THE I. EILAF THE TOD. wondering ears and a little heart swelling in 'HE bright May morning sun was shimmering and glittering on the German Ocean as its waves broke in sparkling foam against the cliffs, and in long soft ripples in the little cove girdled by yellow rocks, which formed the landing-place of the holy island of Lindisfarne in the year of our Lord 873. On the tower of its famous priory, the centre of the Christianity of the day, an old man was standing in the long woollen garb of a monk of St. Columba, gazing over the glittering sea beneath. His blue eyes, deep sunken in their sockets, have a far-off yet piercing glance, and his naturally ruddy Anglo-Saxon complexion has been changed and refined to a clear pure pallor by his life of thought and prayer, and the responsibilities of ruling God's heritage from that lonely island of the sea. Matins have not yet sounded to gather the monks to their morning devotions in the old church of" split oak," which Aidan, the Scotch missionary from Iona, who first brought the message of the cross to the Northumbrian heathens, had built two hundred years before, and which still retained its wooden walls, though its original roof, thatched with coarse grass, had given place to one of lead; but it had long been Ear-lips and far-seeing glance. There sounds the dulf's custom to seek the monastery tower, with its wide out-look over the boundless waters, for an hour of solitary prayer and meditation ere the matin bell summoned him to his daily responsibilities as bishop and father of Lindisfarne. Suddenly, this morning, as his dreaming eyes are gazing thoughtfully over the glittering expanse, they are caught by something on the far horizon, which in a moment replaces the dream-look of the devotee by the keen piercing glance of the general scanning his field of battle. Brown sails stealing up far off in the distance, first one or two only, then six-twelve- The monks were already assembled, when twenty; he loses count as one after another the bishop, with slow, firm tread, walked a fleet of swift-winged ships loom over through the midst of them, for the last the meeting-line of sea and sky. Eardulf time, down the well-known aisle, past the is a dreamer and a saint, but none the stone coffin on the right of the altar, where less a man of the keen practical common | the bones of their great St. Cuthbert lay, sense of his Anglo-Saxon race; he knows and took his place silently, to lead as but too well what it means, that fleet of usual their morning prayers; for that must dim-hued sails, gliding so gently like soft-come first at all hazards, and then his organized winged birds of peace. Had he not sat, and orderly retreat. There is a red spot as a six-year boy, on old Bishop Higbald's on his cheek again now, as he stands, for the knee in his father's hall, and listened, with last time, in his familiar office in his beloved matin bell; the brethren will be gathered in yet look upon it rebuilt, as mine have done before. Yet is there one whose right it is, and for him do I plead-the great St. Cuthbert." "What meanest thou, Cynewolf?" said Eardulf, adding aside to Eilaf, "See to him, boy; the sudden shock hath unhinged the old man's mind.” "Holy father," said Cynewolf, "many a time I have heard my father tell, beside our cottage fire on the long winter nights, how when the holy saint lay a-dying in his hut on the lonely rock of Farne, where the winds sweep the black cliffs, and the hoarse waves roar at their foot, and the sea-gulls scream in the air, that he wrote three wishes in his will-to be buried in Luda's coffin, to be wrapped in Virca's sheet, and, barians' hands, that its monks should carry with them his bones. Let them first touch the shore of safety, holy father, and the holy saint will guard our flight." cathedral, and hears the deep voices of the monks following his own as he chants the prayers and psalms; and some noted afterwards that there was a quiver in his voice as he spake, low and solemnly, the words of the parting benediction. When it was ended and the brethren were rising to retire, a motion of his hand and the single word "Stay," arrested them, and he spoke. My brethren, the flock that the Great Shepherd hath committed to my most unworthy care, I have sad news for you this day. The wolves are upon the sheep-fold; this sanctuary of the sainted Aidan, this home of the blessed St. Cuthbert, this house of holy prayer and meditation where we have sought retreat from the strife of the world to give ourselves wholly unto God, is doomed to the cruel mercies | if Lindisfarne should ever fall into the barof the northern pirates. The sheep-fold must fall, and the sheep must be scattered. Fain did the carnal heart within me urge to resist to the death and die amid its ruins, but God's will be done; more to Him are the sheep than the sheep-fold. We must to the mountains till this danger be overpast. Yet let all things be done decently and in order. Let the boats be lowered, and such provisions as may be hastily collected be stored within them, and, in his turn, each man cross to the mainland. The Danes are on the coast." The open-mouthed astonishment with which the brethren had listened to the bishop's speech gave way as he pronounced the last words to an excited buzz of talk; but such was the control of his strong and saintly character that not one man offered to leave his place till his post in the retreat was assigned him. Quickly and silently the preparations for flight went