The priest bade them all kneel down, and he recommenced the litany
for the dying. Soon he came to the solemn words:
"Per Crucem et Passionem Tuam,
Libera eam Domine {viii}."
She strove to make the holy sign of our redemption, and in making
it, yielded her chaste soul to the hands of her merciful Father and
loving Redeemer. She had gone to rejoin her own true love, and her
poor children were orphans in a world of violence and wrong.
They laid her by the side of Edmund, and the same solemn rites we
have described before were yet once more repeated. There were many,
many true mourners, all the poor English who felt that her
intercession alone had interposed between them and a cruel
lord--and the very foreigners themselves, whom her meekness and
gentle beauty had strangely touched--all mourned the lily of
Aescendune.
But her children!--Who shall describe the sense of desolation which
fell upon them as they stood by the open grave?
"Comfort them, O Father of the fatherless," prayed the good prior;
"comfort them and defend them with Thy favourable kindness as with
a shield."
CHAPTER V. A FRAY IN THE GREENWOOD.
After the last sad rites were paid to the Lady Winifred, a deep
gloom fell upon Wilfred, and his sorrow was so great that it won
respect from his Norman companions, at least for a time.
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