For the last six years of her life the Abbess suffered greatly from severe indisposition, which frequently laid her prostrate for weeks together, "Yet during all this time she never failed to return thanks to her Maker, or publicly and privately to instruct the flock committed to her charge, admonishing them to serve God in health, and thank Him for adversity or bodily infirmity."
Among the nuns under her care was one from Ireland named Bega, who was most exemplary in her attention to the duties of her religious calling, eminently endowed with spiritual grace, and conspicuous for her humility, self-abnegation, and all the virtues which adorn a Christian life; which qualities endeared her to the venerable Abbess, and they came to regard each other as mother and daughter rather than as Lady Superior and ordinary nun of a religious establishment.
During the long illness of the Abbess, Bega was her constant attendant and nurse, and accompanied her in her occasional retreats at Hackness. One afternoon they were seated together in the Abbess's private room, when the invalid seemed to be rallying in health and entering upon one of her alternate periods of comparative convalescence. Bega had been reading to her a new paraphrase of a portion of the Bible, the composition of Cædmon, the cow-boy poet of Streoneshalh. She laid down the manuscript at the conclusion, expressing a hope that the Abbess had not been wearied by her imperfect reading, and that in spite of defective knowledge of the characters on the part of the reader, she had been enabled to follow the sense and appreciate the beauty of the rendering.
"Nothing from the pen of Cædmon," said the Abbess, "ever wearies me; on the contrary, his compositions are so redolent of spiritual beauty that they seem to refresh my soul, and invigorate my body as well. Indeed, at this moment I feel so much better in health that if no relapse occurs in the interval, I propose on the morrow relieving our good Prioress from the duties which I have delegated upon her during my sickness."
"Happy am I," replied Bega at hearing this, "and I trust that God, if he sees fit, may preserve you for many years to come, in the superintendence and guidance of this holy house. But, mother dear, your restoration of bodily strength emboldens me to solicit a boon."
"What is it my dear child? Anything that I can grant shall be yours. I promise this without knowing what you wish, feeling assured that you will solicit nothing that is inconsistent either with your maidenly character or with your altar-made vows."
"I pray for nothing unbeseeming my character in such respects; but, holy mother, of late I fear I have experienced some spiritual declension, and that I have become more carnally minded than becomes one whose thoughts should be centred on Christ alone, and I pray you, mother dear, to permit me to retire into more entire seclusion from the world, that I may by abstinence, prayer, and close communion with God, be restored to a more wholesome frame of soul."
"Your boon is granted, my child, gladly; repair at once to Hackness, and may God shed his blessing upon your pious aspiration for a higher life of holiness."
The following day Bega was escorted to the cell, where the Abbess, with an almost Cistercian eye for sylvan beauty, had planted it, that in the midst of a natural Paradise it might bloom as a spiritual Eden, and there she at once commenced a season of wholesome asceticism and religious exercises.