on, when the aged brother Cynewolf, on whose head nearly a hundred winters had shed their snows, approached the bishop, tottering upon his staff and with hands outspread as in supplication. Turning quickly round to a bright-haired boy, the youngest of his neophites, who stood close by, Eardulf said— "Cynewolf, thou speakest well," said Eardulf; "thyself and the boy shall see his wish fulfilled. Nor must we leave behind in unhallowed hands the blessed Aidan, Eadbert, Eadfrid, and Ethelwolf. One coffin shall hold the sacred relics of Lindisfarne. So the first boat that touched the Northumbrian shore bore St. Cuthbert and his fellow saints in their roughly made wooden shrine, the aged Cynewolf, and the youthful Eilaf ; and the last that quitted Lindisfarne was the little skiff, into which Bishop Eardulf leaped alone, as the wild "Yuch-hey-saa-saa ” of the Danes, as they hauled up their boats in the little cove, rang on the breeze; and ere he reached the farther shore the smoke of its burning priory and cathedral was dimming the soft evening light. II. YEARS have passed over the little band of fugitives from Lindisfarne-years of weary wandering through the wolds and wastes of Northumberland. Privation, and hardship, and hunger have year by year diminished the little company. Old Cynewolf has long laid down the weight of his hundred years, and sleeps at peace in a Northumbrian moor by the side of Paulinas' river. Eadred, the abbot, they had laid to rest under a ragged oak in the Reedswood Scroggs, and the fifty monks who left Lindisfarne on that bright May day seven years before, have dwindled down to four, of which Eardulf, the bishop, and Eilaf, the youthful neophyte, are two. But still over wold and waste, their weary arms bear with them the wooden shrine of St. Cuthbert. Their provisions are nearly done, for months one meagre meal a day has been all their fare; their faces are gaunt with hunger, and their wasted limbs tremble under their sacred load. One cheese, and the salted head of a horse-a poor beast they had found dead on the moors, and thankfully salted, and on whose carcase they had lived for many a week—is all that remains to them, and when that is done, where are they to find more? Day by day, the noon-day meal has been scanter and scanter, and hunger is gnawing at their hearts. To the young Eilaf there fell generally the carrying of the victuals. Alas! his burden had grown lighter and lighter as the days went on, and sharper and sharper grew the hunger pangs. Day after day, as he carried it, the solitary cheese grew more and more enticing to the young neophyte. The first day it was barely a passing thought how nice a little bit would be; the next, he felt it with cautious fingers through its enwrapping cloth; the next he would look at it-nothing more-so the cloth was stealthily unpinned. How nice it looked! he must just have a morsel off with his knife-a little slit | would never be noticed; so the little slit was made; how delicious it tastes to his hungry lips! he must have a little more-and now the hole is too big, the theft will be detected, he dare not face Eardulf's piercing, sunken eyes, looking at him with reproachEardulf, who has borne his own privations so meekly and so bravely, coming last and taking least, though his emaciated frame and tottering limbs show how hard is the selfdenial! No, he cannot face Eardulf's eyes, he will hide the cheese, and pretend that he has dropped it; besides, urged the selfish demon in his heart, if you do that, you may go back to its hiding-place and eat it all! So under a gnarled twisted oak in the wood of Chirdene he buried the precious cheese; he could run back from the wastes, where he knew their camp was to be pitched, when the wearied fathers were asleep beside St. Cuthbert's coffin, and the moon shone bright over the moors, and enjoy undisturbed his surreptitious feast! At noon-day the little troop halted in the waste, at the side of the wood, for their scanty meal. The salted horse-head is duly produced, but where is the cheese? Eardulf's piercing eyes-that seem more piercing than ever now, looking out from his worn, emaciated features-scan each face in its turn-Brother Wilfrid's, Brother Luda's, and young Eilaf's-they burn into the boy's soul, but he must put a bold face on it now! "I ken nawt o't," quoth Wilfrid, a sturdy Northumbrian, "the lad aye seeks the meat, the blessed St. Cuthbert's lade eneuch for Luda and mie and yersen, Holy Father." The piercing eyes were fixed again on Eilaf. "It must have dropped," he stammered, "when we crossed the Chirdene Burn. I will go back and seek it, holy father." The thought of his unhallowed feast has faded from his mind in a moment, and quick as lightning it darted through his brain that he would find it at the Chirdene Burn, and say some fox had gnawed it since it fell! But the calm, piercing eyes were on him still, and he could not move under their spell, while Eardulf said, "Not so, my son; we will seek a sign from Heaven, and pray to God and the blessed St. Cuthbert that the thief, whosoever he may be, be forthwith changed into a fox, that all may know and take warning by his fate." No sooner had the bishop spoken than from the low covert of Chirdene Wood out ran a fox with a whole cheese in his mouth, which he in vain tried either to gnaw or to rid himself of;—and behold, Eilat's place was vacant! On this a great shout of laughter rose from Wilfrid and Luda, and each tried how he could most torment the beast