Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/283

 Rh Durham, William, king of the English, in the third year of his reign, appointed one Rodbert Cumin to the county of Northumberland. This man came to Durham with seven hundred followers, and acted towards the people of every house with the violence of an enemy; wherefore, on the twenty-seventh of January, he and all his men were cut off, save one who escaped wounded. The king, in anger, sent one of his generals with an army to avenge his death. When they had come as far as Alverton, and were about to proceed to Durham in the morning, so dark a fog came on, that they could neither see one another nor find their way. In astonishment they consulted what was best to be done, when some one told them that the inhabitants of that city had a saint among them, who always protected them in misfortune, and suffered no one to hurt them. When they heard this, they turned back and departed to their homes.

§ 31. The same year, King William came to York, with an army, and devastated all the country round. Bishop Egelwin and the elders, having held a council, took the incorruptible body of the Saint, in the seventy- fifth year after it was first carried from Halduine to Durham, and commenced their flight to the church of Lindisfarne. The first night, they reached the church of St. Paul, at Jarrow; the second saw them at Beclinthum, the third they arrived at Tughala, and on the fourth night they came with all their people to the entrance of the island. But because they arrived in the evening, at the time when according to the season it was high tide, the Bishop and the elders w6re in alarm, lest the cold of winter, which was severer than usual, might hurt the children, for it was now about Christmas. But behold on a sudden the sea retired from the place where they were to pass over, and left the sands dry for them to cross, whilst all around it continued as high and boisterous as before. They all passed over, singing the praise of God and his Holy Confessor, and reached the