solitude of Farne for many years, the mound which encompassed his
habitation being so high that he could see nothing from thence but
heaven, to which he so ardently aspired, he was compelled by tears
and entreaties--King Egfrid himself coming to the island, with
bishops and religious and great men--to become himself bishop in
Holy Island. There, as elsewhere, he did his duty. But after two
years he went again to Farne, knowing that his end was near. For
when, in his episcopal labours, he had gone across to Lugubalia--old
Penrith, in Cumberland--there came across to him a holy hermit,
Herebert by name, who dwelt upon an island in Derwentwater, and
talked with him a long while on heavenly things; and Cuthbert bade
him ask him then all the questions which he wished to have resolved,
for they should see each other no more in this world. Herebert, who
seems to have been one of his old friends, fell at Cuthbert's feet,
and bade him remember that whenever he had done wrong he had
submitted himself to him utterly, and always tried to live according
to his rules; and all he wished for now was that, as they had served
God together upon earth, they might depart for ever to see his bliss
in heaven: the which befell; for a few months afterwards, that is,
on the 20th of March, their souls quitted their mortal bodies on the
same day, and they were re-united in spirit.

St. Cuthbert wished to have been buried on his rock in Farne: but
the brethren had persuaded him to allow his corpse to be removed to
Holy Island. He begged them, said Bede, should they be forced to
leave that place, to carry his bones along with them; and so they
were forced to do at last; for in the year 875; whilst the Danes
were struggling with Alfred in Wessex, an army of them, with
Halfdene at their head, went up into Northumbria, burning towns,
destroying churches, tossing children on their pike-points, and