with its un-get-rid-able-of burden, while poor Eilaf, in his fox's guise, writhed and struggled in his shame and fear. Eardulf joined not the sport, but he sat with his eyes fixed on Eilaf with a deep sadness in them, which pierced the boy's very heart through his fox's hide. At last Eardulf spake. "It is enough, my brethren; let us now pray to God and the blessed saint to restore our erring brother." The words were scarcely spoken when the fox vanished, and Eilaf, in human shape, stood before them, with downcast eyes and burning cheeks. Some months had passed, and on the Caeryt-Holt old Eardulf lay a-dying, beside him only the coffin of St. Cuthbert and the young neophyte Eilaf. Hunger had pressed sorer and sorer on the little band, till Wilfrid and Luda's devotion had failed, and since the bones of St. Cuthbert could not keep them from starving, they had laid them reverently in the old camp of the Britons on the Caeryt-Holt, and, taking a sorrowful farewell of them and of their bishop, had gone off to find more substantial sustenance. But the boy-neophyte would not go. "Not so, my father," he said, "while thou and the holy saint need my care; if death by hunger be my end, what better penance could God and St. Cuthbert send ?" A rude hut of branches which Eilaf had gathered in the surrounding wood, and laid as roof on the ruined walls of the old camp, was the only shelter of the dying man, and the ripe berries of autumn or a chance rabbit or hare his only food, as, day by day, the hectic deepened in his cheek, and the quick breath grew shorter, and with ever-growing care and tenderness the sorrowing Eilaf watched beside him. The autumn sun was going down in gold and purple behind Eilingham Rigg, and the distant undulating wastes were bright with its parting splendour, when the last message came to Bishop Eardulf, as he lay looking down on the fair scene with his rapidly glazing eyes from his hut of boughs. His mind had been dwelling much on Lindisfarne that day—its beloved cathedral and peaceful retreat, and the waters rippling in the sunlight beneath the Priory Tower; visions of St. Cuthbert too, and his lonely death-bed amid the screaming gulls on the black rock of Farne, had mingled in the strange phantasmagoria of his brain, and now as the sun got low, and life seemed ebbing with it, for the first time that day, his eyes met Eilaf's with a look of conscious affection as the young neophyte bent over him, his scalding Eilaf buried him in the old camp where he died on the southern slope of the Caer-ytHolt, where the sunlight would fall upon his grave, and the broad placid Tyne murmur at his feet; and placing the rude shrine of the old saints of Lindisfarne under the protection of the new see at Chester, went to seek another life in the world he had so long renounced, and in memory of his passage from death to life beside the wood of Chirdene, he took the name of Eilaf the Tod (the fox), which, in the altered form of Dodd, remains the surname of his numerous descendants in Northumberland to the present day. HOMES FOR WORKING GIRLS. FOR several years an excellent movement for providing Homes for Working Boys has been carried on in London; and the gentle man-Mr. John Shrimpton-who has been its mainspring, and who was, we believe, its originator, has turned his thoughts and sympathies, and has succeeded in turning those of several influential friends, to the project of establishing a similar system of Homes for Working Girls. He has succeeded in making a very good beginning; and the enterprise thus started will certainly afford abundant scope for a great deal of energy, skilful management, and valuable service. The idea is to place within reach of a large class of young women, whose circumstances expose many of them to peculiar disadvantages and dangers, the personal comforts and the gracious influences of a humble but well-ordered Christian home. The attempt to realise this idea is represented at present by an establishment, called Alexandra House, in St. John's Street, Clerkenwell, which offers accommodation in the way of board and lodging for thirty-seven girls, and by another, called Victoria House, at 13, Queen's Road, Bayswater, which since these lines have been written has been opened for about the same number of inmates. A visit paid to Alexandra House lately, and a collection of information from various sources, have enabled us to form some opinion of the nature of the enterprise and of the need existing for it. The spot chosen is in the heart of a large and very busy district of London in which many manufactures are carried on and where vast numbers of the working class live. The house has been formed out of two dwelling-houses, the lower part of one having been previously used as a coffee-house. The building is an old one, and those who know what old buildings are, in crowded London neighbourhoods, can imagine what an amount of pulling down and setting up, of boarding, plastering, whitewashing, painting, papering, and general external and internal repairing was necessary in order to transform such premises into a modern-looking, clean, substantial, and wholesome place of residence, such as Alexandra House now is. The transformation has been very satisfactorily accomplished at a cost of about £800. Externally, the house, with its wire blinds and soberly painted front, looks like a quiet, well-kept, old-fashioned place of business. On the ground floor there is a good sized sitting-room, plainly but comfortably |