42 Idylls of the Field. 



sea-rovers drove him to seek shelter in the halls of 

 Glastonbury. 



Here, too, a century later, the pirate fleet, beaten 

 off from the mainland further on by the bold Somerset- 

 shire yeomen, put in for breathing-space, and, reduced 

 to dire extremity by their resolute opponents, were 

 fain to cut their way through as best they might, and 

 withdraw their shattered powers to harry some 

 remoter shore. 



Here it was that Githa, after that sorrowful search 

 on the red grass of Senlac, stayed awhile with her train 

 — mourning like her for the harvest of that stubborn 

 field. 



Here, too, in a fitting spot, a little colony of monks 

 escaping from the world found a solitude in which, 

 like a band of mason bees, they built their simple 

 cells. 



The spade of the labourer has found far under the 

 surface here the fragment of a wall, there a little group 

 of nameless graves. All else has vanished. 



From monkish times may date, perhaps, the wild 

 peony, whose red petals still, in spite of ruthless 

 botanists, tinge the stunted grass. No other trace 

 recalls the faded memories of this sea-girt rock. 



From the windy steep, whence Githa looked sea- 

 ward with sad eyes for the white sails that were to 

 bear her far from home, frown the grim guns of the 

 battery, whose handful of artillerymen seems almost 

 to accentuate the solitude. 



