attracted great multitudes of the Berkshire folk. Hean was present, and heard the preacher take for his text that verse of St. Matthew which declares that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. These words entered into the hearts of Hean and his sister Cilla, who was with him. They determined to go and sell all that they had and embrace a life of poverty. From their uncle, Cissa, they obtained grants of land, whereon they founded monastic homes. Cilla dedicated the convent she reared to St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, traditions of whose life in the neighbourhood had survived the Saxon Conquest.
Hean obtained the land of which Abingdon formed the central point, then generally known by the name Cloveshoo. He was tardy in his work as contrasted with his sister, and Cissa died without seeing the work for which he had given the land accomplished. Ceadwalla succeeded him (A.D. 685), and further augmented the territory. He rebelled against Centwin, and became king of Wessex; spending most of his life in warfare; it was through his conquest of the island that the "Wight" became Christian. He made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he died, after his baptism by Pope Sergius.
Ina, his successor (A.D. 688), was so angry at the long delay in building the monastery, that at first he revoked the grant of his predecessors to Hean, but becoming reconciled, gave all his energy to the work, and Cloveshoo[ {x}], or Abingdon, became a monastic town, and its history commences as a house of God from Ina, about A.D. 690-700.