Rheinfrid turned to the Angel to question him, but the Angel, who was aware of his thoughts, said, "Yes, it is the same globe, only we see it now from the other side. Each circle that the bird makes is a hundred years; for five hundred already have you been here, but you must now return."
Then the Angel touched the monk's head, and Rheinfrid closed his eyes, and in an instant it seemed to him as though he were awaking from a long sleep. Cold and rigid were his limbs, and as he tried to sit up each movement made them ache. He found that he had been lying under an aged oak. He rubbed his hands together for warmth, and a white lichen which had overgrown them peeled off in long threads. A heavy white beard, tangled with grey moss, covered his breast, and the hair of his head, white and matted with green tendrils, had grown about his body.
Slowly and painfully he moved from tree to tree till he reached a broad road, and saw before him a bridge, and beyond the river a fair town clustered on the higher ground. So strange a town he had never beheld before—such a town as one sees in a foreign land, built with quaint roofs and gables and curiously coloured. As he crossed the bridge he met a woman who stared at him in amazement. He raised his head to speak, but he had lost the power of utterance. The woman waited; and at last with a feeble stammering speech he asked her the name of the place. She shook her head and said she did not understand his words, and with a look of pity she went on her way.
Then down to the bridge came an urchin, and Rheinfrid repeated his question.
"This is Eovesholme," said the lad.
"That cannot be," said Rheinfrid, "for it is little more than twice seven days since I left Eovesholme, and this place is noway like the place you name."
"Nay, but it is Eovesholme," replied the lad, "and you are one of the monks who used to be here before the King pulled down the Abbey."
"Pulled down the Abbey! Hath King William pulled down the Abbey?" Rheinfrid asked in bewilderment.
"Nay, it is bluff King Hal who has pulled the Abbey down. Come, and you shall see."
The lad took Rheinfrid by the hand and led him through the streets till they came to the ruins. Only one beautiful sculptured arch was left standing, but Rheinfrid had never seen it before. They passed through and stood among a litter of stones, tumbled drums of pillars and fragments of carved mouldings and capitals. Rheinfrid recognised the spot. The land was the same, and the river, and the far hills, but nearly all the forest had been cleared, and the Abbey had vanished. What had happened to him and to them?