THE VILLAGE OF LASTINGHAM.
Cedd's brother, the famous Chad, to whom so many churches are dedicated, succeeded him as abbot, and was often here. In connection with him Bede tells a poetical story of a monk of Lastingham. Oswini was a practical man, and felt himself unfitted for the contemplative life, yet greatly longed to renounce the world. So "quitting all he had"—he had been a Queen's Prime Minister—he came to St. Chad here on this little hill, and, pointing to the hatchet and axe that he had brought in his hand, put himself and them at the service of the monks. So while the others prayed Brother Oswini worked. And it was he, the humble worker with his hands, and not the monks upon their knees in the church, who heard the voices of the heavenly choir. He was "doing such things as were necessary" in the house when, "on a sudden," as he afterwards said, "he heard the voice of persons singing most sweetly and rejoicing, and appearing to descend from heaven." This sound of singing surged round the oratory where Chad was at prayer, then returned to heaven, "the way it came, with inexpressible sweetness." None heard it but the saint and the man of labour. Chad knew the meaning of it. "They were angelic spirits," he said, "who came to call me to my heavenly reward, which I have always longed after." Seven days later, says the historian, the bishop died.
This gate and path will lead us to the knoll where all these things happened, except the actual death of Chad. Here Brother Oswini worked and heard the angels sing: here Cedd fasted and died. Here in this little crypt, which we reach through the strange walled opening in the nave, his dust lies on the right of the altar. Some say that these Saxon stones with the fishes and dragons carved upon them have been here ever since the days of Cedd; but the sturdy piers and vaulted ceiling of the miniature chapel are, of course, Norman. They, and the apse above them, were probably the work of those monks of Whitby who founded the Abbey of St. Mary at York, and seem to have paused here for ten years on their way thither.
The street by which we entered Lastingham winds down the slope to the foot of the hollow; on the right of it is the restored Well of St. Cedd in its stone basin. The heather of the huge Cleveland moors is hardly more than a stone's-throw distant; and high upon the hill that overlooks the site of the Saxon monastery is a cross, not ancient, but very striking in this place. The tiny inn is close under the church. It is extremely small, and of the homeliest kind; but I think that any one who is not daunted by the simple life—the very simple life, be it plainly understood—will carry away pleasant memories of the quietness and cleanliness and kindliness within its doors. It has, unfortunately, not even a shed wherein to shelter a car, but only a grass plot where a car may spend a fine night.
We climb out of Lastingham by a road that passes close to the cross. This cross was set up in commemoration of Queen Victoria's accession, but there must surely have been another thought in the minds of those who placed it so symbolically in this particular spot. Let us pause for a moment and look down. The village lies below us in its little hollow, with the church of the early saints raised in its midst; and just above us, conspicuous on its height and clearly outlined against the sky, stands the cross. It seems to guard the boundary between the poetry of Lastingham and the prose of the ordinary world, for the beauty that makes such a perfect setting for the place ends suddenly on the brow of the hill, and we speed away among commonplace fields and hedges to join the high-road by way of Appleton-le-Moor.
LASTINGHAM CROSS.